Stephen Lendman

Syrian authorities said so in 2011. Other reports acknowledged it then and now. Syria is Washington's war. It was planned years ago. America wants pro-Western puppet leadership replacing Assad. All independent governments are targeted for regime change. Imperial rogue states operate that way. Strategy used is longstanding.

On January 4, Michel Chossudovsky discussed it. Current US proxy wars employ earlier tactics.

Western-recruited death squads are used. Using them "go(es) back to the Vietnam war." "Terror brigades (commit) targeted assassinations (and) countless atrocities."

Since Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011, Washington, key NATO allies, Israel, and other regional allies recruited, armed, trained, and directed death squads. They're still doing it. They're imported from abroad. More on that below.

Washington prioritizes the "Salvador Option." Rules of engagement proliferated massacres, torture, and gruesome atrocities in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. In Vietnam, Operation Phoenix (OP) did the same things earlier. It became a template for future counterterrorism operations. From 1968 - 1973, CIA operatives, Special Forces, and Military Assistance Command Vietnam-Special Operations Group (MACV-SOG) conducted covert missions. Their mandate was to crush National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) resistance. Strategy was to terrorize people into submission.

Operations were no holds barred. Indiscriminate mass murder and atrocities were committed. US military personnel and South Vietnamese government officials considered security risks were targeted. High-value elements mattered most. Countless others were affected. Around 80,000 died before operations ended. Later reports said OP failed. John Pilger called America's Southeast Asian war "the grand illusion of the American cause." What couldn't succeed finally ended.

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Wayne Madsen

Photo: Why this is happening?: A woman holds a sign with a picture of Sergei Magnitsky, at an illegal rally against Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Dec 15. The sign reads 'Dead in the battle against a system of theft.' After the U.S. Congress passed the Magnitsky Bill, punishing Russian officials for the death of Magnitsky, an attorney for a U.S. investment fund who uncovered mass official corruption, Russia's parliament retaliated with this bill, which seeks, to punish Americans in part by prohibiting them from adopting Russian orphans.

The imposition of a Cold war-style law by the United States, the Magnitsky Act, which bars certain Russian officials believed by the United States government to have been responsible for the death of Russian accountant-lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, is a replacement for the Jackson-Vanik Act, which anchored U.S.-Soviet relations to the granting of exit visas for Soviet Jews to move abroad. The Magnitsky Act’s formal name, «Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012», links Magnitsky directly to the repeal of Jackson-Vanik, the latter a bill that gave the Israel Lobby virtual veto authority over every aspect of U.S.-Soviet relations: primarily trade but also disarmament; scientific, technical, and cultural exchanges; and airline landing rights…

Magnitsky’s chief sponsor in the Senate was Democratic Senator Benjamin Cardin from Maryland, a leading member of the pro-Israel caucus in Congress. A Magnitsky-type bill has been introduced in Canada by Liberal Party Member of Parliament Irwin Cotler, another leading pro-Israeli politician. Cardin and Cotler are both Jewish. A Magnitsky law has also been introduced in the British Parliament. The British sponsor is Conservative MP Dominic Raab, who is also Jewish. British co-sponsors include former foreign secretaries Malcolm Rifkind, Jack Straw, and David Miliband, all Jewish. The pattern and reasoning behind the Magnitsky legislation is clear.

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Lord Hawkeye

Top 11 Statist arguments (Video)

11. Love it or leave it

Statists love to support their pet government by arguing that if you don't like it, you're free to leave whenever you want...of course ignoring the fact that you need the government's permission to leave and thus they can stop you if they so desire.

But what's really downright evil about this argument is how it's effectively blaming the victim. If a woman complains about how her husband beats her and blows all their money on booze, what would you think of someone who replied by saying it's her fault for staying with him? It really takes a special kind of asshole to resort to a low blow argument like this and shame on anyone who ever has.

10. Taxation is not theft

When the mafia demands 10% of your income or else, it's racketeering. When the government demands 40% of your income or else, it's taxation and somehow is totally different. And my only question is HOW?! "But Hawkeye!" they cry at me, "The government uses that money to help people! It's not stealing!" All right smarty pants. Go rob a bank, donate a fair chunk of it to an orphanage and argue in court that you didn't steal the money because you used it for a good cause and let's just see how far that gets you!

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