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CNN Finds Al Qaeda Now “Moderate”
CNN and its reporter Frederick Pleitgen are trying to whitewash some Al-Qaeda affiliated groups in Syria by contrasting them with other Al-Qaeda affiliated groups and by declaring them "moderate":
At a sniper position atop of one of Aleppo's tallest buildings, soldiers showed us areas under opposition control. Some are held by the moderate Free Syrian Army, or the newly-constituted and moderate Islamic Front. But others are under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the al Qaeda-linked group which is battling against other rebel factions in its bid to set up an Islamic caliphate in Syria.
As pointed out earlier here the Islamic Front is not "moderate" in any reasonable aspect the attribute "moderate" can be used. It wants an Islamic state, or caliphate, in Syria. It regularly cooperates with the Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. The head of one of its main sub groups, Abu Khaled al Suri of Ahrar al-Shams, was a friend and follower of Osama Bin Laden and is, according to himself, still part of the group:
A top official of a major Syrian rebel group acknowledged Friday that he considers himself a member of al Qaida, an admission that undercuts Western hopes that the new Islamic Front would prove to be an acceptable counter to the rising influence of other al Qaida affiliates in Syria.
Abu Khaled al Suri, who is a top figure in the rebel group Ahrar al Sham, made the statement in an Internet posting in which he argued that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, another radical rebel group, was not al Qaida’s representative in Syria and was not doing the work of al Qaida’s founder, Osama bin Laden, its current leader, Ayman al Zawahiri, or al Qaida’s late leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who was killed by an American missile in 2006.
The leading figure of the leading group within the Islamic Front is an al-Qaeda operative. The Islamic Front does not want a democratic state but an Islamic caliphate. Several subgroups of the new founded Islamic Front committed sectarian massacres of civilians in Latakia.
But Fred Pleitgen and CNN insist that the group is "moderate".
What makes it so? Obama's crazy willingness to talk with it and to probably provide it with weapons?
The problem that I have with the J Sorrentine contribution @2 is that the “way out” he offers – the ‘rest of the world’ treating US leaders as completely unreliable, liars and deceivers- is no way out at all.
Most of the leaders in most other countries know already that the US is led by perfidious bastards who are totally amoral and concerned only with feathering their nests for the next few months.
They know this because they are not unlike them. In many cases they owe their positions of power to US sponsorship, in other cases they consciously set out to emulate their US rivals or opponents.
One would have to be extremely dumb to deal with the US government regularly and still to entertain any illusions about its evil ways and its utter cynicism.
So the rest of the world knows what it is dealing with, and, in so far as we are talking about its leaders, admires it. The Premier of Ukraine would love to have the sort of control that the US government has over its population. So would the Egyptian dictatorship.
There is no mystery about the source of this control either: the power of the media is a part of it but it is not the cause. The US media has such power not because people believe what it tells them-often enough they thoroughly distrust it- but because they are happy to go along with the status quo.
And why not?
For much more than two decades the US has been the best place on earth, in terms of economic well being and opportunity to live. It has never been anything like as good as advertised. And for certain minorities, such as blacks, it has been hellish. It has always been characterized by the ruthless suppression of dissent threatening the capitalist system. It has always been riven with corruption from the police station to the Supreme Court. Congress has always been, largely, bought and paid for and government oligarchical. And this has enraged, inconvenienced, annoyed and been generally recognized by Americans since the first stirrings of Independence.
The American people are not brainwashed but they are still pretty well convinced that, bad as things may be, upsetting the status quo, risking “change that you can really believe in” endangers what they have and may be unnecessary because “recovery” may very well restore all that has been lost in the past few years.
It won’t of course, and this is where the media and the treasonable academy come in, but people are continually being reassured that, at best, ‘recovery’ -good times again-is just around the corner. Or at the very worst, that the present system ‘democracy’ offers opportunities to change things painlessly and restore those “good times” when jobs were so easy to get that employers dared not offend employees, the “Leave it to Beaver” days when social mobility was facilitated by the educational system and union contracts raised living standards regularly. (And there is a Senator from Massachusetts who could tidy things up in a minute if elected to the White House.)
It never was that good, but tell that to the crowds in Kiev. They are so easy for the US and EU to manipulate because, just as the Owl of Minerva-prosperity and liberty- has become a distant speck in the sky, disappearing over the horizon, people the world over are beginning to sense that it is within their grasp. They eat the State Department’s cookies with the reverence that old catholics accept the host at communion: they believe in America, even though it not only not only no longer exists but never did exist. Not for ‘polacks’ and ‘hunkies’- cheap biddable labour-at any rate.
The truth is that deluded as the American people are, they are wiser to the reality of the US and its government than almost anyone else. Most of the “underdeveloped” (to employ a highly ideological nonsense) world is full of people who would sacrifice limbs to become Americans. Even the relatively sophisticated populations of Europe and the neo-Americas of the white dominions, themselves prosperous, generally better served in terms of medical and social security, are full of people who wish that they were American, or lived the way that Americans do-in the media if not reality.
And this isn’t surprising: for centuries America has been the land of virgin soil, readily exploitable mineral resources, vast untapped wildernesses full of wildlife, lumber and all that the peasant ever desires. Including, for whites, automatic membership of the master race.
This image was not cleverly constructed by Freud’s nephew and the wizards of Madison Avenue, in conjunction with Hollywood, in less than a century, it has been close to the centre of the European imagination for four or five hundred years. It is part of modernity. America envy is international. And nowhere more than in the “middle classes” of India or Serbia or Thailand. And, ironically, never more widespread or less rational than now as the system disintegrates.
What the media does is to put a ruling class interpretation, a spin on what is: the media tells Americans that everything good comes from capitalism, that inequality is the dynamo which drives improvements for all, that charter schools will be more efficient at educating children, that the internet must be monitored to protect ordinary people from terrorists (jealous of their way of life) and so on.
And it does a superb job. But it has very clear limits.
You can tell people that they are lucky to be free. But they won’t believe you when they live in daily fear of being fired and losing their incomes, medical coverage, everything. And when “everything”-even though it be very little and much less than earned- depends on kissing the boss’s arse, working days of unpaid overtime every month, taking a second or third job (all of which I suggest is the reality for tens of millions of those ‘lucky enough’ to be working) the media’s ability to convince people that black is white, good is bad, exhaustion is desirable, humiliation, enviable, and stress, bracing, erodes.
And this, if past form is anything to go by, is where J and I differ.
I see the Depression biting more deeply every month. I see popular patience with the system diminishing, despite the propaganda. I see, in various signs, one of them the undramatic but very marked disillusionment with military adventures such as Iraq and Afghanistan, a population turning away from a ruling class which is becoming increasingly isolated and arrogant. A ruling class riding for a fall, convinced of its immortality and the weakness and stupidity of those it exploits, cheats, insults and completely underestimates.
Posted by: bevin | Jan 23 2014 18:55 utc | 8
Here’s some other ranters on money supply:
“All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in the Constitution or confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, as much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.” – John Quincy Adams
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.” – Abraham Lincoln, from a November 21, 1864 letter to Colonel William F. Elkins
“Banks create credit. It is a mistake to suppose that bank credit is created to any extent by the deposit of money into the banks. A loan made by a bank is a clear addition to the amount of money in the community.” – Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th Edition
“Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them but leave them the power to create money, and, with the flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again. Take this great power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and happier world to live in. But, if you want to continue to be the slave of the bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let the bankers continue to create money and control credit.” – Sir Josiah Stamp, President, Bank of England (2nd richest man in England)
“But if in the pursuit of the means we should unfortunately stumble again on unfunded paper money or any similar species of fraud, we shall assuredly give a fatal stab to our national credit in its infancy. Paper money will invariably operate in the body of politics as spirit liquors on the human body. They prey on the vitals and ultimately destroy them. Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.” , George Washington in a letter to Jabez Bowen, Rhode Island, Jan. 9, 1787
“By this means government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft.” – Lord John Maynard Keynes, “Economic Consequences of Peace”
“Capital must protect itself in every way. Debts must be collected, mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible. When through the process of law the common people lose their homes, they will become more docile and more easily governed through the strong arm of government applied by a central power of wealth under leading financiers. People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capitalism to govern the world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd. It is thus by discreet action we can secure for ourselves that which has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished.” – U.S. Banker’s Association Magazine, 1924
“Congress [not private banks] shall have the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof.” – Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution.
Congressman Patman: “Mr. Eccles, how did you get the money to buy those two billions of government securities?” Eccles: “We created it.” Patman: “Out of what?” Eccles: “Out of the right to issue credit money.” – Testimony of Marriner Eccles, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, before the House Banking and Currency Committee, 1941
“Every circulating Federal Reserve Note represents in actuality a one dollar debt to the Federal Reserve system.” – Money Facts, House Banking and Currency Committee
“Every Congressman, every Senator knows precisely what causes inflation…but can’t, won’t support the drastic reforms to repeal of the Federal Reserve Act because it could cost him his job.” – Robert A. Heinlein, Expanded Universe
“Every effort has been made by the Federal Reserve Board to conceal its powers, but the truth is that the Federal Reserve System has usurped the government. It controls everything in congress and it controls all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will.” – Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency
“For a long time I felt that FDR had developed many thoughts and ideas that were his own to benefit this country, the United States. But he didn’t. Most of his thoughts were carefully manufactured for him in advance by the Council on Foreign Relations One World Money Group. The United Nations is but a long range, international banking apparatus clearly set up for financial and economic profit by a small group of powerful One-World revolutionaries, hungry for profit and power. The One-World government leaders and their ever close bankers have now acquired full control of the money and credit machinery of the U.S. via the creation of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank.” – Curtis Dall, Son-in-Law of F.D.R., 1936
“For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.” – David Rockefeller, Memoirs, 2002
“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.” – James Madison
“I am afraid that ordinary citizens will not like to be told that the banks can, and do, create and destroy money; and they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of governments and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.” – R. McKenna, Chairman, Midland Bank London
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power of money should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs.” – Thomas Jefferson
“I have never seen more Senators express discontent with their jobs. I think the major cause is that, deep down in our hearts, we have been accomplices in doing something terrible and unforgivable to our wonderful country. Deep down in our heart, we know that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. We have defrauded our country to get ourselves elected.” – John Danforth
“I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by it’s system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world… no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men.” – Woodrow Wilson
Posted by: okie farmer | Jan 23 2014 20:05 utc | 12
I reject the spirit of the comments at #2, #6, #7, #8, #9 and #10 and I say also that they’re misinformed about the reality in the USA. But I won’t go into it. I don’t want to talk about the USA. I don’t live in USA and I sincerely don’t give a shit about that country, and don’t I give a shit about USA foreign policy either, with the exception of bombing. As long as the USA government is not bombing or thinking of bombing, the USA is none of my business.
The full text of Al-Moallem’s 34 minute speech in Switzerland yesterday is at http://sana.sy/eng/21/2014/01/22/523706.htm . One of the things he said was “the Syrian people… aspire to a strong national army.” It reminded me of a recurring theme I have about Syria: the Syrian army has been performing shittily in the field. From my perspective this is Syria’s biggest problem. The biggest problem is NOT the foreign funders and foreign cheerleaders of rebellion, NOR the Islamist militants, NOR working-class discontent, NOR a shortage of army soldiers or other security forces personnel, NOR a shortage of security forces weapons hardware.
Syria’s big problem is reflected in the following McClatchy news article, dated 14 Jan 2014. It’s a report from Tadamon suburb in southern Damascus, with almost all of the reporter’s information sourced from talking to Syrian army officers in Tadamon.
The northern half of Tadamon suburb is controlled by the Syrian army, and this control is considered a part of the army’s defense of Damascus city itself. Tadmon’s southern half is controlled by roughly 500 rebels from three Islamist groups. The conflict in Tadamon is a quiet stalemate punctuated by occasional bursts of fighting. The last major clash was in November, when a rebel initiative penetrated a few blocks into the government’s side and was driven back in vigorous fighting that lasted for a few days. The rebels in southern Tadamon are led by foreign Islamist militants. The pre-war population of the whole of Tadamon was 87,000. Today only a few civilians are left in the southern half. A month ago the government cut the water supply in the rebel-held half and asked the remaining civilians to leave, and the great majority of remaining civilians did leave in response. The rebels are in possession of food from stocks they seized from warehouses two years ago. The war-zone devastation of the front lines in Tadamon quickly recedes just a few blocks into the government-held half. At and near the front lines of the government-held half the streets are shielded by huge sheets of plastic that are hung overhead to obscure the views of rebel snipers; retail shops are open; and banners eulogizing local soldiers killed by rebels are strung from houses. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/01/14/214444/on-scene-in-damascus-war-devastates.html
In other words the army is occupying an inactive defensive position and is not venturing to attack the 500 rebels. Compared to the rebels, the army has superior manpower and superior weaponry and superior coordination systems. But the army is not able to use these advantages to successfully attack. The soldiers stand more-or-less idly in defense month after month because in an offensive attack (1) they’d suffer high casualties, and (2) they wouldn’t kill the rebels in substantial numbers because (a) the army’s fighting methods are unable to prevent the rebels from retreating and escaping and (b) the rebels are too sparsely spread out. This is a battlefield problem, looking for a solution in terms of battlefield method, or a partial solution, some method whereby the army can perform better. The army’s performance has been weak (and subpar in comparative international terms, insofar as comparisons can be made). This is Syria’s big problem from my perspective. The foundation from which my perspective comes to me is that the army has a broad political base and the rebels don’t. The total number of armed rebels in Syria is unknown, but most estimates of rebel numbers are overestimates. For the pro-rebel side, overestimates leave the impression that the rebellion has a broader political base than it really has. For the pro-government side, overestimates of rebel numbers leave the impression that the government’s army has more capability than it really has.
A lot of Syrian localities have a situation where a smallish number of Islamist militants have taken over the locality with little support from the local people and little or no contest from the Syrian army. Examples include neighborhoods in eastern Damascus city, and eastern Aleppo city, and all of Al-Raqqa city. On the other hand, the examples of the western Damascus neighborhoods of Jowbar, Al-Qaboon, Barzeh, and Darayya are different because the army has gone in fighting in those neighborhoods repeatedly. More examples of the same are in Homs and Idlib provinces. It is the localities where the army has actually taken the fight to the rebels where the army’s weaknesses are best observed, and when you’ve seen those multiple weaknesses you can appreciate why the army doesn’t fight the rebels in Tadamon.
Posted by: Parviziyi | Jan 23 2014 21:29 utc | 16
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