It appears that another false flag operation was scheduled, this one on its Syrian border designed to allow Turkey to make war. Our covert forces are in mad rage these days, setting fires in Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, and probably behind violence in Iraq as well. Something big is afoot, maybe, as a commenter says that we are on the verge of economic collapse. This is the full story from Al-Monitor, a news service I subscribe to:

Turkey ‘unhinged’

Turkey’s municipal elections campaign became consumed by the political crisis which swept the country and social media this week.

On March 27, an audio tape was posted on YouTube appearing to capture a conversation among four of Turkey’s top national security officials, including Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, discussing orchestrating an attack on the Tomb of Suleiman Shah, the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire, which is just over the border in Syria but which Turkey considers its territory, as a pretext for a military action in Syria.

The leak led the government to deny Internet users access to YouTube just one day after a Turkish court overturned an earlier government ban on Twitter.

On March 23, a Turkish F-16 shot down a Syrian MiG-23, which Kadri Gursel suggested could have been a useful distraction to energize popular support for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he rallies voters for his Justice and Development Party (AKP).

The preoccupation with a rationale for action in Syria was also evident in Turkish military preparations to defend the tomb following a threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), as Fehim Tastekin reports. Davutoglu has alleged that ISIS is allied with the Syrian government.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey’s opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), told Amberin Zaman this week: “Erdogan recognizes that he is in trouble. That is why he wants to go to war with Syria. We raised the issue of the Tomb of Suleiman Shah [the grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman dynasty whose tomb is protected by Turkish troops]. They instantly shot down the Syrian plane. They are doing their best to go to war against Syria, to drag us into that quagmire. To this end, they are playing good cop, bad cop with al-Qaeda. They tell al-Qaeda, ‘Go attack and tear down our [Turkish flag raised over Suleiman Shah’s tomb] so we have an excuse to go in.’ Syria is no threat to Turkey. The whole world knows this. The Syrian plane was a reconnaissance plane that was seeking al-Qaeda targets. By shooting it down, they helped al-Qaeda.”

The bans on Twitter and YouTube provoked criticism from European and US officials and, as Cengiz Candar writes, “Erdogan and associates continued with their established practice of blaming the Gulen movement for its troubles, accusing it of bugging the ‘Syria war planning’ meeting and for its disclosure via the Internet. They labeled the incident as an ‘espionage offensive,’ signaling the possibility of a witch hunt after the March 30 municipal elections.”

Mustafa Akyol agrees “it is undeniable that Turkey is in a downward spiral toward authoritarianism, in part because the government feels threatened by hidden enemies using effective tactics — including wiretapping, hidden cameras and other forms of espionage — and is therefore responding with extreme measures, such as blocking Twitter and YouTube.”
Akyol adds, “The March 30 elections are so significant, because they will show how popular the government’s alarmism is concerning its hidden enemies,” concluding, “If Erdogan wins big, a dark era will begin for all the ‘traitors’ at whom he has been pointing his finger. If he instead faces his first political setback, the war of attrition against him, especially by those veiled forces behind the wiretaps, will probably push for a bigger fall. In any case, Turkey is likely to continue to be a political war zone in the months to come, at least until the presidential elections scheduled for August 2014.”

Henri Barkey describes Turkey as on “the road to Fahrenheit 451.” He writes: “The lesson from Turkey is that a secretive and nontransparent government can easily be unhinged by the almost instant free flow of information. And when it becomes unhinged, it will resort to all possible means to contain the flow. When it undoubtedly fails, it will resort to increasingly more draconian measures.”

I deliberately avoid American news reporting, as it is so shallow and full of lies. Most of what is important to know is not included. So my absorption process is slow, but a fuller picture does emerge.

News is dominated by the interests who benefit from the control of news. Someone ought to mention now and then, other than in a comedy setting, that NBC is owned by General Electric, a weapons manufacturer. Major corporations are dominated by cross-directorships, so that every news outlet is governed by the same powerful people. Naturally our various news outlets march lockstep. People balk at the idea that our “news” is discussed each day before it is given to us, and that all of the outlets are in agreement at the very top levels about what will be reported and how. That’s how it works. (At various times, as during Katrina and 9/11, this mold is broken and we see good reporting in the chaos. That is the exception.)

Ted Turner was a maverick who came aboard with the idea that he could change this power structure. As he now says, he kicked the shin of power and got a broken toe. CNN is now just another cog and is now among the worst in terms of submissiveness to power. But a few have noticed, and this is the kind of thing that ought to set inquisitive minds to work, that CNN World News, seen in many American airports, has a completely different reporting structure. It carries many stories and slants that its domestic branch does not.
Continue reading “The course of human events” →

Years ago, 1989 to be precise, I watched a press conference on TV. The US had just bombed Panama. We still have not been told why.* The Secretary of Defense was answering questions, and as I watched him shivers ran down my spine. I was watching and listening to pure evil. His name was Richard Cheney.

This morning I read where one of the fascists who was pivotal in the Ukrainian coup d’etat, Oleksandr Muzychko , was killed point-blank. He was dragged from his car, and once it was determined he was not wearing a bullet proof vest, was dispatched by two gunshots to the chest.

The question: Was Muzychko shot by resistance forces, or was his death ordered by the new Ukrainian government as it tries to clean up its image? If the former, it can be morally justified on grounds of defense of homeland, though it is creepy. If the latter, I get that shiver down my spine again. The mother is eating her children.

This is clipped from an interview with German Left opposition leader Gregor Gysi published on RT.com:

Yes, there are real fascists in the [new Ukrainian] government. They are currently in leading positions. They have the vice-prime minister position, defense minister, and minister of agriculture and environment minister positions. Besides that, there is the co-founder of Svoboda party, who is not a member of this party right now, but he is in charge of the security committee, some sort of intelligence service.

Of course there are democratic forces in the government, but fascists never give up the power they have got hold of.

I had a semantic disagreement with a commenter here one time about JFK’s murder – was it coup d’état? Of course it was, but I said it was not. I was making a finer point and chose poor wording. JFK was dispatched by people who had already taken power and were in key positions to allow the murder to go forward. The real coup d’état took place in 1947 with passage of the National Security Act, Truman’s greatest blunder. (His first, Hiroshima and Nagasaki – the man was a walking disaster, one of the most tragic figures in history.) At that time he allowed the fascists access to positions of power without accountability. In 1963 they merely sealed the deal. We’ve not had a meaningful election or real change of power since. OSS + SS = CIA.

We’re not dealing with ideology. Back in 1989 I was not repulsed by Dick Cheney’s conservatism or belief in free markets (or neoliberalism’s creepy mirror image twin, neoconservatism). Ideology is nothing but a cloak. Ayn Rand provided that cloak, and was too stupid to realize it. Fascists have no ideology but power. That we even call them “fascists” merely concedes that we don’t have a good name for them. “Neo-Nazis” implies that Nazism was some sort of intellectual endeavor. It was not. There is nothing new. These are people who want power for power’s sake. They will use any means to get it.

Who comes to mind? A man who merely described it as he tried to grovel his way back into employment: Niccolò Machiavelli.
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“I wonder if Americans think it’s extraneous to analyze the economic precedents of the Panama invasion and the fact that two American cabinet members – not to mention many lower ranking officials – had economic interests that conflicted with Panama’s attempt to broaden its commercial relationship with Japan.” (Manuel Noriega, America’s Prisoner, Noriega/Eisner)

I stopped watching TV news decades ago, and quit newspapers shortly after I realized that Obama was a fraud, some time around late 2008. I only gather up impressions, and even though I say so myself, feel as “informed” on this issues of our time as anyone I know.

But as an outsider, I think it worth mentioning here that the United States news media is a state-run outfit with one point of view offered on all outlets from the supposed “right” over at Fox to the “left” over at MSNBC. NPR and Limbaugh are in harmony. They are just packages with outer wrapping designed to appeal to different audiences.

Limbaugh listeners are reactionary, needing the hostility he projects against perceived “liberals” to validate their own views.

Those views, incidentally, are identical to those of NPR listeners, who need to feel intellectually superior to reactionaries for their own validation.

Of course that’s a broad sweeping statement and is not true if analyzed in detail. There are, within our doctrinal confines, disagreements that are constantly being debated. Is abortion OK? Immigration? Gun control? Gay marriage? Marijuana? Taxes too high or low? These are “wedge” matters, used to segment us for advertising and voting purposes, but otherwise of no consequence. We are allowed our debates on those matters for the precise reason that they do not threaten real power.

But on the important issues of our time there is no dissent anywhere in the narrow spectrum. Further, anyone voicing dissent is quickly dispatched. On Bill Maher’s Real Time, for instance, a panelist recently spoke of the painfully obvious fact that there never was any “war” in the Cold War, that it was just a framework that allowed the US to justify its perpetual aggression against resource colonies. He was quickly hushed by all of the panelists, “right” and “left” alike. Such a foolish man, saying something obviously true. He won’t be asked back.

And now, with the EU-forced violent coup d’état in Ukraine and Crimea’s breakaway, I see complete and universal agreement on the lies that are being told. You can judge for yourself, but it’s only a matter of degree. Limbaugh is probably saying that Obama was soft and Putin took advantage of him. I imagine Thom Hartmann is defending Obama, saying he handled the matter correctly. On those shows that do allow some real news, like the Daily Show and Maher, Putin is likely being caricatured as a Hitler-like bare-chested monster.

But that’s how it is done in a state-controlled environment: Agreement about the lies is universal. Details are a matter of dispute. Anyone calling a lie a lie is shown the door.

One animal that I’d like to see hunted to extinction is the assassination “buff,” or the person so caught up in the details of the various important crimes of our times that he has lost all sight of their true importance.

Understanding those crimes is useful in understanding the nature of people who now hold office, supposedly the ones in charge. But they are mere drones. Understanding that helps to understand the nature of our country.

I stumbled across a short article by Jeffrey St. Clair in Counterpunch (behind subscription wall) titled “Camus in the Time of Drones.” It’s a nice piece because St. Clair is beyond body counts and instead focuses on the nature of drone killing as practiced by the current American regime. It is senseless, even random, and there is no retribution to be had. What can be done to a drone that hits the ‘wrong’ target? Execute it?

People killed by drone strikes are as often innocent bystanders as intended targets, but that’s not the point. The ability to murder people with impunity is the essential element of drone warfare.

The conscience of the killer has been sterilized, the drone operator, fully alienated from the act he is committing, can walk out the door after his shift is over and calmly order and IPA at the local microbrew or play a round of golf under the desert sky. He is left with no blood on his hands, no savagery weighing on his conscience, no degrading images to stalk his dreams,

St. Clair writes as if drone warfare is new. Only the technology is. Drones are instruments of terror. But we’ve always had them. Piloted aircraft that blow up innocent people are flown by highly trained drones, many with astounding SAT scores. Since they cannot see their victims, there is no qualm of conscience. What’s different?

In Vietnam some of the killing had to be done one-on-one by trained assassins under the program codenamed “Phoenix.” A different kind of drone was used and perhaps 40,000 people (if anything resembling truth is ever allowed to escape Langley) were murdered in cold blood, and for one purpose: To inflict terror on that society. What became of those who did the killings? Were they dispatched by their employer too? Or did they re-enter our society and become our night stalkers and serial killers? It’s hard to imagine that men trained in the fine art of assassination by a thousand devices came back home to live mundane lives.

What has this to do with assassination buffs? For some reason as I read St. Clair’s piece, the name Roger Craig came to mind. He was a deputy sheriff in Dallas in 1963 when JFK was murdered. He refused to buckle before the Warren Commission. He found what was perhaps one of the real assassination rifles in the Texas Book Depository, a 7.65 German Mauser, and refused to say it was something else. He heard the news of the shooting of Officer Tippet at 1:06, and refused to change it to 1:15, the time that the Commission needed to pin the crime on Oswald.

An assassination ‘buff’ will recite those details about Craig and completely miss their importance: Craig suffered from integrity. It got him killed.

Integrity is why people die young in a land like ours. But there are other ways to dispatch them. Ralph Nader, Anthony Weiner, Elliot Spitzer, Dorothy Kilgallen, John F. Kennedy – all appear to have integrity. Such people cannot stand to be around liars, cowards and murderers. Craig was dismissed from the Sheriff’s office in 1967. He could never again work in “law” enforcement. His wife left him. Attempts were made on his life. But he refused to change his story. Finally he is said to have killed himself in 1975.

Not likely. He was probably murdered by a drone. But integrity cannot be killed. Only its vessel is dispatched.