This is what our Nobel Peace Prize Winning President said in front of the UN General Assembly on September 24, 2014 — the same day U.S. military weapons hit some 168 targets including a dozen oil refineries in Syria...“We must declare war on war, so the outcome will be peace upon peace.” - It's as if Obama is trying to reconcile his peace prize with his legacy of war by arguing that the U.S. is not at a traditional war (because the U.S. is always at war) but just as we go to yet another war, we're actually at a war against war in the name of peace. So...war is peace. Ever read a book called "1984" by George Orwell? Obama's UN speech in full

Robert Parry ■ Obama’s Propagandistic UN Address
Barry Grey ■ Deceit and delusion at the United Nations
Stephen Lendman ■ Obama's Demagogic UN Address + Reactions to Obama's UN Address
Paul Craig Roberts ■ Will Russia and China Hold Their Fire Until War Is the Only Alternative?

A USAF F-15 airplane hit a modular refinery in Syria, Wednesday, the Central Command of the US Army said in a statement. A projectiles launched from the plane hit the Jeribe West Modular refinery and Mayadin modular refinery, reportedly destroying the facilities. ● America deployed 15 B52 bombers and an unknown number of B2 bombers to Syria. This means one thing, the only goal is to totally annihilate Syria. This was not about ISIS at all, such warplanes are not used for taking out dissident groups, they have the sole purpose of annihilating nations and the deployment of these planes proves beyond all doubt that Washington lied about ISIS. This, in conjunction with the deployment of long range super bombers is cold hard proof it was never about ISIS at all. The claim is that ISIS controlled the facilities and was using them for revenue, but reality was that Syria was letting oil go for $40 a barrel and Rothschild did not like that. So now the truth is on the table, – Obama, the “peace prize” president had a goal of destroying Syria all along, and spawned whatever fraud it took to provide the faintest of cover for yet another murderous fraud war.

Stephen Lendman ■ Noted trends analyst Gerald Celente said it, and it's true. In fact, America's business is war, more war, multiple wars, permanent wars, pillaging one nation after another for wealth, power, and dominance, while homeland needs go begging. America never was and isn't now the "land of the free and home of the brave." In fact, it's become a "Let 'em eat cake" society. [...] The empire never sleeps or tolerates anti-war activism, threatening its quest for unchallengeable "full spectrum dominance" over all land, surface and sub-surface sea, air, space, electromagnetic spectrum and information systems with enough overwhelming power to fight and win global wars against any adversary, including with nuclear weapons preemptively.

PUKE READ: President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder formally announced Holder's intention to resign on Thursday afternoon in a joint and at times emotional appearance at the White House. ● In saluting Holder, the president hailed a close personal friend that he called "the people's lawyer." "Eric has done a superb job," Obama said, as he recited a long list of accomplishments in civil rights, gay rights, sentencing reform, counterterrorism, and crime reductions. For the first time in decades, the president said, both crime and incarceration rates in the U.S. had dropped simultaneously, each by around 10 percent, under Holder's watch.

Stephen Lendman ■ Holder Resigns
Washington Post: Attorney General Eric Holder to step down

Michel Chossudovsky ■ The Criminalization of the United Nations || Under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council, with president Obama chairing the Council session, the United States has called upon the international community to adopt strong measures, at national and international levels, to curtail the recruitment of Islamic State fighters. What is not mentioned in the media reports is that the heads of State and heads of government who have endorsed America’s campaign against the Islamic State, advised by their respective secret services, are fully aware that US intelligence is the unspoken architect of the Islamic State, which is part of a vast network of US supported “jihadist” terrorist entities. Countries are either coerced into supporting the US sponsored resolution or they are complicit in the US terror agenda.

Lawmakers in Britain have approved a motion allowing the country to join the US-led coalition in bombing Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets in Iraq. The motion was approved on Friday by 524 votes to 43 following hours of animated debate in the House of Commons. Prior to the vote, Prime Minister David Cameron made an impassioned plea for Britain to join the United States and a coalition of Western and Arab nations in air strikes meant to thwart the ISIL group in Iraq. Cameron told a tense House of Commons that there was no more serious issue than asking the country to devote armed forces to conflict. He repeatedly stressed that no combat troops were planned, but he could barely get through his statement, as lawmakers peppered him with questions about the move.

The former oil tycoon and adversary of president Vladimir Putin has launched a pro-European political platform from exile. ● The former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who spent a decade in jail after challenging the Kremlin, says he would be ready to lead Russia if called upon. Khodorkovsky’s statement, at the launch of an online movement called Open Russia, appears to break his promise to steer clear of politics, which he made after being pardoned by president Vladimir Putin in December.

“I would not be interested in the idea of becoming president of Russia at a time when the country would be developing normally,” he was quoted as saying by Le Monde newspaper. “But if it appeared necessary to overcome the crisis and to carry out constitutional reform, the essence of which would be to redistribute presidential powers in favour of the judiciary, parliament and civil society, then I would be ready to take on this part of the task.” Open Russia is intended to unite pro-European Russians in a bid to challenge Putin’s grip on power. “A minority will be influential if it is organised,” Khodorkovsky said during a ceremony broadcast online from Paris.

Eric Zuesse ■ On 23 September 2014, the Ukrainian Ministry of Social Policy announced official civilian slavery, via an obscure press release, headlined “The Government has extended the list of community service under martial law”; and they announced it there, in bureaucratic phrases that seemed crafted so as to be ignored:

In connection with the situation in the east of the country, the Cabinet meeting today amended the procedures for the involvement of able-bodied people in community service under martial law. This was disclosed by Minister for Social Policy Lyudmila Denisova. The Minister said that the existing arrangement was approved in 2011. However, today the document needs to be improved, to meet the current socio-political challenges and necessity of liquidating consequences of possible military aggression.

[...] So, the underlying presumption here seems to be that ‘consent’ is not ‘mandatory’ in order for there to be ‘agreement,’ and that the Government has the right to “enforce” that ‘agreement’. This seems Orwellian, but that’s the way it is. America calls itself a ‘democracy’, and yet now imposes this type of government, and condemns Russia as being not ‘democratic’. So, perhaps the Obama team has been teaching its Ukrainian stooges how to be Orwellian.

Tyler Durden ■ Understanding how the power structure thinks, and how it intentionally manipulates the emotions of the masses, is key to overcoming and rolling back totalitarian ambitions. I have spent the last few posts talking about how instilling fear throughout the general populace is one of their primary tactics. Indeed, to borrow a term from Glenn Greenwald, “fear-manufacturing” has been in overdrive across the Five Eyes nations over the past several weeks. In the UK, we saw it used to convince elderly Scots to overwhelming vote against independence, thus swaying the result decisively to the NO side. In the USA, we have seen it used to drum up support for another pointless war in the Middle East, which will benefit nobody except for the military/intelligence-industrial complex. ■ While these examples are bad enough, nowhere is fear being used in a more clownish and absurd manner to strip the local citizenry of its civil liberties than in Australia. This should come as no surprise, considering that nation’s Prime Minister is a certified raging lunatic. In fact, Tony Abbott is such a little nazi in disguise, I dedicated a post to him back in June titled: Video of the Day – Meet Australia’s Creepy Prime Minister, Tony Abbott.

Glenn Greenwald ■ Abbott Gives a Master Class in Exploiting Terrorism Fears to Seize New Powers

Ryan Devereaux ■ Freshly-released CIA documents show how the largest newspapers in the country helped the agency contain a groundbreaking exposé of cocaine trafficking by its Contra proxy forces.

Eighteen years after it was published, “Dark Alliance,” the San Jose Mercury News’s bombshell investigation into links between the cocaine trade, Nicaragua’s Contra rebels, and African American neighborhoods in California, remains one of the most explosive and controversial exposés in American journalism. The 20,000-word series enraged black communities, prompted Congressional hearings, and became one of the first major national security stories in history to blow up online. It also sparked an aggressive backlash from the nation’s most powerful media outlets, which devoted considerable resources to discredit author Gary Webb’s reporting. Their efforts succeeded, costing Webb his career. On December 10, 2004, the journalist was found dead in his apartment, having ended his eight-year downfall with two .38-caliber bullets to the head. These days, Webb is being cast in a more sympathetic light. He’s portrayed heroically in a major motion picture set to premiere nationwide next month. And documents newly released by the CIA provide fresh context to the “Dark Alliance” saga — information that paints an ugly portrait of the mainstream media at the time.

US airstrikes meant to hit ISIL targets in Syria have killed at least five civilians, says a foreign-backed Syrian opposition group. ● The civilians, including one child, were killed in the airstrikes on ISIL positions in northeastern Hasakeh, said the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The group said fourteen militants have also been killed in the raids on the eastern province of Deir Ezzor. Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said at least one militant checkpoint was hit during the overnight attacks. The raids targeted oil facilities captured by the ISIL. On Wednesday, US officials announced that Washington and its Arab allies had resumed airstrikes on the ISIL positions, which had begun a day earlier.

RT.com: Oil installations in Syria hit by anti-ISIS coalition
Finian Cunningham ■ US seeks to target Syrian govt.

Tyler Durden ■ Thanks to a dizzying barrage of lies, mainstream media fear-mongering and a couple of beheadings, the Obama Administration finally achieved its long sought after war in Syria. The tactic that proved most effective in mobilizing the American public back into a shivering, post-9/11 fetal position, was the same tactic used by elites in the UK to convince Scotland against voting for independence. That tactic, as I detailed in a recent post, is fear. However, fear in itself is not enough. It must be coupled with endless slogans and misdirection by the mainstream media and politicians. It must lead the public to subconsciously embrace a thought process that is completely irrational. Such tactics can be labeled propaganda, and it results in a public suddenly supporting a war it strongly opposed only a year ago. All it takes is a little repackaging. Propaganda allows those who profit from war to push the American public into a tizzy of trepidation based on a couple of beheadings from ISIS, while not batting an eye over the daily beheadings that were simultaneously occurring in Saudi Arabia. So the power structure and its impotent puppet, Barack Obama, intentionally pushed the American public into a frenzy of fear and finally got their little war.

Barry Grey ■ Deceit and delusion at the United Nations
Stephen Lendman ■ Obama's Demagogic UN Address
RT.com: Obama: ISIS must be destroyed, there will be no negotiations
RT.com: Russia tops ISIS threat, Ebola worst of all? Lavrov puzzled by Obama’s UN speech

Stephen Lendman ■ No declaration of war exists. No legal authority. No national emergency. No existential or other threats. No enemies targeting America. No Security Council authorization. No congressional OK. No justifiable reason to wage war. No reason ever to do so except in self-defense if attacked. None occurred.

Breitbart: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, in an interview with Yahoo News, hinted at American ground troops “ultimately” going into Syria ● President Obama has repeatedly said that he will not send U.S. ground troops into Iraq or Syria. Holder also indicated that the U.S. may launch more attacks against the al Qaeda-linked Khorasan Group and revealed that the White House has been monitoring the group for two years. During an interview published Wednesdayday, Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric asked Holder how the U.S. airstrikes in Syria on Monday night had impacted the Khorasan Group. “We’re certainly going to have to look at the impact of these strikes that were taken last night,” Holder said. “I also assume that those are not the only strikes that will be taken against the Khorasan Group or the other strikes that we took in Syria. It will take a prolonged period of time for these strikes and ultimately for the ground troops that will have to come in and deal with these people.”

Joseph Kishore ■ The United Nations Security Council passed a broadly worded resolution on Wednesday targeting the flow of “foreign terrorist fighters” internationally. While presented as a response to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the resolution is aimed at legitimizing a raft of antidemocratic measures as part of a renewed “war on terror.” Significantly, the resolution does not purport to authorize the bombing of Syria that began early Tuesday morning. The United States and other imperialist powers, together with their allies among the Gulf monarchies, have launched the new war—directed ultimately at the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—without even seeking UN sanction. [...] Security Council Resolution 2178, passed in a unanimous 15-0 vote, directs all countries in the UN to “prevent and suppress the recruiting, organizing, transporting or equipping of individuals who travel to a State other than their States of residence or nationality for the purpose of the perpetration, planning, or preparation of, or participation in, terrorist acts or the providing or receiving of terrorist training, and the financing of their travel and of their activities.” The resolution was adopted under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, making it legally binding on all member countries. Chapter 7 governs the Security Council’s response to any “breach of the peace or act of aggression,” including authorizing military or nonmilitary action. While the resolution does not explicitly mention military action, it will no doubt be cited in the future for this purpose. To this end, the definition of “terrorism” is left for individual countries to determine. [...] The UN resolution is also part of efforts to utilize ISIS to strengthen state spying powers and deflect public outrage over the illegal and unconstitutional National Security Agency (NSA) programs revealed over the past year. In his remarks before the Security Council, Obama said that the resolution “will strengthen cooperation between nations, including sharing more information about the travel and activities of foreign terrorist organizations.”

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals' (Peta) first shot at religious activism — a call to Muslims to observe a vegetarian Eid this October — has misfired. It met with violent protests here on Monday. One policeman was injured and a Peta volunteer roughed up by protestors, which included women, and later whisked away by Bhopal police. Peta woman volunteer "Benazir Suraiya" attempted to make an appeal to Muslims to go vegetarian at the legendary Taj-ul-Masajid, said to be one of Asia's largest mosques. Camouflaged in a green hijab, to highlight the importance of vegetarianism, she walked towards the mosque gates with a couple of PETA volunteers holding a placard in Urdu and English which read: "Make Eid Happy for All. Try Vegan". With less than a dozen policemen deployed, locals took the opportunity and shouted slogans asking her to turn back. She was forced to take cover along with another PETA volunteer in the market outside the mosque. Within minutes the crowd swelled and Suraiya was left to fend for herself as PETA supporters fled the scene. "We are going to get a taxi for Suraiya. Police has been called for support too," said PETA volunteer Divya.

At least ten people have been killed following yet another bombing of Pakistan's tribal belt in the northeast of the country by US assassination drones. ● According to local security sources, the US drones struck a compound and a vehicle at a small market in the town of Datta Khel near the Afghan border. The sources [conveniently] further identified the casualties from the drone attack as "militants" [civilians]. Washington claims the targets of the drone attacks are militants, but local officials and witnesses maintain that civilians have been the main victims of such raids over the past few years.

Amateur videos posted online on Tuesday reportedly showed the aftermath of coalition airstrikes on the village of Kfar Derian in the northern Syrian province of Idlib. The narrator in the videos is heard saying that the footage shows the destruction caused by Western allied air raids. The US has not yet confirmed it carried out airstrikes in Kfar Derian. The videos appeared genuine and corresponded to AP reports of the events. More HERE.

Robert Parry ■ Obama’s Novel Lawyering to Bomb Syria
Peter Symonds ■ US air strikes in Syria, just the beginning
Syrian Radio & TV: Nasrallah: “Int’l Coalition to fight ISIS” a US cloak to re-occupy region
SANA: The U.S. and partner forces launch air strikes against ISIS terrorists in Deir Ezzor and Aleppo
RBTH: Russia: ISIS in Syria should be bombed only with the permission of the UN or Bashar al-Assad
RT.com: 2 more airstrikes "on ISIS targets" in Syria, 3 in Iraq - Pentagon
RT.com: Bombing ‘imminent threat’: US justifies strikes without ‘direct request’ from Syria
RT.com: Obama bombs 7th country in 6 years
RIA Novosti: US Airstrikes Kill 11 Civilians Inculding Children near Syria's Aleppo
TheAntiMedia: Rand Paul: 600 Tons of Weapons Given to Syrian Rebels Last Year Made ISIS Stronger

Itar-Tass: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted to the United States again that terrorists cannot be divided into bad and good. The country’s top diplomat said so in an interview with Russian Fifth TV Channel. || “Today when the Islamic State is named as the US archenemy I would like to recall that they are those who became stronger, developed and started receiving massive funding and other material support from abroad in the times of changes in power in Libya and attempts to do the same in Syria, when all means were good. Then Americans and Europeans stated that they support fighting these regimes aimed against their own People. When we drew their attention to the fact that a large number of extremists and terrorists are fighting on the side of rivals of these regimes, we actually received a reply that ‘this will pass away’ - so, we will topple the regime and then we will deal with these terrorists. But in fact everything was not so.”

Thierry Meyssan ■ While Western public opinion is fed information about the constitution of a purported international coalition to fight against the "Islamic Emirate", the latter changes shape discreetly. Its principal officers are no longer Arab, but Georgian and Chinese. For Thierry Meyssan, this mutation shows that NATO ultimately intends to use the "Islamic Emirate" in Russia and in China. Therefore, both countries must act now against the jihadists before they return to sow chaos in their countries of origin. || The "Islamic Emirate" initially displayed its Arab origin. This organization sprang from "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" who fought not the US invaders, but Iraqi Shiites. It became the "Islamic Emirate in Iraq" and the "Islamic Emirate in Iraq and the Levant." In October 2007, the US Army seized 606 records of foreign members of this organization near Sinjar. The records were inventoried and examined by experts from the Military Academy at West Point. However, a few days after the seizure, Emir al-Baghdadi said his organization included only 200 fighters and they were all Iraqis. This lie is comparable to that of other terrorist organizations in Syria who say they enrol only incidentally a few foreigners, while the Syrian Arab Army estimated at at least 250,000 the number of foreign jihadists who fought in Syria over the past three years. Moreover, Caliph Ibrahim (the new name of Amir al-Baghdadi) now claims that his organization is composed largely of foreigners and that Syrian territory is no longer for the Syrians and the Iraqi territory is no longer for Iraqis, but they are for his jihadists.

(This article was also published on The Saker's Blog) - The Ukrainian Defense Minister Valerii Geletei is hardly a credible figure. Not only did he recently declare that Russia had threatened the Ukraine with nuclear strikes, he even told a Ukrainian journalist that Russia had already executed two tactical nuclear strikes on the city of Lugansk (apparently to explain why the Ukrainian forces had to retreat from there). The Junta later denied the story and blamed it on the journalist who first published it. Despite these antics, Geletei nonetheless caught the world's attention when he promised the Ukrainian Rada that the Ukraine would retake Crimea and organize a victory parade in Sevastopol. The Rada (Ukraine's parliament) greeted that promise with a standing ovation. The truth is that this will never happen. Here is why:

What follows is the most powerful recorded police checkpoint scene I have witnessed since posting: Extremely Powerful Video – Happy 4th of July from a Police State Checkpoint, last summer. While the former incident happened in Tennessee, the following occurred in Illinois. The American pleb who was accosted by Illinois State Police was DeKalb resident Ryan Scott. While it starts off slow, make sure you watch it all the way to the end. While one of the the police officers is reasonable, the other one can’t stop yelling and seems to derive a particular pleasure from repeatedly informing the citizen he supposed to “protect and serve” that “driving is not a right, it’s a privilege.” What’s also interesting, is you have to wonder if the second officer would have acted even more aggressively if Ryan hadn’t informed him he was being recorded at the end of the conversation. He seems to have backed down slightly upon understanding the repercussions of the recording. It just goes to show the importance of filming police encounters. In Liberty, Michael Krieger

Glenn Greenwald ■ If you’re an Australian citizen, you have a greater chance of being killed by the following causes than you do by a terrorist attack: slipping in the bathtub and hitting your head; contracting a lethal intestinal illness from the next dinner you eat at a restaurant; being struck by lightning. In the post-9/11 era, there has been no terrorist attack carried out on Australian soil: not one. The attack that most affected Australians was the 2002 bombing of a nightclub in Bali which killed 88 of its citizens; that was 12 years ago. Despite all that, Australia’s political class is in the midst of an increasingly unhinged fear-mongering orgy over terrorism. The campaign has two prongs: ISIS (needless to say: it’s now an all-purpose, global source of fear-manufacturing), and the weekend arrest of 15 people on charges that they planned to behead an unknown, random individual based on exhortations from an Australian member of ISIS.

James Cogan ■ Got "Security"? -Australian police kill teenager amid anti-Muslim terrorism hysteria

Someone has updated the Georgia Guidestones with a new ‘2014‘ corner piece. If this doesn’t creep you out, you probably have no idea what these stones are. Some obvious questions you may be asking include, who originally built the Georgia Guidestones? Who installed the ’2014 cube’? Why? Is this just a sick joke, or do the ‘new 10 commandments‘ for the ‘Age of Reason‘ serve some sort of purpose? Why 2014? There are dozens of unanswered questions and no one seems to have a good answer. Apparently a notch showed up in photos around 2009, flash forward to the present and this cube has appeared inside the notch. Did the builder of the Georgia Guidestones die in 2014? Or do these mysterious figures know something we don’t?

“I want people to consider, what if that happened to your family member or daughter?” || The U.S. military used a camera as a torture device at Abu Grahib. To add further humiliation to detainees who were already put in cages, urinated on, stripped naked then stacked in macabre human pyramids, their photos were taken during these degrading acts. “I wanted to use the camera to restore these peoples’ humanity through beautiful portraiture,” says photographer Chris Bartlett, whose exhibition, “Iraqi Detainees: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Ordeals,” opens tonight in New York. When confronted with images of torture, Bartlett says, even the greatest liberal or humanist among us has the tendency to flinch and look away. “It’s such a disturbing and disgusting issue that people want to turn off from it.” Bartlett, who often works in high fashion photography, shooting subjects like candy colored Tory Burch handbags, said he wanted to take “very kind, respectful, beautiful, portraits to draw people into the subject and learn more about their stories.”

Full Vido: Wesley Clark: A Time to Lead

Syria: The Crime and the Criminals from Anthony Lawson on Vimeo.

U.S., PARTNER NATIONS STRIKING ISIS IN SYRIA: PENTAGON
U.S. USING FIGHTERS, BOMBERS, TOMAHAWKS TO ATTACK ISIS

NBC News reports the attack includes drones and is expecting to hit up to 20 targets. FOX is reporting Qatar is among the arab nation coalition (along with UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Bahrain), according to Lt. Col. Oliver North, which is rather surprising given their rather well-known support for Al-Nusra.

PressTV: US, allies hit ‘militant’ targets in Syria, kill 11 civilians
Deutsche Welle: Heavy casualties from airstrikes on IS
Al-Akhbar: US general says airstrikes on Syria "only the beginning"
Itar-Tass: Strikes by US and its allies on Syrian territory require Syria's consent — Russian FM
PressTV: 50 US-led strikes carried out in Syria
RT.com: US and ‘partners’ launch airstrikes "on ISIS targets" in Syria
The Guardian: US launches air strikes against Isis in Syria for the first time Live Updates
NYT: Israel Says It Shot Down Syrian Fighter Jet
Chicago Tribune: US expands airstrikes into Syria to hit Islamic State

Stephen Lendman ■ Obama Launches Naked Aggression on Syria
Glenn Greenwald ■ Syria the 7th Muslim Country Bombed by 2009 Nobel Peace Laureate
Moon of Alabama ■ Concealed By U.S. Airstrikes Israel Opens Nusra Path To Lebanon
Peter Symonds ■ US launches air strikes inside Syria
Jason Ditz ■ US Launches Airstrikes in Syria "Against ISIS"
R. Fisk ■ Kerry’s rhetoric on Isis insults our intelligence and conceals the reality of the situation in Syria

SANA ● Syria says Washington informed Syria’s permanent envoy to the U.N. before striking ISIS terrorist organization in raqqa. || Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said Tuesday that the American side informed Syria’s permanent envoy to the U.N. Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari that strikes will be launched against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ISIS terrorist organization in the northern province of Raqqa. SANA reporter in Raqqa said that the U.S. launched airstrikes on ISIS terrorist group’s targets in Raqqa late on Monday.