The Flavor of the Summer is Fear

Be very, very afraid America, the greatest threat to western civilization has now manifested itself with the mysterious Islamist group ISIS officially declaring the establishment of that dreaded caliphate that the neocons have been wailing about for years and have now hit the jackpot with the ultimate bogeyman to wage their Middle Eastern wars. It was inevitable that Americans would be bludgeoned again with that fear club, a powerful weapon of great influence that worked to perfection under Bush and Cheney and now that the Republicans or Hillary Clinton because what is really the difference smell blood like the political piranhas that they are. The rise of ISIS as some sort of monstrous army of Allah worshipping flesh-eating zombies couldn't be better constructed to scare the living crap out of the bewildered herd on the great star-spangled lemming colony and the state-corporate media is flogging this horse as hard as possible. The neocons must not believe their luck in having been able to return from what should have been permanent political exile to rule the roost again.

Things are never going to change in America, not since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center served the political class as well as the Reichstag Fire did the Nazis for it has served to justify every offense against the Constitution such as the stripping away of civil liberties, the elimination for all intents and purposes of both Habeas Corpus and the Posse Comitatus Act as we were dragged with nary a whimper into a now fully bloomed fascist totalitarian state. The Reichstag Fire gave Hitler his Enabling Act and the 9/11 events gave the US power structure their USA PATRIOT Act - not that there is much difference between the two other than the latter was written in German. Bush and Cheney invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, neither one of these enormously costly and failed wars were in the national interest and the USA!, USA!, USA! has pretty much gotten an ass kicking in both. Sure there was the great "SURGE" of the glorious General David Petraeus but it was just a public relations gimmick, sold to the public by seasoned, bloodthristy whores of the Military Industrial Complex like Senators McCain and Graham. It all worked so well and if the narrative coming out of Iraq and Syria is to be believed (and why in the Hell should anything that this corrupt government and power structure says should be given credibility given their record since 9/11) then the US involvement in the region and the destabilizing effect had more to do with ISIS than anything else. I still think that this all bears more than a slight whiff of bullshit and a massive psyops campaign to reengage upon the PNAC path to eternal glory and the harder that the media pushes it, the stronger that smell becomes.

But I digress...

This weekend commencing with the start of Ramadan, the baddest motherfuckers on Earth - I actually heard some dipshit referring to them as the Muslim Khmer Rouge and some rampaging horde out of Game of Thrones which I can't recall - have announced their intent to form the Caliphate. I excerpt the following from The Guardian story entitled  "Isis announces Islamic caliphate in area straddling Iraq and Syria":

Islamist militants have declared an Islamic "caliphate" in an area straddling Iraq and Syria, trumpeting the declaration in several videos.

One slick video, mostly in English, features a bearded fighter with an AK-47 on his back, explaining the new caliphate.

"This is not the first border we will break, we will break other borders," a jihadist from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) warned in the video called End of Sykes-Picot, a reference to the agreement between France and Britain that divided up the Ottoman empire territories after the first world war.

Later the fighter pledges that jihadists will free Palestine. "We are not here to replace an Arab cahoot with a western cahoot. Rather our jihad is more lofty and higher. We are fighting to make the word of Allah the highest," the spokesman said.

He is filmed showing abandoned Iraqi army badges and vehicles left by fleeing soldiers. "There is no army in the world that can withstand the soldiers of Islam," he said.

The video features about a dozen men in a cell said to be captured troops and border police. A building, said to be a police station, is shown being blown up, as well as US-made Humvees captured from the border police. "Look how much America spends to fight Islam, and it ends up just being in our pockets," the spokesman taunted.

Isis, a breakaway group from al-Qaida, is notable for its hardline anti-Shia sectarianism, declaring Shia Muslims and other rivals as heretics that deserve death.

And that is only the "Shia Muslims", they would love nothing better than to come to America (or Europe) and launch their jihad to make western infidels bow as slaves (or rape their luscious white daughters)  to the glory of Allah under that Sharia Law that the anti-Muslim bigot fear pimps have been preaching about for years. Just the abundance of lurid tales that have been popping up lately reek of an intelligence operation of US and other allies. Just a few examples are: "200 Iraqis killed in mass executions by ISIS fighters, Human Rights Watch says", "ISIL crucifies eight rival fighters, says monitoring group" and with pictures guaranteed to send shivers down lilly-white adherents of chicken fried Christianity in The Homeland at libertarian blog Zero Hedge "ISIS Declares A Caliphate; Crucifies 9 Syrian Rebels For Being "Too Moderate". Then there is Obama chiming in to provide cover to feckless coward Democrats in an election year who will be vilified for being terrorist appeasers with "Obama sees 'serious threat' to the U.S. from trained terrorists", the European angle to keep the NATO satellites buying the wares of various and sundry US arms manufacturers  "With ISIS surging in Iraq, Europe fears rise in ‘jihadi-tourists’" and hits the sweet spot with "Syria Threat Could Prompt Changes at Airports" from which I excerpt:

For months the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and other agencies have been quietly debating whether to boost the U.S. security posture and encourage overseas partners to take action too. The agencies have also been debating whether to make a public announcement on potential new security measures at airports.

The back-and-forth has been based on intelligence showing that a particularly extreme "subset" of terrorist groups in Syria was working alongside operatives from al Qaeda's prolific offshoot in Yemen to produce "creative" new designs for bombs, as one source put it.

Somebody is going to hit the fucking jackpot over new airport screening and harassment measures, just look at how former DHS head Michael Chertoff cashed in off of the ridiculous Christmas "Underwear Bomber" plot when his lobbying firm, The Chertoff Group played the fear card to fleece the American taxpayers for those naked body scanners.

This is all just horseshit, we have seen this movie before - it stank - and we all got fleeced. The criminal political class always plays the fear card in order to justify their own existence and with the newly minted Islamic devil of ISIS taking the place of Al-Qaeda Americans are being played for the suckers that they are anew. The great line from the movie Blade Runner by Rutger Hauer's Roy Baty replicant character put it "Quite an experience to live in fear isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave".

The political class, especially in corrupt and collapsing morally bereft societies - like ours - have nothing else to offer other than their "we will protect you" from the evildoers confidence game  and it works. So with all of us about to be dragged back to the quivering, pissing in your pants days of the early post 9/11 era - AGAIN - just so the scum can continue to feed like the vampires that they are upon the cattle I would strongly recommend a 2006 BBC series by documentary master Adam Curtis entitled "The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear". His brilliant and groundbreaking trilogy examines both the rise of radical Islamist groups like al Qaeda as well as the neoconservatives and their ideological master Leo Strauss and to my knowledge have never been aired in America. These are all the more relevant today than they were back in 2004. They can be found in a number of locations by a simple Google search but I have found that Internet Archive (https://archive.org) is the most reliable location. All three installments Part One: Baby It's Cold Outside, Part Two: The Phantom Victory and Part Three: The Shadows in the Cave are available for viewing or download in multiple formats here: The Power Of Nightmares. 

Quite an experience to live in fear isn't it? That is what it is to be an American. 

War Now and War Forever as Neocons Bask in Renewed Glory

You have to give one thing to Dick Cheney, the motherfucker has balls. The ongoing bedlam in Iraq courtesy of militant Islamic group ISIS - a sudden arrival so convenient that it is practically too good to be true for the war machine and just maybe it is - the architects of the disastrous "Shock and Awe" attack and invasion are taking to the airwaves to take their bows and trash Barack the magnificent over their own bloody mess in a Neocon Surge. People are buying it too, just like they got suckered by the original sales pitch by the Bushreich and bullshit conjecture about smoking guns as mushroom clouds and Saddam Hussein's yellow cake uranium - not surprising in that we live in the land of the great star-spangled shit sandwich that never lacks for hordes of suckers lining up to take a bite. The neocons are everywhere this week, a veritable ghouls parade for a pack of deranged jackals long ago left for dead. None however have come roaring back quite like former Vice President Richard B. Cheney, a man who were he to live in a land where justice reigned would long ago have been swinging from the end of a rope just like Saddam did.

Bursting forth like the proverbial alien through the chest cavity, Cheney was afforded prime space in the Rupert Murdoch war herald the Wall Street Journal, a paper whose editorial page is slightly to the right of Benito Mussolini. The man who quite possibly may be the greatest war criminal since Adolf Hitler and definitely in US history delivered a sulfuric reeking jeremiad that could have come from the bowels of Hades itself, a place where Cheney most assuredly would be roasting on a spit were it not for his ability to jump to the front of the line on the donor list to score a new heart. The piece, entitled "The Collapsing Obama Doctrine" co-written by his lunatic daughter and failed Wyoming US candidate Liz amazingly begins "Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many" as if he wasn't the co-pilot (and arguably top gun) during the catastrophic eight year wrecking spree of the George W. Bush administration. I excerpt the following from Cheney and his hell-spawn's screed:

As the terrorists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) threaten Baghdad, thousands of slaughtered Iraqis in their wake, it is worth recalling a few of President Obama's past statements about ISIS and al Qaeda. "If a J.V. team puts on Lakers' uniforms that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant" (January 2014). "[C]ore al Qaeda is on its heels, has been decimated" (August 2013). "So, let there be no doubt: The tide of war is receding" (September 2011).

[Kobe Bryant should sue the Cheneys who have now tainted him in a manner that that ugly rape case nor his inability to win more NBA titles than Michael Jordan ever could - his very mention though shows that Dick and Liz had some professional help from a high dollar advertising/public relations house]

Rarely has a U.S. president been so wrong about so much at the expense of so many. Too many times to count, Mr. Obama has told us he is "ending" the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—as though wishing made it so. His rhetoric has now come crashing into reality. Watching the black-clad ISIS jihadists take territory once secured by American blood is final proof, if any were needed, that America's enemies are not "decimated." They are emboldened and on the march.

[Once again Cheney, doing his best Ronald Reagan with Alzheimer's disease imitation conveniently forgets George W. Bush in his selective recall of history. Also there is that increasingly smelly "ISIS" thing that looks more and more like a psyops campaign]

AND

On a trip to the Middle East this spring, we heard a constant refrain in capitals from the Persian Gulf to Israel, "Can you please explain what your president is doing?" "Why is he walking away?" "Why is he so blithely sacrificing the hard fought gains you secured in Iraq?" "Why is he abandoning your friends?" "Why is he doing deals with your enemies?"

[The last time that I looked the Persian Gulf and Israel weren't a part of America, a land who our bought politicians are at least theoretically supposed to represent instead of foreigners] 

In one Arab capital, a senior official pulled out a map of Syria and Iraq. Drawing an arc with his finger from Raqqa province in northern Syria to Anbar province in western Iraq, he said, "They will control this territory. Al Qaeda is building safe havens and training camps here. Don't the Americans care?"

[I can't speak for ALL Americans but my personal opinion is NO - I don't fucking care, it is time to clean up our own house and get the fuck out of all of these foreign entanglements that George Washington once warned of]

AND

American freedom will not be secured by empty threats, meaningless red lines, leading from behind, appeasing our enemies, abandoning our allies, or apologizing for our great nation—all hallmarks to date of the Obama doctrine. Our security, and the security of our friends around the world, can only be guaranteed with a fundamental reversal of the policies of the past six years.

[Translation: ROMNEY 2016 - Sheldon Adelson has more money that God and he's on our side]

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan said, "If history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom." President Obama is on track to securing his legacy as the man who betrayed our past and squandered our freedom.

[Jesus do I long for that great day when Dick Cheney joins Ronald Reagan for eternity]

After reading that monstrous tirade I feel like I need a shower to wash off the toxic sleaze and slime.

It's total bullshit and his criticism of Obama is hypocrisy at the utmost, our current above the law figurehead has his own disasters now - the Wall Street bailout, the corporate friendly Obamacare scam, a dismal economy and with his ongoing dangerous provocation of Vladimir Putin and Russia (the neocons and Cheney hate them too) perhaps a global nuclear catastrophe. Obama, like Kobe Bryant in the late stages of what appears to be a losing effort still has some time on the clock and could yet surpass Bush, Cheney and the neocons in their damage inflicted upon America and to a larger extent the planet. Christ knows that the man isn't trying his damned level best.

The kicker about Cheney's much-publicized vomiting up of chunks of lunacy is that in addition to his blasting of Barry and polishing the turd of his own legacy he is promoting a new political money-laundering house with one of those stupid patriotic sounding names - Alliance for a Stronger America - that seems more like a place for Liz to hang her cowboy hat and spurs for a job long after Dick has gone on to his great reward.

While the neocons are doing their victory lap and revising history thanks to the same corrupt media that allowed them to lie America into a war that cost thousands of American servicemen and women their lives and hundreds of thousands more diminished lifestyles thanks to being maimed for their delusions those who get it can just watch in a sort of mixture of horror and really fucking cynical humor as the war criminals are afforded the chance to rewrite history in their favor.

As George Orwell himself, a man who had a Nostradamus like ability to foresee the coming of the neocons once so aptly put it: "He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past". The same lying media figures and ideologues who lied this once great country into the insane  cauldron of corruption and ancient religious hatred that is the blood-drenched clusterfuck of the Middle East at the cost of thousands of dead Americans and well over a million non-Christian brown folks (aka collateral damage) have not only gotten away with it but are doing it again now.

Always remember 2+2=5

US Mired in Cold War Mentality as Cuban Twitter Scheme Exposed

It's back to the future in The Homeland circa 2014. When the neocons and the dimwitted Obama administration are not actively poking the bear in Russia, for example the destabilization and overthrow of the democratically elected leader in Ukraine and hurling propaganda stink bombs at the Sochi Winter Olympic games they are still to this day trying to foment revolution in Cuba. Jesus Christ, have any of the lunatics who are running this great star-spangled asylum ever studied history? The government that Castro built - after kicking out mobsters and rapacious corporate interests, not that there is much if any difference - has endured for nearly sixty years and eleven US presidents. It would just have to be the ultimate narcissist, Barack Obama who thinks that he can be the one to finally stick a fork into it.

The latest example in an endless series of botched plots is that of ZunZuneo, or the "Cuban Twitter" that was revealed to be a covert attempt by the Obama regime to destabilize the government. Hell, we can't do anything rational such as to normalize relations and open Cuba to American investment and trade the proverbial rising tide that would lift all boats, if anything the ongoing debacle in Iran is proof of that, the dirty trick bag has to be opened and the Cuban government subverted in the finest of post WW II US foreign policy tradition. The story of this show of stupidity by Team Obama was broken by the Associated Press. I excerpt the following from the piece entitled "US SECRETLY CREATED 'CUBAN TWITTER' TO STIR UNREST":

In July 2010, Joe McSpedon, a U.S. government official, flew to Barcelona to put the final touches on a secret plan to build a social media project aimed at undermining Cuba's communist government.

McSpedon and his team of high-tech contractors had come in from Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Washington and Denver. Their mission: to launch a messaging network that could reach hundreds of thousands of Cubans. To hide the network from the Cuban government, they would set up a byzantine system of front companies using a Cayman Islands bank account, and recruit executives who would not be told of the company's ties to the U.S. government.

McSpedon didn't work for the CIA. This was a program paid for and run by the U.S. Agency for International Development, best known for overseeing billions of dollars in U.S. humanitarian aid.

According to documents obtained by The Associated Press and multiple interviews with people involved in the project, the plan was to develop a bare-bones "Cuban Twitter," using cellphone text messaging to evade Cuba's strict control of information and its stranglehold restrictions over the Internet. In a play on Twitter, it was called ZunZuneo — slang for a Cuban hummingbird's tweet.

Documents show the U.S. government planned to build a subscriber base through "non-controversial content": news messages on soccer, music and hurricane updates. Later when the network reached a critical mass of subscribers, perhaps hundreds of thousands, operators would introduce political content aimed at inspiring Cubans to organize "smart mobs" — mass gatherings called at a moment's notice that might trigger a Cuban Spring, or, as one USAID document put it, "renegotiate the balance of power between the state and society."

So the cover is now blown on USAID as being just another front for the endless series of escapades by the US government and the NGO's which are really for the most part front groups in the meddling in the affairs of other countries. The Cold War may officially be over but the dead enders just never stop. Just look at the escalating mess in Ukraine where the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which took place of the more ostentatious CIA in doing the dirty work of toppling governments not sufficiently following the Washington line. Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland during a speech to predatory corporations looking to feast on the spoils of the carved up Ukraine boasted of the $5 billion that the US government had plowed into the country - hell, it's not like it could be used to actually do some investment in America. The NED's role in spreading "democracy" at gunpoint and beating the concept into all who refuse to go along with the corporate colonization in the torture chambers of the murderous despots that we the US taxpayers fund was already well established but USAID. at least had some semblance of legitimacy - good job Obama, there that one goes as well. Is it too late to get George W. Bush to come back?

The White House naturally denied that the Cuban Twitter plot was a covert operation but there are Congressional (yes those worthless bastards) probes forthcoming. With Senator Robert "whore chaser" Menendez already chiming in approvingly:  "The whole purpose of our democracy programs, whether it be in Cuba or other parts of the world, is in part to create a free flow of information in closed societies" - the sheer hypocrisy is incredible, given that the New Jersey based kingpin of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee continue to be one of the most vocal advocates of the unconstitutional NSA Stasi mass domestic surveillance and data-mining programs. For further elaboration on the ZunZuneo operation as well as other more nefarious aspects of the collaborative program between the NSA and those Norsefire fascists across the pond at GCHQ Glenn Greenwald has just published a very good piece over at his new platform The Intercept entitled "The “Cuban Twitter” Scam Is a Drop in the Internet Propaganda Bucket", it like all of his work is strongly recommended reading.

So on and on it goes with this sick obsession with Cold War style skullduggery and an absolute refusal to become an honest partner in what is an increasingly globalized world where the US establishment as well as the deep state and shadow government that lie underneath continue with their wretched, dishonest and murderous ways. The one place that is so badly in need of one of those regime changes is right here in the US of A.