John Rosenthal

German intelligence estimates that "around 90" terror attacks that "can be attributed to organizations that are close to al-Qaeda or jihadist groups" were carried out in Syria between the end of December and the beginning of July, as reported by the German daily Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). This was revealed by the German government in a response to a parliamentary question.

In response to the same question, the German government admitted that it had received several reports from the German foreign intelligence service, the BND, on the May 25 massacre in the Syrian town of Houla. But it noted that the content of these reports was to remain classified "by reason of national interest", Like many other Western governments, Germany expelled Syria's ambassador in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, holding the Syrian government responsible for the violence.

Meanwhile, at least three major German newspapers - Die Welt, the FAZ, and the mass-market tabloid Bild - have published reports attributing responsibility for the massacre to anti-government rebel forces or treating this as the most probable scenario. Writing in Bild, longtime German war correspondent Jurgen Todenhofer accused the rebels of

"deliberately killing civilians and then presenting them as victims of the government".

He described this "massacre-marketing strategy" as being "among the most disgusting things that I have ever experienced in an armed conflict". Todenhofer had recently been to Damascus, where he interviewed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for Germany's ARD public television.

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Roger Young

A Declaration is Only the First Step

I received a lot of feedback after posting my latest video inspired by my previous essay, "I Hereby Secede." I also received a number of recommendations on how to make such a declaration into a physical reality. From this I realized I should make clear the nature of such a personal declaration.

Please understand that this declaration/affirmation is just a first step. It must be followed with concrete action. Many folks contacted me offering a number of viable options to choose from. I think whatever plan of action you devise and execute is only limited by your creativity. If that runs out, you have the creativity of the entire human race to draw upon, which I believe is unlimited.

I remember years ago listening to personal improvement gurus. The one belief they had in common was the power of personal affirmation as the first step toward achieving a goal. Such an affirmation settles into your subconscious and directs conscious action toward achieving this goal. By sincerely creating a personal declaration of secession/independence, you have, in a sense, wired and programmed your subconscious into directing conscious thought toward achieving your ambition.

This conscious thought manifests itself as ideas that materialize into action.

Though your plan of action is up to you, I would only caution against substituting your personal plan of action with joining a "movement" of some kind. Such movements are useful in locating and exchanging ideas with like minded individuals, but it would be unwise on counting on "mass produced" action to bring positive change to your particular, individual situation. Make sure you remain the director and not the directed. Don’t expect change (as it relates to you personally) to result from merely following and supporting the leadership of such a movement, even if they seem to share your interests and expectations.

The only real‍ power an individual has is how he lives his life – a life structured by his philosophy, his decisions, his actions. Multiply this by millions and the result is change.

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