ERIC ZUESSE -- How Obama’s Mid-East Policy Led to Nazi Rebirth in Today’s Germany

 How Obama’s Mid-East Policy Led to Nazi Rebirth in Today’s Germany 

by Eric Zuesse

January 30, 2020

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org

On January 12th, Deutsche Welle (Germany’s public broadcaster like BBC, PBS, NPR, and RT) headlined “Mayor’s resignation highlights threat to German leaders: Arnd Focke, the Social Democratic mayor of a town in Lower Saxony, was regularly threatened by nationalists. Now he has resigned. Regional officials have repeatedly faced threats across Germany.” He quit for his safety, because carrying out Germany’s compassionate policies toward the flood of mainly Middle-Eastern refugees has produced a backlash that is becoming increasingly organized and dangerous to Germany’s democracy.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s policies in support of overthrowing secular governments in the Middle East (such as in Libya and Syria), and his attempts to install there new governments — which were planned to be allied with the Sharia-law, fundamentalist-Sunni, Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia — caused the exodus, from those secularly-headed U.S.-attacked Middle-Eastern countries, of millions, some of which refugees live now in Germany and are not accepted there, for many of reasons, some valid and some invalid. The resulting influx of millions of culturally markedly different people has given rise to a rebirth of Germany’s Nazi movement.

Whereas Obama’s U.S., and especially now Trump’s U.S., has refused entry of refugees from these countries, Europe (and especially Germany) has been compassionate toward them and allowed them in, and are now experiencing the political blowback, at home, from their admission of refugees from America’s invasions to overthrow secular governments in the Middle East.

How and why did this happen? 

ERIC ZUESSE -- ISIS Applauds Trump’s Killing Soleimani

ISIS Applauds Trump’s Killing Soleimani

Eric Zuesse

January 14, 2020

© Photo: Wikimedia

According to BBC’s top expert on jihadist movements, official publications from ISIS are now calling the killing of the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani an act of God, and are portraying Shiite Iran as Muslims’ greatest enemy, more so even than powers that don’t claim to be Muslim.

In a series of tweets from the BBC’s jihadism-expert, Mina al-Lami, she explains why ISIS is ecstatic that Soleimani is dead — they say that it’s because the killing of Soleimani is a strong display from God that God is wreaking revenge against the opponents of jihad. Her tweets show photos of some of these ISIS publications, paraphrase from them, and place their statements into a broader context of Islamic history and of the ancient split between fundamentalist Sunni Islam, on the one hand, and all of Shiite Islam (including especially Iran’s), on the other.

Here are highlights from this string of tweets, by Mina al-Lami, the BBC’s expert on jihadist movements. She makes clear, “Views are mine.” These statements do not come from BBC, but from herself, to explain why ISIS is so happy that Solomeini is dead:

ERIC ZUESSE -- How Iran Can Checkmate Trump

How Iran Can Checkmate Trump

and why they probably won’t

by Eric Zuesse

January 7, 2020

Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org

On Sunday morning 5 January 2020, the great investigative journalist and geostrategist Bernhard Horstmann headlined “Iraqi Parliament Expels Foreign Militaries From Iraq” and he reported that not only the parliament but also the nation’s Prime Minister (Abdel Mahdi) are demanding departure from Iraq of all foreign military forces, and that Iraq will now — as UAE’s The National puts it — “lodge an official complaint against the US at the UN.” The complaint will “condemn #US airstrikes on #Iraqi soil targeting Iraqi soldiers and both Iraqi and #Iranian military leaders.”

(U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media, such as Reuters, lied about this matter when saying that “While such resolutions are not binding on the government, this one is likely to be heeded: Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi had earlier called on parliament to end foreign troop presence as soon as possible.” As Horstmann had already explained, the assassination was profoundly embarrassing personally to Mahdi, and he “and the whole cabinet supported the resolution.” Under such circumstances, there is no way possible that the Prime Minister can reverse himself and his cabinet and the Parliament, on that demand. It’s a non-reversible demand. But, later on January 5th, the U.S. State Department nonetheless said, “While we await further clarification on the legal nature and impact of today’s resolution, we strongly urge Iraqi leaders to reconsider the importance of the ongoing economic and security relationship between the two countries and the continued presence of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.” That was a stupid statement, but at least it wasn’t so demeaning to Shiites and to Shiite-led governments as the U.S. President’s statements normally are. It was instead a public display that the American dictator can’t believe that, from now on, Iraqis are going to be running Iraq, and that there’s no way the ruler in Washington DC can possibly dictate to Iraq again. Yet, Axios reported later in the day, that “‘I think it would be inconvenient for us, but it would be catastrophic for Iraq,’ said a U.S. official familiar with the Trump administration’s effort to block the vote. ‘It’s our concern that Iraq would take a short-term decision that would have catastrophic long-term implications for the country and its security.’” The U.S. Government was already becoming desperate and resorting to veiled unspecific ‘catastrophe’ for Iraqis if Iraq’s Government won’t reverse this command. Some fat chance that the outraged and temporarily united Iraqi public are going to cave to such veiled threats from Iraq’s viscerally hated invader.) 

Eric Zuesse -- Understanding the Deep State’s Propaganda

Understanding the Deep State’s Propaganda

November 14, 2019

Eric Zuesse                                        © Photo: pxhere.com

Propaganda is essential to the Deep State’s operation.

The Deep State is the small number of people who control the organizations that donate the majority of the funds which finance the political careers of national officials, such as Presidents, Prime Ministers, and members of the national legislature. Almost always, the members of the Deep State are the controlling stockholders in the international corporations that are headquartered in the given nation; and, therefore, the Deep State is more intensely interested in international than in purely national matters. Since most of its members derive a large portion of their wealth from abroad, they need to control their nation’s foreign policies even more than they need to control its domestic policies. Indeed, if they don’t like their nation’s domestic policies, they can simply relocate abroad. But relocating the operations of their corporations would be far more difficult and costly to them. Furthermore, a nation’s public know and care far less about the nation’s foreign than about its domestic policies; and, so, the Deep State reign virtually alone on the nation’s international issues, such as: which nations will be treated as “allies” and which nations will instead be treated as “enemies.” Such designations are virtually never determined by a nation’s public. The public just trust what the Government says about such matters, like, for example, the US regime’s standard allegation, for decades, that “Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism”, which is clearly a blatant lie.

Iran, of course, is the world’s leading Shia nation, whereas Saudi Arabia is the world’s leading Sunni nation; and the US aristocracy are bonded to the aristocracies of both Saudi Arabia and Israel, against Iran. This allegation against Iran has always been promoted by the royal family who own Saudi Arabia, the Saud family, and also by the billionaires who control Israel, as well as by the billionaires who control the US So: this allegation is by the Deep State, which controls at least these three countries: US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

RON PAUL -- Sentence First, Crime Later?

Sentence First, Crime Later?

written by ron paul

monday november 4, 2019

Attorney General William Barr recently sent a memo to law enforcement officials announcing a new federal initiative that would use techniques and tools developed in the war on terror, such as mass surveillance, to identify potential mass shooters. Those so identified would be targets of early interventions, which would include the disregarding of Second Amendment rights, as well as the imposing of mandatory counseling and involuntary commitment.

The program would likely match data collected via mass surveillance with algorithms designed to identify those with mental problems that would lead them to commit violent crimes. So, this program would deprive Americans of respect for their rights not because they committed, or even threaten to commit, a violent act but because their tweets, texts, or Facebook posts trigger a government algorithm.

In order to enhance the government’s ability to conduct mass surveillance, Barr has been trying to force tech companies to allow the government to have a “backdoor” for accessing electronic information. This would allow the government to read all messages — even those that are encrypted, making it all but impossible to escape the government’s watchful eye.

Many mental health professionals admit that diagnosing mental health issues involves a degree of subjectivity. So how can we trust a government-designed computer algorithm to accurately identify those with mental health problems? The answer is we can’t. Barr’s program will no doubt result in many individuals who are not a threat to anyone being deprived of respect for their rights. The program will also fail in detecting future mass shooters.

Some mental health professionals argue that holding certain political beliefs is a sign of mental illness. Not surprisingly, federal agencies like the FBI agree that those expressing “anti-government extremism”— like supporting a constitutional republic instead of a welfare-warfare state — are potential threats.

Gordon Duff -- Murdering the Truth is Terrorism

20.12.2018 Author: Gordon Duff

Murdering the Truth is Terrorism

Column: Politics

Region: USA in the World

The New York Times, in early December 2018, ran a 5000-word article outlining how Russian propaganda, supported by independent media, has destroyed America’s understanding of what is real and true. This time I wasn’t cited personally as last year when Newsweek, the Washington Post, Politico and The Hill named me as a Russian agent.

Endless hours with Federal investigators began to recreate a sense of reality. They genuinely began to understand that they are the ones who have been the victims, fed a narrative of lies for years. It was heartening.

In particular, the times went after the downing of MH17, the Skripal poisoning, or whatever it was, various gas attacks, the alleged election rigging, blaming Russia for making it hard for them to get their version out and believed.

For my part, I rely on my experience not just as a journalist or diplomat but in over three decades in the intelligence community.

Let’s take MH17. I was personally involved in negotiations with the Malaysian government to set up a task force to independently investigate. The Dutch investigators were, according to Malaysia, predetermined to blame Russia. A team was assembled, including me and former FBI, a top DC law firm and others at VT but Malaysia was threatened by the US that if they began this effort, the United States would economically retaliate.

I have all the documents and correspondence, it’s not like this kind of thing doesn’t happen every day. We always ask, who benefits? The answer was easy, the extremists who had taken power in Ukraine and rogue members of military organizations with facilities in Azerbaijan and elsewhere. Intelligence had long since sited a conspiracy behind the downing of MH17 and the Malaysian government was the primary victim but had been extorted, threatened, cowed into backing down from seeking justice.