U.S. Bloc Overplays Its Hand In Ukraine

Well, no sooner has the U.S. and its EU handmaidens [1] installed the "government" of its choosing in the Ukraine (including various fascists and the man Victoria Nuland chose to be president, as revealed in her intercepted phone conversation with the U.S. ambassador in Kiev) then certain, shall we say, complications have arisen. Turns out that it's NOT the "will of the Ukrainian people" to turn Ukraine into a Western vassal state, just the desire of some of them. This should come as no surprise, given that those in the eastern part of the country are closely tied economically and culturally with Russia. The separate parliament in the Crimea region (which was part of Russia proper until the 1950s) has been occupied by opponents of the mob coup in Kiev.

“Gunmen” (the U.S. media term for them- BBC's too) took over the parliament in Crimea, with a crowd outside backing them. (Was it not a “gunman” who shot a cop in the head in Kiev, and one who threw a grenade, which started the killings there? No, it was “demonstrators.” And notice how the Western media carefully avoided the words “occupiers” or “occupying” during the three month occupation of the government buildings and main square in Kiev, to avoid creating mental linkages with the Occupy Movement- and reminders of how hostile that media was to it, and its brutal crushing by the police in the U.S. Oh, but that was different!)

What's happening in the Crimea is an “armed standoff” (as the U.S. government's NPR and its satellite radio stations describe it, for example). But the armed occupiers facing the police for three months in Kiev didn't constitute an “armed standoff.” (Recall they were throwing bricks and firebombs at the police all along too.) 

Obama, his Secretary of State the unctuous John Kerry, and War Secretary Chuck "Wagon" Hagel, are all waging their fingers at Russia and "warning" it not to intervene. It would "complicate" matters, in the words of a former U.S. ambassador served up to us by NPR (formerly National Puke- I mean Public- Radio, a U.S. Government propaganda radio network).  Meanwhile "journalists" from "Radio Liberty" (the "Cold War" propaganda arm of the U.S. government, which- surprise!- still exists, even though we're told the Cold War is over, the U.S. having won it) and other Western propaganda organs apparently broke into the home of the overthrown president and stole thousands of documents, which they are gleefully waving about and posting online. (These same hypocrites demonize the likes the Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, Edward Snowden, et al. Double standard, anyone?) We're told the ousted ELECTED president is "wanted" for killings of demonstrators. (Funny, no arrest warrant was ever issued for, let's say, Nelson Rockefeller, for ordering the Attica Prison massacre, or for Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, and Louis Freeh for the deliberate slaughter of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, burned alive and shot, including 17 children, or Wilson Goode, who as Mayor of Philadelphia ordered a bomb dropped on the home of Move!, with most of the survivors shot dead as they fled the ensuing inferno, against mostly women and children, or how many massacres of native Americans. Well, just because they'd been here 15,000 years, they still had no right to be here- their ancestors didn't come over on the Mayflower,)

But I digress.

The U.S. media (and BBC and no doubt most of the rest of the European establishment media) has slavishly parroted the line that Russia should just passively stand by and let the West seize control of a country on its borders. Imagine if a mob seized the government in Canada, and Russian-picked stooges were then proclaimed as the new government, while top Russian officials warned the U.S. not to intervene. You'd have to be on some powerful hallucinogen to even imagine such a thing! The U.S. has threatened to start nuclear wars for less than that. "The" media is also straining the find a Russian hand in the Crimea rebellion against the rebellion- with the BBC even trying to claim, without evidence by their own admission, that the "gunmen" who seized an airport and other places are really Russian troops disguised as civilians. (They apparently rounded up a supportive crowd before seizing the Crimean parliament.)

Now "the West" apparently expects Russia to surrender its naval port in the Crimea. How about the U.S. clear out of Guantanamo Bay first, which is occupied by force and against the will of Cuba?

The point isn't that I'm pro-Russian. It's Russia's problem. The point is the utter arrogance, hyper-aggressiveness, and outrageous hypocrisy of U.S. Imperialists and their lackeys. They always push it to the hilt, while claiming victimhood: victims of "terrorism," of "Soviet expansionism," of "communist aggression," of  "drug lords," of dangerous radicals, black militants, dirty hippies, whatever excuse they can cook up to justify external aggression and subversion and internal repression. The aggressive attempt of the U.S., aided and abetted by various lackey nations, to rule the world, is a source of constant conflict and destruction- and oftentimes mass murder. The truth is, viewed objectively, the U.S. has been a negative for humanity overall throughout its history. That's not to say the world would be a swell place if the U.S. magically disappeared- just that the U.S. is the MAIN source of trouble in the world today- although Islamofascism is a strong contender for second place.

1]  Known as “Fuck the EU” in internal State Department parlance- as per Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, formerly chief State Dept. flack, in yet another revealing display of the contempt in which U.S. Imperialists hold everyone else on earth, even “close allies.” The NSA spying revelations was another example. This is because those who live for power, who revel in it, who consider it glorious, hold in contempt those weaker than themselves- and fawn over those more powerful. Since no nation is more powerful than the U.S., the U.S. Imperialist elite holds all others in contempt.

U.S., Obama Regime, Busy as Bees, Trying to Overthrow Three Governments Simultaneously

(And Media Handmaidens Play Their Assigned Roles.)

This might be a first in U.S. Imperialist history: trying to overthrow three governments at the same time. Namely in Ukraine, Thailand, and Venezuela. It's a feat you might see in an Olympics of Imperialism, or maybe something an overachieving empire would do. There may be even more governments the U.S. is currently working to destabilize, of course; these three are just very blatant examples that are visible to the naked eye, as it were.

The coup attempt in Ukraine appears on the verge of success. The president has disappeared. His allies in parliament are jumping ship. The police are withdrawing, and if we can believe Western media reports (always a big IF, given their propensity for disinformation- aka lying) some police even have joined the “protesters.” (Maybe they can put in a word for their colleagues the rebels are holding hostage.)

One of the surefire signs of U.S. “foreign policy objectives” is how the establishment media “covers” (slants and distorts) a story. In all three cases, the clear preference of this media, and thus indirectly of the U.S. state, is obvious. In Venezuela, the U.S. media (and British and other overseas U.S. lapdog media) has demonized Hugo Chavez since Day One, not because of incompetence per se (as if they automatically oppose incompetent rulers and support competent ones) but because of the class interests Chavez openly championed, namely the “lower” classes- the majority of Venezuelans. Now that Chavez is dead, his successor Nicolas Maduro has to deal with U.S. subversion and hostility. So far on three occasions the Venezuelan government has had to expel U.S. “diplomats” trying to provoke unrest and subvert the government. The latest batch were trolling for troublemakers on college campuses. Their cover story? “Visa outreach.” Good one, State Department! You made me laugh! (I'm sure the people with Wrong Thoughts who have been put through the grinder trying to get a U.S. visa would enjoy that joke. People seeking U.S. visas go to the U.S. consulates or embassies. U.S. staff don't go hunting for people to give visas to- unless they're up to no good.)

But Maduro has shown weakness. Suddenly he's asking to talk to Obama to straighten things out with the U.S. Big mistake. Now the U.S. is going to increase the pressure, since it sees it's working. So the U.S. is coming closer to its goal of reestablishing a bourgeois class dictatorship in Venezuela.

In the case of Thailand, this clear class bias in favor of the upper classes everywhere and hostility to the majority of the world's people manifests in sympathy for the Thai minority that is rebelling against the government and even prevented voting in parts of the country. The alleged Great Devotion To Democracy that the U.S. government and media profess was nowhere on display- no condemnation of this prevention of voting, in fact barely any mention of it, much less detailed coverage. “Even” NPR and the BBC (UK) were slanted,  though if you listened carefully to the facts they presented, the facts belied the interpretation and framework those organizations placed on the situation (requiring them to ignore their own facts). In Thailand a distinct minority of the population- the elites, the privileged- is trying once again to overthrow an elected leaders. (They have one coup under their belt already, thanks to the Thai military, who drove out the brother of the current head of state, in the process violently suppressing his supporters who rallied behind him.) That time too, “the” media sided with the coupists and against the majority.

In the case of Ukraine, the media “bias” has been the most outrageous. There, violent demonstrators have occupied government buildings in the heart of Kiev, the capital, for three months, and barricaded the area. They have violently attacked police, starting with paving stones and dumping cold water on them in the freezing winter, then escalating to Molotov cocktails (homemade firebombs), and just recently shooting a policeman dead and hurling a grenade in their midst, costing another cop his leg.

Yet the Western media have presented these goons (spearheaded by fascists) as the Good Guys, and the police as the Bad Guys. New laws designed to control the violence of the “protesters” and take back the part of the capital city and government buildings held hostage by them were immediately labeled as “anti-protest laws” by propaganda organs such as NPR, the BBC, and CBS. (Those are ones I heard it on; there are probably others.) The protesters were said to be “defending their right to protest.” Western governments weighed in on this grave violation of human rights (while maintaining their silence on the real repression going on in Bahrain, to cite just one example, or Israel, or Jordan, or just about any client state or satrapy of the U.S. bloc). The “democratic West” thus maintains its consistency and continues its traditions of hypocrisy and double-standards. (For more on Ukraine go to democracynow.org and search for the interviews Stephen Cohen gave on the subject.)

Care to speculate how such protesters would be handled in any Western capital? Based on the violent repression of peaceful protesters in the U.S., for example, most recently the Occupy Movement, we can confidently predict a bloodbath would be the response. During the black riots in American cities, “looters” were shot by the scores by State Police, local police, and National Guardsmen. (Scores of dead were the “official” count in the various cities, a count which isn't trustworthy of course because the repressive state and Federal governments doing the killing were issuing those numbers, meaning they had an incentive to lowball the numbers. The corporate propaganda media faithfully transmitted these death tolls to the public as “fact.”) Airborne Divisions were even kept stateside instead of going to Vietnam to fight there, in order to have a reliable domestic-suppression force. Yet Obama has the nerve to threaten the Ukrainian government with “consequences” if they “cross that line” and refuse his demand to withdraw security forces from the scene of the occupation! At the same time, Obama blamed “the violence” entirely on the regime, with the U.S. media (and BBC) marching in lockstep behind this line. Obama imposed a Catch-22 on the Ukrainian president, simultaneously demanding that he withdraw the police, AND "end the violence." Since the protesters are committing violence, police action is required to end violence. [1]

Now, I don't care who rules Ukraine, or whether the ELECTED president of Ukraine signs or doesn't sign a trade deal with the EU. He was going to sign, and Russian pressure apparently caused him to change his mind. It's also a fact that Europe and the U.S. have been aggressively pushing the border of their economic and military sphere right up to the border of Russia ever since the Soviet Union collapsed. (Wonder how the U.S. would react if the Russians were grabbing Canada and Mexico into their sphere! It would probably be war.)

The U.S. and EU aren't even willing to wait for the next Ukrainian presidential election next year- apparently they don't want to risk “losing.” (As if it should be any of their business.) Hence the drive for the coup. The fact is, the people of Ukraine are divided as to which way their country should lean- East or West. This is a fact rarely alluded to in the mendacious media “coverage,” which assiduously gives the impression that the entire Ukrainian people are rising up against an intolerable regime.(Not jumping into bed with the EU by signing a trade treaty apparently is beyond the pale.) [2]

It's a textbook example of how a small nation that doesn't do EXACTLY what the U.S. Empire and its lackeys demand has its government overthrown. There are numerous such cases- two of the most notorious being Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954. As in the current Ukraine case, the demands in those cases were also economic. [3]

Obama is a classic overachiever, a very dangerous personality type to have as U.S. Emperor. With the immense destructive power of the U.S. at his disposal, such a character, with an ego-driven mania for “accomplishments,” can do tremendous harm in the world- and Obama has certainly caused his share of misery, suffering, and death so far. He has also inflicted lasting damage on human rights inside the U.S., by his lead role in the destruction of personal privacy via the omnisurveillance system centered around the NSA, which he has championed and protected (and attempted to sneak past the people under a cloak of secrecy- hence the revilement of whistleblower Edward Snowden by the establishment power structure.) [4]

1] To mention just a couple of examples of the repression of peaceful Occupy protesters, in “liberal” New York City, OBEYING a police order was cause to be pepper-sprayed and/or arrested by the police and falsely charged with crimes. The facts are well-established. The police led 750 marchers onto a bridge in order to capture them and take them into captivity and falsely charge them. And there's the notorious case of the vicious Inspector Anthony Bologna, who gratuitously pepper-sprayed two women who were standing exactly where he had ordered them to stand. Obviously Bologna is a reactionary fanatic who hates his political/ideological enemies (enemies in his mind- unfortunately most of the victimized dissidents haven't figured out that the police are their enemies, despite ample evidence over many years- violent assault, false arrests, malicious prosecutions, infiltration, surveillance, sabotage, disruption- everything a police state like the U.S. does to dissidents). Unfortunately for Bologna, he forgot to take them into a back room in a police lair to torture them, instead doing it right on the street in front of numerous witnesses and being recorded in his criminal act. Police Commissar Raymond Kelly, Master of Repression, was forced to dock Bologna a few days of paid vacation time as a result. Pretty mild punishment for a high-ranking officer publicly committing a malicious assault. Bologna maintained his rank, power, and authority in the New York City Police. (Known as the NYPD.)

2] American reporter David Stern let slip on the BBC the morning of February 22 that “as much as 46%” of Ukrainians support the overthrow movement. I.e. Maximally, less than half of Ukrainians want to oust the president by force. Real democratic. Notice that Stern and BBC waited until the coup is almost complete to mention this rather significant fact.

What's also ignored in the Western media propaganda offensive is the fact that eastern Ukraine is economically dependent on Russia, and the people there favor not alienating Moscow as a result. They're Ukrainians too, not just the cop-killers in Kiev. (They've killed about a dozen cops so far, by the way, a fact Western media now hides by lumping the police deaths in with all deaths, as in "X number of people have died in the violence," implying they're all dead coupsters.)

3] In Iran, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh committed the grave crime of deciding that his nation should get more than a negligible share of revenues from Iranian oil. The British oil firm British Petroleum (now the criminal, incorrigible polluter BP) ran to its government, which got the U.S. to help in a joint CIA-MI-6 coup. In the case of Guatemala, President Jacobo Arbenz naively thought that he could appropriate unused land held by the United Fruit Company, and pay compensation in the value that United Fruit had stated on its Guatemalan tax returns for the land, and allow poor peasants a shot at a decent living. This was an unconscionable theft in UFC's eyes, so they went whining to the U.S. Government, where two former elite corporate lawyers from the criminal firm Sullivan and Cromwell, now had their bloody paws on the top levers of power- Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and his brother Allen, Director of Central Intelligence. (CIA boss.) In short order they got President Eisenhower on board to brand Arbenz a “communist” and arrange a CIA coup there (as in Iran). In both cases, the coups ended democracy in both countries, and it hasn't returned. In both countries, massive slaughters of civilians ensued in the following decades, carried out by state terrorist regimes coached by the U.S., especially the CIA, U.S. military, and State Department.

If Arbenz had read up on history, he might have realized how dangerous his move was. The U.S. already had a history, going back at least aa century, of attacking Latin American nations whenever some rich Americans were displeased with a situation. For example, in 1854, a century before the Guatemalan coup, it was necessary for the U.S. Navy to burn down the Nicaraguan port town of San Juan del Norte. Why? Because when American plutocrat Cornelius Vanderbilt sailed his yacht into town, the local authorities had the effrontery to try and levy port charges on his boat. Clearly a corrective lesson for the natives was in order. This also nicely illustrates, as do most such cases of U.S. imperial criminality, that ultimately U.S. power is deployed on behalf of American plutocratic interests, whether corporate or even individual, as in this case. And no crumb is too small for the Big Dog to snatch away from the world's poor.

Yes, that really happened. It's amazing all the dirty shit in American history that those in power manage to bury with barely a trace that it ever happened. Of course, this is only possible because of the willing assistance provided by such accomplices as “teachers,” “professors,” “scholars,” and “journalists,” the main indoctrinators and keepers of “truth.” A handful of actual historians, such as the late Howard Zinn, have rescued the interred bones of history from the enforced amnesia of establishment guardian priests of ideological rectitude.

Here's an excerpt from a presentation by Noam Chomsky in 1985 that mentions some of the U.S.' depredations in Latin America, which the U.S. Imperium still calls “our hemisphere,” as in “we own it.” (See the glorious “Monroe Doctrine,” which declared the Western hemisphere off-limits to European imperialisms. “Our” doesn't mean “we happen to be located here,” it means “it's ours.”) Chomsky insightfully illuminates the sham pretexts the U.S. uses for its aggression and domination.

The full talk is on youtube.com, titled “Noam Chomsky Lessons of Vietnam 1985 FULL Speech (RARE).”

Someone better tell Maduro he's not dealing with reasonable people.

4] By the way, the BBC in the last couple of days referred to Edward Snowden as “infamous,” as in “the infamous Edward Snowden,” like it's an objective fact. And that wasn't in a commentary, but the intro to a “news” piece, offered as a matter-of-fact-descriptive. They don't even call Bashir al-Assad that! (The Butcher of Syria.) They've outdone even U.S. “news” organs with that one. (Some people are of the opinion that Snowden is “infamous.” It is not a fact and far from a universal view. Some regard him as a hero. Thus the BBC could have called him “hero Edward Snowden” with equal validity. A more neutral, objective term would be whistleblower. NOT "leaker"- leakers are anonymous. And they're usually "officials" hiding behind anonymity to plant propaganda in the media. Most thinks the establishment media calls "leaks" are really propaganda plants by those in state power.)

Anyway, Thank You, “Great” Britain, for being so slavishly and sycophantically loyal to your U.S. masters! I know the U.S. imperialists take you for granted, so I'll thank you on their behalf, you rotten propagandist wankers.

Hamid Karzai's “Job”

“President” Karzai of Afghanistan just released 65 putative Taliban terrorist prisoners from Bagram Air Base (who had been handed over to Afghan custody by the U.S. with the understanding that they wouldn't be freed- that's what they get for thinking Karzai's word is worth more than a bucket of warm spit). Here's his defense of this reckless action:

“It is my job as President to look after the interests of the Afghan people.” [BBC interview, February 13, 2013.]

So, it's in the “interests of the Afghan people” to unleash fanatical terrorists on them, huh? That's a rather debatable proposition, I'd say.

He also couched it in terms of Afghans' “human rights.” (His laissez-faire attitude towards crimes against women and children by “traditionalists” would warrant our skepticism of this claim- and demands that Karzai explicate his definition of “human rights.”)

Asked by the BBC as to ISAF's* motive in imprisoning innocent Afghans, he says “the only possible reason” is to make Afghans “hate the government” of Afghanistan, i.e. his own regime.

What a crazy allegation! How's that for gratitude for the billions shoveled into the maw of his corrupt regime, including regular delivery of satchels of cash by the CIA to Karzai personally, to hand out as bribes- from which he no doubt skimmed some for himself as a “carrying charge.” I see scant evidence of the West trying to undermine Karzai. Certainly they should have stopped supporting him many years ago. Obviously Karzai thinks by being “anti-American,” somehow he can ingratiate himself with the Taliban. Even the Taliban's murder of Karzai's last two top “peace” negotiators haven't disabused him of this delusion. I only hope he sticks around after the Taliban seize power again, if they do, and he ends up like one of his predecessors, ghoulishly castrated and hung by the sadistic gunmen empowered by the U.S., Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia to dominate Afghanistan since their joint anti-Soviet crusade.

The BBC said U.S. gave them a dossier for half the released prisoners, which claimed they were armed, or had explosives' residues, and so on. And many were seized within the last 6 months, not long-time prisoners as Karzai claims. One was a senior Taliban leader- says the U.S. Of course, it's fair to be skeptical of any U.S. claims about the matter. But I doubt that every single U.S. prisoner is innocent and the U.S. never captures any Taliban terrorists. Even Karzai said “most” of those he precipitously freed were innocent, not “all.”

But the U.S. is on shaky ground thanks to its own behavior over the years in its “War On Terrorism.”^TM

It has rounded up thousands of non-terrorists, many on payment of bounties, and imprisoned them for years without recourse by the victims or their families. It has institutionalized torture, and used the resulting “intelligence” as “proof” of its claims and even as “evidence” in its kangaroo-court “military tribunals.” Just last year the New York Times, no less, reported on the unearthing of bodies around a Special Forces base in Afghanistan, where torture and murder of prisoners is conducted. So the U.S. unfortunately is in a weak position to squawk (which hasn't stopped it from doing so anyway, of course) about Karzai's dismissal of the U.S.'s characterization of the released prisoners.

So basically both Karzai and the U.S. are immoral and untrustworthy. Pick your poison.

* The International Security Assistance Force, the umbrella for the U.S. and helpmate foreign military forces in Afghanistan.

Russian People Gouged For Huge Putin Vanity Project

So the Winter Olympics in the summer resort town of Sochi, Russia (which is akin to staging them in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, or somewhere like that) is costing the Russian People $51 billion (or rather, its equivalent in rubles). To put that in perspective, that's more than the cost of all previous Winter Olympics combined.

Naturally, there is mega-corruption, and Putin's crony capitalists are making a killing. For good measure, locals have been evicted and their homes demolished to make way for this ephemeral extravaganza. Local water supplies have been dried up, toxic waste dumps created, cropland ruined. And many of the imported workers who built the facilities were stiffed for their wages and run out of town by Putin's goon squads. (And if you're homosexual, you better keep it a deep, dark secret, if you know what's good for you.)

But it's for a good cause- Vladimir Putin's vanity.

The Olympics is a giant scam, run by corrupt bribe-takers. The eminence grise of the enterprise is still the avowed (and proud of it) fascist, Juan Antonio Samaranch, Sports Minister to the late Spanish fascist dictator and mass murderer Francisco Franco. (Samaranch's son is currently on the board of the International Olympic Committee, along with a bunch of his dad's hand-picked stooges.0

Virtually every city that hosts Olympic games loses big money on it. It is sought after by local politicians for their own vainglory. And the athletes are shamelessly exploited by this multi-billion dollar racket. On the corporations and television broadcasters and the IOC itself benefit.

The Russian people, suffering from poor nutrition, rotten health, terrible (or not) jobs, and a decayed and decrepit social structure, sure could have used that $51 billion to benefit them, instead of the ego of KGB Colonel/Dictator Putin.

Immoral and Proud of It

“My Country Right or Wrong.” I.e. I'm openly proclaiming my immorality, and proud of it too!

This is a classic jingoistic American slogan, loudly brayed.

Evil doesn't get more blatant or naked than this. To my knowledge, not even the Nazis went this far rhetorically (although in their actions they certainly took barbarism and evil to their limits).

Dictionary of Obama Regime Vocabulary

The Obama regime, and especially its Godfather, uses words in idiosyncratic ways that might confuse people. (Indeed that's the obvious intent.) Here, as a public service, a translation guide to common Obamaoid terms and their plain English meanings.

“Imminent threat.” - Hypothetical at some indeterminate future point.

“No one is reading your emails/ listening to your phone calls” - No one you know, that is.

“The proper balance between privacy and security.” - is zero to one hundred. (0:100.)

“Security.” - Deep state power.

“Freedom.” - Of those in power to do whatever they like.

“You can keep your health care plan if you like it.” - Until you can't.

“We're looking forward.” - by immunizing U.S. state torturers.

“I will close Guantanamo Bay in one year.” - Not.

“Due Process.” - Secret cabal of Obama officials draw up a weekly death list and Obama approves it.                     [ As per Eric Holder, Jr., Attorney General of the U.S.] 

“Transparent” government - Opaque and secretive. For good measure, persecuting journalists, including 

 wiretapping (AP and Fox, among others) criminally investigating (Fox), seizing notes and digital devices at U.S. borders, imprisoning them (Barrett Brown) and murdering them (Michael Hastings).

“Whistleblower protection” - Persecution of whistleblowers, including FBI home raids, felony charges, directives to all Federal agencies to make employees spy on each other, FDA spyware planted on scientists' computers, etc. etc.

“Immigration reform” - Record 2 million people deported by Obama regime, thousands of families smashed to bits, doubling of Border Patrol size, thousands incarcerated in county jails and private prisons.

Assad Bring Polio Back to Syria

Children are being paralyzed by the polio virus, which thanks to the regime of dictator Bashir al-Assad

has returned to Syria. Assad's Alawite oligarchy, (Assad himself inherited the dictatorship from his exsanguinous dad, Hafez) has been waging a war of extermination against the civilian population of the country it misrules in areas where rebels have driven out Assad's gunmen. This war of extermination includes use of starvation, poison gases, and bombing and shelling of schools, markets, and wherever else groups of civilians of any ages might congregate and thus be killed in numbers.

From the beginning of the civil war over two years ago, the Assad regime has targeted health care workers suspected of aiding the wounded in rebel areas, and medical facilities have been special targets. The regime just murdered a doctor, after torturing him for 8 months first. With their special signature cruelty, Assad's minions led the doctor and his family to believe he was about to be released just before murdering him. Then, in their usual smarmy and hyper-cynical fashion, insisted he'd committed suicide. Pushing such obvious lies in the world's face is one way they show their contempt for morality and the opinion of humanity. Indeed, like the Nazis (a number of whom were harbored in Syria after World War II), the Assadites draw psychological strength from their openly reveling in their own immorality and criminality. This is characteristic of devils. They glory in their evil.

As part of the criminal way the Assad regime wages its war of extermination against anyone who dares question the Alawite oligarchy's right to rule Syria in perpetuity and without a peep of protest, as I said, medical services in areas it has lost control of are targeted for destruction, and medicine, like food, is cut off. Thus two enemies of humanity are effectively in league: the polio virus, and the Assad regime.

Both need and deserve to be extirpated from the face of the earth.

P.S. The UN just issued yet another report on Syria, this one on the torture, maiming, and sexual crimes

against children there, mostly by the regime, but some crimes committed by the rebels too. Not to worry: the UN diplomats and bureaucrats are still well fed and sleeping in comfortable beds. I'm sure this report will prompt some renewed hand-wringing and crocodile tears shed by the political bosses of the world.

Afghanistan: Immoral Country

Here's the latest moral outrage against humanity emanating from Afghanistan.

A young girl, a “child bride,” so-called was beaten and starved by her “in-laws” for refusing their demand that she be a prostitute for them (the money all goes to them, of course). Of course, the very existence and widespread acceptance in Afghanistan of forcibly enslaving children as “wives” to adult males for their sexual use and as household slaves is itself an example of the ongoing moral holocaust that exists in that country

What is the response of the Afghan “government” [sic] to this?

The Afghan Parliament passed, a law, awaiting the signature of “President” Hamid “Super-thief” Karzai, that bars the testimony of family members in trials of such cases. This is a not-very-subtle way of making such cases impossible to pursue. (They're virtually impossible to pursue anyway in Afghanistan's “legal system.”)

I'm not going to waste time denouncing this, or explaining why it's horrible. That's all self-evident, and if it isn't, that's because of others' stunted moral state and intellectual idiocy. The deep awfulness is that the people in power in that country- backed by the U.S. and its European lackeys- would move to protect such criminals and make the victims helpless, powerless, and guarantee future child victims.

Remember the girl who had her nose and ears chopped off because she wasn't sufficiently submissive to her new “family”?

Afghanistan is a place where the officer running the military hospital for the maimed and wounded Afghan soldiers that the kleptocracy expects to fight the Taliban, steals all the medicines and sells them. And NOTHING HAPPENS about that.

This is a country where the “President's” brother and his cronies loot the main bank, and the ensuing “investigation” (forced on the Karzai regime by his Western enablers) is controlled by the thieves and their protectors.

I could go on, but why bother?

Human rights, children's rights, good government, rejection of corruption, loyalty and honor, law and order, dedication to duty, caring for one's fallen soldiers in a battle against terrorists- these are prerequisites for any functional society that is worth living in.

Justice, protection of the vulnerable, and so on: These are NOT “Western values.” They are HUMAN values. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The “West” (the old imperialist powers of Europe and the current global hyperpower, the U.S., and various lackey “white” nations like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) did not invent the human race, and thus did not invent humanity or human moral values. Nor does “the West” lack a long, exsanguinous, and horrific record of “human rights violations” and mass slaughters (wars and genocides). So that has NOTHING to do with “Western cultural imperialism,” the dodge used by Third World criminals and their ideological fellow travelers among Western “progressives” and left-wing hard core ideologues.

I believe that the human race should become the dominant species on this planet. Indeed, until true humans, with a respect and sensitivity for other species, deriving in part from the understanding that we are part of this miraculous web of life with all its wondrous forms, and not something separate from it (as barbaric religions have it), become dominant, the existence of the other species (regarded as “inferior” by “mankind”) will continue to be threatened and wiped out.

As part of the quest for human dominance, human values need to triumph over primitive anti-human values such as those “traditional” Afghan ones. Note: “traditional” does NOT equal “good,” per se. All things must be judged on their merits, not on their seniority or longevity. Slavery, sexism, racism, have long pedigrees and thus claims to being “traditional.” Their survival does not prove their meritoriousness. No more than the survival of diseases proves that disease is a good thing. Barbaric practices of barbaric societies need not be respected in the name of “tolerance” or “cultural diversity.” Cultural diversity is fine- music, art, culture, and so on. However, oppressive social practices should not be permitted to shelter under the rubric of “culture.”