The dark underside of Charlie Hebdo

Note of the editor: The following text by John Chuckman is published here as an antidote to the on this blog often displayed bias and aversion against any kind of religion. This text is a reminder that even the most zealous and fanatical followers of a religion are not necessarily villains and perpetrators but victims of religious indoctrination and brainwashing which starts often in early childhood.

These victims of indoctrination too deserve our help, if help is possible.

The text further points out inconsistencies in the official narrative and raises questions about the true nature of the events.

Undoubtedly the powers who want to further curtail civil liberties, prepare the population for additional sacrifices, and create a climate of intolerance and hate in preparation of planned wars have got their most useful scapegoat.

This is a godsend for them.

Wether the powers to be just jumped on the occasion or even laid a helping hand to orchestrate the events is not known and maybe never will known, yet one should at least be aware of this possibility.

JE NE SUIS PAS CHARLIE The Extremely Dark and Unexamined Underside of the Charlie Hebdo Affair

John Chuckman

We hear much about bloody events in Paris being an attack upon Western traditions and freedom of the press, and I am sorry but such claims are close to laughable, even though there is nothing remotely funny about mass murder. It certainly is not part of the best Western tradition to insult the revered figures of major religions. You are, of course, technically free to do so in many Western countries — always remembering that in many of them, a wrong target for your satire will get you a prison term for “hate crimes” — but it does represent little more than poor judgement and extremely bad taste to exercise that particular freedom. What Charlie Hebdo does is not journalism, it is sophomoric jokes and thinly disguised propaganda. Hebdo’s general tone and themes place it completely outside the mythic tableau of heroic defender of free speech or daring journalism, it being very much a vehicle for the interests of American imperialism through NATO.

Of course, the best western traditions don’t outlaw what garments or symbols people may wear for their beliefs, as France has done. Note also the history of some of the politicians making grandiose statements about freedom of the press. Nicolas Sarkozy was involved a number of times in suppressing stories in the press, even once getting a journalist fired. Sarkozy is a man, by the way, who took vast, illegal secret payments from the late Muammar Gaddafi and from France’s richest heiress to secure his election as president. David Cameron had police seize computers at Guardian offices and allows Julian Assange to remain cooped in the Embassy of Ecuador to avoid trumped-up charges in Sweden. Cameron is also best buddies with Rupert Murdoch, the man whose idea of journalism appears to be what he can dredge up to exchange for what he wants from government. His Fox News in the United States enjoys a reputation for telling the truth only by sheer accident. Barack Obama is a man transfixed by secrecy and ready to use all of his powers to punish those who tell the truth, a man who holds hundreds in secret prisons, and a man who regularly oversees the extrajudicial execution of hundreds and hundreds of people in a number of countries.

The parade celebrating the good things of Western tradition — which Obama missed but which saw now-potential presidential candidate Sarkozy shove his way to the front — also included such luminaries as the Foreign Minister of Egypt’s extremely repressive government, which, even as the minister marched proudly, held innocent journalists in prison simply for writing the truth. The Prime Minister of Turkey was there celebrating, a man who has put a number of journalists in jail. Celebrating rights and freedoms also was King Abdullah of Jordan who once saw a Palestinian journalist sentenced to hard labor for writing so simple a truth as that the king was dependent upon Israel for power.

We shouldn’t forget, too, that Israel targeted and killed a number of journalists in its Gaza invasions, that the United States’ forces in Iraq targeted and killed a number of journalists, and that “NATO” deliberately targeted Serbia’s state television service with bombing, killing many civilians. Free speech and Western traditions, indeed.

There are more doubts and questions in the Charlie Hebdo affair than there will ever be answers. In part this is because the French security forces silenced witnesses, killing three assumed perpetrators in a display which seems to say that Dirty Harry movies are now part of French training programs.

And then we have the sudden death by apparent suicide of a police commissioner in charge of the investigation just as he was writing his report alone at night, an event which received little mainline press coverage. A man in his forties in the midst of likely the biggest case of his career just decides to kill himself?

We should all be extremely suspicious of a trained killer, seen as being informed and exceedingly efficient at his work, leaving behind his identity card in an abandoned car. It really is a touch more serendipity than we would credit in a mystery story. We should all be extremely suspicious of men so obviously well trained in military techniques, about men who were well informed about schedules at the offices they attacked, and about men heavily armed in the center of Paris. People serving in notorious killer outfits like America’s SEALs or Britain’s SAS rarely achieve such complete success as twelve victims, all shot dead, and an easy get-away.

And just to add to the confusion we have the video of one of the armed men shooting a police officer lying on the sidewalk. The armed man, face covered, lowers his AK-47 to within a couple of feet of the victim’s head and fires. The head goes down, but we see no blood. Have you ever seen photos of someone shot in the head with a high velocity weapon? That’s what the Zapruder film is about, and the results are more like an exploding pumpkin than a death at the end of a stage play. Even the propaganda-ridden BBC now has expressed doubts about the video.

We need to be more than suspicious about anyone or any event which has any connection with IS Islamic State). IS is one of the terror groups assembled, armed, and supplied by Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the USA for the deliberate and wanton destruction of Syria. The two brothers killed in Paris both fought in Syria. It certainly would be easy enough for someone to have obtained an ID card there from one of them. Remember, the excesses of IS we all read about — at least those that aren’t clearly staged propaganda stunts such as video of a hostage beheading — are the direct result of assembling large bands of cutthroats and fanatics, arming them, and setting them loose to terrorize someone else’s country.

It is the simplistic view of IS that the involved intelligence services want us to have that it is a spontaneous fanatical rebellion in favor of one extreme interpretation of Islam. Despite many recruits for IS holding what are undoubtedly genuine fanatical beliefs, they almost certainly have no idea who actually pays their salaries or provides their equipment — that is simply the way black intelligence operations work. And those participating in such operations are completely disposable in the eyes of those running them, as when the United States bombs some in IS who perhaps exceeded their brief.

Every society has some percentage of its population which is dangerously mad, and if such people are gathered together and given weapons, their beliefs are almost beside the point, except that they provide the targeting mechanism used by those doing the organizing.

We should all be extremely suspicious about any event when a man such as Rupert Murdoch is quoted afterward saying, “Muslims must be held responsible for jihadist cancer,” as he was in The Independent. In case you forgot, Murdoch is a man whose news organizations for years lied, stole, and violated a number of laws to obtain juicy tidbits for his chain of cheesy mass-circulation newspapers. Murdoch also is a man who has had the most intimate and influential relationships with several prime ministers including that smarmy criminal, Tony Blair, and that current mindless windbag and ethical nullity, David Cameron. Publicity from large circulation newspapers, which can swing at a moment’s notice from supporting to attacking you, plus campaign contributions buy a lot of government compliance. Murdoch also is one of the world’s most tireless supporters of Israel’s criminal excesses.

And speaking of David Cameron, Murdoch’s made man in Britain, David felt compelled to chime in on the Hebdo publicity extravaganza with, “Muslims face a special burden on extremism….” Now, why would that be? No less than Murdoch’s creepy words, Cameron’s statement is an indefensible thing to say.

Who has a special burden for the massacre of students at Columbine High school in Colorado? Who has a special burden for Israeli Baruch Goldstein who murdered 29 Palestinians as they worshipped? Do Nowegians bear a special burden for Anders Breivik, who shot 69 people, mostly children, perhaps the most bizarre mass murderer of our times? Does the American Army bear a special burden for Timothy McVeigh’s horrific bombing in Oklahoma City, killing 168, he and his associates having met in Fort Benning during basic training, two of them having been roommates? Perhaps, in both these latter cases, Christianity bears a special burden since these people were exposed to that religion early in life? As was Hitler, as was Stalin, as was Mussolini, as was Franco, as was Ceaușescu, as was Pinochet, and countless other blood-drenched villains?

The late Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, was responsible for a great many murders, including about a hundred people bombed in a terror attack on the King David Hotel. He also was responsible for the assassination of the distinguished Swedish diplomat, Count Folke Bernadotte, and he started the invasion of Lebanon which eventually left thousands dead, but you’ll have a hard time finding him described anywhere as a “Jewish terrorist” or finding prominent people asking who has a special responsibility for his extraordinarily bloody career.

There is something hateful and poisonous in conflating the religious background of a criminal or mentally unbalanced person and his violent crime. We seem to do this only in cases involving violent men with Muslim backgrounds. Why? How is it possible that even one decent Muslim in this world has any responsibility for the acts of madmen who happen to be Muslim? This gets at one of the deep veins of hate and prejudice in Western society today, Islamophobia, a vein regularly mined by our “free” press and by our ‘democratic” governments. Our establishment having embraced Israel’s excesses and pretensions, we have been pushed into worshipping the mumbo-jumbo of Islamic terror, a phenomenon virtually invented in Israel and perpetuated by Israel’s apologists as a way of stopping anyone from asking why Israel does not make peace, stop abusing millions of people, and return to its internationally recognized borders.

Well, we do have an entire industry exploiting every event which may be imagined as terror. I read an interview with the great cartoonist, Robert Crumb, who happens to live in France. When asked if any other journalists had approached him on the topic of controversial cartoons, he said that there weren’t any journalists in America anymore, just 250,000 public relations people. That is precisely the state of American journalism. It digs into nothing, at least nothing of consequence, working full time to manage the public’s perceptions of government and its dreadful policies, from murdering innocents with drones and remaining quiet on the many American and Israeli atrocities of recent decades to manipulating fears of “terrorism” and saying little about such domestic horrors as the many hundreds of citizens shot dead by American police every single year.

The French government is reported to have been quite concerned about Benjamin Netanyahu showing up at the Paris march and making volatile speeches, and they specifically asked him not to come. At first, Netanyahu’s own security service, Shin Bet, agreed that he should not go because the parade in the streets represented a difficult security situation. But neither the host government’s formal request nor the security service’s concerns can stop a man like Netanyahu. France was advised he would come, and the French made their displeasure clear by saying they would then also invite Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestine Authority to the parade, which they did.

Netanyahu not only marched for the cameras at the front rank of a parade where he had no business, he made arrangements with the families of four Jewish victims for an all-expense-paid showy funeral in Jerusalem. None of the victims was even an Israeli citizen, yet at this writing they have all been buried in there with pomp and plenty of publicity. But Netanyahu didn’t stop there, he went on to make speeches that the French and other European Jews should leave their countries riddled with anti-Semitism and come to Israel, their true homeland. In diplomatic terms, this was what is termed unacceptable behavior which in almost any other case would get you thrown out of a country. In ordinary terms, it was outrageous behavior, much like seeing a seriously drunken guest loudly insulting his host at a party to which he was not even invited.

The ineffectual current President of France, François Hollande, sent notice to Jerusalem that the four dead shop victims were being awarded the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest honor. The nation’s highest honor, founded by Napoleon over two hundred years ago for exceptional contributions to the state, awarded for the act of being murdered by thugs? Simply bizarre.

I don’t pretend to understand everything involved in this complex set of events, but it is unmistakable that we are being manipulated by a number unscrupulous and unethical people who use murder victims and the public’s natural sympathies for them as board pieces in some much larger game.

There is even a trivial side to these bloody events with many Parisians carrying signs which read “Je suis Charlie,” surely the kind of asininity posing as deep feeling that long has been established in the United States where Walmart teddy bears and plastic flowers with cheap slogans are regularly tossed in piles here and there as memorials to this or that. Perhaps Euro-Disney has had a more devastating influence on French culture than I realized.

The battle for Homs is not over yet

Alaa Halabi  As-Safir

Nearly four years after the start of the war in Syria, visitors to Homs — a city considered by the opposition as the capital of the revolution — can easily feel the magnitude of the tragedy caused by the battles. Tragedy has turned the capital of humor into a wounded city. The stench of death still wafts from the streets of Homs. Half of the city is uninhabited and the other half is inhabited by a wounded population. Nevertheless, the city is trying to rise up from the ashes and return to life.

Homs receives visitors coming from Damascus through a large military checkpoint, where thorough searches are carried out for wanted people or explosive materials. As you pass Baath University, one can still feel it bustle with life, as more than 120,000 students are enrolled.

The citizens of the city recall the days when the Bab Amr neighborhood posed a real threat to Baath University, which was hit by shells that killed 22 students and injured about 34, according to university officials. However, the university regained its role as an important learning center. University campuses accommodate more than 13,000 students from other provinces, and thousands of students are distributed in the city neighborhoods that are relatively safe now.

Neighborhoods that were pro-government at the beginning of the events (Akrama, al-Nezha, Wadi al-Zahab, Karm al-Lawz, al-Zahra and al-Arman) are crowded and remain relatively safe. On the other hand, the neighborhoods controlled by opposition militants (Bab Amr, al-Nazihin, Ashira, Karm al-Zaitoun, the old quarter of Homs, Deir Balbeh and al-Bayada) are almost uninhabited after most residents were forced to leave during the armed clashes between the Syrian army and the combat factions. Some families returned after the army took control, while many are still distributed between the pro-government neighborhoods, the refugee camps in Lebanon, and the flared-up countryside of Homs.

Most of the people you meet in Homs relay the stories of a massacre they witnessed or a bombing that took the lives of their loved ones, or a story of a martyr who was fighting to defend the city.

Numerous stories describing the start of the events in the city all lead to the same conclusion: “Some parties were working to stir sedition, kidnapping operations were carried out between sects and neighborhoods, pedestrians were fired at and sporadic demonstrations were staged.” The citizens of the city today blame external parties and local conspirators.

In the beginning, kidnappings and killings were the most common security breaches in Homs. Hossam Mia, a former teacher at the Qazhal School in Homs, and a survivor of a November 2011 civilian massacre, said, “At the end of my work day I was heading back home in a taxi cab. Given the traffic, the cab was packed with 15 passengers. It was a day I will never forget.”

Mia stops for a while and tells As-Safir, “After reaching the traffic light at Khalid Mosque, and instead of going straight ahead, the taxi driver veered to the right under the pretext of shootings in al-Khalidiyah neighborhood. He headed toward Wadi al-Sayeh, where militants had installed a checkpoint near al-Umawiah School, and we found out that he was dealing with these militants.”

He added, “They asked for our personal cards and some gave their cards. Two young men from al-Khalidiyah and four girls were released and the nine of us who refused to show their cards were held, including a woman and her husband.”

Mia continued, “The woman was killed immediately. Her husband sat crying over her head before they killed him, too. Then they made us stand near the school wall and opened fire at us.”

Hossam was hit by gunfire in his leg and the militants thought him dead. The militants then evacuated the scene, leaving behind dead bodies. Some citizens tried to save those who remained alive.

“A 40-year-old woman from the neighborhood saved my life. She stopped her car and took me to the hospital, while the rest were all dead,” said Mia.

Homs residents tell many similar stories of events that took place at the beginning of the conflict, most notably the attack on the Officers Club that led to the killing of Adel Fendi and the injury of others. The incident was a turning point in the city, followed by successive assassinations, kidnappings and mutilation of dead bodies. Sectarian congestion followed, making the city a breeding ground for a long war.

The pace of the insurgency and clashes quickened, and Homs was fragmented. Militants controlled several neighborhoods, and then besieged neighborhoods loyal to the regime, notably al-Zahra neighborhood, whose inhabitants were forced to move to the countryside of Homs (via the villages of Zaidal and Fayrouza) to reach other neighborhoods or cities.

An official of the National Defense Forces in Homs told As-Safir, “The repeated kidnappings and attacks prompted the inhabitants of the neighborhoods supporting the regime to form popular committees to defend themselves.” He added, “With time, the work of these committees was organized within an institution of a clear structure to ensure security. National defense was a necessity in light of the circumstances witnessed by Homs. This required the formation of a substitute institution for the army, which contributed in restoring safety to the city.”

The first military operations in Homs took place in “the revolution stronghold,” namely the famous Bab Amr neighborhood, which was besieged for a long period before the Syrian army and its supporting factions decided to start a military campaign to regain control of the neighborhoods of the city, located in the middle of Syria.

The Syrian army seized control of the neighborhood, which, according to opposition militants, was impossible to be completely seized. The military operations expanded, and the army subsequently managed to control all neighborhoods of the city with the exception of the old city, which insurgents left following a long siege and a UN-brokered deal. Al-Waer neighborhood is still controlled by armed factions and is under siege by the Syrian army and the National Defense Forces.

The Syrian army regaining control over Homs’ neighborhoods shocked opposition circles, as they considered Homs “the capital of the revolution.” Homs’ location in Syria is also strategically important, as it is connected to Hama, Idlib, Turkey to the north, Lebanon to the south, Damascus to the southeast and the Iraqi border to the east. Control of Homs means control of most of Syria’s supply routes.

“The gunmen wanted to turn Homs into Syria’s Benghazi, but the military action completely foiled their plot, and Homs turned into a springboard for the Syrian army’s operations rather than a stronghold for the armed factions,” a military source said.

The Syrian army’s operations, which began in early 2012, were not limited to the city border, and they spread to Qusair (one of the most important arms smuggling passages across Lebanon). The army took over Qusair in June 2013 before it seized the Zara area and Krak des Chevaliers in March, in cooperation with Hezbollah.

Though the Syrian army controls the Lebanese border and the entire city of Homs and its environs — except for al-Waer district, home to about 300,000 people, according to opposition estimates — the northern countryside remains troublesome. This region is open to Turkey and currently serves as the springboard to launch missiles at the city, from Rastan and Talbiseh up to Dar al-Kabira.

“Homs cannot be fully secured until these areas are controlled,” said the military source, who added, as he glimpsed at a map in front of him, that “these areas are open to the countryside of Idlib and Turkey, and controlling them is very difficult. Therefore, supply routes must be initially blocked, and this does not seem easy at the moment.”

Despite the daily shells that befall Homs, the residents of the “wounded city” — as the residents call their city — have adapted to these conditions.

Muhammad Ali Daher, a local journalist, said, “Every home has a martyred, wounded or missing member. … War has somehow wiped out civilian life, but people have become accustomed to this life.”

No official or accurate statistics exist for Homs’ dead or wounded. The issue of missing people — those kidnapped by the armed factions — continues to haunt citizens. According to the latest official statistics, about 2,600 people are missing.

In the city’s Armenian neighborhood, activists have hung on the walls of the water plant hundreds of photos of the city’s martyrs, including women and children. “This place has somehow turned into a pilgrimage place for the people of the city,” a man in his 50s said as he gazed at the pictures. He pointed to a picture and said, “This is my son.” After a long silence, he said, “He is a martyr.”

In addition to the kidnappings and killings, car bombs have penetrated Homs’ safe neighborhoods. Twenty-three suicide bombings have occurred in neighborhoods, including three double bombings. However, the heaviest explosion took place at the Akrama School, killing more than 40 children.

City markets along the Zahra neighborhood’s Hadara Street are still crowded, while cafes are mostly filled with soldiers.

“Military action stole the townspeople,” said Imad, an English student at Baath University. “They wanted to push us to leave our city, but the magic turned against the magician. The city is safe now, and militants are besieged in al-Waer neighborhood,” Imad, 23, said as he puffed a hookah. “At first, they were actors, but all the acts and bombings they are carrying out in the city now are a reaction to the Syrian army’s movements. This is reassuring.”

Although the city of Homs has been experiencing calm, except for the nightly sounds of fighting in al-Waer neighborhood, Homs’ countryside has been witnessing daily skirmishes — chosen by fate, dictated by geography — that have been turning residents’ agricultural lands and modest homes into battlefields.

“The war in Homs has not yet ended. Despite the army’s control over the entire neighborhoods in the city (except al-Waer), the vast lands in the countryside are still out of its control,” said a military source, explaining Homs’ demarcation lines between Syrian forces and the armed factions. “Homs’ northern countryside and the northeastern countryside, up to Hama’s countryside, are more or less still out of the army’s control, except for a zone surrounding the city and other regions near Homs.”

The source told As-Safir that fighting in the countryside is extremely difficult due to “roads providing constant supplies to militants through Turkey.”

“Before the army took control over Qusair and the Lebanese borders, the situation was a lot harder. However, today, it seems relatively calm. The scope of control is quite clear. We reinforced our position to prevent them from making a move as we wait for a large-scale military operation that would reach the borders with Turkey,” he added.

The militants control Dar al-Kabirah, the closest town to Homs, to which a number of rebels from Homs decided to head. They also control the towns of Teir Maala, al-Ghantu and Talbiseh in northern Homs. Their power also reaches Rastan and Hama’s countryside, where the fighting is the heaviest, as these regions are controlled by the Islamic State.

The source said, “The residents of the countryside are fighting the militants and defending their land.” He said that the militants forced many residents from several villages to migrate, notably from Kiseen, al-Amiriyah, the Christian-dominated al-Doueir, al-Husn, al-Zarah, al-Ghantu, Um Sharhouh and Um Jameh. This prompted the villagers there to form popular committees to defend their land. They then joined the National Defense Forces, which were officially formed in the beginning of 2013, as support forces for the Syrian army.

Residents are fighting in the villages of Kfarennan, Jboureen (northern Homs) and al-Mishirfeh (northeastern Homs), which is considered Homs’ first defensive front against the militants coming from Hama’s countryside.

The road to Mishirfeh, 18 kilometers from Homs, starts at al-Sitteen Street. The car passes by Ashireh neighborhood and a military escort explains that “dozens of kidnappings occurred there.” The driver has to slow down and make room for the artillery crossing al-Maabad road toward Homs. “It looks like it is coming from one of the fighting fronts,” says the driver, before speeding off again and reaching the well-known al-Jabiriyah checkpoint, located at a crossroad where several Red Cross cars were parked.

“These cars are getting ready to enter the regions controlled by the armed factions in the northern countryside,” says the military escort.

As soon as we reach the village of Mishirfeh, we see from afar a hill with ancient walls. “This is al-Mishirfeh castle. Here was the lair of the kingdom of the famous Katana, which dates back to the third millennium BC,” explains the escort.

The car stops at the gate of military headquarters, where an escort from the village joins us. We then walk around the village that is home to more than 40,000 people.

“You can find all sorts of religions and sects in this small Syrian village, where Muslims and Christians have been coexisting for a long time. It has two churches and a number of mosques,” says the new escort Hussein Kharab, known as Abu Hala.

He talks about his village as we pass by houses whose walls are covered with pictures of young men who had died during battle. “The residents of this village are defending it. We are all standing side by side to confront the takfiris,” says Abu Hala. We stop at a military checkpoint at a front line, where the village’s defenders are stationed in a two-story house, whose owner has passed by to say hello.

Abu Hala, an engineer who left his job to join the forces and defend his village, points to the roof of the house where an arc extends from northeast of the village to the southwest, saying, “All those areas are controlled by militants.” He says, “Different factions from Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic State and the Free Syrian Army are fighting on these open fronts. The village is also continuously exposed to bombardment by the militants. Most recently, a shell hit the village’s school, killing a pupil.”

From the northeast to the southwest of the area surrounding the village, more than 20 advanced defensive points are distributed, and some of the sites are kept empty during the day. “There is no need for our presence during the day, as we can easily monitor their movements from here. However, when it gets dark outside, it becomes difficult due to the fog and the trees, so we have to be present on site,” explains Abu Hala.

Before violence erupted four years ago, the village was subject to many attacks. There were two “massacres” during which two entire families were killed, which pushed the village’s residents to organize armed work in its defense. So far, they have been able to repel dozens of violent attacks and prevent several car bombs from detonating. They have also carried out operations in the surrounding area, most notably over the village’s water well, which was seized by gunmen, but the villagers later discovered that the water had been poisoned.

The villagers say that the war is a “battle of existence,” where all residents fight to defend their houses and land. “The land I own is located near that hill over there, but I cannot go there right now, and that one right there is my brother’s land. Even though I cannot reach it, I will not let the militants take control over it, not even for a minute,” said one of the fighters.

Most of the villagers work in agriculture, and there are a number of apricot and olive fields, as well as vineyards. However, a large number of young men work in the city of Homs, as government officials or employees in the private sector, and they will end up like most of the poor rural population of Homs. The war has prevented many residents from working their land, but they did not abandon their village.

“Despite the fact that most of the neighboring villages [Ain Hussein, Deir Fool, Zafarana and as-Saan] are controlled by the militants, they were unable to get one step closer to our village,” says Abu Hala, proudly.

The reason for their success in blocking the attacks, a field commander said, “is simply because we are defending our land,” adding that “many of the residents of the neighboring areas controlled by the militants are helping us. We monitor all movements on a daily basis, and we are targeting and preventing any move toward the village.”

Although Mishirfeh is located directly on the front line, it has welcomed displaced people from neighboring villages, and even from some of Homs’ neighborhoods. “We have several families in the village from other provinces, such as Aleppo and Idlib,” says Abu Hala.

The residents are well aware of the strategic and geographical importance of the village, which is Homs’ northeastern gate. Control of the village means securing the entrance to Homs and the supply routes toward al-Silmiyyah in Hama’s countryside and Aleppo. The villagers know that the war may be long, but they are accustomed to living under such circumstances. “The village lost more than 250 young people as they were defending their village and their families,” says Abu Hala. “Yet we still believe that we are winning, inevitably. We are the right holders and the true owners of the land.”

Links January 2015

Feline news (the most important things first):
http://gawker.com/cat-finds-his-way-home-after-being-accidentally-sold-wi-1676191697 The comments are also entertaining.

Environmental news:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-fukushima-endgame/5420188
http://www.dw.de/fukushima-butterflies-highlight-heavy-cost-of-nuclear-disaster/a-18147563
http://navajotimes.com/wires-wp/index.php?id=1576941360&kid=1csq9ZRDC6NWVBMA
http://www.viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/-climate-change-and-agrofuels-mainmenu-75/1717-food-sovereignty-5-steps-to-cool-the-planet-and-feed-its-people
http://allafrica.com/stories/201412230019.html
http://www.thenation.com/article/192601/save-planet-we-need-leave-fossil-fuels-ground-oil-companies-have-other-plans
http://www.thenation.com/article/193249/why-ecuador-selling-its-economic-and-environmental-future-china#
http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2017080098_russiaoilspill.html
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/898705.shtml
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/E-waste-poison-threatens-Hyderabad/articleshow/45655926.cms
http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21636507-chinas-insatiable-appetite-pork-symbol-countrys-rise-it-also
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-30571577
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/south-american-commodity-boom-drives-deforestation-and-land-conflicts/2014/12/31/0c25e522-78cc-4075-8b21-31bcc3e0fddb_story.html
http://civileats.com/2014/12/30/nanosilver-in-your-soup-epa-sued-for-failing-to-regulate-tiny-pesticides/
http://www.syracuse.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2014/12/bella_pulaskis_celebrated_white-tailed_deer_made_it_through_yet_another_hunting.html

Economic news:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cancer-stage-of-capitalism-the-ten-point-global-paradigm-revolution/5422537
http://wolfstreet.com/2014/12/22/gold-terrifies-the-international-monetary-system/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-gas-oil-and-trouble-in-the-levant/5362955
https://gowans.wordpress.com/2014/12/30/how-and-why-the-western-news-media-get-north-koreas-economy-wrong/ A very well argued and well formulated blog post and a “must read.”
One could add as a side note the following issues, rightfully left unaddressed in this article as they would have bloated the text:
While central planning, control, or supervision may be adequate in defense, finance, health care, and education, most other areas could gain by federalization, regionalization, localization.
While public ownership is certainly preferable to corporate ownership, limited private and co-operative ownership may be an incentive and provide flexibility in local economies.
While sanctions may be an initial burden, they also force the targeted country to become self-sufficient and shield it from outside interference and the exploitation by multinational corporations.
If one compares Cuba with other Caribbean nations (Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Haiti, Trinidad) one could come easily come to the conclusion that the 55 year US embargo may have had even a beneficial effect. Cubans are clearly better off than the citizens of Mexico, which despite the most closest economic ties with its northern neighbor USA that one could imagine (NAFTA), approaches the status of a failed state.
And while North Koreans don’t enjoy the luxuries of their southern kin they may be better off than the broad populations of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and various other Southeast Asian states.

Imperial news:
http://www.workers.org/articles/2014/12/18/growing-incarceration-rates-african-americans/
http://www.workers.org/articles/2014/12/22/campaign-builds-free-rev-pinkney/
http://www.blackagendareport.com/node/14577
http://urbanitenews.com/2014/12/18/day-modern-detroit-pioneers-squatter-community/
http://rt.com/news/216675-mh370-shot-down-us/ One of the open secrets that no Western journalist would ever dare to mention.
http://www.workers.org/articles/2014/12/30/open-letter-assata-shakur-20th-century-escaped-slave/
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/30/idaho-toddler-shoots-kills-mother-walmart

Imperial conquest news:
http://rt.com/op-edge/216507-israel-palestinians-gaza-massacre-uninhabitable/
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-impending-russian-maidan.html
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/12/30/us-citizens-continue-to-infiltrate-eastern-european-governments.html
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-12-23/how-putin-stopped-the-rubles-collapse
http://www.globalresearch.ca/from-energy-war-to-currency-war-americas-attack-on-the-russian-ruble/5421554
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/facebook-blocks-russian-page-supporting-navalny-putins-biggest-critic/2014/12/20/a8c782b8-8877-11e4-abcf-5a3d7b3b20b8_story.html?wpisrc=nl-swbd&wpmm=1
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-02-231214.html Though a bit too optimistic about the outcome, Pepe Escobar accurately portrays the “Empire of Chaos.”
http://www.workers.org/articles/2014/12/28/resistance-grows-ukraine-puts-anti-fascists-trial/
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/12/syria-idlib-jabhat-al-nusra-control-loss-regime.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/12/22/world/meast/inside-isis-juergen-todenhoefer/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/the-islamic-state-is-failing-at-being-a-state/2014/12/24/bfbf8962-8092-11e4-b936-f3afab0155a7_story.html
http://www.aina.org/news/20141226143048.htm
http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2014/12/fighting-islamic-islamic-state-is-not-the-israeli-priority/
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/24/pkk-kurdish-leader-cemil-bayik-iraq-syria-isis
http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/23044
http://www.aina.org/news/20141227130156.htm
http://www.workers.org/articles/2014/12/28/haiti-protests-continue-despite-u-n-troops-bullets/ Thousands of people are protesting continuously, though unlike Maidan it is not reported. It is not reported, because this is not an US-controlled “color revolution,” but a popular uprising against exploitation and foreign occupation (disguised as a UN peacekeeping force).
http://chuckman.blog.ca/2014/12/30/america-stumbles-through-another-year-spreading-chaos-and-trivia-everywhere-in-its-path-19907924/

Technology news:
http://journal-neo.org/2014/12/22/rus-iran-i-kibervojny/
http://pando.com/2014/12/26/if-you-still-trust-tor-to-keep-you-safe-youre-out-of-your-damn-mind/

2015 in my place started with a big bang. Or, to be correct, with many big bangs, with explosions, shots, bright flashes, with buzzing whizzing, droning and various other kinds of terrible sounds which one only would expect in the middle of an intense and protracted bloody battle.

The cats were all gathering in my bedroom under the bed or under the blanket, only Gandhi Jr. was in his favorite hideout, the narrow gap between the top of the kitchen furniture and the ceiling.

The acoustic mayhem lasted from 10 minutes before midnight till 30 minutes after midnight before is slowly subsided. Distant occasional shots and explosions could be heard for another hour.

In the morning I went out, accompanied by my little darling Linda, to look at the scene but there was nothing unusual to see. No burned down houses and collapsed roofs, no bullet riddled walls and flattened fences, no smashed utility poles, no smoldering wrecks of tanks and armed personal carriers. There were no craters from bombs or mortars and the little road which passes by was not littered with empty shells and shrapnel splinters. I also couldn’t find any cluster boomlets or other unexploded ordnance in the forest. 

In light of this evidence I have come to the conclusion that the horrifying noise was not the sound of military combat but the noise from countless fireworks rockets which some neighbors launched in an effort to enact what they deem to be an appropriate celebration of the New Year.

We had the noise of New Year fireworks before but it was never that bad. It could be that a reminder by the mayor that fireworks are not allowed in residential areas and offenders may face fines prompted some local hoodlums to drive their cars packed to the roof with fireworks rockets to this remote area at the outskirts of the village where normally no police is ever seen.

Scanning the news it seems that other places around the globe have seen greatly diminished New Year’s carnage. In Shanghai 36 people, mainly women (of course, they are the weaker ones), were trampled to death, when the crowd got agitated by fake banknotes, thrown out from the windows of a bar in the third floor of a building.

In the Philippines, which has a rich tradition of fireworks celebrations, casualty rates have significantly dropped compared to 2014. Only 354 people were injured, only 14 needed amputations of limps, only three died, and only about thousand houses burned down. Big progress!

I always enjoy the magic silence of the forest, the easiness and calmness of a quiet evening at home, only interrupted by the gentle purring of a cat and infrequent bird calls outside. The cat purring, the bird calls, the crackling of firewood, and the pounding of raindrops on the windowpane are nice, calming, reassuring sounds, but anything louder than that is an annoyance.

I cannot understand, and ask myself: Why do people like the sound of blasts and explosions?

And another not completely unrelated question: Why do people play violent computer games or watch violent movies and TV shows?

And a further not completely unrelated question: Why are people aggressive, violent, belligerent, mean, cruel, evil? Why do people hunt, fight, torture, kill?

Maybe Darwin’s theory of Evolution by Natural Selection can give an answer.

One of the evolutionary drivers, and probably even the most important one, is the process by which biological traits are transferred across generations through sexual reproduction, meaning that individuals which reproduce more successfully make their particular characteristics more prevalent in a given population.

In primitive societies the most brutal and ruthless males, the ones who eliminate as much male competitors as possible to get access to as much females as possible are clearly the most successful reproducers. We are all descendants of Genghis Khan, I read once, which is clearly hyperbole, because according to scientific studies of DNA samples only 0.5 of the world population can be traced back to the Khan clan.

0.5 percent is nevertheless an impressive genetic legacy.

Historians tell us that after Khan’s army defeated a new area, they would not only pillage the area but also would rape all surviving women. Khan, of course, would get the first pick, so who knows how many he impregnated. The success of his hairs is also well documented. One of Khan’s sons is said to have had 40 sons and one of his grandsons had 22 legitimate sons and an unknown number of other children born by the 30 virgins he added to his harem each year. That’s plenty of opportunity for Khan’s Y-chromosome to rampantly spread through the population, leaving a genetic legacy that may still be present in an incredible number of individuals today.

I understand.

The aggressive and angry young men are Genghis Khan’s legacy. They love noise, they love to rev the engines of their motor scooters, motorcycles, and cars, they love to blast the neighborhood with the pounding beats from the subwoofers of their car stereos, they love to wake the people from their sleep when they bawl, holler, and yell while they are staggering home intoxicated in the wee hours of the morning.

They are aggressive, high on testosterone, violent, and yet, in most modern societies their chance of reproductive success is greatly diminished.

Their muscle strength is not needed because machines make most of the hard work. In school they are outsmarted by the girls. If they don’t come from a well connected and wealthy family they will not get a job because employers prefer women, which are more reliable, agreeable, cooperative, and (still) cheaper. In former times women careers where interrupted ore completely stopped by childbirth, but easily available contraception allows women to avoid unwanted pregnancies and many opt to have no children at all.

The aggressive and angry young men feel (rightfully) redundant, unneeded, unwanted, unloved. Their testosterone levels are up to the ceiling, they are at the high of their sexual potency, and yet, women shun them. Which woman in her right mind would start an affair with an unemployed, penniless man? And who in the world could fall in love with a boorish and self-absorbed hapless loser?

The aggressive and angry young men are the guys who smash shop windows, vandalize public property, steal and deal, elect far right parties, and swarm out at New Year’s Eve with a load of fireworks rockets.

It is not their fault, but they are troublemakers nevertheless.

The aggressive and angry young men were always a welcome tool for the ruling elites, instrumentalized to keep the population in check by intimidation, arbitrary detention, torture, rape, and murder.

This may not hold true anymore for modern Western, Eastern, Northern, or Southern societies, where more sophisticated and subtle methods of suppression are available, but in the areas of Libya and Syria, which more or less moderate Islamic rebels liberated with the help of their Western friends, this is the law of the land for sure.

The problem of unemployable, unneeded young men has been discussed in many circles on many levels and it has also been addressed here in several blog posts.

A small portion of these individuals can be recruited for competitive sports, American Football or Ice Hockey for instance. But that only goes so far because many of the troubled men are overweight and unfit for physically demanding sports.

Another small portion can be recruited as drone operators, where they can discharge their aggression in a (for the weapons industry) meaningful way.

Some nations indict redundant young men at the first chance and sentence them to long prison terms so that they are out of the way for the bigger part of their life.

Wouldn’t it be a solution to send the surplus of aggressive young males to an unpopulated place, maybe to one of the due to climate change fast growing deserts of the Middle East, and let them do there whatever they want to do? In the barren and sparsely populated lands they could act out and follow their instincts unrestrained without doing much damage or bothering anyone except their peers.

In a further move one could declare the men in the deserts to be terrorists and either decimate them with missiles and bombs or press another portion of aggressive young men into military service and send them to the deserts to eliminate the terrorists.

As I developed this plan in my mind I realized, that I’m not the first person who hatched such a plan and that an operation to execute this very scheme is already in full swing. The plan in question is called “Islamic State caliphate.”

My guess is, and I’m not an expert and clearly biased, but one nevertheless has to disprove me first, that the strategists of Mossad, CIA, and MI6 initially developed this plan to increase the pressure on Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki, who got too cosy with Iran. As the ISC (Islamic State caliphate) project gained traction they soon realized that it would have beneficial effects far beyond the initial purposes and they pulled all stops and just let things roll along.

Nouri al-Maliki has stepped down, but Bashar al-Assad is still in charge. Al-Assad was ordered already in 2011 and repeatedly after that to step down and make place for an US-appointed or at least US-approved leader, the fact that he stubbornly disobeys repeated orders now already since four years is a blatant breach of international law (US-version) and sets a dangerous precedent.

If Bashar al-Assad succeeds with his defiant stance, other presidents (Vladimir Putin or Nicolas Maduro for instance) could easily come to the conclusion that they can ignore orders from Washington without consequences.

The ISC (Islamic State caliphate) plan is now in a stage where missiles and bombs are used to reduce the surplus of aggressive young men. This makes the weapons producers (the so called “Military Industrial Complex”) happy, which is important because they are the real movers and shakers, the ones who install or dispose political leaders at will and pull the strings from behind the curtains.

When enough military hardware has been used up to bolster the profits of Lockheed Martin, Boing, Northrop Grumann, Raytheon, General Dynamics, United Technologies, and others, the next stage will obviously be to put “boots on the ground,” in other words: to send another group of surplus young man into the desserts, this time clothed in military uniforms and declared to be “heroic defenders of the homeland.”

Yet it depends when or if this stage will be reached and at the moment its everybody’s guess how things will turn out in the end.

Throughout human history sages, philosophers, scholars, prophets, teachers and preachers addressed the need of living a life of virtue and harmony, a life guided by ideals and noble intentions, a life in pursue of the common good and happiness for all.

Their opinions, conclusions, thoughts, teachings were included in codes of conduct, in ethical and moral frameworks, in law, in state religions. Their words were regurgitated by tribal chiefs, by kings and queens, by moguls, caliphs, sultans, by warlords and emperors, by generals and presidents.

Throughout history all these high-minded sayings were nothing than hollow phrases, nothing than mockery with whom the leaders fooled the population, the inferiors, peons, peasants, servants. Throughout history all the wise words, all the talk about kindness and dignity were nothing than a fig leaf, a cover for the appalling crimes of the rulers.

Human history is indeed a history of crime, and we don’t even know the whole truth because history was always written by the ruling elites who naturally presented themselves in the best possible light.

Todays stenographers, journalists, publicists, commentators write down for this and the following generation the version of events, that state officials present, which means, they write down and publish the lies of the rulers. The media channels are the megaphone of the ruling class, their mission is not to inform the public, their mission is to mislead, confuse, indoctrinate, and brainwash the public.

And this is easily done because people are busy to make a living and to negotiate their way through a complicated wold, When they come home exhausted from work they just uncritical and unquestioning absorb everything what they are told and shown via TV or computer.

We know today that the Gulf of Tonkin attack, which led to the Vietnam War, never happened, we know that Saddam Hussein didn’t have WMDs (weapons of mass destruction), we know that the reports about mass rapes by Libyan soldiers and the alleged use of aircrafts against peaceful protesters in Tripoli were not true.

And yet, the reports of atrocities by the Syrian government, of chemical weapons attacks and indiscriminate bombings of civilian areas are believed, despite the fact, that most of the reports come from a single person, Rami Abdulrahman, affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, who invented a “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” and acts as the spokesperson for the more or less moderate rebels.

The Muslim Brotherhood has a rich tradition of terror activities, it is outlawed in several countries, it is clearly an involved party, and yet, one of their operatives is allowed to single handedly determine the narrative of the Syrian conflict.

Nothing could illustrate more clearly the ethical conduct of Western journalists!

And nothing could illustrate more clearly the stupidity of Western media consumers as the fact, that they still believe the lies despite being lied to so many times before.

“We know that they lied to us before but this time they tell the truth.”

That the first casualties of the Syrian conflict were police officers, who were shot by gunmen who did hide behind the protesters, that the officers had no chance to defend themselves, because policemen in Syria were for years unarmed, that the countless massacres at the start of the conflict were most likely committed by Islamic radicals and not by security forces, that the Ghouta sarin attacks could have well been launched by Islamic fighters (Seymour Hersh argued about this), is never mentioned. Any details which contradict the official narrative are blacked out.

It is astonishing and it would be even admirable if it would not be so disgraceful, how well synchronized and disciplined Western media outlets are.

No report about Syria without the obligatory statement about the bloody dictator Assad who butchers his own people with barrel bombs and starves them to death by preventing humanitarian assistance by Western NGOs to the liberated areas. This works like the jingle machine in a broadcast studio where a limited set of phrases are regularly inserted in the audio stream.

It is propaganda, reeducation, mind control, brainwashing at its best. Western media has achieved, what Edward Bernays and Josepf Goebbels only could have dreamed of. Big Progress again!

The foot soldiers of this media war, the correspondents, journalists, editors know well that they are replaceable, disposable at any time. They may have rent to pay, student loans, or mortgages, they may have a family to support. And yet, they made their career choice being well aware that they would have to be spineless sycophants, boot lickers, lackeys of the plutocrats.

They deserve neither sympathy nor pity.

The ISC (Islamic State caliphate) plan, clever as it may be, has still serious flaws, and it doesn’t care about (so called) “collateral damage.” The deserts designated for the AAYM (Aggressive and Angry Young Men) are not completely unpopulated, there are Sunni tribes and religious or ethnic minorities like Assyrians, Yazidis, Turkmen, Kurds. All these people are fair game for the AAYM, the men get summarily executed (if they are lucky, because that fate at least spares them being painfully tortured to death), the women and children are raped and used as sex slaves.

While the war criminals which reside in the Oval Office, in Downing Street Nr. 10, In the Elysee Palace, in the Bundeskanzleramt Berlin, in Riyadh and Doha couldn’t care less about civilian casualties, it is disheatening that the Western public is not shocked and deeply irritated by the nearly incomprehensible suffering, the ethnic cleansing, the mass executions.

Is the average Western consumer too stupid to connect the dots or look behind the curtain? Has the steady stream of “war porn” by the main broadcasters numbed viewers? Are empathy, compassion, altruism really that limited?

Are the beheadings, stonings, crucifixions, the mutilated or burned corpses on the TV screen just a welcome distraction, an amusement and entertainment?

Or is the only thing which counts in the end the price of gasoline and diesel for the car?

Why are the AAYM not educated, counseled, coached, why don’t they get special psychological treatment? Brainwashing works for all kind of evil purposes, it may as well work for nobel purposes too.

Why not utilize their energy for habitat restoration (reforestation), for environmental cleanups, for social services — taking care of the disabled, disenfranchised, ailing?

Environmental and social programs are of course not as profitable as weapons production.

News from catland

Here it was mild weather till December 26 and then suddenly it became cold and it snowed a lot. We have not had that much snow since three years. Maybe the meteorologists who predict a cold winter are right this time.

I still continue the daily walk with my feline companions in the forest but most of the cats prefer to stay in the house, they are lazy and rather lay around the wood stove.

When I walked in the forest today only two of my cat darlings came with me, Linda, the young cat which I mentioned already, and Princess Min Ki. They were sinking into the deep snow up to their heads and I had to make a furrow for them in the snow by sliding my feet instead of stepping. When we reached the deep forest and walked between the trees it was easier for the cats because the canopy protects the ground and most of the snow is on the branches and has not fallen down.

It is Linda’s first winter and she is completely excited because everything looks different, everything is new for her. Princess Min Ki is more composed, she is a seasoned cat and there’s not much what could astonish and confuse her anymore. In her life she has seen quite a few other young cats grow up and enjoy their first winter, this is not new for her and so she always waits patiently while Linda sniffs around and looks into every corner.

When we came home from the walk, the other cats looked at us with envy. They are all bored sitting at home not knowing what to do the whole day except looking out of the window longingly. There are no mice in the house (fortunately), so what in the world could a cat do? Going out and frolic in the snow would have been a welcome diversion, and yet, they don’t blame themselves for not participating in our forest walk, they rather resent us who took the chance to get a bit fresh air and have some exercise.

I always thought only humans are that unreasonable and immature.