I.O.U.: Iraq, Obama and Ukraine

President Obama’s team of national security advisers have a few bad poker hands they are in the process of playing. The first regards all the trillions they have spent on National Security and the NSA yet not foreseeing the collapse and routing of the U.S.trained Iraq Army forces by Sunni jihadists, and second, the blind eye turned toward the Ukraine by supporting Neo-Nazis whom just so happen to be conducting ethnic cleansing among the Russian speaking populous of the East. Although Obama has openly stated that his administration and national security staff has been working continuously on options for dealing with ISIS, and that he has proposed additional sanctions upon Russia, nothing has been done and nothing has been effective.

First looking at Iraq, albeit our problem began with President George W. Bush, Obama has done little to reduce the blood shed that has been occurring in Iraq for the past two years and like the mainstream news media, he and his administration have ignored all of the chaos in the nation and placed it on the back burner, as if it was a done deal and the war was over. This is one reason that the President was caught slipping and leaves the question, was it that they did not see this as a possibility of occurring, given how unstable the country has been since the U.S. appointed Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki took over? Or was it that the US intelligence community didn’t see the threat coming from ISIS? Either way, regardless of who is in the executive office, both are unacceptable. Moreover, things were made worse when last year, President Obama openly and falsely claimed and took credit for saying the war in Iraq was over, just as it was when Bush made the claim a few months after he started the war and again in2008.

Based on this alone, one should ask how can the U.S. administration install a friendly government in Iraq and but cannot even get them to accept to extend an agreement or form an inclusive government when you giving said nation billions annually? I know, defeats reason. The Obama administration explicitly detailed that he wanted such but in the same breath asserted they would scale back support involve if the Sadrists were a significant player in any Iraqi government: all in congruence with his desire to use both Iraq and forces on Syria at the forefront of his desire to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

Maybe we would be better off asking why any sensible person in leadership would commit more U.S. blood for a lost cause that was previously lost. To do such in any form or fashion is an embarrassment and exhibits that the administration’s policy was really no policy at all, but instead one without specific and tangible aims or outcomes. Let’s be clear, in a few days, the gains that America and coalition forces made over a decade of occupation, resulting in nearly 5,000 American lives and $3 trillion, are gone and we didn’t see it coming. Thus far, it is clear that the administration was moving the Iraqis faster than they should have seeing it is clear the military can’t function as a military.

But what is more troubling, is trying to figure out why Washington selected Nouri al-Maliki, after all he is one of the few Iraqi political leader who doesn’t have any clout, I mean, he doesn’t have a militia like other Iraqi leaders, does he? The fact is that Maliki is dependent on Iran for his power and Iran is backing Syria, both of which in many respects have been keeping him in power, I am sure Obama knew this, yet he appointed him against all the desires his Syrian and Iranian foreign policy wish to accomplish. The record shows that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel met with leaders of Arab countries in Saudi Arabia a few months backs in which all party’s agreed that ISIS in Syria and Iraq was a real threat, but no plan were developed on how to address these events.

And just like in Iran where Obama’s foreign policy is out of sync with the realities in the region, the same consistency is evident in the Ukraine. The entire world knows that Yanukovich’s democratically elected government was removed by military force instigated by right wing neo-Nazi and Neo fascist via U.S. and E.U urging. Yet, just like his administration was supposedly caught by surprise at the rate in which the well-armed and highly trained ISIS fighters took over Mosul, they said the same in February, when it failed to foresee the events in Crimea.  Likewise as we observed in Iraq and Syria, where the rise of ISIS negate Obama’s claims of a happy ending to the war in Iraq, the recent moves of Russia has proffered the same, moreover, it makes one query how effective will his success be in Afghanistan since he will employ a carbon-copy the of the same strategy for withdrawal there by 2016.

In the Ukraine, like Maliki at first, President Obama considers Billionaire Petro Poroshenko’s victory a good thing. Consequently, he immediately began bombing the Russia speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk to deal with the so-called “terrorist” with the approval of our Nobel Peace prize winning president. Even more peculiar is that through this support, Obama has placed his administration in violation of the U.S. law he has mentioned several times over the past six years that prohibits financially aiding any coup installed government such as the case in Ukraine. Think about it, the Obama administration didn’t see what happened in Egypt as a coup, so the military aid to Egypt kept flowing to the tune of $1 billion plus\.

As it stands, the Obama administration is in the midst of an extremely tenuous situation. The most significant is ISIS: especially not knowing the group’s true strength and how to respond. Particularly, the fact that the U.S. currently has NO intelligence on Abu Bakral Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), who was once held by the US in Camp Bucca Iraq (the Obama administration shut down the Bucca prison camp and released its prisoners, including Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in 2009).

Now in Iran, Syria, Iraq, India, Egypt and the Ukraine, Russian foreign policy appears to be the lone consistent winner. Although President Obama has stated he will invest $1 billion in stepping up the US military presence in Eastern Europe based on the tension in the Ukrainian, since March, the White House has approved more than $23 million in security assistance to Ukraine and is now saying it will give Kiev an additional $5 million aid. Meanwhile, China and Russia are in the midst of a massive Gold buying spree plus the deals with the nations mentioned above, makes any sanctions mentioned by the present administration an effort in futility.

In all reality it was foolish for the President to promise the impossible of ending a war in which his policy has virtually flamed Sunni and Shiite sectarian violence. Then remains the question many have yet to ask, why was such a vile person considered fit to be released into the world, when times before at closings, administration’s would just relocate such person to Gitmo? Yes the administrations have some cards it must play and they may not produce a winning hand.  Bluffing and inconsistencies in foreign policy have seemed to put the U.S. all over the map. One the one hand  we are aware that the Iraqi leadership is backing Syria against the U.S. supported militants yet say little if anything about it, and on the other that Maliki continues to implement repressive attacks on and against Sunni in Iraq. In both Iraq and Ukraine, it may be best for the administration let things go as they will and take an I.O.U., because America has messed things up enough already in both regions.

U.S. Foreign Policy: A Civil War Here, a Civil War There

I am so glad cats like John McCain and John Kerry didn’t win the Presidency. Likewise I am just as sad that George W. Bush and Barack Obama won the presidency and if there is a God, I am certain he would let Sponge Bob Square Pants ascend to the Presidency before Hillary Clinton. And all of this is stated in objective terms, the most prominent being that the Bush and Obama Administration’s foreign policy when implemented only results in civil war, no matter where it is practiced, but especially in the Middle East and North Africa.

Case in point, this past Sunday, during a joint press conference with Egypt’s newly elected President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, US Secretary of State John Kerry said, "The United States of America is not responsible for what happened in Libya, nor is it responsible for what is happening in Iraq today."  In the same briefing, he later stated, "US is not engaged in picking or choosing any one individual... it's up to the people of Iraq to choose their own leadership."

Both of these statements are a complete and utter ignorance of the facts from a historical and temporal context or either blatant lies. Although vilified for stating such, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei correctly accused Washington of just exploiting the violence in Iraq and Syria to regain control of Iraq by placing it once again “under its [U.S.] hegemony” and rule of “its stooges.” This has always been the premise of plutocratic desires under the storm cloud of nation building and implementing democracy, as amorphous a concept as it is. In 2003, I read that “The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history” – Ari Shavit, April 5, 2003 Haaretz News Service-Israel. I find this statement, with the Semitic tone aside both accurate and consistent with history insofar as we can evaluate the aforementioned from the perspective of the foreign policy statements and practices of the last two U.S. executive administrations.

The general problem is that regardless of political affiliation, the neo’s (neoconservatives and neoliberals) have a greater concern in their corporate financiers interest than the citizenry of America, and this my friend is regardless of political party and or the race of the President. Their preference is to place an inordinate amount of focus and attention on places like Syria, Libya, Iraq, Ukraine and other foreign nations, than the needs of U.S. citizenry. Instead, they apply the same standard to us as a foreign nation: drones, massive intrusive spying, domestic economic destabilization and labeling the average man a terrorist simply for exercising liberties guaranteed via the Bill of Rights.

This is clear to see for the thinking person.  Let us examine the first example of President George W. Bush and de-Baathification. Shortly after the fall of the Saddam regime, via L. Paul Bremer, as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), in one of his first things President Bush introduced was the de-Baathification program to remove members of the Ba’ath Party from their positions of authority and to ban them from future employment in government. They [the Bush Administration] selected Ahmed Chalabi to head of the De-Baathification Committee, which had the goals of preventing the Baath from regaining power, avoiding and retribution against Baathists and isolating the majority of Baathists from their party leaders.

This process of de-Baathification was supported via the forfeiture and seizure of all party assets and property, which was to be held in trust by the CPA for the use and benefit of the Iraqi people, albeit there were no real Iraqi citizens involved, just an Iraqi de-Baathification Council (IDC), composed entirely of Iraqi nationals formerly living in the U.S. and Europe mainly.

From the beginning de-Baathification was a very incongruent and f##ked up process for lack of a better phrase. Not only did it not achieve it aims, it also polarized Iraqi politics and worse, made the Iraqi military and government even more unstable after U.S. military intervention and occupation. Then it brought in al-Qaeda, to a region where it had never existed before as well as driving a wedge between Sunni, Shia and even Kurds in Iraq. And after all of this, Barack Obama came in, and when you thought his promise to end the war would make things much better, they actually followed the GWB foreign policy playbook and made things even worse.

 

Taking U.S. policy a step farther, the Obama Administration took up the doings of the fat cats of Saudi Arabia and Qatar along with big banks of the West and have in effect declared war on Shiites the world over. Now to be clear, I would like to see Obama, Bush, Cheney, Blair, Brown, Cameron, Rice, Kerry, Rice, and tried, as War Criminals and should be.

Kerry comments only reinforce the failures of America’s Manifest Destiny foreign policy. As such, no past Administration or current one will ever take responsibility for a foreign policy of endless wars of aggression and regime change. It may even be more appropriate to call U.S. foreign policy as the policy of civil war.  Where ever we insert our political nose abroad, the result is the destruction of a stable nation and civil war.  We see it now in the Ukraine where Obama supports the fascist Poroshenko’s new government, as well in the outcome via our interference in Libya, Iraq, Nigeria, and Pakistan or wherever the U.S./NATO decided to involve themselves without request. Again, categorically, I repeat, the US is responsible for Libya, Tunis, Egypt and Syria.

 

And now the fine mess of Obama policy has by intent, morphed into a sectarian Sunni versus Shia conflict. Strangely, all in nations for the most part which were secular governments. The Obama administration has consistently taken a foreign policy approach in the Middle East and Africa of over-throwing secular governments, this time it is Syria. This was done by intentionally arming and letting groups like ISIL grow stronger and stronger. He openly complains against Assad in Syria, and Iran, but ignores how Sunni leaders in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia violate the human rights of their majority Shia populations. Think about it, several months ago when the Iraqi government asked for U.S. airstrikes to repel ISIS, Obama refused, which was probably the first time he refused such an offer from an allied government. I mean, he didn’t even ask for approval to conduct illegal airstrikes in 8 other countries under the guise of fighting terrorism.  Even stranger was observing President Obama refusing to acknowledge that our closer allies in the region (Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia) have been giving hundreds of millions of dollars to the Islamic extremist terrorist group invading Iraq and attacking the Syrian government.

 

Lastly, the assertion that the U.S. believes that people have a right to decide if they wish to govern themselves is only true when the U.S. say’s so, for we have seen them place many in power whom the nations had no interest in being brought to power as we recently saw with Poroshenko in the Ukraine, Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq, Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan and to a certain extent, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt. S###, the U.S. even installed Saddam Hussein.

 

American policy will never be in a position to address the multitude of issues in the Middle East whether it pertains to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, Indo-Pakistani conflict, or the rise of Islamic radicalism in Pakistan, Yemen, or Somali. I don’t know what world Kerry and the present administration, nor the prior administration live. I guess it is like Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda for Hitler’s Third Reich said: “Tell a good lie enough times and people will think it is the truth.”

14 years of the same ISH

Sometimes I feel as if I am in a bad dream, it is as if President Obama and President George W. Bush are one in the same, for the policies I was vehemently against while GWB was in office, I am still against and have been put in effect a lot more viscerally under Obama.  What I saw with Bush: the incessant wars, taxbreaks for the wealthy, the banks and Wall Street getting wealthier without any threat of prosecution for criminal wrong doing and war mongering, I see two times in President Obama.

Bush did not place U.S. domestic issues as being our main priority, and nor does Obama. Bush was preoccupied with Iraq, and Afghanistan and Mr. Obama, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Syria, Libya, and now the Ukraine. Currently the latter is more like some dystopian Fourier reality, that for him is dynamic and fascinating, but for the majority of Americans, wasteful and unnecessary. It is as if the Ukraine and parcels of land 99 percent of Americans will never see or set foot upon, deserves more attention than the millions of Americans with major financial needs like the hungry, the homeless, or the millions who can’t pay their rent or mortgages or whom need jobs at living wages.

There is no valid reason to be occupied with the Ukraine when what we face at home is a true national security threat economically. Just this past week, Federal Reserve Chairman Janet Yellen informed the Joint Economic Committee of Congress that under current policies the federal government’s deficits “will rise to unsustainable levels.” Unemployment, depressed wages and unadmitted inflation is killing us. We are over our head and drowning in deficit spending so all we left with is printing “mo money, mo money and mo money,” to use a phrase from “In Living Color.”

Why is the U.S. economy more of a national security issue than the Ukraine? First, at last count, about 5 trillion or approximately 47% of U.S. debt is owned by foreign investors, the largest being China and Japan at (plus $1.1 trillion each). Unlike us, the Russian government expects to have a budget surplus according to the IMF. Add to this, Russia also has a trade surplus which increased to $18.86 billion while the U.S. trade deficit continues to fall. If anything, maybe the U.S. wants a war so it can rev up its dire economic prospectus. For it is clear that what we observed when George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, the same can be noted, applied and said for the Obama Administration – the economic and financial need ­of conflict with another energy rich nation.

Why else make a big fuss about nothing? Obama in his neoliberal caricature resembles Balzac’s master criminal Vautrin more than the leader of the free world as the U.S. has been coined. Big oil and Wall Street made a killing under Bush. The U.S. invasion of Iraq crushed that country, destroyed Iraq’s state-owned oil industry, and grew the price of   crude from $20 a barrel to $147 a barrel in 2008 (needless to state Exxon Mobil’s most profitable year ever). The point being whenever sanctions are placed on an energy rich nation, U.S. plutocrats get paid. Obama is just extending the Bush playbook and we saw such in 2011 when sanctions were placed on Iran and Sudan. And when they don’t work, we have good ole NATO, who implemented an undeclared war on Libya, not to forget the CIA efforts in Syria. Thus, it doesn’t take a high school graduate to foresee the impact or likely impact the disruption of the flow of Russian energy to Europe would mean for big U.S. oil companies.

Obama and Bush are in policy, one and the same person, the only differences are gang, I mean political affiliation and ethnicity. The U.S. I suspect see the Ukraine as a means to grow and escalate military spending across Europe, making the U.S. military industrial complex more loot on behalf of U.S. oil interest. See, what corporate U.S.A and Wall Street know is that war drives capital into the United States, which keep U.S. banks the main feature of the global economy by cutting the deficit and artificially propping up the dollar. This is the only conclusion that is both reasonable and logical for as German MP Alexander Neu noted, “Not a single NATO country is in any way threatened,” by the actions in the Ukraine. Plus, what would we expect, there are more than 6000 German companiesactive in Russia with more than $27 billion invested in the nation. Meaning just like Iraq was no threat, or Libya, or Syria, Obama economic and foreign policy is no different than his predecessor with the exception it is on steroids.

 

The Doo-Doo Chasers

Now I may not be able to tell you what happened on some cable television program or pontificate of what I think may happen on some contrived artificial reality show, but I am in a position to conjure and offer perspectives on other contrived non-events such as what is frequently called politics. More specifically issues of somewhat basic precepts of democratic centralism and constitutional republics.
 

I have been told by the brain trust in the vicinity of the Beltway that self-determination means nothing anymore, unless it is decided upon by individuals who have no stake on such self-determination. I say this because from the President down, seems that the SEO meter is running on a simple phrase that the referendum in Crimea is illegitimate and illegal, and even that as such, the United States will not (never ever ever ever even) recognize its right to self-determination.

This is not only sociopathic but also inconsistent with the plurality evinced in our own constitution, but even more so in the articles of confederation, the bill of rights as ascribed via the Treaty of Paris.  It is as if just by saying such, it makes it a fact or truism.

Since the PEOPLE of Crimea voted over-whelming for their independence from the Ukraine, every nut and bolt politician in the United States has been saying the same thing, which can be summed up by the statement made by Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, who openly informed the world that the Obama Administration would not recognize the results of the referendum in Crimea calling what Russia did as being “dangerous and destabilizing”. Thus by fiat extending the assertion that the population of Crimea has no right to conduct a democratic referendum via the ballot, to decide if it wants to remain with the Ukraine or join Russia.

Fascinating, I mean a constitutional scholar (in theory) asserting anti-constitutional beliefs. This when, if it wasn’t for Washington, and even the EU helping to overthrow a democratically elected leader of another sovereign nation (Ukraine), we wouldn’t even be in this mess. Moreover, what makes even more absurd in the logic offered for this position by the Obama administration, which for the record asserts that the referendum cannot be valid unless the entire population of Ukraine votes and agrees with the decision by Crimean’s. A funny and strange position to take when you study past U.S. history with respect to the South Sudan (all of Sudan didn’t vote) and Kosovo from Serbia (no Serbians were allowed to vote via U.S. dictate). 

Then we have the audacity (like hope) to ridicule Putin for what Bill Clinton did in in Serbia, Bush in Iraq, and by Obama in Afghanistan, Libya, and trying to do currently in Syria. Were we this up set in 1967 when Israel committed a real act of war when it took Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, the Syrian Golan Heights and the Jordanian-administered West Bank, or in 1981 when the same nation, Israel took the Golan Heights.  

The simple fact of the matter is that we, America, should mind our own business and tend to the home front where we have real interest and not just the plutocratic interest of the ultra-wealthy. From a historical perspective WE KNOW that the two elephants in the room that no one is really discussing are: (1) the historical US/NATO desire to be able to surround Russia militarily and (2) access to the Artic, in particular since all these international bodies being so concerned with ‘global warming”, have green lighted more drilling there. These folks have to contain the Russian military because it will be the only way they can try and get all of the natural gas it has as well as access the infinite northern border Russia has with the Arctic.

Again, the United States has no interest that is national in the Ukraine when compared to Russia. Not only do the Russians have a large naval facility in Crimea, the folk there do speak Russian and it was conquered originally by Catherine the Great. Moreover, Moscow is not about to invade Ukraine and we all know this, it just sounds good to make folk believe that should be a reason for us to be upset. Outside of that, what is our national interest in the Ukraine? Is it to spread democracy like we did in Libya and Somalia? I mean fact is where ever we try to spread democracy all we get is a lot of dead Americans, a destabilized nation, and large Blackwater contracts.

We should just stay out of this and admit our only goal is really western control of oil and gas in the region. The Crimean Supreme Council is already on record saying Crimea wants Gazprom to develop the peninsula's oil and natural gas deposits and not any western (US company).

This time we have messed with the wrong cat, a cat from a nation with conviction, who has very strong leadership skills, and even more than this REAL national interest in the region.  This is aint no doo doo chaser, this is Putin.

Foreign Policy or Road Kill?

It is apparent that although then candidate Obama evinced an obvious dislike for war in the name of nation building, somewhere along the line after being awarded the Nobel Peace prize, his views vehemently altered - in particular pertaining to areas of Africa and Middle Asia. The query for me is does the present administration have any concern for Americans or even comprehend the concept of national security with regards to foreign policy, now given our interest of military conflict with Syria? I know the Obama administration considered action before since it is on the record that in July of 2012, Syrian rebel lobbyists reported that the Obama Administration had told them they would not be able to intervene in a seriously way until after the November election. Even so what is the policy, outside of Assad must go?

With respect to Syria, the only benefit I imagine is that such would show support for Israel and that our intervention would give the US government a chance to topple Iran’s only ally in the region. With Obama’s strong words and recent reconsideration of the “staged” red line, the only thing America has been doing has been using the CIA to smuggle other nations’ military assets into Syria.

Not to mention that what President Obama calls the Free Syrian Army (FSA) is mainly comprised of Syrian military deserters and criminals, al-Qaeda insurgents, Salafis and jihadists. It has been estimated by US intelligence sources that about 80% of the units recognize their spiritual leader Sheikh Adnan Al-Arouri dwelling in Saudi Arabia. To date thousands of these FSA have been killed and documented to have come from more than 20 nations including the United States and in Europe.

Data indicates that hose fighters who are from Syria, come from mainly the southeastern region near Dayr Al-Zawr on the Iraqi-Syrian border, the northwestern region of Idlib near the Turkish-Syrian border, and Dar'a in the south near the Jordanian-Syrian border. Areas that a 2007 West Point study described as “regions” that “ now serve as the epicenter for a similar Libyan-style uprising, with fighters” defined as "pro-democracy" "freedom fighters." More importantly, is that it is these very regions that serve as the points of entry for the majority of foreign fighters from Saudi Arabia via Jordan, and from Libya via Turkey, or through Egypt and/or Jordan.

The Obama Administration has to know all of this. We have seen car bombs that have killed at least 20 people in a Damascus suburb that was an act of terrorism aimed at Syria's civilian population , the vast majority of which are Christians to Druze, from Shia'a Muslims to moderate Sunnis, whom are being specifically targeted by Israel, US and Saudi backed Wahhabi indoctrinated terrorists.

We have seen beheadings, mass hangings and executions of Christians, Alawites, and Shia’a that only support secular insurrection more than fighting for Democracy. The Obama Administration has even given Syrian Al Qaeda operatives a political front in Doha, Qatar. Its US-Qatari appointed leader, Moaz al-Khatib, has been revealed as not only involved with Western oil corporations, but also has declared on Al Jazeera his intentions of establishing an "Islamic state."

The Obama administration has spent the past year in secret talks and have helped piece together this group of folk aimed at building a new Syrian opposition leadership structure that it wishes can win the support of minority groups still backing President Bashar al-Assad. In the meantime, the tiny gas-rich state of Qatar (Sunni) has spent as much as $3bn supporting the rebellion in Syria, far exceeding any other government for the past 2 years. This is the methodology that was used in Libya. Just as in Libya, in Syria, the West, despite acknowledging the existence of Al Qaeda in Benghazi, Libya, is using these militant Islamic networks to send fighters to Iraq, in route to Syria. This, after these same Libyan Islamist were implicated in an attack that left a US ambassador dead on September 11, 2012.

Again, the Libyan example applies directly to Syria. Libya is suffering the aftereffects of a western manufactured conflict, which killed tens of thousands of people. Two years after the Arab Spring uprising ousted Gadhafi, Libya’s central government the bloodshed has not stopped; recently a senior judge was killed in the town of Derna, and at least 27 people in the southwestern town of Sebha during a confrontation between protesters and the members of a pro-government militia called Libyan Shield. Then there is the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

The LIFG is a known terrorist organization which is sending fighter and weapons on a massive scale into Syria. In November of last year the Telegraph reported that “Abdulhakim Belhadj, head of the Tripoli Military Council and the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, "met with Free Syrian Army leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey, and admitted that he was sent there by "Mustafa Abdul Jalil, then interim Libyan president.

In all reality and simplest terms, the foreign policy of the Obama Administration is more road kill than policy. As it stands, all across middle Asia, Obama policy has turned a major portion of the region into a vast hub for terrorist and Al Qaeda in particular. Regardless if it is Libya, Eastern Lebanon, Southern Turkey, Iraq, Egypt and now Syria. For unlike the narrative promulgated in Western mainstream outlets, objectively speaking those who support Al Qaeda - the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia seem to be the biggest fans of state-sponsored terrorism.

All that has been done is to shield the hypocrisy of the US policy in Middle Asia. We charge the leadership of Libya and Syria as being despotic and autocratic regimes but hold the hands of the autocratic leadership, guilty of equal atrocities in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Bahrain. The only difference is that the hands we hold are Sunni, and the ones we vilify are Shia’a. Washington has stated that weapons will not go into the hands of Salafist jihadis although it is impossible to stop this from happening. Our policy is really just fueling a sectarian war between Sunni and Shai’a. The governments of the West have decided to partner with with Sunni Muslims against both the Shiite and Christian minorities the most volatile of region of the world today. Last September Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan stated, “What happened in Karbala 1,332 years ago is what is happening in Syria today.”

What US foreign policy fails to realize is that the main differences between Sunni and Shiite Muslims is that Shiite’s are secular and accept the existence of other religions, their women may participate in society by being employed, driving, voting, and hold political office, their acceptance of alcohol consumption, and their openness to democratic-type elections.

I do not understand this, it is as if the US government and present administration view outcomes and practice as monolithic. This includes the complete ignoring of the flame fanning by Israel, who may be behind the recent car bomb that exploded in the heart of Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah’s southern Beirut. A perfect cloak knowing that many will think that it is a response to Hezbollah fighting alongside with Assad in Syria and that many will see it as extremist spreading the war in Syria throughout the region. What many in mainstream media and politics forget is that most Sunni and Shiite are moderates and nowhere as violent as portrayed – another factoid often abrogated from conversation.

The same can be said about the claim about Syria using chemical weapons. A good start for a false flag if you want sympathy and desire to start a war, but you cannot ignore all the evidence of Al Qaeda using and making chemical weapons from Iraq, even on video in Syria. And don’t give me that false flag is conspiracy shit. History has shown that the Gulf of Tonkin incident (or the USS Maddox incident) never occurred and that Hitler burned his own Parliament for example. But because of Israel, America is at incessant war with Shiite run nations like Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria and support Sunni backed nations like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and Egypt which continue to outlaw freedom for women, openly persecute Christians and Jews, do not allow their citizens to vote in free elections, and are now calling for a “Global Jihad” against all Jews, Christians and Shiites. Even Alawites, who associate themselves with Shiite Muslims, are ordered to be “killed on sight” by the US supported FSA and all leading Sunni religious and political leaders.

The US has no stable policy objective in Syria and surrounding areas openly discussed outside of Assad must go, all again to benefit Israel over US national security. Maybe this is why Seymour Hersh wrote in 2007 that "To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda." -The Redirection, Seymour Hersh (2007).

No common sense policy would have US at war against Al Qaeda while at the same time they are our allies.

Syria - (+21 graphic content) a fsa terrorist is cutting out the heart from a dead SAA soldier

Video: BBC caught changing headline over chemical attack in Syria trying to shift the blame

American Foreign Policy and the Somalization of Syria

Around the globe in particular in African and Asian (Middle Eastern) nations, the typical US policy has been and continues to be the Bushian agenda of destabilizing and genocide. I describe it as Bushian because although such is historical US policy in general, when we cannot buy of an autocratic dictator or start a war, in the modern era it began with Bush 41. Specifically when President George H. Bush sent 28,000 U.S. troops to Somalia to do what he described as "God's work." Although he promised the American people that our military would “not stay one day longer than is absolutely necessary," we ended up being there for almost two years before President Bill Clinton suddenly ended the mission in 1993.

The price of the UN/US mission was heavy: 24 Pakistani UN peacekeepers inspecting a weapons site were ambushed and killed by Somalia soldiers under the warlord General Mohammed Aidid, 18 Elite Delta Force soldiers were killed and 84 wounded during an assault on Mogadishu's Olympia Hotel in search of Aidid. Although it was said the mission was to help deliver food aid, it became visibly clear the goal was to remove General Mohammed Aidid from power. As well as be in the position to control oil and gas reserves, since Aidid would block the permission granted to several large multi-national oil corporations from the Somalia president Siad Barre to search for oil. Not forgetting that Somalia has the largest coastline in Africa, part of which. One part of this coastline is just in front of the most important region in the world for the moment, the Middle East. Another part of the coastline faces the Indian Ocean.

From my narrow-mindedness, it appears that the goal of President Obama currently has nothing to do with growing democracy and protecting the citizens of Syria, but more so with the removal of President Bashar Assad. And as in Somalia, natural resources reinforce or interventionist agenda, especially considering the news that Iraq has approved the construction of a 900 plus mile natural gas pipeline that will connect Iran to Syria. I am almost certain this plays into the rational for taking down President Bashar Assad as well.

In East Africa today, there are still Somalis living in the neighboring countries of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti. Likewise, it was just reported that more than a million Syrians are now refuges in the neighboring nations of Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq due to the two years of US instigated violence across Syria.

Since our intervention in Somalia, what has happened? One, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) regime of Zenawi Meles in Ethiopia has sent its troops into Somalia and their main goal is to create the Independent republic of Tigray. Then the EPLF (Eritrean People Liberation Front) from Eritrea that was occupied by Ethiopia, stepped in the political and military picture. Then in 2006, a group of high-ranking officers led by General Kamal Galchuu joined the Oromo Liberation Front. In the Orome area a real intifada started up and a few months ago, the OLF launched an appeal to all opposition groups to join the united front ADF (Alliance for Democracy and Freedom). All of this led eventually to incessant social and political destabilization and you guessed it, a nation stabilized via Islamic fundamentalist and anti-US rule via Islamist who did what America couldn’t (defeat the warlords and liberate the entire nation whole country in six months).

What we saw in Somalia, was the result of U.S. government meddling. All fueled by the United States support unpopular warlords, who once the Somalia people found out they were being supported by the US, made the popularity of the Islamist movement more appealing. Plus the manner in which the US backed Ethiopia and their indiscriminate shelling of Mogadishu’s civilian areas didn’t make it easier for anything other than a stronger hatred of America.

Now we see the same thing again. President Obama has stated that Assad has lost his legitimacy as a leader. In Mexico his position was outlined more specifically when while in Los Cabos, Mexico, he pointed fingers at Russia and China say that the have "not signed on" to any plan that promotes the removal of Bashar al-Assad's from power.

Truth be told the Obama administration doesn’t want a solution for they don’t believe there is any solution that exist that would to the violence that leaves him in power. The reason there is no diplomatic solution to the conflict in Syria is because the Obama Administration doesn’t desire one. They want to continue to implement a policy of Bushian destabilization in Syria, they want Assad to go or be killed instead of what the Syrian People want.

The Obama Administration is trying with its all to make a case for more support for al- Qaeda rebels he calls the FSA and sequentially describing their actions as leading a popular uprising against an "illegitimate" government.

Assad on the other hand is saying that it is at war with "terrorists." If history is any indication, we will end up with a divided Syria that will eventually become a series of small states like at best, and at worse, a nation run by rise of warlords and militias. Just as we saw in Somalia.

The Incompetence of Susan Rice

Okay, maybe it is just me, but for some reason I do not see why folk are all up in arms and extremely supportive of Susan Rice. Sometimes I think it is the 98 percent of black folk syndrome that believes Obama or Rice can never be wrong, or make mistakes, intentionally misinform of even worse – never lie.

Rice, I suspect is thought by many to be Obama's top pick for secretary of state, if you asked me based on what I understand, her statements and her policy, she is dangerously incompetent to be SOS. Now she is smart, but the only way I can support her selection is if all we want is an incompetent war monger in the office. True, she is a Stanford University graduate and Rhodes Scholar who worked for the reknown McKinsey & Company before she joined the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton, and from there she became President Clinton’s assistant secretary of state for African affairs, but job promotion has nothing to do with utility of being a competent SOS.

The merit is there, no question, but when one looks at intent, and attributes siding with liberty, freedom and truth, Rice gets no points. Whether or not she intentionally and willfully misled the American people on the Benghazi attacks, or ran misdirection for the Obama Administration in denying a terror attack prior to his re-election is not the point. The bottom line is that she is not the best choice for the job if you look at the world from an African American who takes prided in having the first African American President albeit I agree with less than 10 percent of his policy – foreign, domestic and economic, Rice is a major point of consternation.

Starting with Africa and Rwanda specifically, Rice’s lack of action pertaining to genocide in that nation shows that she has no backbone to assert democracy and liberty on behalf of America. Not to mention the manner in which she should have broken her neck on behalf of the Clinton Administration to deny assistance to the Tutsis. Yes, based on her recommendations as a part of Bill Clinton's National Security Team in 1994, her refusal to suggest action in the Rwanda genocide that left more than 800,000 men, women, and children to be hacked to death by machete in the fastest genocide ever recorded will always be a scarlet letter on her dress and make her this generations Hester Pyrnne.

This was nothing, she even went farther by obstructing the efforts of other nations to stop the slaughter. Instead, although in April 1994 the Canadian UN commandeer in Rwanda, General Romeo Dallaire, declared that he required only 5000 troops to stop the genocide, she advocated that the UN force under Dallaire reduced by ninety percent to 270 troops.

Samantha Power of the Atlantic said it best as the author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning A Problem of Hell who referred to Ambassador Susan Rice and her colleagues in the Clinton Administration as Bystanders to Genocide said it best when she quoted Rice in her 2002 book "If we use the word 'genocide' and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November congressional election?" Meaning - Rice's saw genocide as being less important than partisan politics interests. This is not partisan on Power’s behalf, seeing that presently Power currently is a Special Assistant to President Barack Obama.

Rice also has a troubled past as it pertains to the Iraq war and invasion by President Bush which she vehemently supported. In one instance she stated in 2003 to NPR: “I think he has proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding them, and I don’t think many informed people doubted that.” In another, she stated: “It’s clear that Iraq poses a major threat. It’s clear that its weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that’s the path we’re on. I think the question becomes whether we can keep the diplomatic balls in the air and not drop any, even as we move forward, as we must, on the military side.” I can also throw in Libya where she clearly was the main person to move the President to take action against Gaddafi and Syria, where she promotes armed intervention against Syria. In general, Rice has a track record of doing all I hated that George Bush did or attempted to do -- advocate nation-building in failed states. Add to this her support for more troops in Afghanistan, she appears to be no different that Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz.

She supports Israel unconditionally, speaking of democracy in Egypt, Libya and Syria but not for Palestinians. And she has not said one word on Israel rounding up African to intern and deport thousands deemed a threat to the Jewish character of the state. She is silent of rounding up members of a different racial group and holding them in camps for deportation and the overt hostility towards blacks in general, where the nation or tax payers fund refer to blacks and Africans as a cancer and an AIDs virus on the Israeli people.

Add to the aforementioned incompetency and a policy that seems to support Israel no matter what and African neocolonialism, she has even more baggage. If she is selected by the President to be SOS, she will have a major conflict of interest. Currently, Rice holds millions of dollars in investments in Canadian oil companies and banks that have keen interest and investments in the $7 billion Keystone XL Pipeline. If she was to become the next Secretary of State, she would have the final say in determining if the pipeline gets approved and built or not. According to the environmental advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council and financial disclosure reports, Rice has MAJOR INVESTMENTS in more than a dozen Canadian oil companies and banks that would benefit from enhancement of the Canadian tar sands industry and the building of the KPL. Open record reports indicate that approximately a third of Rice's personal net worth (stimated in 2009 to be between $23.5 million and $43.5 million) is in Canadian oil production and other off shoot markets. Not to mention that Rice has between $300,000 and $600,000 invested in TransCanada, the company trying to get permission from the State Department to construct portions of the KPL from Oklahoma to Canada.

When we look at her investments in banks, the conflict of interest issue becomes more lucid. She has “investments totaling at least $5 million and up to $11.25 million in Bank of Montreal, Bank of Nova Scotia, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Royal Bank of Canada, and Toronto Dominion.” A report by the Dutch consulting firm Profundo Economic Research notes that some of these banks are largely responsible for underwriting the expansion of Canada’s tar sands industry.

And I will not mention that Rice and her husband own at least $1.25 million worth of stock in four of Canada’s eight leading oil producers, as ranked by Forbes magazine including Enbridge, (company responsible for spilling more than a million gallons of toxic bitumen into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in 2010 -- the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history).

Susan Rice is smart, that is not the point, and she just should not be the SOS.  Now she may have another stage of genocide on her hands as she did with the invasion of the Democratic Republic of Congo by U.S. allies Rwanda and Uganda which left six million Congolese dead begining in 1996. Now with the capture of Goma, an eastern Congolese city of one million, by “rebels” under Rwandan and Ugandan control complete with the support of western nations the United States and the United Kingdom (who are arming,training and equipping the Rwandan and Ugandan militaries). Afterall our U.S. ambassador to the UN Susan Rice is the main one responsible for keeping information on Rwandan and Ugandan role in the ongoing genocide out of international policy.  It was Rice who blocked the UN Security Council from demanding that Rwanda endsupport to M23 rebels.

The way I see it anyone who supports Susan Rice either doesn't read, think for themself or is mentally retarded. The saddest thing about it for me is seeing black folk support her without question. Maybe idiots shouldn’t vote