I know you supported signers of free trade(bush W) and I bet you have investments in the corporations that moved, so you in fact support the destruction of America for profit!.

The Fall of Iraq - What You're Not Being Told [UPDATED August 8th]

17.Jun.2014 | SCG

In June of 2014 the world watched in shock as an Islamic militant group operating under the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or ISIS), took control of Mosul, Baiji and Tikrit and began pushing south to Baghdad. Fallujah has been under their control since January.

[Note they are also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or ISIL]

Iraqi military and police put up very little resistance in spite of the fact that they greatly outnumbered the militants. Most fled their posts and left their uniforms and weapons behind, those who didn't were killed.

ISIS, whose stated goal is to erase the border between Syria and Iraq, to establish an Islamic Caliphate encompassing both countries, and to impose sharia law, already holds vast swaths of territory, and they are rapidly gaining ground.

How did this happen?

That's an extremely important question. How you answer it will determine what comes next, and not just in Iraq. That's why the media spin doctors and politicians are out in force attempting to rewrite history, and turning reality completely on its head in the process.

For example we have people insisting this is happening because the U.S. and NATO failed to intervene in Syria.

Well that's a convenient answer isn't it?

The U.S. and NATO have been actively working to topple Assad by arming and funding the Syrian rebels since 2011. This has developed into a bloody civil war which has attracted Jihadists from all over the world. It has also created a vacuum of power which enabled groups like ISIS, Al-Qaeda and Al-Nusra to organize and establish physical strongholds.

The U.S. claims to only be arming the "moderate" rebels, however, the leadership of the Free Syrian Army (aka the FSA) has stated that they regularly carry out joint operations with Al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Up until recently ISIS was a branch of Al-Qaeda. In February of this year Al-Qaeda's official leadership publicly disavowed ISIS due to their brutal tactics. That's why ISIS is referred to as a splinter group. Furthermore, we know for a fact that the majority of the weapons and funding from the U.S. and its allies are ending up in the hands of Jihadists, and U.S. officials have been aware of this since 2012. But don't take my word for it, go read this article from the New York Times yourself.

Do the math folks. ISIS would have never gotten a foothold Syria if the U.S. hadn't weakened the Syrian government, and the weapons they are using right now... were most likely paid for with your tax dollars.

But wait, this isn't just about Syria is it? It's also about Iraq. Which brings us to the other deranged narrative that is being promoted right now: that this chaos is unfolding because U.S. military withdrew prematurely in 2011.

You see Iraq is in ruins and unable to defend itself, because the U.S. military left the party too early. It's not because the Bush administration and the mainstream media convinced the public that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was planning to use them. It's not because the U.S. invaded Iraq on these false pretenses, disbanding the Iraqi army and police, and reducing the country to rubble in an attempt to put down the resulting insurgency. No, it's because eight years of military occupation wasn't enough.

To those who fought there, it's a punch in the gut to see your sacrifice was for nothing, but the occupation of Iraq was never going to end well, and the Bush administration knew that it wouldn't. But don't take my word for it. Let's take a look at this clip of Dick Cheney from 1994.

That was very astute Dick. You accurately predicted the mess you were going to help create in 2003. I would even venture to say that your predictions were more accurate than those who warned against this adventure. I'm impressed.

Now you'll notice that the talking heads of the left and the right are all trying to frame this crisis as the fault of the other side. They're both right.

Both sides of the aisle have blood on their hands, and this goes way beyond Bush and Obama. The United States has been tinkering in Iraq for a long, long time. In fact it was the CIA that put Saddam Hussein in power in 1963. Don't take my word for it, go read this article from the New York Times.

The U.S. government also backed Saddam in 1980 when he launched a war of aggression against Iran, even though they knew that he was using chemical weapons. But again don't take my word for it, go read this article by Foreign Policy magazine.

Fast forward to 1990. Saddam Hussein was embroiled in a dispute with Kuwait over oil prices and borders and he was considering taking action. Given America's support in the war against Iran, Saddam had no reason to believe that Kuwait would be any different, but just to be sure, he decided to consult with Washington first.

On July 25th of 1990 U.S. ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie met with Saddam Hussein. In the meeting Saddam described his case against Kuwait and told Glaspie that he viewed their activities as an act of military aggression. Glaspie responded by saying “We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait”, and she reinforced this by saying "this issue is not associated with America" Naturally Saddam interpreted this as a green light, and eight days later he invaded.

Later, when questioned in hearings, Glaspie claimed that though this quote was accurate, she had followed it up by insisting that Iraq settle its dispute non-violently.

However that's not what shows up in the transcripts of the conversation released by the New York Times. According to the transcript she said "All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly."

But maybe this was just an innocent diplomatic blunder right? Well not quite.

As soon as Saddam entered Kuwait the U.S. government launched a very interesting propaganda campaign to build up public support for a war. They claimed that Iraqi troops were slaughtering little babies by throwing them out of their incubators in hospitals, and they brought in teary eyed witnesses who testified to having seen the massacres.

Just one problem… the entire event was fabricated. It never happened. This woman who presented herself as a witness was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States and her testimony was part of a public relations campaign organized by a company called Hill and Knowlton.

Once public support for the war was strong, the incubators story was dropped, and never mentioned again.

The U.S. invaded Iraq in 1991. During that war the U.S. military utilized approximately 640,000 pounds of Depleted Uranium ammunition. The Iraq was decimated, but the U.S. left Saddam in power.

The war didn't ever really end though. The U.S. kept Iraq under a draconian sanctions regime that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children. Clinton kept those sanctions in place for the entire duration of his presidency, and they knew what was happening.

You know how they say "those who don't know history are destined to repeat it"? That's really not an exaggeration.

Fast forward to 2003 and the Kuwaiti incubator story was swapped out for stories of mobile missile silos and yellow cake uranium.

And when it turned out that those weapons of mass destruction didn't exist, they acted like it was no big deal.

Then of course came Obama, riding in on promises of hope and change. But we saw how Obama toppled Libya in 2011, leaving that nation in utter chaos. Gaddafi was then killed in a rather gruesome fashion.

Before NATO brought down Gaddafi Libya had the highest standard of living in all of Africa. Now it's a perpetual war-zone. And of course we've seen how Obama has funded and armed the Syrian rebels in an attempt to bring down Assad.

Obama is operating from the same playbook, and yes there is a playbook.

Fortunately the future is not set in stone. We can influence the outcome, and we already are. We proved that in 2013 when both the left and the right dropped their petty bickering and unified against Obama's proposal to use airstrikes against Assad.

The pattern of deceit was the same, but this time the people didn't fall for it. The fact that we had the U.N. investigator Carla Del Ponte come out to say that the Syrian rebels were behind the sarin gas attacks helped, the fact that Putin short circuited the U.S. diplomatically helped, but the determining factor was the popular resistance, particularly the signs of discontent from within the military. You see, the ruling class is very hesitant to take a nation to war if the people and the military strongly oppose it. That's why the first casualty of war is always the truth.

What's going on in Iraq right now is horrific. ISIS is already committing atrocities against civilians on a massive scale. Inexplicably the Obama administration did not provide the Iraqi military with immediate air support even after the fall of Mosul. I say inexplicably, not because I support airstrikes, but because on June 12th, the U.S. Military conducted its second drone strike this month in Pakistan. Why would Obama refuse to act in Iraq when civilians are being massacred, while employing drones in Pakistan without hesitation?

I'll tell you why. Because the outrage over the atrocities that the ISIS is committing may be enough to provide the U.S. government with a backdoor into Syria.

You see It turns out that Obama is considering airstrikes, but not just in Iraq. He wants to extend those strikes into Syria as well. Well, that's convenient isn't it? Once the U.S. military is able to freely conduct operations in Syrian territory getting the regime change that they will be much, much easier.

[UPDATED August 8th]: On August 7th, 2014 Obama announced that airstrikes are imminent in Iraq, and as of August 8th we are hearing reports that the bombing has already begun in northern Iraq. Make no mistake, this will not end in Iraq. This is just the opening act. Remember ISIS holds territory in both Iraq and Syria.

It's the classic formula Problem, Reaction, Solution.

They created the problem, they are letting the public react and build up outrage, and then they are going to propose a "solution" that will sow the seeds for another generation of conflicts.

To short circuit this pattern the public needs to come to terms with the cold hold hard truth.

No matter what the U.S. does, and no matter how long they stay, there is no happy ending to this story. The chaos that we're seeing in this region is the direct result of half a century of U.S. military interventions and covert operations in the Middle East. It's time to acknowledge that bombing for peace doesn't work, regime change for stability doesn't work, and you can't fix a mistake by repeating it over and over.

If the U.S. honestly wants to stop the spread of Islamic terrorism, then they should stop funding and arming Jihadists in Syria. That would be a good starting point don't you think?

Name calling is abusive or insulting language referring to a person or group, a verbal abuse. This phenomenon is studied by a variety of academic disciplines from anthropology, to child psychology, to politics. It is also studied by rhetoricians, and a variety of other disciplines that study propaganda techniques and their causes and effects. The technique is most frequently employed within political discourse and school systems, in an attempt to negatively impact their opponent.

Name calling is a cognitive bias and a technique to promote propaganda. Propagandists use the name-calling technique to incite fears or arouse positive prejudices with the intent that invoked fear (based on fearmongering tactics) or trust will encourage those that read, see or hear propaganda to construct a negative opinion, in respect to the former, or a positive opinion, with respect to the latter, about a person, group, or set of beliefs or ideas that the propagandist would wish the recipients to believe. The method is intended to provoke conclusions and actions about a matter apart from an impartial examinations of the facts of the matter. When this tactic is used instead of an argument, name-calling is thus a substitute for rational, fact-based arguments against an idea or belief, based upon its own merits, and becomes an argumentum ad hominem.

Gratuitous verbal abuse or "name-calling" itself is not an argumentum ad hominem or a logical fallacy. The fallacy only occurs if personal attacks are employed in the stead of an argument to devalue an argument by attacking the speaker, not personal insults in the middle of an otherwise sound argument. However, because a statement can be countered by multiple lines of reasoning, any name-calling relating to the mental faculties of the opponent is typically a case of argumentum ad hominem. For example, ad hominem attacks would include saying the opponent is slow-witted, uneducated, too drunk to think clearly, or needs more sleep for correct judgment. "X's argument is invalid because X's analogy is false, there are differences between a republic and a democracy. But then again, X is idiotically ignorant" is gratuitously abusive but is not a fallacy because X's argument is actually addressed directly in the opening statement. "X is idiotically ignorant" is not a fallacy of itself. It is an argument that X doesn't know the difference between a republic and a democracy. But, the implication is that the opponent is too "idiotically ignorant" to think clearly, about anything. An example of a direct ad hominem fallacy would be "X is idiotically ignorant [of politics], so why should we listen to him now?"

Name Calling Is The Sign Of A Weak Argument

  I love to have friendly debates.  It’s a great way to “flesh out” the details of an issue and to get a glimpse of an issue from another’s vantage point.  The problem is that not everyone can engage in a “friendly” debate.  Too often, the debates turn into heated arguments and deteriorate from there.  This leads to hurt feelings and can even result in doomed relationships.

You have to understand that not everyone knows the “ins and outs” of their argument.  This is especially true when discussing such “hot button” topics as politics and religion (among others).  People have a set of beliefs but they don’t always know why they believe what the do.  They’ve heard trusted authorities say that they should believe a certain way, so they do.  Many folks don’t bother to dig any deeper than that.

If you’re debating from a position of knowledge, having done considerable research on a subject, and your opponent is basing his entire argument on rhetoric or “talking points,” it won’t take too long for  you to blow through his entire argument.  Once that’s done, he has no place to retreat.  Human nature and ego will usually prevent your opponent from admitting that his position may be flawed.  After all, he has to be right.  His “trusted authority figure” said so.

Rather than admit a mistake, when an argument is blown away, most people resort to “Plan B” – the personal attack.  If a victory cannot be one on the battleground of ideas, one must try to make the opponent out to be defective.  That’s when the name calling starts.   It’s an attempt to save face and resurrect a dead argument.

In the past, I would get riled up when someone would call me names, or attempt to belittle my side of an argument.  Then I realized that getting mad was exactly what they wanted me to do.  I was playing right into their hand.  That’s when I decided that I would not give them that pleasure anymore.  Let me tell you, there are times when it takes great restraint to do this, but it’s worth the effort.

I will tell you that it became easier once I began to see their taunts for what they really are… a sign of desperation.  Now, I start to grin (on the inside) as soon as the name calling starts because I know that I’ve got them and I just won this debate (argument).

Personally, I don’t think you should ever go out to be hurtful or mean, that’s just not right.  Everyone has a right to their opinion, even if it disagrees with yours or mine and we need to respect that right.  Likewise, someone should not be made to feel inferior because they have that opinion.

On the flip side, you shouldn’t jump in and take a stand on issues that you don’t understand.  Know what you believe and why you believe it and have real facts from reputable, verifiable sources before you jump on the “battlefield.”

Once everyone learns to respect the rights of others, and to properly research their own “side,” there should be no need for the childish act of name calling.  It’s unbecoming for children and especially so for adults.

here a study on conspiracist and conventionalist

New studies: ‘Conspiracy theorists’ sane; government dupes crazy, hostile

http://www.presstv.com/detail/2013/07/12/313399/conspiracy-theorists-vs-govt-dupes/

Recent studies by psychologists and social scientists in the US and UK suggest that contrary to mainstream media stereotypes, those labeled “conspiracy theorists” appear to be saner than those who accept the official versions of contested events. The most recent study was published on July 8th by psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent (UK). Entitled “What about Building 7? A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories,” the study compared “conspiracist” (pro-conspiracy theory) and “conventionalist” (anti-conspiracy) comments at news websites. The authors were surprised to discover that it is now more conventional to leave so-called conspiracist comments than conventionalist ones: “Of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist.” In other words, among people who comment on news articles, those who disbelieve government accounts of such events as 9/11 and the JFK assassination outnumber believers by more than two to one. That means it is the pro-conspiracy commenters who are expressing what is now the conventional wisdom, while the anti-conspiracy commenters are becoming a small, beleaguered minority. Perhaps because their supposedly mainstream views no longer represent the majority, the anti-conspiracy commenters often displayed anger and hostility: “The research… showed that people who favoured the official account of 9/11 were generally more hostile when trying to persuade their rivals.” Additionally, it turned out that the anti-conspiracy people were not only hostile, but fanatically attached to their own conspiracy theories as well. According to them, their own theory of 9/11 - a conspiracy theory holding that 19 Arabs, none of whom could fly planes with any proficiency, pulled off the crime of the century under the direction of a guy on dialysis in a cave in Afghanistan - was indisputably true. The so-called conspiracists, on the other hand, did not pretend to have a theory that completely explained the events of 9/11: “For people who think 9/11 was a government conspiracy, the focus is not on promoting a specific rival theory, but in trying to debunk the official account.” In short, the new study by Wood and Douglas suggests that the negative stereotype of the conspiracy theorist - a hostile fanatic wedded to the truth of his own fringe theory - accurately describes the people who defend the official account of 9/11, not those who dispute it. Additionally, the study found that so-called conspiracists discuss historical context (such as viewing the JFK assassination as a precedent for 9/11) more than anti-conspiracists. It also found that the so-called conspiracists to not like to be called “conspiracists” or “conspiracy theorists.” Both of these findings are amplified in the new book Conspiracy Theory in America by political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith, published earlier this year by the University of Texas Press. Professor deHaven-Smith explains why people don’t like being called “conspiracy theorists”: The term was invented and put into wide circulation by the CIA to smear and defame people questioning the JFK assassination! “The CIA’s campaign to popularize the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and make conspiracy belief a target of ridicule and hostility must be credited, unfortunately, with being one of the most successful propaganda initiatives of all time.” In other words, people who use the terms “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist” as an insult are doing so as the result of a well-documented, undisputed, historically-real conspiracy by the CIA to cover up the JFK assassination. That campaign, by the way, was completely illegal, and the CIA officers involved were criminals; the CIA is barred from all domestic activities, yet routinely breaks the law to conduct domestic operations ranging from propaganda to assassinations. DeHaven-Smith also explains why those who doubt official explanations of high crimes are eager to discuss historical context. He points out that a very large number of conspiracy claims have turned out to be true, and that there appear to be strong relationships between many as-yet-unsolved “state crimes against democracy.” An obvious example is the link between the JFK and RFK assassinations, which both paved the way for presidencies that continued the Vietnam War. According to DeHaven-Smith, we should always discuss the “Kennedy assassinations” in the plural, because the two killings appear to have been aspects of the same larger crime. Psychologist Laurie Manwell of the University of Guelph agrees that the CIA-designed “conspiracy theory” label impedes cognitive function. She points out, in an article published in American Behavioral Scientist (2010), that anti-conspiracy people are unable to think clearly about such apparent state crimes against democracy as 9/11 due to their inability to process information that conflicts with pre-existing belief. In the same issue of ABS, University of Buffalo professor Steven Hoffman adds that anti-conspiracy people are typically prey to strong “confirmation bias” - that is, they seek out information that confirms their pre-existing beliefs, while using irrational mechanisms (such as the “conspiracy theory” label) to avoid conflicting information. The extreme irrationality of those who attack “conspiracy theories” has been ably exposed by Communications professors Ginna Husting and Martin Orr of Boise State University. In a 2007 peer-reviewed article entitled “Dangerous Machinery: ‘Conspiracy Theorist’ as a Transpersonal Strategy of Exclusion,” they wrote: “If I call you a conspiracy theorist, it matters little whether you have actually claimed that a conspiracy exists or whether you have simply raised an issue that I would rather avoid… By labeling you, I strategically exclude you from the sphere where public speech, debate, and conflict occur.” But now, thanks to the internet, people who doubt official stories are no longer excluded from public conversation; the CIA’s 44-year-old campaign to stifle debate using the “conspiracy theory” smear is nearly worn-out. In academic studies, as in comments on news articles, pro-conspiracy voices are now more numerous - and more rational - than anti-conspiracy ones. No wonder the anti-conspiracy people are sounding more and more like a bunch of hostile, paranoid cranks. KB/HSN

9/11: A Conspiracy Theory

Everything you ever wanted to know about the 9/11 conspiracy theory in under 5 minutes.

TRANSCRIPT: On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 men armed with boxcutters directed by a man on dialysis in a cave fortress halfway around the world using a satellite phone and a laptop directed the most sophisticated penetration of the most heavily-defended airspace in the world, overpowering the passengers and the military combat-trained pilots on 4 commercial aircraft before flying those planes wildly off course for over an hour without being molested by a single fighter interceptor.

These 19 hijackers, devout religious fundamentalists who liked to drink alcohol, snort cocaine, and live with pink-haired strippers, managed to knock down 3 buildings with 2 planes in New York, while in Washington a pilot who couldn’t handle a single engine Cessna was able to fly a 757 in an 8,000 foot descending 270 degree corskscrew turn to come exactly level with the ground, hitting the Pentagon in the budget analyst office where DoD staffers were working on the mystery of the 2.3 trillion dollars that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had announced “missing” from the Pentagon’s coffers in a press conference the day before, on September 10, 2001.

Luckily, the news anchors knew who did it within minutes, the pundits knew within hours, the Administration knew within the day, and the evidence literally fell into the FBI’s lap. But for some reason a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists demanded an investigation into the greatest attack on American soil in history.

The investigation was delayed, underfunded, set up to fail, a conflict of interest and a cover up from start to finish. It was based on testimony extracted through torture, the records of which were destroyed. It failed to mention the existence of WTC7, Able Danger, Ptech, Sibel Edmonds, OBL and the CIA, and the drills of hijacked aircraft being flown into buildings that were being simulated at the precise same time that those events were actually happening. It was lied to by the Pentagon, the CIA, the Bush Administration and as for Bush and Cheney…well, no one knows what they told it because they testified in secret, off the record, not under oath and behind closed doors. It didn’t bother to look at who funded the attacks because that question is of “little practical significance“. Still, the 9/11 Commission did brilliantly, answering all of the questions the public had (except most of the victims’ family members’ questions) and pinned blame on all the people responsible (although no one so much as lost their job), determining the attacks were “a failure of imagination” because “I don’t think anyone could envision flying airplanes into buildings ” except the Pentagon and FEMA and NORAD and the NRO.

The DIA destroyed 2.5 TB of data on Able Danger, but that’s OK because it probably wasn’t important.

The SEC destroyed their records on the investigation into the insider trading before the attacks, but that’s OK because destroying the records of the largest investigation in SEC history is just part of routine record keeping.

NIST has classified the data that they used for their model of WTC7’s collapse, but that’s OK because knowing how they made their model of that collapse would “jeopardize public safety“.

The FBI has argued that all material related to their investigation of 9/11 should be kept secret from the public, but that’s OK because the FBI probably has nothing to hide.

This man never existed, nor is anything he had to say worthy of your attention, and if you say otherwise you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist and deserve to be shunned by all of humanity. Likewise him, him, him, and her. (and her and her and him).

Osama Bin Laden lived in a cave fortress in the hills of Afghanistan, but somehow got away. Then he was hiding out in Tora Bora but somehow got away. Then he lived in Abottabad for years, taunting the most comprehensive intelligence dragnet employing the most sophisticated technology in the history of the world for 10 years, releasing video after video with complete impunity (and getting younger and younger as he did so), before finally being found in a daring SEAL team raid which wasn’t recorded on video, in which he didn’t resist or use his wife as a human shield, and in which these crack special forces operatives panicked and killed this unarmed man, supposedly the best source of intelligence about those dastardly terrorists on the planet. Then they dumped his body in the ocean before telling anyone about it. Then a couple dozen of that team’s members died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

This is the story of 9/11, brought to you by the media which told you the hard truths about JFK and incubator babies and mobile production facilities and the rescue of Jessica Lynch.

If you have any questions about this story…you are a batshit, paranoid, tinfoil, dog-abusing baby-hater and will be reviled by everyone. If you love your country and/or freedom, happiness, rainbows, rock and roll, puppy dogs, apple pie and your grandma, you will never ever express doubts about any part of this story to anyone. Ever.

This has been a public service announcement by: the Friends of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, SEC, MSM, White House, NIST, and the 9/11 Commission. Because Ignorance is Strength.

1.  Most of us who have a 401K (or similar) retirement account, have investments in multinational corporations.

2.  Bush?  "After much consideration and emotional discussion, the House of Representatives passed the North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act on November 17, 1993, 234-200. The agreement's supporters included 132 Republicans and 102 Democrats. The bill passed the Senate on November 20, 1993, 61-38.^[6] Senate supporters were 34 Republicans and 27 Democrats. Clinton signed it into law on December 8, 1993; the agreement went into effect on January 1, 1994.^[7][8] Clinton, while signing the NAFTA bill, stated that "NAFTA means jobs. American jobs, and good-paying American jobs. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't support this agreement."^[9]