Kevin Barrett

The Western media describes ISIL – the ultra-extremist terrorists destabilizing Iraq and Syria – as “Sunni militants.”

Headlines read: “Sunni Islamist Militants Seize Mosul.” “Sunni militants capture northern Iraqi town.” “Iraq Army Tries to Roll Back Sunni Militants’ Advance.”

The corporate media casts the fighting in Iraq as a Sunni vs. Shia conflict. The Sunni side, according to these reports, is led by ISIL – a group that was expelled from al-Qaeda for being too extreme.

But is ISIL really Sunni? Many experts say “no.” Some question whether ISIL has a right to call itself an Islamic group at all.

In an interview with Truth Jihad Radio, Islamic scholar Dr. John Andrew Morrow (Ilyas Abd al-‘Alim Islam) questioned ISIL’s Islamic credentials: “A lot of so-called jihad (such as ISIL’s) is not rooted in Islam. Especially if you look at who’s funding it, who’s supporting it, who’s behind it. Western powers have a long history of using jihadists and Islamists to further their own imperial ambitions. In terms of the foot-soldiers, they may think they are fighting for Islam. But if you look closer, you find they’re furthering the cause of the enemy.”

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The Saker

Photo: The body of a man is covered by the Mariupol city flag following fierce fighting in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol on May 9, 2014. Fierce fighting between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian rebels broke out in Mariupol, killing at least 21 people, all but one of them insurgents, according to the interior minister.

By now you have all already probably heard it. The CEO of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, has announced that Russia was now implementing a "prepayment only" gas delivery plan for the Ukraine and Lavrov has announced that he has "nothing to talk about" with the Ukie clown currently impersonating a Foreign Minister, Andrii Deshchytsia, and that he "would not meet with him". Unlike the always calm and impeccably diplomatic Lavrov, Miller made no effort to show his complete disgust with, and contempt for, the junta in Kiev whom he clearly sees as blackmailing and stealing mobsters. This was especially evident when he said that the amount of gas the Ukies had set aside in their reserves was exactly the amount of gas which they were now refusing to pay for. To put it in plain English: the Ukies stole gas from Russia to fill up their reserves and they are about to begin stealing gas bought by the Europeans. Nice folks indeed. Very "Euro-compatible" I suppose...

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A Short Comment by Xymphora

Americans are slowly learning.

Iraq is beset with an Islamist army of medieval cruelty. They are establishing in Iraq an actual country as a base for terrorist operations around the world, especially against American interests.

How can this possibly be? Wasn't Saddam attacked as part of the 'war on terror'? Wasn't Iraq attacked in order to remove the terrorist threat to the United States? Of course, the truth is that Saddam posed absolutely no threat to the United States, and was in fact a bulwark against the Islamists, something you wouldn't see anywhere in the lying Jew-controlled mainstream media at the time, and removing him actually increased the terrorist threat, and allowed the current disaster to occur.

Oh, and who finances this new medieval state? Prince Bandar and the Saudi princes (some of whom, you'll remember, financed a guy called Osama bin Laden!). And Kuwaiti princes, who of course were bailed out by the United States in the Gulf War when they were trying to steal oil from Iraq!!

And who should pop up to add their advice and recriminations? The same collection of Jews who lied to trick Americans into attacking Iraq in the first place!

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Gilad Atzmon

It is amusing to witness the energy and effort mainstream news outlets are investing in diverting attention from the fact that the current mess in Iraq is the direct outcome of Jewish political domination of the West for the last two decades.

When America and Britain launched the criminal second Gulf War, it was the Zionist Neocons, a bunch of politically influential Jews who urged the ‘liberation’ of the Iraqi people. Members of the same breed of tribal exponents have rallied for intervention in Iran, Libya and most recently in Syria.

But Zio-cons were not the only Jewish players in this iniquitous game, they were opposed by a Jewish progressive front largely funded by George Soros and his Open Society Institute. These so called ‘good Jews’ had a different strategy for the Middle East, they planned to ruin the Muslims through the use of Identity Politics by funding Gay, Lesbian, Feminist and Queer groups in the region.

Why do these Jews intervene in Arab and Muslim life? What motivates George Soros and Paul Wolfowitz to ‘revolutionize’ or ‘liberate’ people living thousands of miles away from Manhattan or Washington? Why did Lord Goldsmith give a green light to the war? What drove Jewish Chronicle writer David Aaronovitch to campaign for a series of interventionist criminal wars? What pushed Lord ‘cash machine’ Levy to the forefront of Blair’s fundraisers?

In 2007, American political science professors James Petras, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt reached the conclusion that American foreign policy was dominated by Israel’s lobby. Surely, Israel’s Lobby is just a polite, politically correct name for the Jewish Lobby. But what motivates the Jewish lobby to destroy Iraq, Libya and Syria? Is it their commitment to the Jewish State?

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Patrick Martin

In the face of the unfolding debacle for the United States in Iraq, the Obama administration is preparing yet another escalation of violence. Like all of the other actions taken by American imperialism in Iraq and the broader Middle East, this too will lead to nothing but more death and destruction.

The humiliating collapse of the US-backed military forces in Iraq in the face of an offensive by the Sunni-based Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has put that tortured country once again in Washington’s gunsights.

The Pentagon announced Saturday that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel had ordered the aircraft carrier George H. W. Bush into the Persian Gulf, accompanied by two other warships. President Obama has declared that some form of military action is imminent, saying Friday, “there will be some short-term, immediate things that need to be done militarily.”

The possible operations reportedly range from shipping emergency supplies of weapons and ammunition to Iraqi forces, to drone missile attacks, to air and missile strikes from US naval forces in the Persian Gulf.

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Gilad Atzmon

Surely, what’s happening now in Iraq and Syria must serve as a final wakeup call that we have been led into a horrific situation in the Middle East by a powerful Lobby driven by the interests of one tribe and one tribe alone.

Back in 1982, Oded Yinon an Israeli journalist formerly attached to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, published a document titled ‘A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties’ [here and here]. This Israeli commentator suggested that for Israel to maintain its regional superiority, it must fragment its surrounding Arab states into smaller units. The document, later labelled as ‘Yinon Plan’, implied that Arabs and Muslims killing each other in endless sectarian wars was, in effect, Israel’s insurance policy.

Of course, regardless of the Yinon Plan’s prophesies, one might still argue that this has nothing to do with Jewish lobbying, politics or institutions but is just one more Israeli strategic proposal except that it is impossible to ignore that the Neocon school of thought that pushed the English-speaking Empire into Iraq was largely a Jewish Diaspora, Zionist clan. It’s also no secret that the 2nd Gulf War was fought to serve Israeli interests - breaking into sectarian units what then seemed to be the last pocket of Arab resistance to Israel.

Similarly, it is well established that when Tony Blair decided to launch that criminal war, Lord Levy was the chief fundraiser for his Government while, in the British media, Jewish Chronicle writers David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen were busy beating the drums for war. And again, it was the exact same Jewish Lobby that was pushing for intervention in Syria, calling for the USA and NATO to fight alongside those same Jihadi forces that today threaten the last decade’s American ‘achievements’ in Iraq.

Unfortunately, Yinon’s disciples are more common than you might expect. In France, it was the infamous Jewish ‘philosopher’ Bernard Henri Levy who boasted on TV that ‘as a Jew’ campaigning for NATO intervention, he liberated Libya.

As we can see, a dedicated number of Jewish Zionist activists, commentators and intellectuals have worked relentlessly in many countries pushing for exactly the same cause – the breaking up of Arab and Muslim states into smaller, sectarian units. But is it just the Zionists who are engaging in such tactics? Not at all.

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Paul Craig Roberts

The citizens of the United States still do not know why their government destroyed Iraq. “National Security” will prevent them from ever knowing. “National Security” is the cloak behind which hides the crimes of the US government.

George Herbert Walker Bush, a former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency who became President courtesy of being picked as Ronald Reagan’s Vice President, was the last restrained US President. When Bush the First attacked Iraq it was a limited operation, the goal of which was to evict Saddam Hussein from his annexation of Kuwait.

Kuwait was once a part of Iraq, but a Western colonial power created new political boundaries, as the Soviet Communist Party did in Ukraine. Kuwait emerged from Iraq as a small, independent oil kingdom.

According to reports, Kuwait was drilling at an angle across the Iraq/Kuwait border into Iraqi oil fields. On July 25, 1990, Saddam Hussein, with Iraqi troops massed on the border with Kuwait, asked President George H. W. Bush’s ambassador, April Glaspie, if the Bush administration had an opinion on the situation.

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Kevin Barrett

ISIL Takfiri militants, tools of Zionists || After 9/11, the US declared war on al-Qaeda. Then it declared war on Saddam Hussein. No evidence was presented linking al-Qaeda to 9/11, and no substantial proof was presented that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs. But the American people were terrorized into compliance.

On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush, a deserter from the military, dressed up in military uniform and declared “mission accomplished” in Iraq. Later on May 2, 2011, Obama declared that Osama bin Laden had been assassinated and then thrown into the ocean “according to Islamic custom.” Mission accomplished? Saddam hanged? Bin Laden thrown to the fishes? Iraq and Afghanistan happy, peaceful, prosperous democracies? - Hardly.

Afghanistan has become a narco-terrorist playground and a failed state. The US is tripping over its own feet and bombing its own soldiers as it tries to find a way out of the “graveyard of empires.”

And now a “too extreme for al-Qaeda” spin-off called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has taken over Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, and much of Nineveh Province. It has menaced Tikrit and plans to march to Baghdad. This band of fanatical terrorists is backed by remnants of Saddam Hussein’s old loyalists. It is also backed by America’s supposed Mideast ally, Saudi Arabia. Many wonder whether the US itself and its partner-in-crime, Israel, are also secretly supporting ISIL. The American people have good reason to wonder what is going on.

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Patrick Cockburn

Collapse of Shia-dominated regime could provoke Iranian intervention

Iraq is breaking up. The Kurds have taken the northern oil city of Kirkuk that they have long claimed as their capital. Sunni fundamentalist fighters vow to capture Baghdad and the Shia holy cities further south.

Government rule over the Sunni Arab heartlands of north and central Iraq is evaporating as its 900,000-strong army disintegrates. Government aircraft have fired missiles at insurgent targets in Mosul, captured by Isis on Monday, but the Iraqi army has otherwise shown no sign of launching a counter-attack.

The nine-year Shia dominance over Iraq, established after the US, Britain and other allies overthrew Saddam Hussein, may be coming to an end. The Shia may continue to hold the capital and the Shia-majority provinces further south, but they will have great difficulty in re-establishing their authority over Sunni provinces from which their army has fled.

It is unlikely that the Kurds will give up Kirkuk. “The whole of Kirkuk has fallen into the hands of peshmerga [Kurdish soldiers],” said the peshmerga spokesman Jabbar Yawar. “No Iraqi army remains in Kirkuk.”

Foreign intervention is more likely to come from Iran than the US. The Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran would act to combat “the violence and terrorism” of Isis”. Iran emerged as the most influential foreign power in Baghdad after 2003. As a fellow Shia-majority state, Iraq matters even more to Iran than Syria.

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John W. Whitehead

“Why should anyone trust a government that has condoned torture, spied on at least 35 world leaders, supports indefinite detention, places bugs in thousands of computers all over the world, kills innocent people with drone attacks, promotes the post office to log mail for law enforcement agencies and arbitrarily authorizes targeted assassinations? Or, for that matter, a president that instituted the Insider Threat Program, which was designed to get government employees to spy on each other and ‘turn themselves and others in for failing to report breaches,’ which includes ‘any unauthorized disclosure of anything, not just classified materials.’” ~ Prof. H. Giroux

Why should anyone trust a government that kills, maims, tortures, lies, spies, cheats, and treats its own citizens like criminals? For that matter, why should anyone trust a government utterly lacking in transparency, whose actions give rise to more troubling questions than satisfactory answers, and whose domestic policies are dictated more by paranoia than need?

Unfortunately, “we the people” have become so trusting, so gullible, so easily distracted, so out-of-touch, so compliant and so indoctrinated on the idea that our government will always do the right thing by us that we have ignored the warning signs all around us, or at least failed to recognize them as potential red flags.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Dave Brat, a professor of economics at Virginia’s Randolph-Macon College, is a marked man. Professor Brat defeated Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a prime trophy of the Israel Lobby. I doubt that Eric Cantor ever lost an opportunity to place Israel’s interests above the interests of his constituents. Under US laws, Cantor should have been required to register as a foreign agent.

The Israel Lobby is one of the six powerful interest groups that rule the US. The Israel Lobby has a perfect record of destroying any member of the House or Senate who dared to cross “The Lobby.” A number of its victims have spoken out, describing how The Lobby’s power was used against them.

Professor Brat’s victory over Cantor is not only an affront to the Israel Lobby but also an assault on its power. The Lobby will not take this lying down. Professor Brat had better not think that the attractive sexy women who suddenly are interested in him are attracted by his new status as a US Representative and a topic of conversation. The irresistible women will be on a well paid mission to cause a scandal.

Professor Brat can expect to be attacked by “journalists” across the political spectrum with every sort of accusation and scandalous report. He risks a well paid former female student coming forward to complain that while counseling her on her grades, he leaned forward and put his hand on her thigh. Or worse.

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Alexander Mezyaev

An oil field in Heglig, Sudan, that caught fire in the fighting be-
tween Sudanese and South Sudanese forces (Associated Press)

In the middle of December the situation in South Sudan abruptly turned for the worse. On December 15 ten cabinet members were arrested and charged with an attempt to stage a coup d’état. (1) Riek Machar, former Vice-President of South Sudan, is the main suspect to be charged. He was dismissed from his position this June, but is still at large. (2) Machar says he had no relation to the coup…

According to the government of South Sudan, Juba, the capital, is tranquil again, the diplomatic missions are secure. (3) But it’s too early to say the situation is fully stabilized. Fighting has renewed in Juba, insurgents captured a number of large cities, for instance Malakal, the capital of Upper Nile State. (4) The town of Mading-Bor, the Jonglei State's capital city, situated in central South Sudan, keeps on changing hands. (5)

South Sudan has plunged into the quagmire of civil war. The Dinka people are subject to mass slaughter. (6) It is called «ethnic cleansing» in an attempt to avoid using the word «genocide». According to United Nations convention, genocide is the «intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such». It constitutes a legal ground for an intervention of the «international community» and such structures as the International Criminal Court. It also includes a political element – the people of Dinka traditionally support President Salva Kiir, while the Lou Nuer people side with (ousted) Vice-President Riek Machar...

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Hugo Moldiz Mercado

In a tactical shift toward Bolivia, the U.S. State Department has sent Jefferson Brown to the country, indicating a likely increase in subversive activity against the Morales government. He was apparently sent to clean house, and replace all embassy personnel in preparation for the July arrival of a new attaché, Peter Brennan, an uncommon diplomatic practice.

It appears that the White House has decided to make a turn - for the worse - in its relations with Bolivia. After removing Larry Memmott, considered a dove in U.S. secret services circles, the State Department has sent Jefferson Brown, as interim business attaché, who will remain on the job only through June, before handing over the position to the much more experienced hawk, Peter Brennan.

Changes at the U.S. embassy in La Paz are not limited to replacing the business attaché, the highest ranking official present in the country since President Evo Morales expelled Ambassador Philip Golberg in 2008, for engaging in subversive activity in conjunction with hard-line opposition forces in the city of Santa Cruz. All indications point toward the replacement of the entire staff, giving greater weight to secret services and an increase in efforts to destabilize the Morales government, within the framework of a regional counter-offensive. Brown arrived in Bolivia April 23, immediately after he was appointed.

According to reliable sources linked to the State Department, greater changes will take place in July, implying the nature of the task assigned Brown, a career diplomat who has worked in Brazil, El Salvador, Paraguay, Ecuador and Argentina, among other countries. He must conduct a clean-up before the arrival of Peter Brennan, who has been a State Department advisor and responsible for policies in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Pakistan and Cuba.

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Daniel McAdams

On June 2, a missile screamed through downtown Lugansk, in eastern Ukraine, leaving a trail of craters in a city park before slamming into a regional administration building. At least eight people were killed in the blast, as it struck in a busy pedestrian area. Blood and body parts were strewn throughout the blast zone.

Eyewitnesses said the missile was fired from one of the military jet fighters that had been circling the area.

Security camera footage from nearby seemed to confirm this. The jets had been sent in from Kiev to put down an autonomy movement in eastern Ukraine that followed a US-backed coup in Kiev in February.

An Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) monitoring team on the ground in Lugansk concurred with other eyewitnesses:

"On 2 June, shortly after 15:00 hrs, rockets hit the occupied regional administration building. Based on the SMM’s limited observation these strikes were the result of non-guided rockets shot from an aircraft. "

The US-backed government in Kiev, however, denied firing on civilians and blamed the blast on the anti-Kiev self-defense forces. The self-defense units, Kiev claimed, had blown up the administration building themselves with a heat-seeking missile that went awry. The US mainstream media dutifully reported the Kiev government line as fact. The anti-Kiev forces had blown up their own headquarters, they wrote. Just as several weeks ago they wrote that the anti-Kiev forces in Odessa had set themselves on fire.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Eastern Front: The Battle of Moscow, 1941-1942 (albumwar2.com)

In my June 6 column, “The Lies Grow More Audacious,” I mentioned that Obama and the British prime minister, who Obama has as a lap dog, just as George Bush had Tony Blair as lap dog, had managed to celebrate the defeat of Nazi Germany at the 70th anniversary of the Normandy invasion without mentioning the Russians.

I pointed out the fact, well known to historians and educated people, that the Red Army defeated Nazi Germany long before the US was able to get geared up to participate in the war. The Normandy invasion most certainly did not defeat Nazi Germany. What the Normandy invasion did was to prevent the Red Army from overrunning all of Europe.

As I have reported in a number of columns, many, if not most, Americans have beliefs that are not fact-based, but instead are emotion-based. So I knew that at least one person would go berserk, and he did. JD from Texas wrote to set me straight. No one but “our American boys” won that war. JD didn’t know that the Russians were even in the war.

JD had the option of consulting an encyclopedia or a history book or going online and consulting Wikipedia prior to making a fool of himself. But he chose instead to unload on me. JD epitomizes US foreign policy: rush into every fight that you know nothing about and start new ones hand over fist that someone else will win.

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