Archive for Terrorism

As We Predicted: Syrian and Iraqi Civil Wars Merge as President Obama’s Claims of a Defeated Al Qaeda Crumble

Disturbing news continues to poor out of Iraq as it appears Al Qaeda forces in Iraq have transformed from an insurgent force to conventional military force.  This is considered the last stage of a guerilla war by Mao Tse-Tung’s guide to guerrilla warfare.  The successful takeover of the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi by Al Qaeda forces prove they have continued to organize and gain strength contrary to the lies emanating from President Obama respective of Al Qaeda being nearly destroyed.  None of this should come as a surprise.  For years I have been tracking this trend and warning that the Islamic radicals fighting in Syria would soon destabilize Iraq and merge the wars.  Reference:

If not already bad enough, the Sunni extremists have gained much of this power by way of Washington’s covert aid.  Using arms and money from Saudi Arabia and Qatar funneled through Jordan and Turkey the CIA has covertly provided a host of supplies, equipment, and weapons to the rebels.  Further, CIA officers on the ground are advising Al Qaeda affiliated rebel factions and providing them with command and control support.  With this added lifeline the rebels have regrouped across the non-existent border in Iraq and gained a foothold by seizing the major cities of Anbar Province as well as numerous border towns in Northern Iraq.  This sets the stage for a pan-Sunni front rising against Iranian backed Shia forces for a large scale outbreak of warfare in the Middle East.

Make no mistake, by no means is this Iraqi Al Qaeda uprising an organically generated situation.  It is merely a symptom of much bigger strategic issues at play in the Middle East.  These divisions are deep, complex, and overlapping.  Some of these divisions are political, some are economic, some are religious, some are ethnic, but all are divisive.  Sunni versus Shia; Saudi Arabia and Qatar versus Syria; Kurd versus Iraqi; Turkey versus Kurdistan versus Syria; Iran versus Israel versus the United States versus Saudi Arabia; the United States versus Russia; and so on.  The Middle East has become a chessboard of pawns being manipulated by strategic players from around the world in a very dangerous high stakes game.

The result of this will be, as I have previously predicted, ever increasing violence and bloodshed across the Middle East.  Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki will most likely be forced to open up greater political and military cooperation with Iran to put down the Sunni uprising in the western portion of the country.  This will allow the Kurds to further cement their autonomous nation to the north and possibly absorb Kurdish portions of Syria.  This would ethnically redraw the map of the Middle East much to the fear of Turkey, which under those circumstances, might militarily intervene to prevent such a Kurdish unification.  Contrary to Washington’s plans to weaken Iran by toppling Assad, the rise of Obama’s Sunni proxies will cause the plan to backfire.  Maliki’s requests for support will actually lead to increased Iranian influence and potentially new and more direct military supply lines through Iraq to Iran’s besieged ally Bashar Assad in Syria.  This will force Saudi Arabia to become even more overt in its support to Sunni extremists, which will fuel even greater global terrorism and bloodshed in Syria.  Saudi Arabia will begin importing greater numbers of foreign jihadists for the fight and likely buy its own readymade nuclear arsenal from Pakistan, which will greatly increase world instability and increase the chances of a larger regional war.  Nonetheless, Assad’s government forces will most likely continue to maintain the upper hand for at least the next six months dealing Washington a decisive strategic setback that will weaken Washington’s alliances with Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, and Turkey.  This will also weaken Washington’s negotiating position with Iran on its nuclear program forcing Obama to pursue appeasement.  A peace deal with Iran is not in and of itself disastrous and likely good, but Israel will see this as the last straw and likely initiate unilateral strikes against Iran designed to set back its nuclear progress while forcing the US into an unwanted and unnecessary war.  This will be an unparalleled disaster for the US.  See:

As for the biggest players, the US and Russia, Russia will continue its unbeaten streak of foreign policy victories against the amateurish American lineup.  Obama and John Kerry are simply outclassed by Putin and Sergei Lavrov.  Specifically, Russia and its grand chess master Putin will continue to play all sides against each other for its maximum political and economic profit.  Russia will continue to pick off long time US allies such as Egypt as Obama continues to alienate everyone.  Russia will also handsomely profit and leverage any outbreak of war to further corner the oil and gas market while enjoying a spike in prices before global economies crash taking the price of oil to lows not seen in years.  For Russia, losing Syria is not optional as long as the threat of a Qatari-Saudi gas pipeline through Syria to Europe exists.  Russia would lose immense geopolitical leverage over Europe and billions in revenue in the event Assad was deposed without hard guarantees Washington is not likely able to deliver.  In the event Obama doubles down and provides enough military support to bring about Syrian regime change, expect the Russians to triple down and bait the US into another disastrous war in the Middle East designed to economically break the back of the US and force us out of the Middle East.

All considered, 2014 is shaping up to be a violent and climatic year across the Muslim Crescent.  The civil war in Syria will likely reach a tipping point and Iran’s nuclear program will have to be accepted or destroyed.  Iraq will descend into full scale civil war.  Jordan will be weakened by growing unrest and Lebanon could once again be split by sectarian violence.  As for Americans, expect an increase in Islamic terrorism against US targets.  This is a near certainty since vast numbers of radical Islamists have been recently armed, trained, equipped, and organized to fight in Syria by our very own CIA.  This latest generation of jihadists will be armed with much more advanced weaponry compliments of the US taxpayer and will ultimately go on to attack the US after they have had their fill of fighting in Syria.  Specifically, expect to see the use of improvised nerve gas manufactured by Syrian rebels, man portable surface to air missiles smuggled out of Libya, and antitank missiles provided by Saudi Arabia against US targets.  These are just some of the highlights to expect in 2014 so make sure you buckle your seat belts.

For further reading:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/04/al-qaeda-iraq_n_4541855.html

http://www.dw.de/al-qaeda-allies-take-over-fallujah-iraq/a-17341342

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10320523/Al-Qaeda-linked-group-takes-over-Syrian-border-town.html

 

By Guiles Hendrik

January 10, 2014

All rights reserved.

An Act of War: CIA Leak Gives “Incontrovertible Evidence” That 9/11 was sponsored by Saudi Arabia

What happens when conspiracy theory becomes conspiracy fact?  It turns out 2013 has been the year for the conspiracy theorists to say, “I told you so.”  Unfortunately, even when the bald face lies are exposed and the truth finally makes its way to the public, there seems to be little outcry.  This apathy is the saddest materialization of a republic in decay.  From the scandal over the Internal Revenue Service targeting political enemies of President Obama (conservative groups terrorized by the government) to Edward Snowden’s disclosure of the scope and scale of the National Security Agency’s domestic spying programs (Orwellian police state), the Obama Administration has been rocked by one scandal after another.  As if these actions didn’t already break a multitude of laws and provide grounds for criminal actions and impeachment, the US government does it again!  This time it’s the 9/11 “conspiracies” that have been verified.  As Congressional inquiries reveal, the government of Saudi Arabia was directly involved with planning, supporting, and carrying out the 9/11 attacks.  This was an act of war, yet the US government not only concealed the fact from the public, but also helped the Saudi’s cover it up in one of the most overtly treasonous acts of the century.

Specifically, the Saudis deny any role in 9/11, but CIA memos reportedly found “incontrovertible evidence” that Saudi government officials — not just wealthy Saudi hardliners, but high-level diplomats and intelligence officers employed by the kingdom — helped the hijackers both financially and logistically.  The intelligence files cited in the report directly implicate the Saudi embassy in Washington and consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war.  A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks.  Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) can’t reveal the nation identified by it without violating federal law.  So they’ve proposed Congress pass a resolution asking President Obama to declassify the entire 2002 report, “Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.”

The New York Post investigation reveals that Saudi agents, officials and operatives in Virginia, Florida, California and D.C. provided direct support by way funding or intelligence to those involved in bringing down the towers.  Nonetheless, President Bush censored 28 full pages of the 800-page report while the US government actively supported evacuating high level Saudis from the US including members of the bin Laden family even as the government claimed they didn’t know who was responsible for the attack.  Logic only allows for a narrow set of conclusions that all point to the fact that a nation state (Saudi Arabia), which is purportedly an ally of the US, launched an unprecedented attack on the US and the US at minimum covered it up and at worst, knew of the attack in advance.  Making matters worse, President Bush then lied about the origins of the terrorist attack and sent American troops into harm’s way in Afghanistan and then Iraq in what most now consider an illegal war and a disaster.

Americans must unite behind Representatives Jones and Lynch and provide vocal support for their action to get the documentation declassified.  Their contact information is as follows:

http://jones.house.gov/ http://lynch.house.gov/

 

District Name Party Room Phone Committee Assignment
3 Jones, Walter B.  R 2333 RHOB 202-225-3415 Armed Services
8 Lynch, Stephen F.  D 2133 RHOB 202-225-8273 Financial Services
Oversight and Government Reform

 

Concurrently, we as Americans must pressure the Justice Department to open terrorist investigations against numerous named Saudis to include senior political leaders and indict them.  The Departments of Defense and State should immediately cease cooperation and funding support for the Saudis and move to realign US alliances in the region with countries not directly attacking the US homeland and killing thousands of Americans.  America must reevaluate its entire relationship with Saudi Arabia now that the dirty truth of these despicable terrorists in our midst has been leaked.  Failure to act by our government officials would all but prove that the “War on Terrorism” has been and still is a completely fabricated hoax to control the population through fear while extorting trillions of dollars from the middle class.

How could our government, after knowing that our “ally” sponsored the 9/11 attacks, not take action?  How could our government cover up this act of war?  How could our government, knowing who actually conducted this attack, pretend it was actually a nebulous terrorist entity and send us to war against a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11?  How could our government manipulate the truth and claim for “security” you must surrender your privacy and rights so that TSA officers can grope you and NSA collect and analyze every aspect of your most personal activities.  The answer has been obvious all along.  Our government is run by elites that seek total power.  These elites…the heads of banks, the titans of the military industrial complex, big oil, media moguls, their political puppets, etc…all have consistently manipulated world events to destroy any vestige of a free republic and control you, plain and simple.

After the Cold War ended there was no longer a threat to create fear that could be used to control the peoples and nations of the world.  A new threat had to be created and this new threat was to be called “terrorism.”  This new enemy was seemingly everywhere and nowhere.  It could strike without warning and employ even the most sophisticated weapons of mass destruction.  It could be anyone, a foreigner, your neighbor, even your elderly grandmother.  It had killed thousands on the homeland and would surely strike again if we didn’t create a massive surveillance state and pour trillions into needless wars and defense contracts all while driving the price of oil up three fold.  The elites all profited enormously while the average man was killed in war, lost his job, watched his retirement evaporate, and his free nation become enslaved.  Conspiracy theory be damned because this is the truth.  The raw, uncensored reality is that most Americans choose to ignore and pretend this problem doesn’t exist as long as they can watch football on the weekend and have their beer.  YOU, not your neighbor or someone else, YOU, must shed all apathy and take action.  YOU must organize and take to the streets, the airwaves, to Congress and demand redress.  YOU must force these traitors from office and hold those accountable to the fullest extent of the law.

Or you can sit and do nothing.  Sit in denial as you are dispossessed of your nation, freedom, and liberty.  Hope that those ambitious and craving power will somehow reform themselves and leave you alone.  Hope that they will protect you once they have assumed total power.  No you fool, you will be a slave and deservedly so.

By Guiles Hendrik

December 18, 2013

All rights reserved.

Why are Armored Guard Posts in Target’s Parking Lot?

Today while shopping at Target I noticed something unusual in the parking lot.  Rising above the middle of the parking lot was a large, mobile guard post.  It had many cameras, dark tinted windows, and appeared armored.  Further, there was a police cruiser parked at its base.  Seeing this, I wondered, what could possible justify making the parking lot of Target look like a federal penitentiary.  Perhaps it was just a new “Supermax” Target?  Was there some imminent terrorist threat against Target?  Should I pack my kids up and flee now for safety?  No one in management seemed to have any comment so it must have just materialized out of thin air.

The reality is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is becoming ever more overt in its actions toward implementing a complete police state.  As the tower attests, DHS has been working overtime to militarize our local police forces.  In fact, DHS has spent billions of taxpayer dollars to provide local police with equipment designed for full scale warfare.  In short, they are using your money to build the infrastructure to totally control you and every aspect of your life.  The DHS provided equipment includes items like Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) armored vehicles, microwave and ultra low frequency emitting “crowd control” devices, high tech intelligence and surveillance equipment to include drones, and mobile guard towers.  Previously these items were only seen on overseas battlefields and used against America’s most unsavory enemies, but now in keeping with the militarization and takeover of local police, DHS has handed these items out like candy to local cops.  The unstated, but nonetheless real effect of the change in police demeanor from peace officers to storm troopers has been to imbalance the delicate Constitutional balance between the power of the State and the collective power of the people to challenge the State effectively in the event the State becomes illegitimate.

There are neither credible threats against Target to justify this militarized checkpoint nor is there any chance this waste of tax payer dollars would prevent an attack should there actually be one.  This ominous icon of a war zone is designed to desensitize the population to the fact they are monitored, spied on, recorded, and no longer free to even shop for socks without the government’s all seeing eye prying upon their every move.  This type of emerging soft tyranny must be identified, highlighted, resisted, and ultimately shut down at every single emergence.

This particular tower in Potomac Yard Shopping Center (Alexandria, Virginia) was procured by wasting taxpayer dollars and put into use by the Alexandria, Virginia Police Department.  After discussing the tower with local law enforcement the consensus seems to be that the tower was emplaced to thwart a rise in thefts during the holidays around store parking lots.  After all, who wouldn’t want better “public safety?”  However, that rationale fails the logic test.  First of all, after follow-on observation it appears the tower is an overpriced scarecrow because it wasn’t manned and perhaps the video monitoring wasn’t even active.  As such, there was no one actually present to “prevent” a crime.  At best this would only support follow-on investigation if the cameras were operational and pointed in the right direct.  Thus, an unmanned tower provides no more security than store cameras already in place.  Second, the policing is being done on commercial property with your tax dollars.  If Target parking lots are not safe, it is incumbent upon Target to bear the burden of the cost of making their premises safe and secure for shoppers and not Alexandria Police Department.  If the threat is really that high to shoppers as the government would like to scare you into believing, then where is the data to support this and why would we dare take our families out Christmas shopping?  Third, the cost of purchasing, maintaining, moving, emplacing, monitoring, and manning these towers must run into the millions of dollars.  This is an extremely high price tag for what the tower provides and approaches a complete waste of tax dollars.  Fourth, to actually make it effective for its purported purpose of preventing thefts in parking lots during the holiday season, it would have to be manned with a minimum of two officers for at least two shifts a day to cover the shopping hours.  This surveillance would effectively remove significant manpower from a police department’s normal shifts and result in a reduced ability to respond to actual calls for help and criminal activity.  Finally, one must ask whether they want this type of life.  People must use their god given mind to envision where this leads in the future.  A life where the pettiest of crimes results in a justification for a police state is abhorrent to a free society.  There is no freedom of anything when on every corner, at every moment of our lives, armed government goons are ready to swoop in and enforce the smallest of infractions with overwhelming violence.

I ask all of you to contact Target and demand these icons of our emerging police state be immediately removed from their premises or we will boycott their store.  We have already begun a local campaign and to date, Target management has only officially responded by email with a generic “sorry for the inconvenience.”  This is unacceptable and we must make our voices the loudest in the room.  Further, we need to educate the management of Target and other retail stores on what is unacceptable to us as their customers in respect to further police state actions.  By combining our efforts and getting the word out to other internet outlets, talk radio, TV, and our friends and family about these excesses we can expose these tyrannical actions and stop them.  Please take action today and use all your personal clout to impress others to action.

Target’s contact information is as follows:

Potomac Yard Shopping Center

Target

3101 Jefferson Davis Hwy

Alexandria, VA 22305-3042

(703) 706-3840

https://www-secure.target.com/HelpFormLinkPageView?catalogId=10051&langId=-1&storeId=10151&krypto=cQcHDksCxhgmutHxyjlq48%2BIHqzAFPvRjj%2BCK5QVyor4h0nGk1rMzeFOGnDn4aO%2FNM%2F4KjfHQ4%2BK%0AdgJRkZ2wBjKToFcNk5ho24f6ObC44dg%3D&ddkey=http:HelpFormLinkPageView

 

By Guiles Hendrik

December 15, 2013

All rights reserved.

Damning Letter on State of Afghanistan War to Secretaries of Defense and State Leaked: Office of Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Confirms US will lose control of most of Afghanistan by 2014 and US has no oversight of nearly $100 million in Afghan infrastructure development projects.

October 10, 2013: Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), John F. Sopko, wrote to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel about serious concerns about the impact of the drawdown on security and the related implications for ensuring adequate oversight of the U.S.-funded reconstruction effort in Afghanistan.  In brief, SIGAR is projecting that even in a “best case” scenario the US will have access to barely 21 percent of Afghanistan in 2014.  This represents almost a 50 percent loss of access from current estimates.  Making matters worse, SIGAR estimated that nearly $72 million in infrastructure projects were now inaccessible.  This means that nearly $100 million is “currently” being spent on projects in Afghanistan with NO oversight.

Specifically, earlier this year SIGAR was unable to visit infrastructure projects in northern Afghanistan valued at $72 million because they are located in areas that could not be reached by U.S. civilian employees.   SIGAR is referring to these inaccessible reconstruction sites as areas outside of the “oversight bubbles.”  The areas covered by these “oversight bubbles” are defined by the ability of the U.S. government to provide both adequate security and rapid emergency medical support to civilian employees traveling to the area.  In effect, these “oversight bubbles” represent areas controlled by Taliban forces and are growing daily.  As such, this document gives a rare glimpse behind the curtain of just how badly the US/NATO forces are being routed in Afghanistan.  Further, one can only assume that in a country that is ranked third from last in the world for corruption (only North Korea and Somalia ranked worse http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/05/map-the-most-and-least-corrupt-countries-in-the-world/) that hard earned US tax dollars are being squandered.  Not only are the tax dollars being wasted, but they are being spent in areas controlled by the Taliban and being paid out often directly to our enemies, which takes reckless spending to the ridiculously absurd.  Only in the minds of politicians and inept generals could one ever think the US could win a war by funding its enemies and building up their infrastructure!

The situation on the ground in Afghanistan has gotten so bad, “significant portions of Afghanistan are already inaccessible to SIGAR, other inspectors general, the Government Accountability Office, and other U.S. civilians conducting oversight, such as contracting officers.”  SIGAR believes this constraint on oversight will only “worsen” as more U.S. and coalition bases close.  The map illustrates just how little access the US is projected to have next year in Afghanistan as the US military completes its retreat.

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At this juncture it is worthwhile to quote an entire excerpt that illustrates exactly how bad the situation is even through the politicized lens of a high level letter written between senior agency leadership.  SIGAR writes in his letter:

“Although it is difficult to predict the future of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, it is likely that no more than 21 percent of Afghanistan will be accessible to U.S. civilian oversight personnel by the end of the transition, a 47 percent decrease since 2009. We have also been told by State Department officials that this projection may be optimistic, especially if the security situation does not improve.  The 21 percent figure may be too high. The oversight access shown on the attached maps presents a best-case scenario where weather, terrain, and security conditions pose no serious threat to helicopter medical evacuation missions.”

The implications of Mr. Sopko’s letter are profound.  Even an unlikely “best case” scenario projects the US to maintain only a very small foothold in some of Afghanistan’s major cities.  However, the security situation is currently very bad and projected to get worse.  Just as our analysts have predicted, since the failure in Tora Bora when the US lost the initiative during the early stages of the war, the true extent of US failure in Afghanistan is finally being revealed.  In fact, we project a rapid decrease in access to around 10% as Helmand and Kandahar Provinces rapidly fall back under complete Taliban control.  By 2015 we are predicting a near total loss of access and a likely collapse of the regime in Kabul.

See the actual letter at: http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/alerts/SIGAR_14-4-SP.pdf

By Guiles Hendrik

October 28, 2013

All rights reserved

 

The Forgotten War: Afghanistan 12 Years Later

America’s war against Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan began over 12 years ago last week.  This grim milestone came and went with no media coverage even as some of America’s best men and women were killed there in combat this week.  Now, in the lead up to a complete US military withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, it is blatantly clear our pessimistic analytical forecast for Afghanistan has proved accurate.  Today we will recap the state of affairs of the War in Afghanistan and what to expect in the coming months.

The Obama Administration is quick to broadcast anything it can spin as good news.  The opposite is true of bad news so it is telling that it has maintained a near total media blackout on Afghanistan.  Making President Obama’s whitewash of the dire state of the war even feasible has been a complicit media and their absolute dereliction of a social responsibility to be the watchdog of the government.  This is the same biased media that broadcast images from the Iraq War around the clock during the Bush Administration, but now suddenly has nothing to report respective of the on-going Afghanistan War.  The truth the Obama Administration and his media henchmen are hiding is that the war has gone horribly wrong and the US is rapidly retreating in defeat.

I for one hate the notion of defeat and am incredibly ashamed of even the notion that the US could allow itself to be defeated in a war.  One would think that our nation’s leaders learned something from the Vietnam catastrophe, but then again, most of our leaders on both sides of the aisle were draft dodgers, cowards, potheads, and never served a day in the military.   Considering this, one should not be surprised to find out the Taliban are alive and well.  Not only have the Taliban weathered the full onslaught of a combined US, NATO, and Afghan military force for over a decade, but they are now more numerous, control more territory, and are better armed, trained, and equipped than they were when the US entered the war in 2001.  The Taliban still have the will and capability to fight and still take to the battlefield.  By any measure of warfare, if an invading army is forced from the battlefield and ultimately from the land which it invaded while the opposing army still holds that ground, the army that retreated was defeated.  If the media and the Obama Administration were honest and upfront with the American people, they would report that they never so much as fully secured a single province in Afghanistan.  As quickly as the US has handed over these still contested provinces to the “Afghans,” they have been taken over by the “Afghan Taliban.”  The latest sign of this came on September 13, 2013 when Taliban insurgents nearly overran the US Consulate in Herat, Afghanistan.  Not only was this attack just 48 hours after the anniversary of the attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, but it was in a far western area of Afghanistan that previously was thought to be immune from Taliban influence.  Soon there will be no more US military forces in Afghanistan to come to the aid of these diplomatic enclaves.  When that day comes in just a few months, the US will be forced to quickly withdraw its last remaining diplomats in defeat.

Afghanistan has been an unsustainable war from the very beginning due to the lack of genius in our senior military officers, our unwillingness to pursue the actual enemy into Pakistan, self-defeating strategies, and the ultimate failure to recognize the strategic importance of sealing the Afghan-Pakistan border.  Our failure to neutralize and or destroy the Taliban safe haven across the border in Pakistan, has allowed the Taliban to wait out the US just as they did the Soviets.  Inside Pakistan’s safe haven, the Taliban fighters receive arms, training, funding, and sanctuary from the Pakistani government…the same government we give over $5 billion in annual aid to (read self-defeating strategy).  While the Taliban organize, train, and equip in Pakistan, the US has spent over a trillion dollars vainly setting up forward operating bases all over the desolate wasteland where the sole mission has become clearing roadways of improvised explosive devices so that the troops can get supplies to their remote bases so they can clear the roads so they can get in supplies, etc. etc. etc.  At no point in this ridiculous slow bleed strategy did our troops ever come close to strategic and decisive gains against the Taliban.  Instead, we spent and bled our nation to defeat without the Taliban having to do more than push an occasional button on an explosive device produced in Pakistan or shoot one of our soldiers in the back while dining together.  This absolute disaster of a war is a testament to the massive amount of money the US taxpayer has been forced to waste on a military bureaucracy so large and unwieldy that defies description.  Until the Department of Defense (DOD) can show that it can actually win a war the budget should be slashed, slashed some more, and then cut in half again.  If the politics won’t allow for a war to be fought, then we shouldn’t fight wars and waste money on our massive and dysfunctional military.  We don’t need smart bombs, we need leaders with the will to fight and win.  That said, without any doubt, for probably under what the DOD spent in a week on the Afghanistan War, a small contingent of country boys sporting nothing but scoped deer rifles, good leadership, and freedom of action could have decisively defeated the Taliban and ended the war in Afghanistan in just a few months.

Not only is the war unsustainable for the US, but also the Afghan government.  Over a hundred Afghan soldiers a week are killed, many times more are wounded, and even more defect to the Taliban.  The situation is so bad that the Department of Defense made it official policy to no longer report the number of Afghan casualties out of fear of losing all moral in the Afghan National Army.  Remember too that the mauling the Afghan military is incurring is with the help of NATO/US forces in Afghanistan to include air support.  Once the US and NATO pull out, the Afghan National Army will face total defeat as it dissolves into a more formalized Taliban Army.

Collapse is now imminent in Afghanistan.  Perhaps six months to a year separate the current state of affairs from a Taliban takeover of most of the country.  As the US accelerates its withdrawal, the Taliban will begin to operate more overtly in Afghanistan seizing at first greater footholds in the regional villages and towns and then overwhelming major cities.  Kandahar may again be one of the first cities to fall to the Taliban as soon as the spring of 2014.  Once Kandahar and surrounding provinces fall fully back into the Taliban’s (Pakistan’s) hands, it will only be a matter of months before Kabul falls under heavy attack and is overrun.  President Karzai will most likely do what he did before and flee his country to save his own skin.  This time though Karzai will flee with over a billion dollars (compliments of the US taxpayer by way of the CIA) hidden away, rather overtly, in Swiss and Dubai bank accounts to live out his days in Europe as his countrymen suffer the aftermath of his corrupt regime.  One can only hope he is forced to stay and weather whatever consequences the war may bring as the captain should either save the ship or sink with it.  In the interim, Afghanistan will exist as the world’s premier narco-state with President Karzai the undisputed cartel leader.

Make no mistake that any notion the US will be able to maintain a footprint in Afghanistan once the pull out begins is an illusion.  I can’t say for sure whether our leadership in the US is just that dumb to believe we will be able to stay (they are building a billion dollar embassy in Kabul) or is simply lying to provide top cover while we retreat.  Nonetheless, the result will be the same.  Think Saigon circa 1975.  To say the least, we will be lucky to have an exit as orderly as the Soviets.  If we are so lucky, it is only because the Taliban correctly assessed that it was in their best interests to simply let us leave as soon as possible while saving up their strength for a full offensive.  Once NATO has gotten out of the way, the Taliban will move to finish the civil war they started before the US invasion.

As the last troops retreat out of Afghanistan in defeat the military-industrial-complex will be faced with a dire situation.  The situation will be one of reduced budgets and no pressing war to sell their wares.  This means the titans of defense will lose billions of dollars and tens of thousands of Americans will be put out of work.  As such, we predict the military-industrial-complex will work closely behind the scenes with Congress to engineer a new war before the complete end to operations in Afghanistan.  The most likely candidate for this will be a war with Iran via Syria.  This war, as we have repeatedly warned, will be a complete disaster on a scale unprecedented in American history.  In fact the consequences could be so dire that historians may very well point to the folly as the end of the Republic.

Please remember our troops on the ground fighting in Afghanistan…they are the real victims of bad leadership, yet bravely stand their posts.

By Guiles Hendrik

All rights reserved. 

What American Military Intervention in Syria really means in plain language

Americans are keen to want to go out and save the world.  The problem is that we can’t.  Lofty goals and ideologies must be tempered by reality.  Not only are there obvious financial limits to these kind of interventionist policies, but these policies have historically shown a near zero success rate.  In fact, in nearly every case of US intervention, we made the situation far worse.  Not only are more people often killed, but the suffering is made to last sometimes for decades.  So now President Obama is faced with somehow selling a war with Syria, which is a necessary pretext for a war with Iran, neither of which are in America’s best interests, and the best he can do is recycle the humanitarian argument for intervention and Iraq War era chemical weapons propaganda.

This would be a laughable justification if US Special Forces and CIA paramilitary officers weren’t already on the ground in Syria leading the proxy armies they trained and setting the groundwork for coming air strikes.  Unfortunately, the reality is that the US has been lobbied into fighting what will prove to be a disastrous war that is neither in America’s interests nor necessary.  The case currently being put before the American people is that President Assad has allegedly used chemical weapons against the rebel forces.  It would be worth noting that nothing about the actual validity of this chemical attack claim has been verified by independent and reputable sources or that it may actually be in our interests to allow Assad to kill what we know to be Al Qaeda avowed terrorists; however, it would side track the primary argument that our idea of “help” means we will kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

Just as our “help” in Iraq led to the death of over a million Iraqis in order to “liberate” them from oppression, I have the strong feeling that our “help” in Syria will lead to the deaths of over one hundred thousand Syrians.  Considering this, it is hard to square the logic of how killing a hundred thousand more Syrians equates in any way to improving their life.  In fact, one would have to use the insane Iraq logic that destroying the nation’s infrastructure and killing a million people was the right thing to do to “help” the Iraqis.  Now I am pretty sure that most Iraqis would disagree that the US helped them, but then that wouldn’t make for good propaganda being generated by the White House, which its zombie mass media outlets parrot without so much as a thought.

Understanding that our “help” is anything but actual help allows one to understand the real mechanisms at work.  Supporting Syria to “stop the bloodshed” will turn out to be the exact opposite, but that’s okay because most Americans have proved to be mindless lemmings and will believe whatever the savior Obama tells them.  In the end, this will lead to a costly war that will bankrupt the US and kill untold numbers of people across the Middle East all while bringing about no peace.  Only the bankers that financed the war and the military-industrial complex that supplied it will profit from this foolish endeavor.  Even Israel, which has demanded this war with all of its lobbying might, will find that it will not like what it ordered.  If you are dumb enough to actually believe this looming war with Syria and Iran (and perhaps Russia and China) is in our best interests, please do everyone a favor and volunteer for service with the infantry on the front lines and remain far from policy work.

By Guiles Hendrik

August 26, 2013

All rights reserved.

BOOTS ON THE GROUND IN SYRIA: US Proxies Enter Syrian Civil War with US Advisors

News of US Special Forces and CIA paramilitary officers entering Syria leading proxy fighters began to trickle out around August 23, 2013.  Naturally, the US is denying these reports, but as with Libya, it will only be a short matter of time before photos of US military forces leading rebels in combat begin to surface on the web.  This means that it will only be a short amount of time before American bombs begin to drop on Syria.  Just as in Libya, these ground troops will be the leading edge of full scale US military involvement in Syria and will act as forward air controllers for air strikes.  Make no mistake; the US has now entered overtly into the Syrian Civil War allied with Islamic extremists loyal to Al Qaeda.

Contrary to what the Pentagon and White House are admitting, the information has been available for some time that we planned all along to enter the war against Syria just as we have reported.

In July the Los Angeles Times reported that the Central Intelligence Agency and US special forces have been training Syrian rebels at a new US base in the desert in southwest Jordan since November 2012.  One such US covert training session, conducted by American, Jordanian, and French, has allegedly been taking place in Jordan for the last month or so, the newspaper cited Brig. Gen. Yahya Bittar, the head of intelligence for the Free Syrian Army.  The training covers the use of anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons and has been carried out at bases in Turkey as well, the newspaper reported.  This training is not being done for fun, but because the US fully intended to lead these rebels into battle at least a year before any false pretext (use of chemical weapons) was created to justify the US entrance into the war.

Further, last month, the Pentagon said that F-16 jet fighters and a Patriot missile battery deployed to Jordan for the “Eager Lion” military exercise that ended weeks ago would remain in the desert country.  Again, the US did not keep these advanced weapon systems in Jordan because it didn’t feel like moving them back to the US.  Instead, just as our analysts predicted, the US has from the beginning intended to launch a full scale attack against Syria and only delayed to allow the rebels time to do the bulk of the fighting and generate propaganda (use of chemical weapons) that could be used as a false pretext to justify the US entrance into the war.

What is clear is that the US and some key allies have been building up for a war with Syria and training a proxy army in neighboring countries for at least a year.  This sets that actually planning and execution of this operation “years” prior to the current date.  This is long before any actual pretext to justify US involvement materialized and is demonstrative of how the US all along has planned to enter the war under false pretenses whether or not real cause existed.  This war is as phony, illegal, unconstitutional, and unnecessary as the Iraq War and will be far more costly since it ultimately aims to destroy not just Syria, but specifically, Iran.  Considering this, one would be well justified in calling into question the faux chemical attack pretexts now circulating and being used as grounds for overt US military action.  Further, it is of no irony that the very same countries (US, France, United Kingdom, Israel, etc.) that have been training and covertly supporting this war against Syria for years are the same countries that immediately “confirmed” that the most recent alleged chemical weapons attack was launched by the Syrian government.  It should then come as no surprise these countries are racing to “take action” before any real investigation of the alleged attack and verifiable, “independent,” conclusions can be reached.

Washington and Tel Aviv are acutely aware that they are running out of time to execute their war plan against Iran.  Their terrorist proxies in Syria were never supposed to “lose” and now the US has had to create a false pretext to overtly enter the war to save their rebel army from total defeat while Iran continues to expand its nuclear programs.  Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu knows he is almost out of time if he wishes to destroy the Iranian nuclear program.  As such, he is willing to do nearly anything to force the US into fighting another disastrous war on behalf of Israel.  If our analysts are correct, there is a reasonable chance that full scale regional war will break out in the Middle East between the US, Syria, and Iran before winter.  It is of absolute necessity that all of our readers contact their elected officials immediately and demand a complete exit from actions in Syria and that no war with Iran will be fought.

 

By Guiles Hendrik

August 26, 2013

All rights reserved.

 

For more reading:

http://rt.com/news/usa-cia-train-syria-rebels-087/

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/06/22/amman-denies-cia-training-syria-rebels-in-jordan/

 

Al Qaeda Rebels in Syria Begin Killing Kurds

Throughout 2013, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the primary rebel organization fighting a civil war against President Assad’s Syrian Army forces, has become predominately manned by Al Qaeda avowed jihadists.  These terrorists have now turned their guns on Syrian Kurds, which up until recently have attempted to remain neutral in the fight.  As Kurds have been increasingly slaughtered by Islamic extremists in Syria, the number of refugees fleeing to Kurdistan in Iraq has massively increased.  Some estimate well over 100,000 Kurdish refugees have now fled Syria.  The murder of Kurds by the FSA marks another dark turn of events that will soon undermine US positions in the region.

Kurdistan and its capital of Erbil have remained the one region of the Middle East where Americans have enjoyed relatively good relations and security.  In fact Americans are not even required to have a visa to enter Kurdistan where both Muslims and Christians live together in relative peace.  Further, Kurdistan is a region seeing significant investment and business growth.  The relative peace that has been maintained in Kurdistan has driven the oil and tourism markets currently fueling Kurdistan’s growth in a region where security is all too rare.  The capital Erbil is a vibrant cosmopolitan city arising in the shadows of the distant snowcapped mountain peaks where westerners can find all of the trappings of modern day living.

Unfortunately, the relative peace and security Americans have enjoyed in Kurdistan will no doubt be coming to an end soon.  The Kurds are acutely aware that the US is now actively supporting the FSA, which is massacring their people.  As the Kurds flee death in Syria at the hands of Sunni Jihadists armed and trained by Americans they carry that knowledge to overflowing refugee camps now forming in Kurdistan and Turkey.  These refugees have lost everything but their lives and are rightfully angry.  It will only be a short period of time before they correctly identify the US as the primary catalyst behind their suffering.  As anti-American sentiment solidifies, Americans will be targeted inside Kurdish regions, which until now, have been peaceful and supportive of Americans.  In what will prove to be another policy disaster, this will force the one ally Washington still retains in the Middle East directly into the camp of the Iranians.

Turning the Kurds against the US will have dire second and third order effects for the US.  Kurds will now have no choice but to join with Assad’s government forces.  The Kurds are relatively good fighters when compared with other ethnic groups in the region and will no doubt prove to be a potent ally for Assad.  This will significantly swell the number of fighter’s Assad has at his disposal and hasten the defeat of the rebels.  This will force Washington to directly enter the Syrian conflict to avert a complete route of its proxy army.  Further, this will accelerate the regionalization of this conflict beyond the borders of Syria as Iraqi Sunnis battle Iraqi Kurds in Iraq and Iran consolidates the Kurds as their new ally against the Arabs.  Americans in Turkey will also become much more likely to be targeted by Kurdish groups seeking revenge and to force an end to US support of Al Qaeda terrorists in Syria.  This destabilization will force Turkey to take a more adversarial role toward US policy in the region, which can only complicate matters more for the US.

By Guiles Hendrik

August 25, 2013

All rights reserved.

Syrian Rebels Continue to Lose Ground against Government Forces

Syrian government forces reinforced by Lebanese Hezbollah forces have been consolidating their control over the strategic rebel held district of Homs, which is Syria’s third largest city.  Homs has been controlled by rebels in part since 2011.  The recent military success by the Syrian military and Hezbollah fighters has left the rebels in retreat and Washington’s battle plan for Iran disintegrating.

As of July, Syrian government forces appeared to be on the verge of retaking most of the northern neighborhoods in Homs and were continuing to advance on the remaining crumbling rebel positions.  In addition to its symbolic value, Homs is a strategic lynchpin in Syria.  Homs controls the main highways from Damascus to the north and the coast.  The government offensive has already successfully expelled rebels from a 13th century landmark mosque in Khaldiyeh the rebels controlled for more than a year.  Previous to this, government forces captured the strategic town of Qusair near the Lebanon border in June.

The danger of these victories is not that Assad and his government forces will prevail, but that Washington and its allies will now be forced to take more drastic measures to make sure their Al Qaeda proxies are not defeated.  In light of this, it foreseeable that the White House will soon authorize more overt support to include providing military weapons and advisors to train rebel fighters outside of Syria in Turkey and Jordan.  However, it is unlikely this level of support will turn the tide in favor of the rebels.  Instead, for a rebel victory to be engineered, Washington will be forced to put Americans (most likely in the form of CIA and Special Forces) in Syria and institute a no-fly zone coupled with air strikes on Syrian government targets.  False flag attacks and copious applications of war propaganda will be necessary to justify these ill-fated operations.   This action will cement the US entrance into another undeclared, unconstitutional war that historians will point to as a disastrous misstep in US Foreign Policy that will ultimately eclipse the US strategic defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By Guiles Hendrik

July 29, 2013

For more information:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/07/201372817314489545.html

Media Missed the Biggest Coup in the Middle East and it wasn’t in Egypt

Tuning into the Fox and CNN “entertainment” networks, one would be lucky to catch a small bit of news between the brain numbing, around the clock reports on the Trayvon Martin Case and Anthony Weiner’s perverse antics.  Nonetheless, a close follower may have gathered that “former” Egyptian President Morsi was overthrown in a broadly supported coup that has pitted the Muslim Brotherhood against the Egyptian military.  However, at about the same time, a much quieter and potentially more dangerous coup for the US took place in Syria.  In fact, Al Qaeda just accomplished its latest “hostile government takeover” by effectively decapitating any last vestige of a secular Free Syrian Army (FSA).  If not bad enough, President Obama has announced commencement of an insane US policy to arm these well-known terrorists.  This can ONLY end in disaster for the US.

By July 12, 2013 news of the assassination of Kamal Hamami began appearing in foreign press.  Kamal Hamami, a member of the FSA’s Supreme Military Council, known as Abu Basir, was killed in the Turkmen mountains near the northern city of Latakia, spokesman Louay Meqdad reported to Al Jazeera.  Hamami was killed by fighters from an Al Qaeda-linked group in Syria and was one of the most senior leaders of the Western- and Arab-backed Free Syrian Army.  Another FSA spokesman Qassem Saadeddine told Reuters, “The Islamic State phoned me saying that they killed Abu Basir and that they will kill all of the Supreme Military Council.”  Al Qaeda should be taken at its word as it does appear to have continued to carry out its threat and has operationally assumed control of the rebel army.

The leader of the Al Qaeda organization that claimed responsibility for Hamami’s killing, the Islamic State of Iraq, is led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.  Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi arrived in northern Syria to take control over Al Qaeda operations in the country and has apparently wasted no time in consolidating power under Al Qaeda’s banner.  This organization has effectively assumed control of the Islamist Al-Nusra Front, which was officially declared a “terrorist group” by the US in May, and is considered to be the most effective opposition group battling Assad.  As such, any notion of secular, nationalist forces fighting Assad evaporated with Al Qaeda’s coup within the FSA.

Analyzing these events further, one will note that Abu Bakr is a violent Al Qaeda terrorist leader from Iraq and epitomizes how this conflict has already gone regional.  The US created civil war in Syria has now fully spilled over into neighboring Iraq just as our analysts predicted and warned.  Violence in Iraq, which now is killing hundreds weekly, has reignited the Sunni-Shia civil war in Iraq removing any notion that the US succeeded in bringing about a more peaceful and democrat Iraq.  Incidentally, Abu Bakr cut his teeth on killing Americans, not Syrians, and now Obama IS arming his organization in what must be considered one of the dumbest policy moves an American president has ever made.

Middle East analysts recognize the fact that the Syrian Civil War will continue to spread and engulf more countries in the Middle East counter to Washington’s claims.  The situation is out of control.  Longtime US ally Jordan is in a particularly perilous spot.  In fact, secretly, Washington is so worried Jordan will be the next government to be toppled by the Al Qaeda terrorists the US is backing, Washington has quietly deployed a military force numbering over 2,000 in Jordan to attempt to contain the fighting should it begin spilling across the border.

Collectively assessing this information, it is clear the US has placed itself into an untenable paradox.  On one hand we are trying to defeat Al Qaeda and protect the US while simultaneously arming and training Al Qaeda on the other.  Al Qaeda has made no question that it will target the US as soon as its fighters finish in Syria.  By arming these terrorists, our nation is effectively creating, aiding, and abetting its very own enemy to kill Americans.  Not only is Obama’s policy a violation of US anti-terrorism laws, but it violates every core element of common sense and self-preservation.  This conclusion is so obvious and the intelligence so overwhelming, Obama is literally using our tax dollars to kill Americans.

This policy of fighting Al Qaeda while simultaneously arming Al Qaeda that the Obama Administration has engineered screams of amateur hour, is out of control, and is as dangerous as it is schizophrenic.  The only groups to benefit from this lunacy will be the money lending institutions and the defense industry (military industrial complex).  However, in the interim, hundreds of thousands of people have been wounded and killed with many more surely to follow.  There is simply no way the Obama Administration can claim that by arming KNOWN AL QAEDA TERRORISTS, the US will benefit.  This Al Qaeda coup in the FSA leadership proves that any arms provided to the FSA WILL ultimately end up in the hands of Al Qaeda radicals.

Please contact your representatives in Congress, petition the White House, organize your neighbors to political action, and contact your media.  Demand this insane policy of arming terrorists in Syria cease immediately.  Failure to force Congress and the President to act will ultimately suck the US into another disastrous war, economically destroy our nation, and lead to untold numbers of dead and wounded Americans.

 

By Guiles Hendrik

July 29, 2013

All rights reserved

 

For more information:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23283079

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/07/20137127710849717.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2361814/Al-Qaeda-linked-rebels-assassinate-Free-Syrian-Army-leader-followers-immediately-vow-revenge.html

http://rt.com/news/qaeda-militants-kill-fsa-commander-979/

USA Enters War Allied with Al Qaeda

On June 13, 2013, President Obama announced authorization for the arming of the Syrian rebels last week amidst a string of growing scandals rocking the White House.  President Obama’s action authorized without congressional debate or public justification the United States’ entry into another war.  Not only has the US now picked a side in a bloody civil war where both sides are hostile to the US, but committed the US to a war in a country where the US has little national interest.  At best, this action is constitutionally unsound and a gross abuse of the powers prescribed to the Commander-in-Chief.  At worst, this is an illegal war that will ultimately result in the single greatest foreign policy disaster of Obama’s administration to date and bankrupt the US.

Contrary to the Administration’s claims, the only security threat Syria poses to the US will be the one we create by arming Al Qaeda affiliated rebel groups that openly espouse destruction to the US and Israel.  The White House rationale for this undeclared and unnecessary war was that President Assad used chemical weapons.  In the midst of growing public scandals, does President Obama’s hypocrisy know no end?  First, it was then Senator Obama that openly attacked the Bush administration’s entry into what he deemed an illegal war in Iraq on fabricated intelligence even though the international community did believe Saddam Hussein still possessed weapons of mass destruction.  Yet now, President Obama wants the US to enter another war in the Middle East again on very dubious claims of chemical weapons and when no good argument for US interests exist.  Not only is Obama’s “intelligence” on chemical weapons suspect, but the investigations done by the United Nations, which are available for public scrutiny conclude that “if” chemical weapons were used, they were used by the “rebels” and NOT Assad’s forces.  This glaring contradiction to the Administration’s official spin was dismissed by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.  The White House departure from its long history of walking in lock step with the U.N. is certainly telling.  The problem this time is even the Washington Post which, known for its overt support of liberal policy and President Obama, called the Administration’s claims into question.  In the Post’s article it states; “Despite months of laboratory testing and scrutiny by top U.S. scientists, the Obama administration’s case for arming Syria’s rebels rests on unverifiable claims that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against its own people, according to diplomats and experts.”  It goes on to say, “If you are the opposition and you hear” that the White House has drawn a red line on the use of nerve agents, then “you have an interest in giving the impression that some chemical weapons have been used,” said Rolf Ekeus, a Swedish scientist who headed up U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq during the 1990s.

Things are sounding an awful lot like the Bush-era false war propaganda about Iraqi chemical weapons with a touch of President Clinton’s policy of bombing “terrorist” targets at the height of the Monica Lewinsky Scandal.  Hopefully, the American people have finally learned their lesson and will demand to see the actual evidence and be given a legitimate reason why war is “necessary” this time, what our strategy is, and what is the desired end state.

One need not be a fortune-teller to foresee how U.S. involvement in Syria will go down as one of America’s greatest foreign policy disasters.  After being defeated in Iraq and now Afghanistan, the U.S. should have learned a few lessons about the folly of interventionist policy.  In the least, it should not be committing the U.S. to another war before it has at least finished its fight in Afghanistan.  In this regard, the hubris of the Obama Administration in this regard is staggering.  Now, not only has the U.S. entered a war against a nation, but it has entered a sectarian war between Shia and Sunnis that has split Islam since the seventh century.  This war extends far beyond Syria’s borders and is engulfing the entire Muslim world.

Currently, approximately 1,100 Marines and possibly up to a few thousand “advisors,” are in Jordan.  This is in addition to a small cadre of Special Forces and CIA case officers working closely with rebel elements in and out of Syria.  Further, U.S. forces are positioned to the north of Syria in Turkey and have been clandestinely supporting rebel training camps, NATO airbases, and air defense facilities.  As Washington’s plan to arm the rebels fails to save their strategy to overthrow Assad, Obama will be forced to increase American intervention.  This will likely involve the implementation of a “no-fly zone” and will be the next step towards a hot war with Syria and Iran.

Obama is no doubt in a dilemma.  He foolishly thought the he could use proxies to topple Assad in order to destroy Iran’s fifth column in the preliminary phases of the ongoing cold war with Iran.  The failure of the rebels means Washington must either face humiliation as its policy to remove Assad collapses or now openly enter into a war on the side of rebels previously known as terrorists, insurgents, and jihadists.  Obama has doubled down on the rebels.  Of the rebel forces, Jordanian intelligence estimates upwards of 80% of their combat power and front line fighters are jihadists that have avowed the destruction of both the US and Israel.  In fact, even US allies in the Middle East have openly called into contention the notion the CIA can distribute advanced military weapons only to secular Sunni rebel forces in Syria.  Supporting this skepticism is the fact the most powerful element within the Syrian rebel force is the al-Nusrah Front, which is allied to al-Qaeda.  As such, the thought that the US can arm these jihadists turned rebels and not directly endanger American lives is so foolish; the mere suggestion is an absolute bald face lie.  Therefore, the sudden policy shift and use of the chemical weapons rationale to arm the rebels exposes the true nature of Washington’s intent to use Syria as a stepping stone toward an ultimate showdown with Iran.   As Obama’s administration is forced toward war with Iran by special interests, he will now have to demonstrate greater and greater involvement.

Moving forward, the US now owns the civil war in Syria.  Obama has joined forces with known Al Qaeda terrorists to fight an equally nasty dictator.  Neither of which support US interests.  The newly armed and resurgent rebels will not hesitate to attack US interests at the first opportunity.  American’s will die because of this policy disaster.  Washington and by default, the American people, will now be blamed every time the rebels commit an atrocity.  These Sunni extremists are the same brand that attacked the US on 9/11 and there is no reason to expect them to act any differently in the future.  We are indeed creating our own enemies.

The violence has now fully spilled over into a regional conflict.  Hezbollah in Lebanon has now committed fully to the war.  Iran has committed to support Assad as well and has sent thousands of troops to support Assad’s military.  Qatar and Saudi Arabia are sending billions in arms and equipment.  Turkey’s streets are on fire with protests.  Egypt is now warning of outright civil war.  Israel is on high alert and dealing with daily cross border fire from the conflict in Syria.  Iraq is now fully re-engulfed with sectarian violence as we previously warned would occur.

How President Obama believes that any good for the US can come of providing US military weapons and equipment to a motley collection of known terrorists, international jihadists, and Sunni extremists is beyond rational logic.  No matter how the conflict ends in Syria, the party that takes or retains power will be openly hostile to the US.  Not only are our analysts predicting greater bloodshed, but we now see all of the signs of a full-blown regional conflict that has the potential to rapidly draw the US back into a full-scale disastrous war that will likely be the final blow to America’s global economic and political dominance.

 

By Guiles Hendrik

June 26, 2013

All rights reserved

Syria Becomes Battleground for Global Proxy War

The Syrian Civil War is poised to explode into full scale sectarian violence that will engulf the region as a global proxy war is played out on Syrian soil.  Recent news reports cite Iraqi Shia fighters trained by Iran have been joining ranks with Hezbollah militants in Syria.  These combined forces are supporting Syrian President Assad’s legitimate government forces against a Syrian rebel army that is comprised mainly of Sunni Muslims.  Like the Syrian government’s forces, the rebel army is also comprised of a large contingent of foreign fighters.  As we have repeatedly warned, the vanguard rebel fighters are Sunni extremists from around the globe, which include a large contingent of Sunni Iraqis and others waging global jihad.  These rebel fighters have sworn allegiance to Al Qaeda, support the Muslim Brotherhood, and have announced that when they are done fighting in Syria, the USA will be next.  As such, one would think the US would want to see President Assad prevail.  Ironically, though, this is not the case.  This article will review the regional and global competitors in this conflict and why the US is worried Assad will defeat the Al Qaeda led rebels.

At the regional level, as discussed in part above, a Shia versus Sunni war has developed in the Middle East and Syria is ground zero.  On the rebel side you have countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia sending large sums of money to finance the rebel army while they look the other way when their citizens leave their country to wage jihad in Syria.  Jordan and Turkey are actively providing training facilities and logistical support to the rebel armies.  Iraq’s population is split down sectarian lines in its support of the rebels.  The US, Israel, and EU have all aligned against President Assad and have covertly been supporting the rebels by procuring weapons and medical equipment, was well as providing training and intelligence.  Finally, you have countries from around the world like Chechnya and Libya whose citizens have flocked to Syria to fight with the rebels.  These jihadists once united in combat become infinitely more radicalized, better trained and equipped, and very well organized.  Ultimately, they become very dangerous terrorists that will attack the US and their former host countries.  This same pattern played out during the Soviet War in Afghanistan where a little known Saudi named Osama bin Laden began financing jihadists and organizing what became known as Al Qaeda.

Opposing this rebel jihadist army are equally dedicated Shia fighters.  This includes Iraqi Shia and perhaps Kurds and Lebanese based Hezbollah fighters.  Hezbollah is backed by weapons and money from Iran.  Specifically, Iran has provided state level support to Syria, which includes weapons, advisors, and most likely fighters.  However, it is Russia that is ultimately President Assad’s most powerful and persuasive supporter.  Russian President Putin has to date successfully prevented the US, Israel, and the EU from directly attacking Syria and has been providing advanced weapons systems to Syria.

Based on the nationality and religious allegiance of the fighters in Syria, one can clearly see how the entire Middle East is represented and could be pulled into the Syrian conflict.  As we have previously reported, Iraq, the central lynchpin of the Middle East, is being ripped apart by this conflict.  Sectarian violence has reemerged with a vengeance across Iraq as happened during their previous civil war and the one now raging in Syria will metastasize into one giant regional Sunni-Shia showdown.  If President Assad is not successful in routing the Sunni jihadists, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia will without doubt become the next targets of this growing terrorist army.  Make no mistake, this is a fight for keeps and the winner takes all.  Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has stated publicly that the group’s existence depends on defeating the Sunni rebel army against Assad.  “Hezbollah is fully engaged in the battlefield.  And this is a major shift.  It’s no longer them trying to protect villages along the border in Lebanon; it’s waging battle alongside the Syrian government forces … willing to sustain casualties and shoulder the consequences,” said Fawaz Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics.

At the global level, Russia has moved naval forces into the region not seen since the height of the Cold War.  The Russian show of force includes various warships and submarines armed with nuclear weapons.  Russia is no doubt signaling to the US that it is not willing to accept a loss of its only warm water port in Syria and will back its most trusted regional ally.  The EU wants a pipeline from Qatar to break the Russian monopoly on European energy supplies, so has at least tacitly thrown its support behind the rebels.  China sees the US as a threat and realizes that another US war in the region will further weaken Washington.  As such, China is positioning itself to exploit the chaos at the expense of the US.  This includes making deals with both sides all while staying out of the fight.

However, the US has been the driving force behind the civil war that has led to the deaths of over 80,000 people.  To accomplish this, the US has been covertly organizing, training, equipping, and advising the rebel forces from Jordan, Turkey, and now Syria proper.  Per our previous reports, factions within the US are determined to attack Iran and recognize Syria as a critical stepping stone in achieving this war.  As the war plan goes, Syria and Hezbollah must be taken out first to insulate Israel from counter attacks.  When Syria and Hezbollah are seen as sufficiently degraded, a pretext would be used to launch an overt military strike on Iran, which would include using an air corridor opened through eastern Syria.  However, this could not be achieved through a direct attack by the US, which would polarize the world against the US and be seen even by Americans as too egregious, so proxies were chosen to do the dirty work as per Cold War unconventional war doctrine.  This plan has been implemented to assuage Israeli fears of the US doing nothing about a nuclear Iran in hopes of at least delaying Israel from striking Iran and sucking the US into a disastrous war.  Ironically, it will make the situation far worse for the US and Israel.  Nonetheless, the US has responded by moving its own naval forces into the region.  The US has stationed an aircraft carrier battle group in the Mediterranean and recently deployed approximately 1100 Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit into Jordan where they will meet up with Special Forces and other US military units already on the ground.  This deployment is using the cover of being a routine annual military exercise with Jordan codenamed, Operation Infinite Moonlight.  Further, in Turkey, the US has positioned Patriot II air defense missiles and set up CIA supported training camps for rebel fighters while threatening greater NATO escalation should Syria try to fight back.  Finally, Israel has repeatedly provoked and flagrantly violated Syria’s sovereignty by launching repeated air strikes against various targets throughout Syria.

The combined Syrian government forces are winning against all the covert efforts of Washington and this scares the White House.  In fact, the Syrian Army is now poised to launch a large scale counteroffensive around Damascus designed to route rebel forces and drive them out of the suburbs.  “Planes are dropping off fully armed fighters from Hezbollah and the Iraqi Fadl Brigades,” said opposition activist Abu Yasser.  Hezbollah is a Lebanon-based terrorist group and the Fadl Brigades are Iranian-trained Shiite Muslim militants from Iraq.  According to USA Today, both groups are likely destined for the fight in al-Qusayr, a town near the Lebanese border that is at the center of the rebels’ supply routes for ammo and fighters, Yasser said.  What one must understand from this is that Syria has now become the battleground for a proxy war being waged by regional and global competitors and Washington’s rebel army is not winning.  This likely means the White House will need to execute more overt and risky interventionist strategies to bring about the desired rebel victory.  The rationale is that failure for Washington to engineer a rebel victory will force a complete recalculation of the Iranian War Plan.

If Washington’s proxy army in Syria loses, the US will be forced to enter the war directly.  To do this, Washington must engineer a situation that forces unilateral military action in Syria, which the American people are firmly against.  This overt action will not only cause a violent regional response, but also trigger a Russian response.  Even a limited Russian response such as providing increased military support to the Syrian army will make any US efforts incredibly costly if not futile.  Already, repeated staged crises have failed to pull the American public behind any intervention.  These attempts include Turkey trying to invoke a NATO response after provoking Syrian air defenses to shoot down a Turkish military jet violating its airspace and blaming the Syrian army for what likely was rebel mortar fire into Turkey.  Further, Assad was blamed for using chemical weapons against the rebels until the truth came out that it was in fact the rebels that had used the chemical weapons.  Other blatant propaganda such as staging and doctoring photos of the injured and dead have also failed to convince the average American that they have joint interests in Syria.  As a result, the US and EU will likely begin massive covert arming of the rebels, which may or may not turn the tide of battle, but will certainly lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of people.  If this too fails, Israel will likely demand direct US action in Syria or launch its own attack on Iran.  This will be a choice of two evils.  Both will ultimately be too costly for the US, which has painted itself into a corner.  If the rebels win, Muslim extremists will control a large military with advance weapons on Israel’s border, which will destabilize the entire region and threaten the US.  If the rebels lose, Iran will be firmly established as a regional player on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons capability.

Washington’s interventionist policies have created a situation where the US is in a lose-lose situation.  Israeli interests have hijacked US foreign policy for the worst leading either to a disastrous war with Iran or the rise of extremist Muslim nations.  In conclusion, we have passed a point in the Syrian Civil War where we could have cut our losses.  Instead, we doubled down and are now in a position that virtually assures the US will be drawn into another costly war before the end of 2013.

 

By Guiles Hendrik

June 11, 2013

All rights reserved

Assessing the Success of the War on Terror Part II: Return on Investment and Perpetual War

Part II of our series continues to evaluate the success of the War on Terror.  It is our thesis that not only has American policy and strategy failed to defeat terrorist threats to the United States from radical Islam, but it has in fact exasperated them.  Today, Al Qaeda and terrorism have become the new boogie men, replacing the Communist menace of the Cold War.  This manufactured threat has now taken on a persona of its own and has been used to justify endless war across the world.  Ultimately, it will be America’s downfall as the evidence is clear the US is losing the strategic war.

To illustrate this slide, consider the following.  On September 10, 2001, few Americans had ever heard the name Osama bin Laden (UBL) or were aware of the organization that came to be known as Al Qaeda (AQ).  Today, UBL and AQ are household names.  At the turn of the century, AQ consisted of perhaps a couple hundred fighters at most and was not broadly operational.  Today, AQ has branched into a franchise like organization recruiting operatives from Detroit, Michigan to Jakarta, Indonesia and numbering in the thousands.  In 2003, Al Qaeda didn’t exist in Iraq, but today it operates with near impunity in cities such as Mosul where it has established facilities for training and arming terrorists ready to conduct jihad in Syria and the greater Middle East.  In Afghanistan, the Taliban, which was once at least partially hostile to AQ, has fully integrated its operations with AQ extremists.  Further, the Taliban has spread beyond its original Kandahar region all throughout Afghanistan.  This includes regions previously controlled by the “Northern Alliance” and considered “immune” from the Taliban according to snake oil hacks like David Kilcullen and has now even spread over the borders into Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.  Other areas to include the Philippines, Indonesia, the Balkans, the Caucuses, and Western Europe have all seen steady growth of Islamic extremism.  Considering the above, one need not dig deeper than the blatantly obvious to realize that the War on Terror has not been won and in fact, has gone horribly wrong for the US.

Operationally, AQ has shown that it is not only resilient, but growing.  The fact that AQ is still operationally capable of killing an American Ambassador over a decade into this war is not only massively embarrassing for the US, but it proves US  senior leadership and strategy have been a failure.  Simply tracking the number and location of drone strikes one can quickly conclude that not only has the theater of AQ’s operations expanded from Afghanistan to one of global influence, but that AQ’s numbers are growing faster than the United States can target and kill its leaders.  Just as discussed in Part I of this series, limited targeted assassinations and strikes have been tried over and over throughout military history and have never yielded decisive gains.  Worse, the US appears to be living in ignorance of reality.  The progressive agenda during the most recent presidential campaign wanted to proclaim Obama defeated AQ and led US leaders to a naïve sense of security as a result of whitewashing the actual threat respective of the spread of AQ.  These ideological blinders led to the death of four Americans including an ambassador in Libya at the hands of AQ affiliated fighters on no less than September 11th when America should have been at its maximum state of readiness.  Associated with this fallout is the spread of Islamic extremism, terrorism, and insurgency now throughout the northern half of Africa.  This event was accurately predicted by our analysts and has now come to fruition as the weapons looted from Gadhafi’s arsenals have fallen squarely in the hands of extremists and AQ affiliated groups.  This includes more than 20,000 advanced man portable surface-to-air missiles, which we continue to predict will soon be used against a commercial airliner.

If Libya wasn’t a big enough disaster, the US has now begun to dig itself into an even broader war in Mali and other African countries from Nigeria to Somalia.  This has already cost innocent American lives in Algeria after Islamic terrorists attacked an oil facility in retaliation for America’s support to the French in Mali.  Nonetheless, the press does not hold President Obama, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, or any other senior policy maker accountable for the blood on their hands.  If American policy makers think Algeria was an isolated incident, they are ignorant and in denial of reality.  Americans appear quick to forget how well our operations in Somalia turned out and are again conducting the same type of operations clandestinely over a region thousands of times larger.  There simply is no need to involve the US in these local fights.  The blowback will be severe and certainly far outweigh any benefit except for the very few elites getting oil and mineral rights to the newly acquired lands wrought from disturbingly imperialistic motives.

Looking at AQ’s spread is not sufficient to capture the bigger strategic picture.  Not only has AQ, with the help of the US (most recently in Libya and Syria), globally expanded, but it has accomplished what even Pan-Arabism and Nasserism could not.  The “Arab Spring,” has taken down one former pro-American regime after another.  The dictators like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak that have acted as America’s brutal puppets for decades are being toppled by Islamic extremists now routinely.  In the vacuum, the Muslim Brotherhood is consolidating power and moving the Middle East and North Africa firmly toward a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam and obliterating any vestige of a secular government.  This cataclysmic reordering of the geopolitical balance of the Middle East and North Africa is far from over as history is being made before our eyes.  We predict that with covert support from the US, Qatar, Turkey, and other nations, Syria will be the next regime to fall.  This is being done for the shortsighted goals of checking Iran’s regional dominance, but will lead to one of America’s greatest policy disasters in the region.  In effect, this will allow extremists to encircle the relatively friendly nation of Jordan and the US ally of Israel.  The monarchy in Jordan will then be threatened and could be toppled and reset the Middle Eastern stage to 1973 on the eve of Yom Kippur.  If Jordan falls, a final sweep of the region for extremists will be within reach.  In fact, it is then entirely likely UBL’s originally long term goal of toppling the Saudi regime will be realized.  This would allow Sunni extremists to form an unprecedented block of power throughout the Middle East and all but eliminate US influence in the region.

In conclusion of Part II of this series, we looked at how AQ has spread from a little known entity of a few individuals to a worldwide franchise.  Only through America’s disastrous self-defeating policies has this been possible.  Now, more than a decade into a war being fought against rebels that at best are third rate, the purportedly most powerful military in the world has been checked and strategically defeated.  The US is broke just as UBL intended and Washington is being forced to make painful cuts to domestic programs that may very well lead to massive social unrest.  In the end, the Islamists hold the ground from Asia to Africa as the US is forced to pull its forces back as the debts of tax dollars vainly wasted over the last decade come due.  As such, AQ still holds the battlefield as America retreats.  Based on this and using one of the oldest measures of victory in warfare, the Islamists have won and the US has been defeated thus far in the war of East versus West.

Part III will conclude this series and discuss the return on the investment of trillions of dollars in defense and security spending.  Most disturbingly, it will look at how the “terrorist” threat is now being used to declare American soil a battleground, justify the creation of a police state, and declare citizens threats and order their assassinations in secret all while bankrupting our nation.

 

By: Guiles Hendrik

Assessing the Success of the War on Terror Part I: Pakistan and the Failure of the Drone Strategy

As the never ending War on Terror drags on into the fourth consecutive presidential term without any decisive gains, one must question not only the effectiveness and strategy, but also our very leadership.  Nowhere is the ground truth more palpable than in western Pakistan.  Since President Obama took office and significantly increased drone strikes against alleged terrorist targets, America’s ability to safely operate and influence events in the country in a manner favorable to the United States has inversely deteriorated.  This is a direct result of America’s flawed drone strategy, which has strategically weakened the U.S. in Pakistan.

According to Gallup’s poll just released, more than nine in 10 Pakistanis (92%) disapprove of U.S. leadership and only 4% approve. Remarkably, this is the lowest approval rating Pakistanis have ever given the U.S. and its leadership.  This is noteworthy as President Obama’s ratings in Pakistan have sunk far below even those of the much criticized President George W. Bush.  Further, and more ominous, 57% of Pakistanis aged 15 to 29 and 53% of those 30 or older, deem interaction with the West as a threat.

Numerous explanations for this near total disdain for the U.S. have been suggested.  What is clear is that prior to the U.S. prosecuting the War on Terror via drones inside Pakistan, Americans enjoyed relative safety and warm relations.  As such, only a fool would be unable to make the connection between drone strikes, the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty, and growing hatred of the U.S.  Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S.  Sherry Rehman makes this much explicit in her comments to reporters two days before President Obama’s nominee to be the next head of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan’s, Congressional Testimony.  Ambassador Rehman expressed Islamabad’s view that America’s continued deployment of drones was a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and was strategically counter-productive.  Specifically, she stated “We need to drain this swamp and instead it [the drone campaign] is radicalizing people.”  Rehman went on to say “It creates more potential terrorists on the ground and militants on the ground instead of taking them out.  If it’s taking out, say, a high-value or a medium-value target, it’s also creating probably an entire community of future recruits.”  Her statements are corroborated by a Pew research poll conducted last year that showed 74% of Pakistanis termed the U.S. as an “enemy.”

Our senior policy makers have failed to grasp strategy at the strategic level.  At best, they are fighting a tactical war.  Our leaders have proven themselves amateurs that are unable to mitigate and defeat even the lowest echelon of threats facing the U.S.  Further, they have no appreciation of the historical precedent respective of the use of limited cross-border strikes against insurgent type threats.  Had they done their homework and studied cross-border insurgencies, they would know that these limited surgical strikes are counter-productive just as Ambassador Rehman states.  In fact, no matter how great the tactical gains achieved are, they never result in decisive strategic gains and in fact, result in a sum net strategic loss.  Thus, war strategies reliant on limited cross-border strikes, such as our drone strikes in Pakistan, have a near perfect correlation with the counterinsurgent’s failure or better stated, the insurgent’s victory.  No further proof of this need be generated than a simple review of the contemporary hostile sentiment towards America in Pakistan.

In our Part II of this series, we will look in more detail at the results of America’s flawed strategy that has caused the spread of radical Islam across the globe, made Al Qaeda franchise, and perpetuated a fear culture to fuel unending war.

 

Sources:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/160439/2012-pakistani-disapproval-leadership-soars.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=syndication&utm_content=morelink&utm_term=All%20Gallup%20Headlines%20-%20USA

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21389200

Confirmed! Clinton Admits to Supplying Terrorists with Weapons

Hillary_Clinton_official_Secretary_of_State_portrait_cropThere is no doubt that the Algerian terrorists had weapons from Libya. There is no doubt that the Malian remnants of AQIM [Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb] have weapons from Libya,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during a hearing on the 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi.

Just as our analysts had predicted from “BEFORE” the start of overt American intervention in Libya, weapons have fallen into the hands of terrorists and have now again been used to kill American citizens in Algeria.  We repeatedly warned of the grave dangers created by supporting known Islamic terrorists in the overthrow and murder of former Libyan dictator Gadhafi.  However, Clinton acted in the stereotypical fashion and claimed she took full responsibility for the growing number of deaths related to her incredibly flawed policy in Libya, but in reality took no responsibility and sought to blame the nebulous “Arab Spring.”  I guess Mrs. Clinton forgot that it was US aircraft and drones bombing Gadhafi’s forces, which directly allowed the rebel forces, stocked full of known terrorists, to capture and loot hundreds of thousands of advanced military weapons to include over 20,000 unaccounted man portable surface-to-air-missiles similar to the infamous US manufactured “Stinger” missile used against Soviet low altitude aircraft in Afghanistan.  If Mrs. Clinton fails to connect the dots between her horrendously flawed Libya policy and the deaths of Americans, she should, as Senator Rand Paul suggested, be immediately relieved of her post due to gross incompetence.  However, I don’t believe Mrs. Clinton is that naïve…she is just a liar.

http://endthelie.com/2013/01/23/clinton-testifies-algerian-terrorists-got-weapons-from-libya/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EndTheLie+%28End+the+Lie%29#axzz2IqgkTwXd

 

By Guiles Hendrik

U.S. Government Actively Supplying Chemical Weapons to Al Qaeda Terrorists in Syria

The US Government and mass media would like the public to believe that Syrian President Assad is a threat worth committing US forces to war.  However, it is in fact the US Government that has recklessly endangered the security and safety of millions of lives.  This will include the lives of not just Syrians, but Israelis, Europeans, and Americans.  In what may prove to be one of the greatest foreign policy disasters, the US has not only allowed known Al Qaeda terrorists to capture and take control of one of the largest Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles, but actively aided it in doing so.  Contrary to the media threats and warnings about President Assad using chemical weapons, it is in fact the US backed Al Qaeda terrorists that pose, by far, the greatest threat to US interests.

The US is directly responsible for fomenting the chaos and bloodshed in Syria by covertly backing known Al Qaeda terrorists in a bid to overthrow President Assad.  This same playbook was used in Libya resulting in the disastrous proliferation of over 20,000 manportable surface-to-air missiles that have yet to be recovered and the spread of Al Qaeda to Libya.   By “backing,” one should recognize this includes providing weapons, equipment, training, medical aid, facilities, money, intelligence, and advisors to known terrorists.  Initially, this unconventional warfare was being carried out from across the border in Turkey and Jordan, but now is being actively waged on the ground inside Syria.  As we have repeatedly warned, the conflict in Syria has always been and is still aimed at creating the conditions necessary to expand the endless wars in the Middle East to Iran.  In fact, the initial targets that the “rebels” targeted in exchange for US support were Syrian air defense installations.  The seizure and destruction of these air defense facilities laid the groundwork for opening an air corridor from Israel directly into Iran once the next phase of the US engineered conflict is entered.

Most worrisome is the fact that known Al Qaeda terrorists now have chemical and possibly biological weapons under their control as a direct result of US support.  The threat this poses to America is massive.  Those responsible for allowing this have committed the gravest of dereliction in their responsibilities and duties to protect America.  This situation nearly guarantees that at least one of the belligerents in Syria will use a weapon of mass destruction and will provide the long sought pretext for US intervention and a greater war with Iran.  No matter who the weapons are used against, the result will be spun to support the “necessity for military action.”

For perspective, consider if a citizen actively aided terrorists in acquiring chemical weapons.  That person would not only be treated as a terrorist, but likely targeted and executed in a drone strike without due process.  However, when our political leaders acting in secret for dubious special interests commit the same traitorous acts, we are told that they are heroes and their aims are in our best interests.  It is time for the public to demand answers and accountability.  Please write your elected individuals, press, and collectively organize to put an end to this treasonous policy.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/syrian-rebels-attack-base-near-military-factories/

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2012/12/23/279711/syria-militants-use-chemical-weapons/

http://rt.com/news/syria-chemical-weapons-plot-532/

Unreported by Mainstream Media: Syrian Arch Bishop Murdered by Free Syrian Army

The Syrian Arch Bishop was reported today to have been tortured, murdered, and left in a ditch.  This brutal and barbaric act has no justification and is the epitome of the worst within what most likely is the Free Syrian Army.  Since President Assad lost his grip on power in Syria and a civil war, covertly sponsored by the United States, broke out, religious minorities have disproportionately suffered under the fighting.  In particular, Christians in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq have suffered immeasurably.  In some cases complete ethnic cleansing of the ancient Christian populations have occurred leaving the surviving few as displaced refugees far from their homes.  This is the result of American interventionist policy.

Many will and should ask what we can do to stop the bloodshed and wanton killing of Christians and others.  However, the better question would be to ask what we can stop doing that is causing the killing of innocents.  Those in the know have long known that US has had its hand in the upheavals across the Middle East and North Africa, most notably in Libya.  This policy of intervention to topple regimes was accomplished by supporting many of the same Islamists we as a nation have been fighting for a decade.  The result of arming and unleashing these bands of jihadists, sadists, criminals, and terrorists was the deaths of thousands of innocent lives.  Most recently, the death of the US Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were added to this tally.  The US is both lying and hypocritical when it comes to these civil wars.  To illustrate the con, the Department of State overtly condemns the deaths and bloodshed while the Central Intelligence Agency covertly sponsors those doing the killing and the Department of Defense secretly prepares to kill the winner all while the defense industry gets a continuous infusion of “bailout” blood money to keep the fighting going.

Both President Obama and Mitt Romney must recognize that our policy of intervention is going to cause much greater harm to America and has to be averted.  During the foreign policy debate neither candidate showed an interest or aptitude for preventing further bloodshed and ending our destructive policies.  As Syria collapses and pulls the region into greater bloodshed and war, mark my words, the US will use it as an excuse to intervene to “stabilize” a situation we in fact created.  This will no doubt cost many more American lives and dollars.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-10/25/c_123871679.htm

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=16041

The Final Presidential Debate: Lies, Truth, and the Collapse of US Foreign Policy

President Obama and Mitt Romney find it amusing you believe anything they say.

At first it might be hard to decide what candidate for president to believe, but the answer in truth is easy.  NEITHER.  Both have been part of the lies and corruption too long to provide any real positive substance to the debate.  Beyond more of the same political spin on old failed policies, you will hear no new ideas, many excuses, lots of finger pointing, and most importantly, no real strategy that departs from the failings of at least the last 11+ years.

For almost four years President Obama has continued many of the Bush-era policies while adding his own flavor of failure.  Libya is just one of the most recent examples of an Obama owned foreign policy disaster as the return of four dead Americans can attest.  By arming and supporting known jihadists, he set the stage for greater bloodshed throughout Africa and the Middle East.  Even worse, Obama also quietly sold American sovereignty down the river to push an internationalist agenda.  By allowing the United Nations Security Council and not Congress to be the single authoritative body to send Americans to war and placing Americans under foreign command without objection, Obama intentionally set a new precedent in international law that further erodes American sovereignty.  Obama just recently was stating how Al Qaeda was decimated, but unfortunately for him and his propaganda machine, reality reared its ugly head all across North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.  To illustrate his colossal failure in the Middle East and beyond it is worthwhile to highlight some key events from just a couple short weeks in September.  During this very short timeframe a US diplomatic motorcade was blown to pieces in Peshawar, Pakistan wounding an American diplomat, four Americans to include an Ambassador were assassinated in Libya, numerous NATO forces were killed and wounded in Afghanistan by “friendly” troops and the Taliban, our embassies and consulates were attacked and torched in countries like Egypt and Sudan, Syria continued to deteriorate, and bomb blasts ripped through Iraq to name just SOME of the major events that affected Americans.  Moving beyond our unending wars with Islam, Japan and China moved closer to war, Russia reinforced units with elite combat troops on the border with Georgia, North Korea threatened America and South Korea with a nuclear attack, and the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant continued to release massive amounts of radiation…again, to just identify a few highlights.  On the economic front a near imminent disaster is facing Europe that will certainly collapse the global economy and take the US down with it.  Further, the US debt has spiraled past 16 Trillion and is picking up speed with no end or even cuts in sight for spending.  The true magnitude of the impending economic disaster will only be seen after the election and the temporary Band-Aids placed on the world economy to support President Obama’s re-election fall away.  No Mr. President, Al Qaeda is not on the run, we are.  No Mr. President, the world is not safer.  No Mr. President, our debt and spending have not decreased.  No Mr. President, our economy has not recovered.  No Mr. President, you do not deserve another term!

As for Romney, this is a man with no foreign policy credentials.  He is the man who somehow managed to already offend even the British before he was in the U.K. for a day.  This is a man who has already kissed the ring of Netanyahu and sworn allegiance to a foreign power in exchange for political support.  This is a man who thinks the policy era of George Bush was a success and should be brought back.  So much so, his advisors and potential appointees are all Bush-era retreads reshuffled.  To think America would allow Bush-era policy “experts” back into the White House after what we already lived through and expect anything to improve is simply beyond comprehension and must be put squarely in the court of idiocy.  In respect to Romney’s stated Middle East policy, war mongering would be an understatement.  Even though Romney is nothing more than a well-endowed draft dodger, he apparently thinks nothing of putting your sons and daughters lives in danger as he plots an even more disastrous round of wars with Syria and Iran for Israel’s security.  I guess he didn’t get the memo regarding how “well” the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq went.  Nonetheless, he seems to think he can start a war with Iran and that somehow will benefit America although I would challenge him to justify this argument in the upcoming debates.  Further, he somehow believes that by giving more tax dollars to the incredibly over funded Department of Defense and starting a war with Iran he can simultaneously balance the budget.  In one of the rare cases of Bill Clinton being right, Romney’s numbers just don’t add up.  As a purported businessman, Romney must know this flaw in his arithmetic so it is fair to conclude he is stupid or lying to the public.  Beyond the Middle East, Romney has also managed to pick a premature fight with Russia and risks restarting the Cold War.  If Romney can’t even understand the consequences of wars in the Middle East, he is woefully unprepared to take on the likes of Russia and China in strategic policy.

America, your candidates chosen for you by the elites will not return peace and prosperity as they claim.  Instead, you will get greater debt, a worse economy, unending bloody and costly wars, and further destruction of your freedom and liberties at home.  We have seen both parties’ policies and they are abject failures, ignore the rule of law, and trash the Constitution.  Neither is acceptable.  Only by ditching the two very unqualified candidates and their establishment parties en masse can America hope to avert total disaster during the next four years.  The Democrats and Republicans do not represent your best interests unless of course you are an extremely wealthy donor, financial institution, or mega corporation.  Whether you disagree or agree, you, the citizens of the United States of America, will get the government you collectively deserve come November so choose wisely.

 

Below are links to a few recent articles illustrating the US strategic failure in Afghanistan:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10/21/al-qaeda-in-afghanistan-is-attempting-comeback/

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10/06/insurgents-kill-2-us-troops-in-eastern-afghanistan-bombs-kills-2-afghan/?intcmp=obinsite

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10/13/blasts-in-southern-afghanistan-kill-2-afghan-policemen-3-intelligence-officers/?intcmp=obinsite

US Diplomatic Core Massacred in Libya

Massive Libyan Mob Sacks US Diplomatic Posts in Libya

Headlines today have carried graphic footage and accounts of the chaos in Libya resulting in the death of the US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and at least three other Americans.  Piecing together what transpired is still in the initial stages, but a review of the known evidence is telling.

First, two of the Americans killed were highly trained members of the Diplomatic Security Service and an unknown number wounded.  Although details of whether they were Security Protective Specialists (SPS) or Special Agents remains unknown, these security officers typically have over a decade of law enforcement and military expertise with elite special forces units and combat experience.  Their deaths show beyond any doubt that the retaking of the compound was intense, high level combat against a well-armed and coordinated enemy.  The firefight included enemy use of heavy weapons such as rocket-propelled-grenades (RPGs), machine guns, improvised explosive devices, and potentially even mortars and raged for hours.  These are not weapons of a mob, but of a well armed military or terrorist faction.  Only a large, well-organized group enjoying at least partial support from the local government in major urban centers of Libya could have accomplished this.

Next, the fact that both the US diplomatic enclaves were attacked in a near simultaneous fashion by large  groups (in the hundreds) that sent the local security fleeing and the Americans at the mercy of the mob screams of a coordinated attack plan.  American embassies are hardened to resist these type attacks, but it is clear that the defenses were breached and not designed for the threat level required for a country like Libya.  Nonetheless, only through prior intelligence, surveillance, and heavy weapons would this still have been possible to this degree as security enhancements had been added.  Small arms simply are not sufficient overwhelm the defenses of a U.S. embassy or consulate.

Motives for these attacks have been primarily linked to a video allegedly portraying the Prophet Muhammad in a negative light; however, a more likely motive is available.  Al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al Zawahiri in a video released to his Al Qaeda affiliates on September 11, 2012 urged revenge attacks against Americans for the drone killing of Abu al-Libi.  Abu al-Libi, as his name suggests, was a Libyan and leader of Al Qaeda cells.  Many of his fellow jihadist fighters were active participants in the violent overthrow and murder of the former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.  Further, members of Ansar al Sharia, a known Libyan political organization that has been widely considered the Libyan arm of Al Qaeda, was witnessed at the scene of the massacres.  Note that Ansar al Sharia is an organization that Gaddafi tried to suppress before the U.S began providing its members support to overthrow Gaddafi.  Ambassador Stevens was a vocal supporter of this action to arm known former and current jihadists.

Collectively looking at the picture, it is clear White House statements suggesting this was a small, uncoordinated, non-representive cadre of thugs are simply untrue.  Further, it appears that jumping to blame a video made in a free country that protects free speech is grossly reactionary and premature.  In fact, it appear now that the immediate use of this explanation may be done for political reasons to spin attention from the fact that a very real Al Qaeda threat has been created in Libya by a deliberate, yet ill-conceived plan by the White House.

From a security perspective, it is clear the U.S. Embassy in Libya was not prepared and significantly underestimated the threat.  From a manpower perspective, it is the host nation’s responsiblity to protect foreign diplomats, but common sense should dictate a robust security staff for any high-threat country like Libya.  More “shooters” would likely have repulsed the attack and saved the Ambassador and other Americans.  Further, accepting the risk of using a temporary building rather than a purpose-built embassy that incorporated the latest security and defensive measures in a high-threat nation was a critical failure.  Warnings about the poor state of security readiness have been raised for years and were not implemented in a timely fashion.  The decision to stay in a soft compound approaches reckless and stupid since the country threat was known to be high.  Not only is it still not stable and internecine post-revolution violence continues, but a bomb was planted in front of the US Consulate in June that detonated wounding a local guard.

On the intelligence front, the CIA and Department of State threat intelligence organizations failed to effectively warn of this impending storm.  This is the second massive failure in as many weeks.  The previous weekend a US Consulate Peshawar motorcade was obliterated in a vehicle borne suicide bombing attack in Pakistan resulting in the wounding of two outstanding and highly experienced American security specialists.

All of this points to the single responsible person, the ambassador.  The ambassador is charged with the ultimate care and safety of all United States citizens in his country and as such, this disaster is a direct result of his leadership and guidance.  Much like a ship’s captain going down with the ship, Ambassador Stevens went down with his ship.  Sadly, Ambassador Stevens appears to have been a dedicated, well-liked, and highly educated diplomat, but failed to recognize the difference between the ground truth and ideological concepts.  For this, he and at least three other Americans unnecessarily paid the ultimate price.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/12/world/africa/libya-us-ambassador-killed/index.html