Arthur Silber

In one of my posts about the Boston experiment -- that charming exercise by the Terrorist States of America to determine how easily martial law might be imposed and just how much Americans will love brute State violence when it is deployed here at home (and our terrorist leaders now know that most Americans will love it adoringly and without question). I spoke briefly about the degree of competence most people wrongly attribute to those in positions of authority and power. In commenting on how profoundly mistaken that typical view is, I wrote:

"The Killer Klowns of Death who patrolled Boston and environs last week are exactly as competent as that young, doubtless 'well-intentioned' guy who took your order at lunch -- and got it wrong. Now that should scare the shit out of you."

In my usual fashion, I was far too generous in my assessment of the Killer Klowns in question. (This is because, despite some critics' view that I am too bitter and angry -- an egregious vilification directly targeted at the most tender reaches of my soul -- I am a goddamned Mary Poppins.) That earlier piece devoted several paragraphs to a discussion of the fact that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was outside the perimeter within which the authorities conducted their search, the perimeter they viewed as "solid." While the authorities initially maintained that Tsarnaev was outside the perimeter, it appears that he was actually inside the perimeter:

Police officials initially said the boat was in the backyard of a house just outside the perimeter of the area where investigators had conducted door-to-door searches all day. But Commissioner Davis, of the Boston police, said this week that the boat had been inside the perimeter.

“It was an area that should have been checked,” he said. “We are not sure how long he was in the boat. There was a pool of blood near where the car was dumped about four or five blocks away from the boat."

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Pepe Escobar

Iranian Pres. Ahmadinijad, Syrian Pres. Bashar al-Asad,
Hezbollah's Nasr Ullah (Sheikh Nasrallah)

This eminently Bushist Obama "red line" business, applied to Syria, Iran or both, is becoming a tad ridiculous.

Take Pentagon head Chuck Hagel's tour of Israel and the "friendly" GCC (the de facto Gulf Counter-revolution Club) last week. US defense contractors had the Moet flowing as Hagel merrily congregated with that prodigy of democracy - United Arab Emirates (UAE) Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed - to celebrate the sale of 25 F-16 fighter jets.

There's more on the way; 48 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD missile interceptors, at a cool US$1 billion. The Pentagon is sending one of its only two of such systems to Guam this month to counter that other threat - missiles from North Korea.

The weaponizing free fest to Israel and the Gulf petro-monarchies - missile defense, fighter jets, mega-bombs - could not but be duly hailed as the proverbial "message" to "counter Iran's nuclear ambitions", or "the air and missile threat posed by Iran", or the general "worry about Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon" or "Washington's determination to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons."

There's no "red line" here; just hardcore weaponizing of Israel and the GCC. Any doubts, blame it on Iran. And this while Saudi-controlled media in the Middle East - roughly everything except al-Jazeera - was breathlessly spinning that Tel Aviv is pursuing a deal to use Turkish soil for an attack on Iran.

Wait; there's more weaponizing on the way - bound to neighboring latitudes. Kraus-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) from Germany closed another $2.48 billion deal with Qatar - five years in the making - to deliver 62 Leopard 2 tanks and 24 self-propelled howitzers. Qatar is not exactly using them for the 2022 FIFA World Cup; they are bound to "friendly groups in other countries" - as in Syria's "rebels", via Turkey.

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Stephen Lendman

Rubble fills Sharia al-Sweiqa, inside the Old City of Aleppo, Syria.

Syria's being systematically destroyed. Washington planned doing so years ago. Sovereign independence isn't tolerated. It's longstanding US policy. Numerous states learned the hard way. Syria is America's latest victim. It's falsely blamed for Washington's war. The pattern by now is familiar. Ravaging the world one country at a time or in multiples is policy. Terrorism is what they do, not us. Reasons for imperial wars are suppressed. Wealth, power, privileged and unchallenged dominance alone matter. Sacrificing human lives and freedoms are small prices to pay.

Regime change is prioritized. False pretexts facilitate intervention. Media propaganda glorifies war. It's done in the name of peace. Propaganda wars precede hot ones. Managed news misinformation enlists public support. Mind manipulation convinces people to back what demands condemnation. Lawless aggression is called humanitarian intervention. Plunder is called economic development. Occupation, exploitation and imperial control are called democracy. Might justifies right. Nations are destroyed for their own good. Humanity's increasingly threatened. Where things end who knows.

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