The World At War: AFRICOM vs. Ghana in the Round of 16

We Are The World, and even as I write, we are preparing for another battle, the next in a month-long series of short, controlled skirmishes which will draw the attention of billions of people, although neither the individual skirmishes nor the entire series have any actual significance. Such is the power of modern marketing.

The imminent clash pits the huge and mighty USA -- which just recently admitted running overt and covert "clandestine operations" in at least 75 "sovereign" nations -- against the small and mostly impoverished African nation of Ghana. Despite the disparity in resources, USA is not considered a "prohibitive favorite". Such is the nature of modern football (which Americans insist on calling "soccer").

Recently, at a family gathering, one of the older women -- a mother of three boys, two of whom joined the Marines as teenagers -- was talking about the Vietnam-era anti-war demonstrators. Many people believe that the anti-war movement forced an end to the war. I wouldn't go quite that far, but at the very least the anti-war movement proved to me that some Americans still had functioning brains and hearts.

I don't see that very much anymore; the brains appear to have turned to mush, and the hearts to stone. I was hoping the old woman was about to say something of a similar nature, but instead, looking back on the protests, she said, "That was so difficult for the parents!"

Given the circumstances, there was little I could say. I certainly couldn't say what I was thinking: "The parents!? It was difficult for the parents?? How do you think it was for the children???"

First we had to throw off all the propaganda we'd been fed by our schools, by our parents, by the teevee and the radio, the movies and the newspapers and all the rest of our so-called "culture"; then we had to bring ourselves face-to-face with the fact that our government had adopted a policy of killing millions of innocent people, who had no means to harm us and no intention of doing so, for fun and profit. It was a most repulsive revelation, especially in the midst of all the Disney-crap we'd been "brought up" on.

But even that wasn't enough, because having learned what we had learned, having taken the stands we had taken, we then had to endure the rejection of our parents: and we saw with our own eyes how the people who had brought us into this world, fed us and held us, taught us and loved us, turned against us when we brought to light the most vital truth of their lives, preferring the deadly fiction to which they were accustomed, and with which they were so much more comfortable. And now, "it was so difficult for the parents". Such is the power of modern American stupidity.

None of this makes any difference, of course, to the billions preparing to tune in to the match between USA and Ghana. Very few of the world's sporting fans seem to know or care whether Ghana is seen by USA as nothing but a tiny component of AFRICOM, which in itself is simply one cog in the Pentagon's plan to rule the world by force. I know people who will be standing and cheering and yelling "USA!! USA!!" all afternoon, but I cannot share -- or understand -- their sentiment.

I want to see the whole world screaming for Ghana. I want to see the whole world waking up and aligning itself against the USA, not only in world football but also -- much more significantly -- against the American plan to rule the world.

I want ordinary, "decent", "intelligent" Americans to see the unprovoked murder of even one innocent person as an intolerable outrage; then I want them to understand that their country has murdered millions upon millions of innocent people, not just at one time and in one place but repeatedly, all over the world, for decades. And I want them to realize that their chant of "USA!! USA!!" is -- for the rest of the world -- the most obscene of non-violent gestures.

Not that it matters in the slightest to anyone, but it breaks my heart to realize that the country of my birth is a serial mass murderer, and that even despite the horror that is USA, many of the allegedly most intelligent people I know, including elderly and supposedly wise members of my extended family, still support it, while seeing any prospect of facing the truth about it as "difficult for the parents".

I want the so-called "Family of Man" to take a stand. I want to hear millions and millions -- billions -- of voices, jeering and whistling every time an American player touches the ball. I want to hear billions of voices jeering and whistling every time an American president tells another outrageous lie, every time the American military launches another unprovoked attack against innocent people, every time ... every time ...

I know none of this will happen. But then again this is football, where everything is artificial and nothing matters. Surely a battered old man with a broken heart can have a dream now and then, can't he? Isn't that what the beautiful game is all about?

To comment on this post, please click here and join the Winter Patriot community.

Drowning In A Giant Cesspool I: Consultation

Hi. Can I help you?

I hope so, Doc! I really do.

What seems to be the problem?

I suffer from a recurring ... sensation ... that I'm drowning ...

That's not uncommon.

... in a giant cesspool!

Well, that is uncommon. Why do you say "a giant cesspool"?

It's so dark, and so foul. I can't see anything. I struggle just to keep my face above the surface. I breathe through my mouth because the smell is so horrible. And every now and then I bump into something that's floating, and I want to grab it, and hold onto it ... but ...

But what?

... but I know I shouldn't ... because it's probably ... well, why do you think I said "cesspool"?

I see ... You say this is a recurring sensation?

Yes.

How often does it come on? When did it start?

It started in November of '63. One day I was an innocent little kid and the sun was shining; the next day the President was dead, everything was dark, and I was up to my neck in slime. It got worse in the summer of '68, and it's never really gone away -- and never got any better, either. But in the past eight years or so, it's been getting a lot worse, and even more frequent, and now it's a constant feature of my life ... I fight it every night.

So, this dream...

Oh no! It's not a dream! It happens when I'm awake.

When you're awake?

Yeah.

What triggers it?

Reading the paper. Watching TV. Listening to the radio. Surfing the net. Talking to idiots who think they're geniuses, and fools who think they know everything. There are other triggers, but these are the main ones.

And how does it happen? Is it always the same? Or is it always different?

Oh no. It's different every time.

Can you give me an example?

Are you kidding? I could give you a thousand.

Let's start with one, shall we?

OK. Let's start at the bottom of the tank. Look: If I lose it for a second -- if I slip under the surface -- my feet get into muck like this:

Why You Should Love Your Carbon Footprint

By: Paul A. Ibbetson (Right Truth Exclusive)

America, with all its imperfections, is still truly the land of opportunity. This has been the unique component that has brought people from around the world, in every way imaginable, and even some ways not. This opportunity to succeed and, yes, to also fail, is a product brought about by individual freedom that has been unique to America since our founding fathers placed their lives on the line to create a better future for themselves and their families....

You see what I mean? This isn't floating. This is not something I would want to hang onto. This is the sort of poison I am trying to get away from!

How do you know it's poison?

First of all, look at the name of the site. Right Truth. It's a contradiction in terms, flashing in neon, right out in the open for all to see. What does that tell you?

What am I supposed to see in it?

"Truth" is not "Right" or "Left"; those are political labels. Principles of "right" or "left", or the use of any other simplistic labels, get in the way of the truth more often than not -- as ideology always does! -- as ideology is intended to do!!

So when I see a site that's openly marked in such a political way, claiming to tell me the truth, I'm more than suspicious. It's as if they don't even have enough guile to pretend to be neutral observers.

And such is the case here. Paul Ibbetson starts with a mass of lies and then builds on them. And what do you think he builds? More lies!

Ibbetson is opposed to Obama's Cap and Trade bill, which I do not support either, but I see no reason to support my position by telling lies -- such as the claim, advanced by Ibbetson, that Obama's deeply flawed policy is

a symptom of the liberal environmental psychosis, of which capitalism and the free market (and the prosperity both bring), are seen as dangerous and destructive. It is through this derangement that CO2, a naturally occurring substance - crucial for life on this planet, can be seen as a poison and we are all told to hate our "carbon footprint."

It is true that CO2 is a naturally occurring substance, but like every naturally occurring substance, there are limits to how much can naturally occur and still leave the planet in a condition to support life -- any life, not to mention complex social systems such as we "advanced" and "prosperous" "free-market" humans have evolved.

Oxygen is naturally occurring, but if we had too much oxygen in the atmosphere, the next spark would ignite us all.

Water is naturally occurring as well, but if the oceans were a mile deeper ... well, you get the idea, don't you?

The larger point is: environmental destruction is real. It's not a liberal derangement. It's happening -- here in a big way, elsewhere in much bigger ways. The rich export their garbage. And even though our economy is in a spin, we are still the rich of the world. We consume the bulk of the resources. We generate the bulk of the pollution. Our prosperity comes at great cost to the planet, and to the other people with whom we allegedly share it. Everybody else in the world knows this. And to deny it ... is ... so typically American!

But then denying reality is typically American. According to Ibbetson, America is "unique" in offering personal freedom, plus the chance to succeed or fail! What could be more stupid? Do they not have personal freedom in any other country in the world? Can foreigners not succeed? Or fail?

To hear Paul Ibbetson tell it, such opportunities are uniquely American, and therefore foreign success stories must be fiction. Forget Ferrari, Mercedes, Toblerone, Abba; they just don't exist for the bottom-feeders who call themselves "Right" and call what they're selling "Truth". If it weren't so poisonous, it would almost be funny.

Well, it may be incorrect, but why do you say it's poisonous?

Because these introductory lies are used as building blocks for the next layer of lies, and they form a foundation for an edifice of fiction that goes on forever ... with nary a glimpse of reality to be found.

Here's another example, from the same website. "Breaking Big Government", by R.J. Godlewski, contains astonishing admissions of ignorance and hatred, such as:

... we are constantly drilled on the perceived injustices that we supposedly unleashed upon the planet.... We would rather be suckered into believing that our nation has done the world great harm instead of understanding that that [sic] world had [sic] suffered us into nearly every war that we fought.

These lies are multi-faceted, multi-layered and multi-purposed.

We are in no sense "constantly drilled". What America has done to the rest of the world is the best-kept secret of all -- never allowed in American schools, from elementary to university; never allowed onto TV news; only mentioned on the most truth-telling of blogs! -- but the whole sorry saga is well-known to those who have bothered to look for it, and, of course, to those upon whom the damage has been inflicted.

The "perceived injustices" that we "supposedly unleashed" include countless millions of innocent people dead; tens of millions of other innocent people displaced; scores of democratic governments overthrown; dozens of other countries thrown into states of violent chaos that have lasted a generation or longer -- sometimes much longer. Add in chemical, biological and nuclear pollution that runs in the hundreds of thousands of tons, and we're just getting started.

Furthermore, nobody wants to believe that our nation has done the world great harm. Liberals and conservatives both deny it outright, albeit in different ways. Most of us can't even be "suckered into" contemplating the truth for a moment, let alone embracing it long enough to begin to understand it.

As I read him, Godlewski was trying to type "the world has suffered us into nearly every war that we have fought", which makes syntactic sense, even though it does little else -- at least on first sight. On the other hand, it may reveal more than Godlewski intended, for surely the world has "suffered" mightily because of nearly every war we have fought.

As for the world having "suffered us into" those wars, one might struggle a bit with the semantics, but as Merriam-Webster makes clear, "suffer" is indeed the correct word, in more than one sense.

1 a : to submit to or be forced to endure
1 b : to feel keenly : labor under
2 : undergo, experience
3 : to put up with especially as inevitable or unavoidable
4 : to allow especially by reason of indifference

It is no doubt true that the world has "submitted" and been "forced to endure" damage it has "felt keenly"; and that it has been "undergoing" and "experiencing" great pain, which to this point has indeed been "inevitable" and "unavoidable", at least as far as the victims have been concerned.

But to claim that the world has "allowed" America to attack and destroy one defenseless country after another for the past 60 or 100 years by reason of "indifference" is as misleading as any lie you'll ever read.

Clearly the international scene is dominated by the often unspoken but occasionally explicit threat: Who wants to be the next Iraq?

Nevertheless, the stack of lies gows ever deeper, and Godlewski even says this:

Since 2006, our Congress and Presidency have exceeded that which caused the colonists to fight back against King George III; the United States to fight back against Nazi Germany; and America to fight back against Soviet Russia. Yet, we remain silent and submissive. We allow the traitor-ship of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and, most recently, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, to quickly dismantle the very foundations of our liberties and rights while we attentively “listen” for explanation of these transgressions. There is no excuse for treachery, no justification for thievery.

I agree with some of his sentiments, but it's obvious that the problem did not begin in 2006 -- when the Democrats "took control" of the Congress -- and that the list of treacherous thieves is not confined to -- and doesn't even begin with -- Peolsi, Reid, Obama and Biden.

It was the Bush administration -- "Conservative" "Republicans" of the "Right" -- who neglected their national security responsibilities enough to allow terrorists to strike us (or worse!) and then used the resulting "crisis" to implement a regime featuring indefinite detention without charge or trial (but with enhanced torture), warrantless surveillance on an unprecedented scale, unprovoked wars against two (or three) (or four!) different countries, and on and on and on ... not that it was all Bush's fault. Most of this has been brewing since Bush I, if not Reagan, if not Truman, if not Wilson, if not Teddy Roosevelt. And all the while they told us that only they -- and not the Democrats -- could be trusted to provide national security. These clowns who had failed us, or traitors who had sold us down the river, made this ridiculous claim, and the media broadcast it far and wide, day and night. None of these problems started with Obama, or in 2006. But of course such a wide historical perspective is not "Right" or "Truth", and so Godlewski is not selling it.

He's selling this, instead:

We permitted the indiscretions of Bill Clinton and the inconsistencies of George W. Bush to open the doorway to transnationalism and the breakdown of the Republic when it is “Big Government” that deserves our wrath.

Could any analysis ever be more shallow? If only all we had to worry about were Clinton's "indiscretions". And what are we to make of Godlewski's claim about Bush's "inconsistencies"? When has a president ever "stayed" such a brain-damaged (or criminally corrupt) "course" so steadfastly?

As for "the doorway to transnationalism", that's something the US "business community" has been trying, not to open but to obliterate, for more than a hundred years. Having bashed it down is an "achievement" both parties can be "proud" of.

Piling on is a foul in football, but in "Right" "Truth" "journalism", piling on is a proven tactic, and so Godlewski throws in one more lie to close the paragraph, saying that it's "Big Government" that "deserves our wrath" when in fact the problem with our government is not its size but its orientation. If the government were large and powerful and working on our behalf, that would be another story -- a very different story indeed.

Perhaps it's asking too much of Godlewski to tell us some truth. By his own admission, he's spent his adult life immersed in the mother of all giant cesspools:

While Mr. Obama was basking in the glow of his liberal professors, I was actively serving my nation in order to keep the Red Menace off Main Street. While he was practicing law, I was defending America. Later, when Mr. Obama left college he went on to become a “community organizer”. When I left the Navy I went on to organize efforts to defeat global terrorism.

Perhaps it's asking too much of Godlewski to understand that there was never any "Red Menace" to Main Street; on the contrary there were many years when the lion's share of the "membership" dues collected by the Communist Party of America came from FBI agents who had been assigned to infiltrate the Party.

Perhaps it's asking too much of Godlewski to understand that he has spent many years "defending America" against a "threat" that never existed at all, except insofar as it was fomented by the Pentagon and her Mossad friends, and exaggerated by politicians and media moguls.

And given all that, perhaps it's not very surprising that a man who has been immersed in toxic waste for his entire life could write:

I begin every day with a simple prayer that God drops a large asteroid upon our planet for I cannot bear seeing a future without my beloved United States of America at its helm.

But I can't help starting every day with a similar prayer -- that God drops bolts of lightning on J. R. Godlewski and every other ignoramus who "thinks" the way he does, and who spreads manure so vile that it sinks to the bottom of the cesspool immediately!

Perhaps you're over-reacting?

Perhaps you didn't understand me! But that's ok, because we're just getting started.

We may just be getting started, but unfortunately our time is up. We can schedule another session, if you like.

Sure. What does it cost? Oh, never mind. Just send my bill to the White House!

To comment on this post, please click here and join the Winter Patriot community.

please help to put this article on Scoop's front page!

Anti-Semitism In Action: UK Lowers Terror Threat Level; Guardian Reports On The Change

Is anti-Semitism on the rise? You bet it is, and for good reason. It's well-funded.

Consider, for example, the following piece from Alan Travis, home affairs editor of The Guardian, which appeared on July 20, 2009. The headline reads: "Britain downgrades al-Qaida terror attack alert level". The sub-heading says "Officials reduce assessment of threat from 'severe' to 'substantial', its lowest level since 9/11", and the text of the article reads:

The official assessment of the threat level of an al-Qaida terrorist attack on Britain has been lowered from "severe" – where an attack is deemed highly likely – to "substantial", where an attack is considered a strong possibility.

The decision to lower the official threat level follows a new assessment by MI5 and the joint terrorism analysis centre, based on intelligence gathered in Britain and abroad on how close terrorist groups may be to staging an attack.

The designation of a "substantial" threat level is the lowest since 9/11. It confirms that the swine flu pandemic is now a bigger threat to the life of the nation than terrorism.

The home secretary, Alan Johnson, acknowledged that fact on Sunday, when he told the BBC's Andrew Marr programme that swine flu came "above terrorism as a threat to this country". He said the long-term preparations had involved the whole "Cobra machinery", a reference to the Cabinet's emergency committe [sic] that handles major disasters.

The decision reportedly follows an official assessment of Operation Pathway, one of MI5's biggest counterterrorism campaigns, which led to the arrest of 11 Pakistani men in April. All those arrested were released without charge, and no explosives or weapons were found.

The system of threat levels is made up of five stages. At "critical", an attack is expected imminently. At "severe", an attack is regarded as highly likely. At "substantial", an attack is a strong possibility. At "moderate" an attack is possible but not likely. And at "low", an attack is deemed unlikely.

The home secretary said in a statement: "We still face a real and serious threat from terrorists and the public will notice little difference in the security measures that are in place, and I urge the public to remain vigilant. The police and security services are continuing in their thorough efforts to discover, track and disrupt terrorist activity."

Did you catch the anti-Semitism in this piece? Don't feel badly if you didn't; it's very subtle and it takes an expert to detect it. Fortunately, such an expert happened to be available -- eventually. But first, a number of Guardian readers made comments reflecting the obvious absurdity of the situation, such as this from nega9000:

Hang on a minute, weren't we being told just last month that a, quote, 'spectacular' attack was being planned?

Oh, I get it, whoever's our equivalent of Jack Bauer averted said attack in the nick of time, killed all the terrorists and is, as we speak, copping off with the foxy but feisty young agent who was there for no discernable reason other than to offer expository dialogue.

Phew. Was getting worried there for a minute.

and this from metalvendetta:

Let me get this straight, they arrested eleven Pakistanis and couldn't find anything to link them to terrorism, so now the threat is reduced? Could it be that they just arrested the wrong people? Or is this decision based on intelligence - the same kind of intelligence that led them to believe that those eleven innocent men were terrorists in the first place?

Haywire asks:

Does this mean i now have to stop rifling through my neighbours' bins looking for empty 'chemicals' containers which may well have been used for making bombs, as was suggested by a recent publicity awareness campaign? If so, what the hell am i now going to do with my Sundays? Go to church??!!

nimn2003 asks:

Does this mean we no longer need ID Cards and the Database? Thank the Lord for that!

and ChrisWoods answers:

No we still need ID Cards and database because although there is more chance of dying by eating peanuts, the risk of death by terrorism is still too great and we need total surveillance of you all the time and also need to know all your private details, phone conversations & email just to make sure you will be ok in the future.

Do you see it yet? Nobody has mentioned Israel, and nobody has said anything about any Jew or Jews in particular, nor has anyone said anything about Jews in general. But still, for those with the correct viewpoint, there's anti-Semitism dripping from every word.

Eventually -- belatedly but better late than never -- comes along GnosticMind, with a comment to set them all straight:

I am shocked at the inhrently anti semitic slant displayed in the entire article , not to mention in the tone of the public responses-- Only in the Guardian is such blatant anti semitism, and anti israel rhetoric allowed, and even considered manifestly praiseworthy.

The very next comment was from butteredballs, who wrote

@ GnosticMind

please explain yourself

but GnosticMind was busy elsewhere, apparently. And the comments on this article are now closed, so GnosticMind could not come back and explain, even if she wanted to. Not -- as I see it -- that she would want to.

You see? It's so ineffable, you could never explain it.

It's inherent. It's blatant. But it can't be put into words -- at least not by GnosticMind, or any of her cohorts... and not by anybody else who just happens to be working for the Israeli government.

According to an article published July 5th in Calcalist, a Hebrew-language paper based in Tel Aviv,

Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. The Foreign Ministry’s department for the explanation of Israeli policy* is running the project, and it will be an integral part of it.

We're reading an English translation prepared by George Malent for Occupation Magazine, courtesy of MuzzleWatch.

In a footnote, Malent explains the asterisk: for "the Foreign Ministry’s department for the explanation of Israeli policy" you can read "the Ministry of Propaganda".

The piece continues:

“To all intents and purposes the Internet is a theatre in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we must be active in that theatre, otherwise we will lose,” Elan Shturman, deputy director of the policy-explanation department in the Foreign Ministry, and who is directly responsible for setting up the project, says in an interview with Calcalist. “Our policy-explanation achievements on the Internet today are impressive in comparison to the resources that have been invested so far, but the other side is also investing resources on the Internet. There is an endless array of pro-Palestinian websites, with huge budgets, rich with information and video clips that everyone can download and post on their websites. They are flooding the Internet with content from the Hamas news agency. It is a well-oiled machine. Our objective is to penetrate into the world in which these discussions are taking place, where reports and videos are published – the blogs, the social networks, the news websites of all sizes. We will introduce a pro-Israeli voice into those places.

Yes, of course! That's exactly what's missing today, among the endless array of pro-Palestinian websites: a pro-Israeli voice!!

Will the responders who are hired for this also present themselves as “ordinary net-surfers”?

“Of course,” says Shturman. “Our people will not say: ‘Hello, I am from the policy-explanation department of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and I want to tell you the following.’ Nor will they necessarily identify themselves as Israelis. They will speak as net-surfers and as citizens, and will write responses that will look personal but will be based on a prepared list of messages that the Foreign Ministry developed.”

What will they be required to do? Shturman continues:

Their missions will be defined along the lines of the government policies that they will be required to defend on the Internet.

and here -- finally! -- is the explanation of the anti-Semitism in The Guardian.

The Israeli government wants you to be frightened of the militant Islamofascist suicide bomber jihadis and jihadi-wannabes who are everywhere and who are always plotting against you. The Israeli government wants you to be afraid of them, even if they don't exist, not because it's good for you to be afraid of things that don't exist, but because it's good for the Israeli government.

From the correct -- Israeli -- point of view, it's bad enough that Britain has downgraded the threat level. That's a blatant betrayal by a close ally, and it's inherently made worse by the Guardian's having the nerve to report on the government's downgrade. But worse still are the comments, making fun of the British government for taking so seriously -- or pretending to take seriously -- a threat which -- dare I say it? -- has been vastly overblown, if it existed at all.

But how can employees of the Israeli government say this? They can't, unless they are very highly placed, with chutzpah in professional abundance and a swarm of faux-journalists running interference for them.

Ordinary Israeli government employees can merely mouth the party line, as supplied by the Foreign Ministry's department of policy-explanation: the official propagandists cannot say "You must believe this lie even though it's bad for you, because it's good for us."

That would be just a touch too transparent.

Instead we get nonsense like this:

I am shocked at the inhrently anti semitic slant displayed in the entire article, not to mention in the tone of the public responses -- Only in the Guardian is such blatant anti semitism, and anti israel rhetoric allowed, and even considered manifestly praiseworthy.

which -- let's be honest -- is not transparent at all!

To comment on this post, please click here and join the Winter Patriot community.