As the drums of war begin to beat once again in Iran, Syria, the South China Sea, and other potential hotspots and flashpoints around the globe, concerned citizens are asking how a world so sick of bloodshed and a population so tired of conflict could be led to this spot once again.
To understand this seeming paradox, we must first understand the centuries-long history of how media has been used to whip the nation into wartime frenzy, dehumanize the supposed enemies, and even to manipulate the public into believing in causes for war that, decades later, were admitted to be completely fictitious.
Puppet Masters
It is hard to fathom the level of moral blindness -- not to mention the wilful ignorance -- required to write such a statement. To pretend to oneself, much less the rest of the world, that political and sectarian strife has only now "erupted" in Iraq, out of the blue, or more likely, due to the inherent savagery of those poor primitives we liberated -- think what a pathetic, self-deluded wretch you would have to be to hold such an belief. Think what it must be like to lose so much of your humanity and to have your intellect so stunted and diminished. Yet this is the viewpoint of the overwhelming majority of the American political and media elite. No causal connection is made between the unprovoked invasion by U.S. forces and the "eruption" of violence and political chaos in the conquered, broken, blood-soaked land.
© Jin Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Have a column on Iowa coming soon, but first, a quick but absurd note from the world of high finance.
It seems Jim O'Neill, the head of Goldman's Asset Management department, is predicting that the United States stock market may go up "15 to 20 percent." O'Neill apparently believes Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve will resort to another round of money-printing, and finally green-light the long-awaited "Qe3," or third round of "Quantitative Easing."
The QE programs involve the Fed printing hundreds of billions of dollars and pumping them into the marketplace, where they ostensibly stimulate the economy (although recent experience tells us that the money mostly ends up being swallowed by the financial services industry - but that's another subject for another time). Anyway, Bernanke declined to go ahead with a third QE program in late 2011, but O'Neill apparently thinks we'll get it in 2012. From Bloomberg:
"If QE2 doesn't work, then we'll get QE3," said O'Neill, who was named chairman of the money manager in September after working as the co-head of global economics research and chief currency economist at New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. since 1995. There's a "good chance" the S&P 500 will rise 15 percent to 20 percent in the next 12 months, he said.O'Neill added that he thought a 20 percent bump would be "relatively straightforward" for the U.S. S&P.
They may have supported this bill because - although it's hard to believe - they think the military will only arrest active members of Al Qaida; or maybe, less naively, they believe that 'at most', low-level dissenting figures, activists, or troublesome protesters might be subjected to military arrest. But they are forgetting something critical: history shows that those who signed this bill will soon be subject to arrest themselves
The Arab Spring uprisings were arguably the most significant events of the last 12 months. Protests are still raging across the region, even after regimes were toppled. Journalist and author F. William Engdahl gives his view on the Arab world in 2012.
Life in occupied Palestine is harsh and repressive. On December 26, Jerusalem's mayor, Nir Barakat, delivered another blow. The Municipality will classify 70,000 Israeli Arab citizens non-residents and involuntarily transfer them to West Bank locations.
At issue is entirely Judaizing Jerusalem through forced ethnic cleansing to facilitate escalated settlement construction. It's also part of creating a greater Jerusalem and preventing a two-state solution.
Two new Haaretz reports are also significant heading into 2012, one by writer Barak Ravid.
After refusing peace negotiations with Israel unless illegal settlement construction stops, he said:
"The Palestinian leadership submitted a proposal to renew peace talks with Israel that drops their longstanding demand that Israel ceases all West Bank settlement construction, a top Israeli official said on Wednesday."
Bashar Assad, an actual Semite, leader of the Free Socialist Arab Republic of Syria, who is currently under tremendous pressure from Ashkenazi Jews (anti-Semites) from Tel-Aviv and New York
In mid December, Ron Dermer, a senior advisor to Israel's prime minister, sent a letter to one of the New York Times' editors. The letter was polite and bordered on flattery, yet it was meant to serve as a declaration of war.
The New York Times offered Netanyahu the opportunity to write an opinion piece. Dermer declined the offer on Netanyahu's behalf. The explanation given: Last May, the newspaper published, without qualifications, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' distorted version regarding the historical events that preceded the State of Israel's inception.
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Rick Santorum
Rick Santorum
"We will degrade those facilities through airstrikes, and make it very public that we are doing that," Santorum said on Meet the Press.
Iran announced today that it had created the country's first nuclear fuel rod, a key component in a reactor that can also be used to produce weapons grade uranium.
Several of the GOP candidates have expressed increased concerns over Iran's nuclear program after the International Atomic Energy Agency released a report that says Iran is making progress.
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According to the reports, the first nuclear fuel rod was loaded into the core of the Tehran research reactor as part of an experiment to test its performance in operation.
Now Iran should convert fuel rods into fuel plates to power the Tehran research reactor, which produces radioisotopes for cancer treatment.
Iran has constructed an advanced plant at the Isfahan nuclear facility for manufacturing nuclear fuel plates. With the construction of the plant, Iran is now among the few countries that can manufacture both nuclear fuel rods and plates.
© Amir Kholousi / ISNA
In this image made available by the Iranian Students News Agency, an Iranian navy vessel launches a missile during a drill at the sea of Oman, on Sunday, Jan. 1, 2012.
In this image made available by the Iranian Students News Agency, an Iranian navy vessel launches a missile during a drill at the sea of Oman, on Sunday, Jan. 1, 2012.
State news agency Irna yesterday quoted Iran's naval commander, Mahmoud Mousavi, as saying the missile was equipped with the latest technology and intelligent systems.
The missile test was made during 10 days of naval exercises to the east of the Straits of Hormuz, the narrowest section of the Gulf, which Iran has threatened to close in the event of western sanctions on its oil exports.
The exercises come a few weeks before EU foreign ministers meet to consider further sanctions, possibly including an oil embargo against Tehran, after an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report in November confirmed western allegations that Iran had worked on nuclear weapons designs, at least until 2003, and may have carried out experiments more recently.
Comment: Most Jews really are 'anti-Semitic' because they are not real semites - their Arab cousins are descendants of the Semitic people. Coupled with their brethren in the US, real anti-Semites have been imposing their final solution on the Semites since 9/11, targeting Iraqis, Lebanese, Palestinians, Libyans and now Syrians.
Read Secret History of the World and 9/11 The Ultimate Truth to find out more.