President Barack Obama and other leaders have stressed that the greatest victims of Islamic extremism are not Christians and Jews but Muslims. This week produced another tragic example. Yemen’s top Salafi cleric Samahan Abdel-Aziz, also known as Sheikh Rawi, was found in the southern port city of Aden, Sudan after he gave a sermon denouncing the Islamic State and Islamic extremism. He had been tortured before he was killed.
Aden was liberated by government forces in July but the city remains volatile and dangerous. Affiliates of extremist groups like al-Qaida and the Islamic State groups are active in the city.
Abdel-Aziz was kidnapped by gunmen outside his mosque late Saturday after he gave a sermon denouncing al qaeda and the Islamic state. He appears to have died for his effort to protect his faith from the extremism of these terrorist organizations. I do not know much about the views of this cleric, but the fact that he was murdered after a sermon shows the grotesque view of these extremists. They are unwilling to tolerate even clerics who hold opposing views. The murderers appear to believe that Allah will reward them to not just torture but the murdering of people who hold opposing views on the meaning of Islam.
Saudis are rotten allies and the Turks are even worse. Russia is now America’s bizarro ally in this topsy turvy world where endless war is now the norm.
Timely comment, John, about endless wars…http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/02/america-war-93-time-222-239-years-since-1776.html
Good point, PR, but if it is needed, you can direct it to a shallow well so you can use it to water the plants…. or direct it to a pond and raise some tilapia… I hear they do well with little care…and good protein too.
L, speaking of NPR, Paul Craig Roberts does the linkage I meant to make between NPR and Fox News, fleeting but potent. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44290.htm
——
Presstitutes At Work
By Paul Craig Roberts
“”February 23, 2016 “Information Clearing House” – This morning I was stuck in front of a Fox “News” broadcast for a short period and then with a NPR news program. It was enough to convince me that Nazi propaganda during Hitler’s Third Reich was very mild compared to the constant stream of dangerous lies that are pumped out constantly by the American media.
The New York Times, Washington Post, and a couple of think-tank types were represented on NPR. They delivered the most crude propaganda imaginable and questioned no US government statement.
Did you know that all the trouble in Syria is due to the Russians and Assad? The US has no blame whatsoever. The US is trying to fight ISIS (which the US created, aids and abets), but the evil Russians and Assad are fighting the innocent “democratic rebels” who are trying to bring democracy to Syria as a replacement for a “brutal dictator” (elected by a large majority vote). The Russians are also bombing schools and hospitals, “collateral damage” when the US does it but war crimes when the Russians are accused of doing it. The accusers had no evidence for their accusations against Russia beyond the unverified claims of the US government. Despite nonexistent Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction,” nonexistent Iranian nukes, and nonexistent use of chemical weapons by Assad “against his own people,” the talking heads continue to accept without question whatever the US government says. I was especially disappointed in Karen DeYoung. As a young reporter she aggressively covered the neoconservatives’ misadventures in Nicaragua. However, to become the Washington Post’s senior foreign affairs reporter she had to give up and join the presstitutes.
Did you know that China was militarizing the South China Sea by building up atolls to accommodate runways and by placing weapons on the site? It is not militarization when the “exceptional country” allocates 60% of its large fleet to the Pacific, declares the South China Sea, which is thousands of miles from America, to be an area of “American national interest,” and sends warships to patrol the sea. That’s simply “countering the Chinese threat.”
Did you know that the clamor by the British people for UK exit from the European Union has nothing to do with preserving UK national sovereignty and the legal protections of British civil liberty? It is all to do with rejecting refugees, a sign of racism.
Fox “News” informed us that due to his great service to our nation, Justice Antonin Scalia was lying in state in the Supreme Court to be paid homage by both the government representatives and public victims of the police state of which he was an architect. Under Republican leadership the Supreme Court has helped the executive branch elevate its authority above that of the US Constitution, refusing to even hear challenges to indefinite detention. Among Scalia’s accomplishments are:
— Stopping the Florida vote recount in order to install George W. Bush as President
— Kentucky v. King: police should have greater leeway to break into homes without a warrant
— Florence v. Burlington: allowing jail officials freedom of action is more important
than protecting American citizens from debasing strip searches.
Like the Supreme Court the presstitutes have aligned themselves with the rich and powerful. Fox “News” reported that Marco Rubio, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, declared that to make the poor rich requires making the rich poor and we shouldn’t make the rich poor. Apparently, Fox “News” believes that aligning Rubio with the One Percent is helpful to his political career. Fox showed Rubio’s audience cheering and applauding his defense of the One Percent.
This is “democratic America” where the people have no representation.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.””
Po,
Thanks for the link. It is right up my alley. I have a south-facing hill, but it is currently covered in trees. May have to carve out an area. I wonder if a French drain would be needed; my yard is a soggy sponge in the spring.
L’Observer,
SS was sold as insurance against the vicissitudes of life, so that people would not be indigent in their old age. Is that a fair assessment?
What the heck is “the Hillie camp”?
Good question, PR, perhaps I should have asked before I accept to join that camp 🙂
By the way, being in california, I have no need for cold frames, generally, but I do have a greenhouse.
I came across a great type of greenhouse for cold weather… http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/midwestern-geothermal-greenhouse-provides-local-citrus-year-round.html
PR, I have no issue with anyone having a problem with Finnian, I just admitted that his tone is indeed virulent. It is however no less virulent than Paul Craig Roberts that L just quoted (and who happens to be featured on Lew Rockwell 🙂
As I stated above, I can do la part des choses, where I can take the gold and leave the turd. I am able to do that. I do it with everyone,even Scahill. And I think I am able to do that because I listen to ALL parties then choose. I even read Ron Paul’s stuff, along with Andrew Napolitano, and very rarely Charles Krauthammer, why, because I believe the truth is in between.
L, forget about Lew and Finnian, I have offered more links from other parties than from Finnian, and as I said, I have yet to read anything by Lew.
Hell, if I, the Muslim, read the bible, the Torah and the atheists’ holy books (anything by Dawkins, Hitchens and Sam Harris) would it really surprise you, L, that I would read the fringe opinions ALONG with the rest?
Here is the list of authors featured on Lew Rockwell. https://www.lewrockwell.com/columnists
Add them to the ones on Consortium News, plus ICH, plus the various blogs, twitter links… and you have a sphere of information where Finnian occupies a tiny space.
I am not framed by Finnian’s opinions, nor am I framed by any particular journalist/columnist. As for Hersh, do a search on the reception of his info on My lai. I am afraid any link I provide you will dismiss as crazy talk or unknown. Just know that it is similar to the reception to his latest bombshell on Syria, and in both cases, he was the last one standing after they threw everything on him.
I don’t mind being in the Hillie camp, if it means being aware of what’s going on in the world rather than being led by the nose off the cliff.
Every “”conspiracy theory”” I offered was backed by well researched arguments that hold as much weight as the counter ones, including the 9/11 one where our own elected officials and military officers raised the same issues that architects, engineers, pilots and scientists raised.
You can decide to ignore the weight of those testimonies, but, nowadays, THAT is truly the crazy stance.
And guess where the articles
PR
I expect you know, but my comment @ 6:06 is directed to po.
Look. If your ideas are based on what Sy Hersh has written, those posts are worthy of consideration although many have criticized his work. (Start with his book on Kennedy and Kennedy’s ‘first marriage’).
As to any criticism he faced on his My Lai expose, I don’t know about that and you did not provide a link. (The LRB link was a laugh. It would have cost me a buck.)
But during the majority of our very long conversation, the name Hersh and Scahill did not come up. You named your sources and they were unknown looney aggregators. or Lew Rockwell, a known anti-Semite) and F. Cunningham. You have espoused multiple conspiracy theories. You have asserted that all have been proved true. I strongly disagree and your belief in such crazy stuff puts you in the Hillie camp.
I wouldn’t think that would be very distressing to you.
Po,
I do have to agree with L’Observer that Finnian, at least based on the example he provided, is too strident and partisan. There is no way I would want to recommend him, even if I believed there were nuggets of truth. Could the US be participating in false flags or attempting to overthrow governments? Sure. They have in the past, shamefully.
Nonetheless, Finnian’s tone actually casts aspersions and doubt onto what might be truthful reporting. He is destroying his own credibility with unnecessary adjectives like ‘murderous’. Let readers draw their own conclusions based on the facts alone.
While L’Observer would be doubtful as to this source, I am more comfortable sharing info from Washington’s Blog. Washington’s Blog posts are mostly excerpts from msm articles with their links (articles that are buried or not emphasized in the msm–below the fold, back page stuff); it is easier to fact-check and he does not use the virulent tone Finnian uses.
Nah, look up Robin Wright and see who pops up.
As for Hersh, study the reaction to his My Lai expose… “”crazy talk””, “”unsubstantiated assertions””, most of which came from the vetted NYT reporters and their colleague in mainstream media.
Same thing when he came up with this, last year…http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military#onepass
So far he has yet to be disproven, and the wikileaks even support his claims.
I hope you are joking. One never knows who ‘gets it’ around here.
Robin Wright….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Wright_%28author%29
I don’t see her work that often anymore. Occasionally I hear her on NPR.
Scahill is excellent.
Comments on Hersh prompted me to take a look at his career. There have been lots of controversies going back years. It will take some good historians to sort out truth from fiction. Of course, My Lai was his zenith.
po, ‘trained to parse’? Sounds similar to our local reader of minds and extraordinary observer of all human behavior. Snark aside, someone who writes unsubstantiated assertions or crazy talk cannot be ‘parsed’. Find another reporter!
L, done!
I ditch Finnian, and I replace him with Robin Wright…she has done a great job on House of Cards!
As to marrying Sean Penn however…bad move!
PR
I am not certain of the current thinking regarding your proposal to remove the tax cap entirely, however it may be something like this…
Social security was not sold as a welfare program. There was meant to be some equity between what was paid in and what benefits one would receive. There are caps on the benefits – the greatest monthly benefit is around $2400/mo. (just an estimate). Therefore, there is an argument to be made that taxing an income of $120M is unreasonable.
Currently, many people are gaining much more in benefits than they paid in.
I must concur, po–Jeremy Scahill does excellent work. I am not familiar with the others. Robin Wright was The Princess Bride in my mind, but I bet you both mean someone else.
L’Observer,
Repositioning the cap sounds like taxing the upper middle class, which still does not affect the upper class equally. If someone making $120,000 gets 100% of their income taxed (if the cap is increased to $250,000), why shouldn’t someone making $120,000,000 get 100% of their income taxed? Sounds fair.
po,
F. Cunningham writes:
“But Putin should not be blackmailed by baseless lies when peoples’ lives are being threatened by a Western-backed fascist cabal and their murderous paramilitaries. Besides, more and more people around the world, including the US and European public, can see through the sordid tissue of lies that the Western governments and their pathetic news media have been peddling against Russia over the Ukraine crisis. The present situation resembles the previous covert US-led operation in South Ossetia in 2008 when NATO backed Georgian troops tried to destabilize that country, a Russian ally. Russia acted decisively then, sent in its troops and routed the NATO plot. And Washington backed down.
Washington is at it again: subverting, lying, killing and threatening. But it’s a cowardly bluff that Putin should slap down immediately. The reality is much too serious to entertain these cynical Western games. Peoples’ lives are in real danger in Ukraine from the fascist paramilitaries and politician-gangsters that Washington installed in Kiev and which it is now giving full vent to. The bloody events this weekend are tragic testimony to the urgent threat.”
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/05/04/putin-send-troops-ukraine-finian-cunningham/
That’s not journalism. That is inflammatory demagoguery.
I do agree that pushing NATO ever further east is an aggressive move and a mistake. And I have a feeling that our ambassador in Kiev made some stupid moves. But Cunningham’s writing is cr*p.
Robin Wright is a hell of an journalist on the ME and Robert Fisk is a scholar. Sy Hersh was a great journalist, He may still be the best. His current work is controversial. I withhold judgement until more is known.
I agree with you, L, about Finnian’s personal opinions. That sounds pretty extreme and seems to portray Putin as the good guy.
I tend to be blind to those extremes of opinions because I am trained to parse the information for what is relevant, and that is fact and just facts.
I don’t know much about Robin Wright, though I think to remember having read a couple of her pieces… as for Robert Fisk, I am somewhat familiar with him, having read his stuff on…Lew Rockwell.com.
There are other great reporters, such as Patrick Cogburn and Eric Margolis… and everyone writing for Tomdispatch…Jeremy Scahill’s reports on Yemen, to bring us back there, were very informative, along with his documentary on the US black sites.
Darn auto-complete. *discussion not discuss.
L’Observer,
We agree on not getting sidetracked into nutrition; I just wanted to briefly address that point in the discuss.
” I think you probably meant to say taxing everything above $113K is fair”
Yes. That is more clear.
PR
I prefer not to direct the conversation into nutrition. I think the conversation we are having regarding entitlements and debt is more than enough to wrestle.
I’m not clear on what you mean about taxing every $113,000 being fair. The hope is to remove the (then) cap at $113K. I think you probably meant to say taxing everything above $113K is fair, but I’m not sure. I don’t think Democrats are proposing (nor am I) removing ANY cap; the proposal is to move it up to something like $250K (I think that may the amount).
Yes, I agree that mainstream media is quite capable of propaganda. Judith Miller’s NYT stories in the lead up to the Iraq war is a prime, and horrifying, example. As was Cheney’s office leaking something about Saddam to the press, it’s printed citing an anonymous high ranking official, and then Cheney cites his own leak on some interview as proof of Saddam’s involvement. Yes, the press is often a useful propaganda tool. I have not yet read Bernstein’s article, but I will.
L’Observer,
The mainstream media is not without propaganda. This piece by Pulitzer prize winning journalist Carl Bernstein us from the 70s but is still quite relevant:
http://carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php