Month: February 2023

Supreme Court debates legality of Biden plan to cancel $430 billion in student debt

Conservative US Supreme Court justices on Tuesday signaled skepticism over the legality of President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel $430 billion in student debt for about 40 million borrowers during arguments in the case, with the fate of his policy that fulfilled a campaign promise in the balance.

‘Orion’ military exercises: A fictitious war, but a real test for French troops

Last week France launched Orion 23, months-long military exercises involving thousands of troops, naval and land vehicles, aircraft and an aircraft carrier. The joint military exercise had been in the works since 2020, but as Western powers learned the lessons of the Ukraine war, Orion 23 grew bigger, more ambitious, multidimensional and has drawn in France’s main allies.

‘Accountability and justice’: Gathering digital evidence of war crimes in Ukraine

As the UN Human Rights Council meets to discuss expanding its investigation into war crimes committed in Ukraine, individuals and organisations are gathering their own digital evidence of human rights violations. Social media posts, satellite imagery and online videos are some of the images being used to create a digital archive of war crimes in real time. 

Western imperialism still Is doing the main harm to the world.

Eric Zuesse

On February 23rd, Middle East Discourse headlined “International aid to Idlib, Syria is controlled by the terrorists” and its Editor Steven Sahiounie reported that earthquake aid from Western countries, and all aid that is being administered through the U.N., is going almost entirely to the two areas of Syria that are controlled by the forces which are trying to overthrow Syria’s Government — the United States and its allies — support.

One of those two areas is the Syrian province of Idlib, which is controlled by America’s proxy force there, Al Qaeda in Syria, which calls itself Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

The other of those two areas is the far northeastern tip of Syria, which is controlled by America’s other proxy force fighting against Syria, Kurdish separatists.

The other Syrian areas that were destroyed by the earthquakes, such as the city of Latakia in Syria’s northwest, are not receiving international aid, because the U.S. and its allies continue their sanctions against Syria’s Government. Syria’s Government controls all of Syria except those two areas: Idlib and that far northeastern tip of the country.

This is typical: The U.S.-and-allied countries function together as a vast imperialistic operation to destroy any country that refuses to become another U.S.-and-allied colony or ‘ally’. Normally, they employ local extremely conservative organizations and forces (jihadists in places such as Syria, and nazis in places such as Ukraine) to do that, rather than their own soldiers, who are much more expensive to use. This same method was used, for examples, during the U.S. coups in Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, Brazil 1964 & 2016, Indonesia 1966, Chile in 1973, Argentina 1976, and many others, culminating in Ukraine 2014 — which started the war that still rages there.

The earthquakes hit inside Turkey, and all along Syria’s adjoining far north, and the main affected Syrian city they hit was Latakia in Syria’s far northwest. As Sahiounie reported: “Idlib shares an earthquake fault line with the epicenter in Turkey, and with the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, which has not received western humanitarian aid, even though over 800 residents are dead, 142,000 are homeless, and 102 buildings have collapsed. Aleppo is also deprived of aid, and is closer to the epicenter than Idlib or Latakia, but does not sit on a fault line. Aleppo has 1,500 dead, and 10,000 injured.”

Idlib is Syria’s province where the U.S.-backed movement to overthrow and replace Syria’s secular Government started in 2011, and has a higher percentage of jihadists than any other Syrian province. This percentage subsequently became even larger as Syria’s Government has been, thoughout the U.S.-initiated movement to overthrow and replace Syria’s Government, bussing into Idlib all jihadists (and their families) who have surrendered throughout the CIA-initiated Syrian civil war. It has been Syria’s dumping-ground for jihadists.

Here is what the BBC said in its 13 December 2013 (which was while the jihadists  were still bringing into Syria tens of thousands more jihadists from around the world) “Guide to the Syrian rebels” (the U.S.-and-allied liars used that word “rebels” instead of “jihadists” and “separatist Kurds” in order to make these fighters sound pro-democracy and thus to fool their own publics; but, this time, the BBC slipped up by calling what was actually The West’s top force in Syria “jihadist”):

JIHADIST GROUPS

Al-Nusra Front

    Leader: Abu Mohammed al-Julani

    Estimated number of fighters: 5,000 to 7,000

The Nusra (Support) Front for the People of the Levant, is a jihadist group believed to have been created in mid-2011 with the help of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), a militant umbrella group that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). It declared its existence in January 2012 and has since emerged as one of the most effective rebel forces. Its fighters are active in 11 of Syria’s 14 provinces, particularly Idlib, Aleppo and Deir al-Zour. Initially, the group was blamed for dozens of suicide bombings in major city centres, killing many civilians. Later, its disciplined and well-armed fighters began to take part in regular rebel operations, then major offensives. Today, they control territory in northern Syria. The US designated al-Nusra a terrorist entity in December 2012, saying it was an “alias” of AQI. In April 2013, the head of the ISI, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, announced the merger of his group and al-Nusra, creating the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). However, al-Nusra’s leader Abu Mohammed al-Julani – another former insurgent in Iraq released in 2011 by the Syrian government – swiftly rejected the move and asserted his allegiance to al-Qaeda’s overall leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Since then, al-Nusra and ISIS have operated as separate entities, with large numbers of foreign fighters joining the latter. Like Ahrar al-Sham, al-Nusra has sought to build popular support by providing social services and carrying out public works.

On 21 February 2018, I headlined “America’s ‘Boots-On-The-Ground’ Fighters in Syria are Kurds and Al Qaeda” and described how the U.S. Government came to hire Al Qaeda to hire and lead the other jihadists in America’s war to take over Syria, in order for it to become ruled by the Sauds.

This use of proxy-forces, instead of its own trioops, is the modern version of colonialism — but a one-world, whole-planet, version of imperialism (aiming ultimately to replace the U.N. itself): one single world empire, with its governmental control-center being in Washington DC, which is surrounded by the firms that mainly control the Government, which are the ‘defense’ firms near DC; and its financial control-center being in NYC, which is surrounded by the firms that mainly control its industries of finance, and of propaganda, for the empire (that is, for its owners). On the west coast of the U.S. are centered the newer, high-tech, digital-economy and venture capital firms, whose start-ups were largely funded by the Pentagon, which represents firms such as Lockheed Martin in its nearby DC suburb of Bethesda Maryland. All of this was started on 25 July 1945 by U.S. President Harry Truman, under the advice from his hero, Dwight Eisenhower. The impact of those two U.S. Presidents was transformative for America, and for the entire world, and has produced the current all-time-high likelihood of a world-destroying World War Three.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.