The latest ISIS atrocity - releasing a video of a captured Jordanian fighter pilot being burned alive - prompted substantial discussion yesterday about this particular form of savagery. It is thus worth noting that deliberately burning people to death is achievable - and deliberately achieved - in all sorts of other ways:

Here's the cartoon, by Cameron Cardow of the Ottawa Citizen, that USA Today selected as its daily editorial cartoon for February 2:
It's not a terribly hard cartoon to parse: Islam is the modern equivalent of Nazism, and threatens a new Holocaust. The cartoon lists entities that have nothing in common with each other aside from their connection to Islam - political movements like Hezbollah and Hamas, who have been the targets of far more violence than they are responsible for, along with groups like ISIS and Boko Haram, terrorist groups whose victims are primarily Muslim. Hezbollah and ISIS are actually engaged in intense warfare with each other.


In case you missed the point, the cartoon puts one of the holiest phrases in Islam - "Allah Akbar," or "God is great" - in the mouth of a Nazi skeleton.

(Along with its roll call of Muslim villains, the cartoon includes the phrase "politically correct" - which I can only take to mean that people who criticize the politics of cartoons - for example - are a kind of Nazi too.)

No doubt defenders of the cartoon will say that it's only talking about the bad kind of Islam, which is just as persuasive as making a list of all the horrible people you can think of from a particular ethnic group and then saying that you're only talking about the bad people from that ethnic group. One would hope USA Today would decline to make such a smear its daily editorial cartoon.

UPDATE: You can send feedback to USA Today's editorial page editor Brian Gallagher at bgallagher@usatoday.com.

Don't be one of those people who drink the Kool-Aid and celebrates every time the unemployment figures come out. At least that's what the head of a renowned polling and research company is saying.

The official unemployment rate of 5.6% is extremely misleading, says Jim Clifton, President and CEO of Gallup, which is well-known for taking the pulse of the country on a number of issues, including the president's job performance and what people think about how the economy is doing.

Clifton says that lately the US Labor Department has been rolling out some reportedly good news about the economy and jobs, and everyone's jumping on the bandwagon, hooting and hollering about how great things are getting.

"The cheerleading for this number is deafening. Right now we're hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is 'down' to 5.6 %," says Clifton. "The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market."

And another thing, the Labor Department says if you work a minimum of one hour a week and are paid at least $20, then that's a "job" and you're not counted as unemployed, even though you'd be hard-pressed to try to get by with just $20 a week. But the positive vibes are all smoke and mirrors because the numbers don't take into account some key factors. For instance, the unemployment figures don't count people who have been unemployed for a while and out of frustration have stopped looking for work. It also doesn't take into account that people who are underemployed, which Gallup calculates is about 30 million Americans.

It's downright tomfoolery, says Clifton, especially when you take into consideration that not all jobs are created equal. In other words, what about all the people who are underemployed? Say you have a college degree and you got laid off from your job and you're driving a cab to make ends meet. Guess what? You're not counted among the 5.6%. That number doesn't look at the people who have stopped looking, those who are working part time, and anyone who's underemployed.
Clifton has three words for it: A BIG LIE.

Warfare is a constantly changing landscape, from the weapons that are used to the battlefields they're fought on. Amidst mountains of Snowden leaks from the NSA and GCHQ, it's no longer a mystery that the digital warfare is advancing quickly, and the British Army just upped its digital artillery.

A new group of soldiers, referred to as "Facebook Warriors" will " wage complex and covert information and subversion campaigns," according to the Financial Times. This unit will be named the 77th battalion, whose number also has a historical significance. FT says:

The original Chindits [77th battalion] were a guerrilla unit led by the swashbuckling British commander Major General Orde Wingate, one of the pioneers of modern unconventional warfare. They operated deep behind Japanese lines in Burma between 1942 and 1945 and their missions were often of questionable success.

These Facebook warriors will be using similar atypical tactics, through non-violent means, to fight their adversary. This will mainly be achieved through "reflexive control," an old Soviet tactic of spreading specifically curated information in order to get your opponent to react in the exact way you want them to. It's a pretty tricky trick, and the British army will be doing just that with 1,500-person (or more) troop using Twitter and Facebook as a means to spread disinformation, real war truths, and "false flag" incidents as well as just general intelligence gathering. The 77th battalion will reportedly begin operations in April.


Britain is far from the only country making a social media-focused investment. The Guardian notes that the Israel Defense Force (IDF) used 30 different social media sites in several different languages during Operation Cast Lead in an effort to "engage with an audience we otherwise wouldn't reach," says an IDF spokesperson. ISIS is also annoyingly adept at recruiting through social media and its sympathizers have hacked the U.S. military's social media accounts, including U.S. Central Command.

As Parks and Recreation's Ron Swanson once said, "Everything is a weapon," and social media is not an exception to the rule.

Last week Thomas Friedman writing in the New York Times called Putin a "thug" and "Hitler" (HERE ). This week Timothy Garton Ash writing in the Guardian comment section says Putin is Slobodan Milosevic (HERE ).

Both Friedman and Ash say that Putin is threatening Europe and he must be stopped. Both say the only way to stop Putin is to tighten the screws of economic sanctions on Russia, send more lethal military equipment to Ukraine and put NATO boots on the ground. They both call on Obama to do so.

Putin is neither Hitler nor Milosevic. Whenever people write such hyperbole they should immediately be suspected of being propagandists, especially when they heap praise on John "Bomb-Bomb" McCain as Ash does.

Neither Friedman nor Ash can point to any evidence that Putin has been the aggressor in Ukraine, committed genocide as did Hitler and Milosevic, or tried to cause ethnic cleansing. Kiev backed by Obama has been committing genocide and ethnic cleansing in South-East Ukraine.

Russian tanks are not on the move and threatening Europe. Friedman and Ash are making it up. The Baltic States and Poland are safe no matter how much Obama and the main stream media wring their hands and say they are frightened of Russian aggression in Europe. It is almost laughable if they were not so deadly serious and determined about their ulterior motives for making these stories up.

Only those with exaggerated imaginations or people who want to make things up say that Russia has shown evil intentions on its neighbors. People like Friedman and Ashton keep sticking their finger in Putin's eye hoping that he will lash out irrationally. So far they have been very disappointed.

Throughout the crisis that Washington manufactured in Ukraine, Russia has reacted in a measured and moderate response. When Russia's national security was threatened with the loss of its naval base in Crimea, Russia waited for a democratic referendum to approve annexation. When Novorossiya voted to break away from Ukraine, Russia called for diplomacy and greater autonomy for Novorossiya rather than annexation.

Becoming the first credentialed, well-known media insider to step forward and state publicly that he was secretly a "propagandist," an editor of a major German daily has said that he personally planted stories for the CIA.

Saying he believes a medical condition gives him only a few years to live, and that he is filled with remorse, Dr. Udo Ulfkotte, the editor of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of Germany's largest newspapers, said in an interview that he accepted news stories written and given to him by the CIA and published them under his own name. Ulfkotte said the aim of much of the deception was to drive nations toward war.

The Ukrainian war has lasted close to a year now. Those who have followed it will know the names of many of the men in this conflict. Names from the junta such as Poroshenko, Yatsenyuk, Turchinov, Kolomoisky or from the Donbass resistance such as Zakharchenko, Plotnitsky, Strelkov, Givi, Motorola, Bezler etc. are familiar. What is not so familiar are the names of some very courageous women who have spoken out despite the odds of grave consequences. They deserve respect and to be known especially as they have spoken out against the war from within Kiev-controlled Ukraine.

One of these is Nataliya Vitrenko, who is a Doctor of Economics and a Ukrainian politician, leader of the Progressive Socialist Party and head of the Ukrainian women's organization "Gift of Life".


It is clear that Vitrenko is well aware of the game that the West plays in Ukraine and the fact that she is stating it so clearly is a threat to the Ukrainian government. She made a similar appeal to the UN, EU and the US on January 27th 2014 not to support the fascist coup that she saw was about to take the place. After this latest video appeal, calls have been made from the very top to silence her.

Another woman who has spoken out is a Deputy of the Dnipropetrovsk city council, Victoria Shilova, who is also leader of the antiwar movement in Ukraine. This is the appeal to reason that she made in August 2014 and as a result of which she is likely facing a 8 year prison sentence for opposing the war. The video appeal has the title: "Do Ukrainians want war?"

NATO defense ministers are meeting in Brussels today to consolidate the military alliance against Russia, increasing the risk of a direct military confrontation between nuclear-armed powers.

NATO sources have revealed plans to establish a long-term presence in Eastern Europe, according to a report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS). So-called NATO "Force Integration Units" will be established in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. There are also plans to deploy such a unit in Hungary at a later time.

The units will consist of 40 soldiers each. They will be tasked with preparing exercises for a new NATO rapid response force and coordinating military activities in emergencies. Germany, which is spearheading the operation this year, intends to deploy a total of 25 soldiers within the units.

The ground troops of the rapid response force are to consist of a brigade of some 5,000 soldiers. The goal is for their most flexible units to have the capability to move to a new location within 48 hours. The entire brigade will be trained and equipped to be able to move to a new location within a week. The leadership of the operation will rotate yearly between NATO member countries.

According to the FAS, NATO defense ministers have already decided on the equipment to be provided during the "test phase," which is to last until the beginning of next year. Starting in April, a company of German paratroopers will supplement American units that have been stationed in the Baltic States and Poland since last year.

Two weeks ago, the FAS revealed that NATO defense ministers will convene the Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) at the beginning of today's meeting to discuss "the nuclear threat scenario from Russia in the past few months."

Saudi Arabia has been trying to pressure President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to abandon his support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, using its dominance of the global oil markets at a time when the Russian government is reeling from the effects of plummeting oil prices.


Saudi Arabia and Russia have had numerous discussions over the past several months that have yet to produce a significant breakthrough, according to American and Saudi officials. It is unclear how explicitly Saudi officials have linked oil to the issue of Syria during the talks, but Saudi officials say - and they have told the United States - that they think they have some leverage over Mr. Putin because of their ability to reduce the supply of oil and possibly drive up prices.

"If oil can serve to bring peace in Syria, I don't see how Saudi Arabia would back away from trying to reach a deal," a Saudi diplomat said. An array of diplomatic, intelligence and political officials from the United States and the Middle East spoke on the condition of anonymity to adhere to protocols of diplomacy.

The violent rise of the Islamic State and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a classic case of the dog biting its master.
Two-and-a-half months after the latest avatar of a long-existent Islamist army, the Islamic State (formerly Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), cut into Iraq, its ranks swelled to some 30,000 fighters in Iraq and 50,000 in Syria. It has entrenched itself in Mosul, Tikrit, Fallujah and Ramadi in northern Iraq, captured the Baiji oilfield, overran and lost the Mosul dam, and has been generally murdering and pillaging on a scale that has not been seen since Pope Innocent III's 20-year-long crusade against the 'heretical' Cathars of southern France in 1209 AD.

One man could have broken the IS long before it went berserk - US President Barack Obama. Until almost up to the minute that the IS beheaded its second American news reporter, Steven Sotloff, (allegedly on 2 September), the most powerful man in the world was dithering.

There is a good reason why: because the IS cannot be defeated without denying it a safe haven in Syria - and this, as General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out on 21 August, cannot be done without the cooperation of the Syrian government. Placed in an uncomfortable position - Iran has long been the US government's resident bugbear - Obama is unwilling to concede this, not only because it would be an admission of the monumental folly of his stance on Syria, but also because it would have him locking horns with Israel. Trying to keep it light, Gen Dempsey then told reporters on 24 August on his way to Afghanistan that he believed that the IS was primarily "a regional threat".