Economics - Europe headed for Recession! But Arms Merchants are Thriving!

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European Union likely heading for a recession, Brussels says

By Matt Bernardini

   

The European Commission said Friday that the Eurozone was likely headed for a recession by the end of the year.

Photo by European Union/ EP/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Most European Union countries are likely heading into an economic recession by the end of this year, the bloc said on Friday.

Due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the energy crisis that has arisen from that, and inflation, the economic outlook for 2023 is significantly weaker than earlier forecasts, Brussels said.

"The EU is among the most exposed advanced economies (to high prices), due to its geographical proximity to the war and heavy reliance on gas imports from Russia," the European Commission said in a statement. "The energy crisis is eroding households' purchasing power and weighing on production."

Inflation is not expected to peak until the end of the year and could remain at 7% through next year. It's expected to decline to 3% by 2024. Earlier reports in the summer said that inflation would only be at 5% next year.

One positive note is that labor markets are expected to remain resilient, the commission said. Unemployment is projected at 6.2% for 2022, and then will only tick up slightly to 6.5% in 2023.

How does that make sense? If household buying power decreases significantly, production must also decrease significantly. 

While GDP growth in 2022 is expected to be 3.3%, due to strong growth in the first half of the year, GDP growth is expected to fall to just 0.3% in 2023.

"The economic situation has deteriorated markedly and we are heading into two quarters of contraction," said EU economy commissioner Paolo Gentiloni at a press conference, according to Euronews.

The lunacy of European support for NATO's proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is what is driving the energy crisis. It is also driving the perceived climate crisis with coal mines and coal-driven power plants opening all over Europe. But, arms merchants and manufacturers are making a mint.

French Philosopher Describes 'Massacre Of Nigerian Christians, Massive In Scale And Horrific In Brutality' Underway, Turkish Presence, And Qatari Influence

War on Christianity turning into genocide in Nigeria

with help from Turkey, Qatar and China.

In a series of reports in French and American media, renowned French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy narrated a visit he made to Nigeria where he found that a massacre of Christians "massive in scale and horrific in brutality" is taking place. He also mentioned the Turkish presence and Qatari influence there.

In a December 20, 2019 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal titled "The New War Against Africa's Christians," Levy wrote about the violent Islamic extremists "more or less linked with Boko Haram" among the Fulani ethnic group. A bishop whom he met explained the Fulani extremists' pattern of attack: "They usually arrive at night. They are barefoot, so you can't hear them coming unless they're on motorcycle... Before villagers can take shelter or flee, the invaders are upon them in their houses, swinging machetes, burning, pillaging, raping. They don't kill everyone. At some point they stop, recite a verse from the Quran, round up the livestock and retreat. They need survivors to spread fear from village to village, to bear witness that the Fulani raiders fear nothing but Allah and are capable of anything." A Westerner living in Nigeria reportedly said that "Boko Haram 'instructors' have been spotted in Bauchi, another northeastern state, where they are teaching elite Fulani militants to handle more-sophisticated weapons that will replace their machetes." 

Recounting testimonies of victims whom he met, Levy wrote that one woman whom he met said that On July 15, "Fulani extremists rode into her village on long-saddle motorcycles, three to a bike, shouting 'Allahu Akbar!' They torched houses and killed her four children before her eyes" before cutting off her arm. Fulani extremists cut three fingers off the right hand of another woman, cut the nape of her neck with a machete, shot her, and poured gasoline on her and lit it on fire. She somehow survived.

Bernard-Henri Levy wrote in the Wall Street Journal about the Fulani extremists.

While in Nigeria, Levy encountered a Turkish member of a "religious mutual assistance group" that the man said was opening madrassas for the daughters of Fulani people. Levy describes an armed Fulani man wearing a jacket with Turkish- and Arabic-language badges. While sitting among Fulani men, one of whom says: "The Christians are dogs and children of dogs. You say Christians. To us they are traitors. They adopted the religion of the whites. There is no place here for friends of the whites, who are impure," a postcard vendor offers Levy portraits of Osama bin Laden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

A report that MEMRI published on December 18, 2019, discussed an audio recording uploaded to YouTube in March 2014 reportedly featuring a phone call between a senior Turkish government official and a Turkish Airlines executive in which the latter says: "I am transporting dozens of materials, they are going to Nigeria right now, okay? [I do not know:] Are they going to kill Muslims or are they going to kill Christians? We are in sin right now, so you know" (see MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 8421 March 2014 Audio Reportedly Features Phone Call Between Turkish Airlines Executive, Erdoğan Advisor About Turkish Arms Shipments To Nigeria: 'Are They Going To Kill Muslims Or Are They Going To Kill Christians? We Are In Sin Right Now', December 18, 2019). On November 26, 2019, Nigerian news outlets reported that a spokesman for Nigeria's Defence Headquarters, had said that the Nigerian government was investigating claims that the Turkish government was sending weapons to Nigeria-based terrorist organization Boko Haram.

Buhari a Fulani

In a French-language article about the subject published on December 5 on the website of the French weekly Paris Match, Levy wrote: "A man came out to tell me I had nothing to do here. He spoke English. I had the time to make him admit... that he was Turkish, a member of a network of religious mutual aid funded by Qatar and responsible for opening, in the northern and central localities, madrasas for Fulani girls." The same article read: "And President Buhari... who already reigned between 1983 and 1985, following a coup, and who is still in today thanks to subsidies from Ankara, Qatar, and the Chinese, is himself a Fulani."

Following is the text of Bernard-Henri Levy's article as it appeared in the Wall Street Journal on December 20, 2019:

"Fulani Extremists Have Become Deadlier Than Boko Haram And Accounted For The Majority Of The Country's 2,040 Documented Terrorist Fatalities In 2018"

Please click on link for the full article on WSJ.

Astonishing Article About EU & US Establishment Worried Trump Will Make Peace With Russia

If you have ever suspected that Deep State and NATO were closely linked, if not one and the same, this article should confirm your suspicions. NATO has been obsolete since 1990 and has been wondering around looking for a raison d'etat. 

In the 21st century they have been aggressively provoking Russia by abandoning their verbal agreement to not recruit neighbouring countries into NATO. They accuse Russia of aggression and it is NATO who is the aggressor. Should the USA make peace with Russia, it will once again underline the obvious view that NATO is obsolete.

EU countries should be happy that they may have to spend much less on NATO, but they are not. It is in the nature of Deep State to spend as much as possible on arms; that is their purpose. 

The UK needs NATO to continue the fantasy that Russia is a threat to all Europe and so the EU and the UK need each other. It is Theresa May's pathetic attempt to lessen the impact of Brexit.

German officials join UK and US establishment worried how Trump-Putin summit will affect NATO

© Carlos Barria / Reuters

German politicians are nervous over the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, fearing the US president could take actions that are not in line with NATO, echoing concerns across the channel and the Atlantic.

Ahead of the meeting on July 16 in Helsinki, several German officials expressed their worry in interviews with newspapers throughout the country. The transatlantic coordinator for Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition, Peter Beyer, told the Funke Mediengruppe newspapers that "there are great concerns in the alliance about what agreements Trump and Putin could reach" during the summit, and he lamented that NATO member states had not been included in the planning.

He said that Trump would let Putin "put one over on him" during the meeting in Helsinki, using the US president's recent meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as justification for his rather frank comment.

"Kim has only made promises thus far. We don't know if he has stopped enriching uranium. Only Trump has billed the summit as such as a success," said Beyer, a member of Merkel's Christian Democrats Union (CDU). 

Beyer isn't alone when it comes to concerns surrounding the meeting and the apparent belief that the two leaders can't simply meet in the same way that other world leaders meet every day - and the same way German Chancellor Angela Merkel has met with both Trump and Putin on numerous occasions.

Christian Lindner, the head of Germany's Free Democrats, told Deutschlandfunk in an interview that he did not trust Trump, and that his actions in the areas of trade and security were not in Washington's long-term interest.

"He is too volatile...within 24 hours, Mr. Trump can change his position by 180 degrees," Christian Lindner, the head of the Free Democrats, told Deutschlandfunk. He called for Europe, as the world's largest single economic zone, to take a united stance and act as a counterweight to Trump and Putin. The EU is currently in loggerheads with the US over tariffs on aluminum, steel and other goods.

And then there's Wolfgang Ischinger, the head of the Munich Security Conference and a former German envoy to Washington, who expressed concern that Trump might refuse to sign a communique at next week's NATO summit in Brussels. "It cannot be ruled out," he told Die Welt in a clear reference to Trump refusing to sign the document from G7 meeting in June.

Amid all this scaremongering, Merkel herself said in a Saturday video address that Germany "would like to have reasonable relations with Russia. That is why we will always have discussions in the NATO-Russia Council." She expressed her support for NATO in the next breath, saying it is needed in the 21st century "as a guarantor of our transatlantic alliance," and stating that it "must show determination to defend itself."

The comments come as Trump continues to pressure NATO states to pay their fair share towards the alliance, as Washington currently accounts for more than two-thirds of all defense spending by NATO members. It is one of only six countries to meet the two percent GDP quota.

A page out of Britain's book

The comments by German officials come less than two weeks after The Times reported that the UK also fears that Trump will undermine NATO by striking a "peace deal" with Putin during the meeting. 

OMG no!, Not a peace deal! How could he? What a maniac!

It cited cabinet ministers who are worried that the Russian president could persuade Trump to downgrade US military commitments in Europe, thus compromising NATO countries' defense against so-called "Russian aggression."

Alexander Bartosh, a military expert and former Russian diplomat, told RT that such concerns would come as no surprise, as the UK "has been one of the most active supporters of a hard line towards Russia." He added that the UK feels "a certain loss of its weight in Europe and tries to turn Russian into a kind of boogeyman, seeing the 'Russian threat' as a unifying factor for nations, looking for closer ties with London."

Bartosh also noted that the meeting between the two leaders will merely include trying to find a "unifying agenda for the US and Russia because the relations of the two countries affect not only their own wellbeing, but international security as a whole...none of the sides will be aiming to undermine the integrity of NATO."

They will certainly not be seen to undermine NATO, but it will happen as a consequence of any firm deal which Russia agrees to that prevents them from invading any EU country. And it won't be very long after that that Trump cuts the NATO budget.

Trouble on the homefront

It's not just Europe that fears what could happen in the meeting between Trump and Putin. Even former CIA director John Brennan told MSNBC last week that Trump "is not sophisticated enough" to deal with Moscow.

"I must tell you the Russians will feign sincerity better than anyone I've ever dealt with in my life. So I would be very careful about being swept in and I think Mr. Trump is not sophisticated enough, unfortunately, to deal with these foreign leaders in a manner that is going to protect US national security interests. I think he's naive in these issues," he said.

In fact, many within the US establishment dread the possibility of the summit succeeding, political analyst and media and government affairs specialist Jim Jatras wrote in an op-ed for RT. 

Jatras noted that Trump's desire to actually get along with Russia sounded alarms long before he won the 2016 election. "US reconciliation with Russia would yank the rug out from under the phony justifications for spending hundreds of billions of dollars annually to counter a 'threat' that ceased to exist over a quarter century ago," he wrote.

Exactly!

Journalist Neil Clark voiced a similar point in his own op-ed for RT, stating that a successful summit simply won't do, because Russia "must always be regarded as the enemy - unless of course it does absolutely everything the West demands of it." And while he noted that positive moves between Moscow and Washington would be celebrated by ordinary folks, he stated that defense industry lobbyists (read, Deep State) wouldn't be nearly as enthused. 

Peace is not profitable for the war industry!

Sweden Eyes Doubling Military Budget by 2035, Citing Russian Bogeyman

The New Normal - Sweden, going broke playing NATO's game

Preparations for Aurora 17 field exercise in Skovde, Sweden. © Bjorn Larsson Rosvall / Reuters

The Swedish armed forces have called for military spending and the number of servicemen to be more than doubled by 2035 to combat future challenges, with Russia listed as the main one.

The plan is to increase the annual military budget from the current 53 billion kronor ($6.5 billion) to around 115 billion kronor ($14 billion) in seventeen years. The report, formally called the ‘perspective study,’ was published on Thursday and is yet to be submitted to Sweden’s parliament. The paper also argues that it is necessary to boost staff numbers from 50,000 people today to around 120,000 people by 2035. 

The main conclusions section of the report starts with Russia and has several paragraphs devoted to the threat it poses. “Russia has through its action in Georgia in 2008, as well as in the Crimea and in East Ukraine in 2014, showed that it does not hesitate to use military force to achieve its political goals,” the report stated.

The Swedish Army’s report also mentions that Moscow plans “to increase their military capabilities after 2020” and to strengthen the ability to “rapidly mobilize” for “offensive operations” in the near future. The report says Sweden will “inevitably” find itself in the middle of a conflict zone if Russia comes into conflict with NATO.

It is inevitable because NATO seems determined to make it happen. Bear in mind that this report is written by RT and therefore has a definite Russian slant. But also consider that NATO has been as much, if not more of an aggressor in the region than Russia. Also, keep in mind that Sweden is a very long way from the Black Sea.

It should be a concern to Swedes that billions of kronor might be wasted on the military, much of which will end up in the hands of arms merchants - those same people who control NATO and many other western countries. 

Sweden's budget is already being pushed by the extraordinary expenses related to integrating migrants. As Germany pointed out the other day, waves of radical Muslims are headed to their prisons. Prisons are very expensive and radical Muslims within them will be very difficult to deal with safely. 

Russia is expected to have “the greatest impact on the security policy situation in the Baltic Sea area,” according to the paper.

The “irrational myth about the almighty Russian threat” was recently criticized by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the Munich Security Conference. A day before delivering his speech there, Lavrov told Euronews that “only an inflamed imagination” could come up with the idea that Moscow was about to attack the Baltic or Poland, but Russophobic rhetoric in the West never seems to abate.

An EU-established independent international fact-finding mission concluded that the war in South Ossetia in 2008 “started with a massive Georgian artillery attack” and that “there was no ongoing armed attack by Russia before the start of the Georgian operation.” It also found “no evidence to support any claims that Russian peacekeeping units in South Ossetia were in flagrant breach of their obligations.” 

Crimea reunited with Russia in spring 2014 after the move was overwhelmingly approved in a snap referendum. The popular vote was prompted by a violent coup in Kiev, and the almost immediate offensive on regions in the country’s southeast, where locals refused to recognize the newly imposed regime.

Media & Establishment Push for Regime Change but Ignore Consequences – Tulsi Gabbard

One of the very few sane and reasonable voices in Congress regarding Syria

U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard © Mike Segar / Reuters

Most media outlets and politicians often ignore the deadly consequences of US regime change policy, including the rise of Islamic State, according to Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii).

“I think that there has been a concerted effort both on the part of some in the media, as well as many in politics, and many in our foreign policy establishment seem to have been advocating for a continuance of these regime change wars, really ignoring the fact of what has been the consequence of these wars in countries like Iraq and Libya and Syria, where each time we have waged these wars, [it] has resulted in the strengthening of terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda or the creation of ISIS, and it has resulted in a tremendous amount of suffering and death for the people of these countries,” said Gabbard at a press conference, answering a question from RT’s Caleb Maupin.

Gabbard’s remarks come as the Hawaiian representative, who is a former Iraq war veteran herself, tries to build support for the Stop Arming Terrorists Act that she introduced in Congress in January of this year. The bill would prohibit the US from backing armed factions linked to terrorist groups such as IS, Al-Qaeda, and the Al-Nusra Front. It is based on legislation from the 1980s that aimed to stop the CIA from illegally arming the Contra rebels during Nicaragua’s civil war.

“We must stop this madness,” Gabbard said speaking before Congress back in December, stressing, “We must stop arming terrorists.”

The bill has only been supported by 14 other lawmakers so far, however – six Democrats and eight Republicans. A companion bill has also been put forward in the Senate by Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Can there be any doubt that arms manufacturers are lobbying hard against the bill? Arms dealers don't care who they sell to as long as they sell. They are quite happy to sell to all sides of a complex war, even if American soldiers are being killed or maimed because of it.

This bill is the most sane and decent of its kind in decades, but it will never get through Congress. 

In January, Gabbard set out on a fact-finding mission in Syria, where she visited Damascus and Aleppo. While there, she met with Syrian students, entrepreneurs, academics, aid workers, religious leaders and members of the opposition. She said some of them told her they felt that the originally peaceful anti-government protests in 2011 were hijacked by jihadists “funded and supported by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, the United States.”

There is no question that Syria is a proxy war between the USA and Shea and Salafist Muslims. As evil as Assad is, things could easily get much worse if he is toppled.

“Their message to the American people was powerful and consistent: There is no difference between ‘moderate’ rebels and Al-Qaeda (Al-Nusra) or ISIS — they are all the same,” Gabbard wrote in a blog post, describing the essence of the Syrian conflict as “a war between terrorists under the command of groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda and the Syrian government.”

Gorbachev Warns of Growing Danger

A group of Americans visiting Russia heard dire warnings from ex-Soviet President Gorbachev that the tensions between the U.S. and Russia are creating a dangerous situation for the world

By Rick Sterling

The former President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, is 87 years old but still sharp. He told a delegation of 30 Americans in a two-week visit to Russia organized by the Center for Citizen Initiatives, “This is a time to be concerned. We should worry about relations between our two countries. … Things cannot continue as they are.”

President Gorbachev recalled his initial meetings with President Reagan, which came after six years of poor relations and hostility. In the first summit meeting, Reagan issued a long list of accusations against the Soviet Union; Gorbachev responded with his own accusations against the U.S. After that meeting Gorbachev said “He’s not a hawk; he’s a dinosaur” while Reagan said about Gorbachev “He’s a die-hard communist.”

At the next summit meeting, Reagan continued lecturing Gorbachev. After listening for 15 minutes. Gorbachev stopped Reagan saying, “That’s enough. If you want to talk as equals we can go very far. Differences can be bridged. Problems can be resolved. But as equals.”

Reagan asked how the Soviet Union would respond if the United States was at risk because of some kind of natural calamity. When Gorbachev said his people would want to help, not take advantage, the mood changed.

Gorbachev recalled his own friendly experience talking with average Americans. He suggested that perhaps the U.S. needs its own perestroika. He reminded us that it was President John F Kennedy who said, “We need peace but not a Pax Americana ….. not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women.”

Gorbachev continued saying, “The current situation is not right. We need to change that. Let us stop provoking each other. Let us stop trying to tear up other countries. …. Our two countries are still central to world peace. We need peace in order to resolve other world problems. One percent of the world controls 90 percent of the wealth. The ruling class is happy with this but things cannot continue as they are. … Budgets smell of gunpowder. … Fear is being cultivated. This is resulting in a new arms race.”

There are many in that one percent who benefit greatly from an arms race. Unfortunately, it seems to be them who are in control of things. There are oligarchs in both countries and in NATO.

Gorbachev asked, “Does the USA want Russia to just submit?” Referring to Russia’s history with invasions by France in the early 1800s and Germany in the 1940s, he explained “This is a country that can never submit…. There will be no winners in a nuclear war.”

The Ukraine Crisis

The 30-member delegation has been having informative meetings with numerous people to gain a better understanding of modern Russia and its relations with the United States and the world. Another especially interesting meeting was held with Vladimir Kozin, member of the Russian Academy of Military Science.

Ukraine’s anti-Russian President Petro Poroshenko speaking to the Atlantic Council in 2014. (Photo credit: Atlantic Council)

Vladimir Kozin is an arms control specialist and member of the Russian Academy of Military Science who has worked on arms control issues since the 1970s. Kozin says that Russians see themselves being encircled by NATO. Of the 16 countries bordering Russia, eight have anti-Russia sentiments. He notes that the U.S. military budget is 12 times greater than that of Russia and increasing.

Kozin said it is a “fairy tale” that Russia interfered in the U.S. election. What is NOT a fairy tale, he said, is that the U.S. has spent a huge amount of money to influence Russian elections in the past and funded 400 Non-Governmental Organizations (or NGOs), which were part of the destabilization campaign in Ukraine leading to the 2014 coup.

Regarding key conflict points emerging from the Ukraine crisis, Kozin noted that Crimea was part of Russia since 1783. He added that the despite the presence of 16,000 Russian troops (who were in Crimea as part of the Sevastopol naval base agreement) and 18,000 Ukrainian troops, the Crimea plebiscite to re-unify with Russia was handled without violence, with huge turnout and overwhelming vote in favor.

As for hostilities in eastern Ukraine, Kozin asked why this fighting has happened just because the largely ethnic Russian population resisted the overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych and demanded some form of autonomy from Kiev.

Vladimir Kozin, member of the Russian Academy of Military Science

If Scotland can consider secession from the United Kingdom and Catalonia from Spain, he argued, what’s wrong with Donbass (eastern Ukraine) wanting more autonomy within Ukraine? Why has Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko turned to military conflict instead of negotiating with the dissidents in eastern Ukraine?

Kozin believes it is vital to have an arms control summit meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin. He thinks we should work toward the complete elimination of nuclear weapons by 2045. In the meantime, the easiest way to reduce tension and the risk of war would be an agreement on “No First Use of Nuclear Weapons,” he said.

In a sober assessment of Trump’s first 100 days as President, Kozin concluded, “Aggravating these facts of life is the deep degree of mistrust between Washington and Moscow, which the Americans spawned and have continued to nurse. A vicious circle has emerged in the interrelationship between weapons and trust … Clearly such an irrational phenomenon cannot go on indefinitely.”

From both Kozin and Gorbachev the message was clear: We need to do something to restore discussion and stop the slide toward ever greater tension and danger.

Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He can be contacted at rsterling1@gmail.com

To help Refugees, Stop Arming Terrorists – Rep. Tulsi Gabbard

US Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) © / RT

Representative Tulsi Gabbard called again for the US to stop aiding terrorists like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, while her guest at the presidential address to Congress, a Kurdish refugee activist, called for an end to the US policy of “regime change in Syria.”

While many Democrats invited immigrants as their guests for President Donald Trump’s speech to the joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii, hosted Tima Kurdi, whose 3-year-old nephew drowned on the shores of Turkey in September 2015. Photos of Alan Kurdi’s body quickly became the symbol of Syrian refugees’ plight – and led the US to step up efforts to overthrow the Syrian government, actually magnifying their suffering.

On Wednesday, Tima Kurdi joined Gabbard at a press conference on Capitol Hill and called on Trump “to end the regime change in Syria.”

“The most important question is, how do we address the cause of these people fleeing their homes,” said Gabbard, pointing to the bill she submitted in this session of Congress. Her “Stop Arming Terrorists Act,” or HR 608, would ban the use of US taxpayers’ funds to aid terrorist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda or Islamic State.

“For years, our government has been providing both direct and indirect support to these armed militant groups, who are working directly with or under the command of terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, all in their effort and fight to overthrow the Syrian government,” Gabbard told RT.

Gabbard traveled to Syria in January on a fact-finding mission, meeting with President Bashar Assad. She also visited Aleppo, liberated in December from Islamist rebels led by Jabhat Fatah Al-Sham, a re-branded Al-Qaeda affiliate formerly known as Jabhat Al-Nusra.

The Pentagon’s $500 million effort to train and equip “moderate” Syrian rebels to fight against IS and Damascus met with disaster in 2015, as the majority of the fighters either surrendered or defected to Al-Nusra, with all of their US-funded weaponry. In the end, the program produced only “five or six” trainees, to the consternation of Congress.

Of course, there were way more than 5 or 6 trainees, most of those who were trained and equipped ended up fighting the American supported groups. Another example of America providing weapons to both sides of a war.

With that fiasco in mind, Gabbard proposed the first draft of her bill in December 2016. Her subsequent trip to Syria was met with outrage from the US foreign policy establishment and in the mainstream media, who denounced her as “Assad’s mouthpiece.”

Of course, the US establishment likes war - it keeps the inventory of death moving.

Representative Tom Garrett (R-Virginia), a US Army veteran, spoke out in support of HR 608 and said that the goal of US policy in Syria should be peace.

Iconic photo of little Alan Kurdi changed everything

“Tulsi understands that arming the so-called ‘rebels’ in Syria has only led to more bloodshed, more suffering, and created more refugees,” Tima Kurdi said in a statement on Tuesday. “A military solution in Syria is not the answer. I hope that President Trump will stop arming terrorists and commit to a political solution in Syria—it is the only way to restore peace.”

Supporting this bill is so easily the 'right thing to do' but with Congress in the pockets of arms merchants, its likelihood of passing seems pretty remote.

video 5:40

Frexit: Le Pen Promises to Take France Out of EU & NATO

I couldn't possibly agree with her more for what she has to say here

France's far-right National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen © Benoit Tessier / Reuters

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said that NATO exists only ‘to serve Washington’s objectives’, and that she planned to hold a Brexit-style referendum, in an interview with a Greek newspaper.

Le Pen, the leader of France's far-right National Front and a candidate for the 2017 presidential elections, is known for her Euroscepticism and anti-immigrant views. Together with France, she also suggested that Portugal, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Greece and Cyprus should also leave the European Union.

“Frexit will be a part of my policy,” she said in an interview with Dimokratia. “The people must have the opportunity to vote for the liberation from slavery and blackmail imposed by technocrats in Brussels to return sovereignty to the country.”

Along with her main rival, the center-right Francois Fillon, Le Pen has called for closer ties with Russia and has criticized NATO expansion into eastern Europe. Le Pen said that she would take France out of the alliance if she became president because, as she said, its existence is no longer needed.

“It was established when there was a risk from the Warsaw Pact and the expansionism of the communist Soviet Union,” said Le Pen. “The Soviet Union no longer exists, and neither does the Warsaw Pact. Washington maintains the NATO presence to serve its objectives in Europe.”

Or, perhaps, NATO serves its own objectives which coincide with America's arms merchant economy.

On the topic of immigration, Le Pen said she supported measures to restrict the flow of asylum seekers into Europe.

“I am against the policy which would promote the entry of immigrants into Europe, which cannot accept them … this tsunami of migrants should be limited. Europe does not have the power to ensure they all find work and opportunities to enrich themselves. Immigrants are illegal since once they set foot on European soil ... they have violated the law. They must be sent back to their homeland. "

However, when asked whether the National Front has ties to the far-right Greek party Golden Dawn, a group often described as extremist, Le Pen said she “neither has nor wants” relations with them.

Le Pen is running against former Prime Minister Francois Fillon of the Republican Party in the French presidential elections due to be held in May next year. A left-wing candidate for the Socialist Party has not yet been nominated, as incumbent President Francois Hollande has stated he would not be running for a second term.

Fox News Host Shocks Audience by Asking: ‘Do We Need AR-15s?’

Fox News host Gretchen Carlson caused shock on Wednesday by calling into question whether Americans should be able to purchase AR-15s, a semi-automatic rifle that has been used in several recent mass shootings.

“Yes, the Orlando massacre was terror, but there is no doubt that Omar Mateen was able to kill so many people because he was firing an AR-15. A military-style assault weapon. A weapon easier to buy in the state of Florida than buying a handgun,” she said.

While many news outlets have reported that Mateen used an AR-15, he actually used a Sig Sauer MCX, a similar weapon.

Carlson pointed to the fact that Florida has a three-day waiting period for handguns, but there is no waiting period “for any gun that requires two hands to hold.”

“Here’s my question today. Do we need AR-15s to hunt and kill deer? Do we need them to protect our families?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m in favor of people being able to carry. I think some of these mass shootings would have been less deadly if that were the case," she said. “But I’m also with the majority today taking a stand. Can’t we hold true the sanctity of the second amendment while still having common sense? That brings us to our question of the day. Should congress reinstate the assault weapons ban?”

Carlson received praise – as well as a lot of hate – for expressing this opinion before Fox’s conservative audience.

Tim Murphy @TimMurphy50
@GretchenCarlson @FoxNews Needs to be Fired for her LibTard Misunderstanding of the 2nd Adm#AirHeadBeautyQueen #tcot 

Tim, do you really think we should fire people for asking questions or stating an opinion? Don't we have the right to free speech?



So, who is it you are afraid of? Is it the government? This is paranoia fed by arms merchants and manufacturers. If the government wants to kill you, an AR15 is not going to stop them. 100 million AR15s wouldn't be able to stop them, they can just drop bombs and blow you to hell.

Milosz Feigin @FeiginMilosz
@GretchenCarlson @FoxNews you need to go hang your self and move over with the commies on CNN - drop dead
14 Jun
This is very disappointing in that there seems to be no room for debate in Fox's audience. Free speech only if you say what I want to hear. Social media has spoiled us from critical thinking. We unfriend anyone who disagrees with us, so we never hear the other side of an argument. If you can't defend the things you believe in, they are not of much value.

 Nate Hermes @natehermes
@GretchenCarlson @FoxNews thank you for speaking from your heart. i too support a ban on or extremely strict regulations on assault weapons.
22h

 John Boy @GovCorrupted
@jefsauce @SquirellE1 @GretchenCarlson @FoxNews Purpose is irrelevant. A RIGHT IS A RIGHT IS A RIGHT & no gov can take it away! Period!

So, do you have the right to carry grenade launchers, flame-throwers? You have a right to free speech but can you destroy someone's life by lying about them?

You are treating your 2nd Amendment rights the same way abortionists treat abortion. It's a woman's right! Does the baby have a right to live? Apparently not! That right is trumped by a woman's right to her own body, as insane as that is.

Did the children at Newtown have a right to live? Apparently not! That right is trumped by your paranoia over your gun rights. That's just as insane as the abortionists.

Abortion became a right because of the heavy lobbying of women's rights groups. Owning assault weapons became a right because Congressman and Senators were bought off by those who make money from the deaths of innocent children and adults.

Carlson finished her statement by taking a look at a Fox News Twitter poll on the issue, in which viewers voted overwhelmingly (89 to 11 percent) against the idea of barring Americans from buying the weapons.

“That’s what makes America great,” Carlson concluded.

That's what she said, but I doubt that that is what she wanted to say. I suspect she wanted to say that the poll results were disgusting. Arms merchants, the NRA have you so twisted, so paranoid, that mass murders have little or no effect on you. They are laughing all the way to the bank.

‘Yemen War Crimes’ - British MPs Call for Inquiry

BAE evicts anti-Saudi protesters from shareholder AGM

Roger Carr, Chairman of BAE Systems. © Toby Melville / Reuters

BAE Systems evicted two shareholders from its AGM on Wednesday when they protested the firm’s sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, which they claim were used to commit war crimes against innocent Yemeni civilians.

The shareholders-come-activists who are affiliated with Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) staged the intervention after the arms giant’s chairman Roger Carr took the stage.

Just five minutes into his address, the pair stealthily walked to the front of the room carrying placards denouncing BAE’s complicity in Saudi Arabia’s brutal military campaign against Yemen.

The posters, which were visible for all present to see, bore the caption: “900 children killed in Yemen. Stop arming Saudi Arabia!”



'Blood money'
Hannah Brock, 30, who was dragged out of the AGM by security staff soon after the intervention, told RT the pair's actions were justified.

“BAE Systems is one of the biggest arms dealers in the world. The firm doesn’t just profit from war, it incentivizes it,” she said.

“The only time that BAE are legally obliged to face public scrutiny is at their AGM. It is our only chance to question the firm.”

Brock, who is a Right to Refuse to Kill program worker at global antimilitarist network War Resisters’ International, went on to explain she and her fellow campaigner felt compelled to draw attention to BAE’s complicity in grievous violations of international law.

“It’s particularly vital BAE is challenged on Saudi Arabia’s horrendous human rights abuses, as it continues to bombard Yemen, causing an enormous death toll,” she said.

The anti-arms activist accused Britain’s Tory government of protecting and supporting the arms giant. She called on MPs to implement an “outright embargo” on UK-Saudi arms sales and for a prompt inquiry into Britain’s role in alleged Saudi war crimes against Yemeni civilians.

Roughly 30 activists linked to CAAT had purchased shares in BAE to gain access to the AGM. They reportedly brought in a range of banners bearing quotes from people who had experienced airstrikes in Yemen, which they displayed to other shareholders. Some were dressed in black, red gloves and black veils for theatrical effect, while others questioned BAE representatives heatedly over the firm’s complicity in Saudi-led human rights abuses.


Saba Jallas turns horror into art in an attempt to maintain sanity as Saudi Arabia pulverizes Yemen
https://www.facebook.com/sabajallas2015/?fref=photo

Call for Inquiry

'Serious breaches of international law'
Britain's cross-party international development committee demanded an independent international inquiry into serious human rights breaches committed by all sides in the conflict in Yemen on Wednesday.

The move will likely anger UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who previously rejected global condemnation of Saudi Arabia. The Gulf state is a close British ally.

In 2015, a Saudi-led coalition began a military assault on Yemen in a bid to influence the outcome of its bloody civil war. Leading a coalition of nine Arab nations, Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes in Yemen in late March of that year and imposed an aerial and naval blockade.

There is a little more to it than that! The Houthi uprising is being supported, if not encouraged by Iran which is attempting to expand its influence in the Middle East. Yemen is a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, ie between Sunni and Shia Muslims. 

The military campaign, which has caused large-scale bloodshed and human suffering, targeted Yemen’s Houthi population and a number of allied insurgent groups who support former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The intervention has been described as a humanitarian catastrophe by human rights experts, including key United Nations (UN) officials. By July 2015, the UN had described the humanitarian situation in the war-torn state as a “Level 3” emergency – the highest emergency level it ascribes.

A report published in September 2015 by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) found that close to two-thirds of Yemeni civilians killed since March 26, 2015, had perished as a result of the Saudi-led airstrikes.

The following August, the UN special representative of the secretary-general for children and armed conflict said 73 percent of the hundreds of Yemeni children killed since the Saudi-led military campaign began had died as a result of Saudi-led airstrikes.

BAE's stake in Saudi arms market
BAE’s AGM kicked off at 1100 BST and was held at a conference center in Farnborough, Hampshire.

Saudi Arabia is the arms giant’s third biggest market, according to CAAT. Large-scale arms sales date back decades and include BAE’s Tornado and Typhoon combat planes, which are being used in Yemen.

In 2016, 22 BAE Hawk aircraft were contracted to Saudi Arabia. The arms giant also brokered a mammoth £1.6 billion deal with the Gulf kingdom in 2012, involving the supply and support for 22 Hawk aircraft and 55 PC-21 Pilatus training combat planes.

BAE also employees 5,300 staff in Saudi Arabia, who support the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) and the Royal Saudi Naval Force (RSNF).

RT asked BAE Systems to comment on why shareholders had been removed from the AGM. A spokesperson for the arms giant initially declined to confirm or deny the incident had occurred.

A second spokesperson for the firm later said: “There were a number of protesters removed from the meeting today. The AGM is the one time in the year that shareholders have the opportunity to hear from the board and ask questions about the business and we welcome all those who want to do that in a way that is courteous to other shareholders.”

BAE Systems chairman Roger Carr and CEO Ian King used the event to review the firm’s financial performance in 2015.

“Whilst economic and geopolitical conditions remain volatile, we have started the year with good momentum and the business is performing well,” King said.

“In 2016 and beyond, we are well placed to continue to generate attractive returns for shareholders.”

No kidding! The inventory of death is moving very nicely. You must be quite happy.

Russian View of Syrian Conflict

ISIS leaders remain in close contact with Ankara – Lavrov

This is an interesting and informative perspective and worth reading. But keep in mind that this article was sourced from RT (Russia Today) which is influenced by the Russian government.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. © The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

The leaders of Islamic State maintain a constant liaison with the Turkish government, working out a new approach to the war in Syria as the Russian Air Force cuts off traditional smuggling routes, says Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Moscow has intelligence that Islamic State’s (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) command continues to hold backdoor negotiations with the Turkish leadership, Lavrov told Russian newspaper MK in a vast interview in honor of Diplomats’ Day.

The airstrikes of the Russian Air Force in Syria have severely disrupted “traditional smuggling routes,” so the Turks are discussing in all seriousness creation of “IS-free zones” in Syria.

“Of course [such zones] would be a violation of all principles of the international law and also escalate tensions, substantially and fundamentally,” Lavrov said, adding the Turks are constructing tent camps and some kind of “engineering structures” on the Syrian side of the border, some 200 meters inside the country’s territory.

At the same time the Russian FM does not believe that a full-scale Turkish invasion into Syria is possible; Ankara is expected to limit its actions to “small provocations.”

“I do not believe that the US-led [anti-IS] coalition, which includes Turkey, would allow such desperate schemes to take shape,” Lavrov said.

'Main transit route for militants' - Russian ambassador to Ankara on Turkey 

According to Lavrov, Moscow was “astonished” by the position voiced by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel during Turkey voyage about Russian airstrikes being to blame for the growing influx of refugees from the Middle East to Europe.

The German leader did not say a word about terrorists in Syria being supported by the trafficking of arms, munitions and other necessary supplies from Turkey, which openly blackmails the EU over the refugee problem, Lavrov said.

Lavrov called attention to the fact that the growing tide of asylum seekers rushed to Europe after the elimination of the Libyan state, which took place well ahead of the Russian warplanes being deployed to Syria.

“I’d like to note that we had called attention to Turkey’s actions becoming inappropriate… long before our Air Force became operable in Syria,” Lavrov said, recalling incidents with Turkey creating obstacles with international projects and scandalous statements made by the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during his 2015 visit to Moscow.

Tayyip Erdogan, President of Turkey.  “Turkish leaders falling out of the real world completely.” - Lavrov

“Of course we paid attention to that incongruity, but assumed that common sense would prevail and Turks realize we’re neighbor and had done nothing wrong to them,” Lavrov said, quoting President Vladimir Putin’s words about Moscow putting a blind eye on many of Ankara’s escapades.

Lavrov agreed that probably that position was a mistake, since it ended up with the “Turkish leaders falling out of the real world completely.”

The veteran foreign minister does not exclude attempts to put the boots on the ground in Syria from some countries of the Persian Gulf.

“If the [Syria peace] talks bring no fruit or are not allowed to begin, then it is possible that some countries, directed by personal hatred towards [President Bashar] Assad, would go for a head-on solution by force,” Lavrov acknowledged, recalling some countries of the region “empathetically rejecting Russia-US-EU initiative to declare the Syrian crisis “militarily unsolvable” in a UN Security Council resolution.

“So this [a military intervention in Syria] is quite possible,” Lavrov said, mentioning Saudi Arabia’s openly declared plans to send troops to Syria should an international coalition invade.

This would be special, especially if American troops were involved in the coalition. It would mean that Saudi Arabia would be using American made weapons to kill American soldiers. This is all good if you are an American arms dealer or manufacturer; whatever you have to do to keep the inventory moving.

The developments of the Turkish-Syrian border serve proof that Ankara’s primary concern is making direct contacts between the Syrian and Turkish Kurds possible.

The IS-free strip along the border is called to prevent that Kurdish reunion Ankara finds totally unacceptable, as it would disrupt Turkish supplies to IS terrorists and getting oil and other contraband goods once and for all.

In this light, Ankara, as well as some other capitals in the region, believes Russia to be the biggest problem in the Middle East.

“I can understand that,” Lavrov said, “The Turks say openly that we have blown their plans [for Syria] wide open and now are trying to nail the Americans to the barn door, too,” the Russian FM commented on Ankara’s recent demarche towards Washington, which was thrown into a dilemma to “choose between Turks and Kurds.”

Ankara also insisted on expelling Kurds from the Syria peace talks, which is “Turkey’s arrogant position not seeing eye-to-eye by anybody else,” Lavrov stressed, noting that Washington has already, though anonymously, proclaimed the Kurds being allies against Islamic State.

“We work with them [Kurds], too,” the minister mentioned.

“Honestly speaking, I do not consider the situation as irretrievable one,”Lavrov said, adding that at present close cooperation between Washington and Moscow in Syria is not possible due to a “restrain factor” of the US relations with allies in the Middle East region perceiving Russia as being a threat to their plans for Syria.

The NRA is Right, Only Because of the NRA

The right to carry arms in America is sacrosanct. It trumps even the right to life. Americans in Roseburg, Oregon were defending the right to bear arms the day after ten people were murdered by a lunatic with three guns.

The NRA when they make their official statement will say that the students and professors should all have been carrying guns, or, at least, the school should have had armed guards, lots of them. The concept of a gun free zone, as the school was, is absurd and dangerous.

How can you argue with that? You can't! It's too late! Any lunatic in America has the right to buy as many hand guns, and assault rifles as he can afford. There are more guns than people in the US, and there are more gun deaths per capita in the US than any other industrialized country in the world. 

A recent new story revealed that they averaged approximately 1.1 mass shootings per day in the US in 2015. (Mass shooting defined as 4 or more people being shot). School shooting happen weekly, with deaths from school shootings happening monthly. The amazing thing is, most of these stories only make local news now. It's not even sensational anymore! Americans have conceded that daily, mass shootings are the price of the right to bear arms without restrictions.

Since 9/11, this right has cost 150,000 American lives. Since Sandy Hook, 142 school shooting have occurred. Is it worth it? It is to the NRA, who, if we dug deeply enough we would probably find that they were originally funded by gun manufacturers and importers. That's what this is really about - money; keeping the inventory of death moving. Of course, now they are self-sustaining, making hundreds of millions of dollars on membership dues and paying absolutely no taxes. 

The NRA, I believe, is the propaganda vehicle for arms merchants to convince Americans that they not only have an unrestricted right to own guns, but that they absolutely need to own guns to protect themselves not just from criminals, but even more so from the government which, it says, is trying to dis-arm Americans so they can be....ah....something! 

Gullible, flag-wearing Americans are convinced that the day will come when it's own military will turn against its own people and start murdering them for...God only knows why. That this is utterly impossible in America doesn't affect them in the least. 

The NRA has successfully created a theater of fear in America. It's a fear that is deflected from reality in that Americans are afraid of what could possibly happen while the most terrifying thing in America is already happening. And the merchants of death are laughing all the way to the bank.

Jessica Vazquez hugs her aunt, Leticia Acaraz, as they await word on Acaraz's
daughter after a deadly shooting at Umpqua Community College in
Roseburg, Oregon, on Thursday that left nine people dead.
(Andy Nelson/The Register-Guard/Associated Press)

ANALYSIS

The evil banality of guns in America

Even Obama seems resigned to the futility of changing the U.S. gun culture

By Neil Macdonald, 
CBC News 

Neil Macdonald is a Senior Correspondent for CBC News, currently based in Ottawa. Prior to that he was the CBC's Washington correspondent for 12 years, and before that he spent five years reporting from the Middle East. He also had a previous career in newspapers, and speaks English and French fluently, and some Arabic.

Conventional journo-wisdom has always held that it's not just dangerous but unspeakably stupid for a reporter to carry a gun in a war zone.

Get caught with one and you instantly go from observer to participant. You can get yourself killed, and maybe other journalists, too.

Your best weapons, the old reporters said, are your wits and your neutrality.

I believed in and abided by that. And I applied more or less the same logic to living in America.

I could have bought a gun there anytime I wanted. A pistol, an assault weapon, a sniper rifle — anything my credit card could handle.

I didn't, though. I'm well aware that the presence of a gun in a home vastly increases the chance of homicide, suicide or accidental death.

Plus, you have to train constantly to be of any use with the thing, and anyway, I generally believe the fewer guns in circulation the better.

But war zones have changed. Journalists are now hunted. And in America, being gunned down, either by someone you know or a perfect stranger, is now so common it's almost banal.

Resigned and bitter

Someone killing people indiscriminately with a gun, or guns, is just another news story these days, and almost a minor one at that, unless the body count is double-digit, or the victims are all kids, or churchgoers slaughtered at prayer, or, of course, if the shooter is a Muslim (in which case it's almost always a huge story, even if there's only one victim).

There have been so many slaughters and rampages on Barack Obama's watch that he's developed a sort of set-piece speech — expressions of grief, speculation on the senseless nature of it all, and, of course, frustration that gun-lovers and Second Amendment fanatics have managed to block or dismantle most gun control efforts.

Sometimes he mixes in some Christian love and we-shall-overcome optimism.

But there was none of that when he talked Thursday about the mass murder at an Oregon community college.

He actually invited reporters to add up the numbers of Americans killed by terrorists in the past decade and compare that number to all the people killed by gun violence in the U.S.

Citing the Global Terrorism Database and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, NBC put the numbers at just over 3,000 versus just over 150,000, going back to 9/11.

'Bad guy with a gun'

The gun lobby actually once feared Obama. It warned its acolytes that he'd take away their guns (a scare tactic that triggered a boom in gun and ammo sales in the early Obama years), but now basically ignores him.

After all, he lost the fight, and he'll be gone soon anyway.

Obama, and liberals across America, thought they had their chance after 20 schoolchildren and six school staff were massacred by a deranged young man with an Bushmaster rifle and two pistols three years ago in Newtown, Conn.

In its wake, the White House proposed some mild gun controls.

Then the NRA stepped in. It basically declared that the school had been negligent.

Schools, it said, should let teachers carry guns, or at least hire armed guards. "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," announced the NRA's chief spokesman Wayne Lapierre.

Not necessarily true, but never mind. The NRA essentially terrorized Congress into blocking Obama's reforms.

The gun lobby has also won in the courts, which have largely dismantled municipal gun control efforts in cities like Chicago and Washington, D.C.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the constitutional right to bear arms is literal, and once the Supreme Court rules, that's that.

Nasty corners

But back to the NRA message: After a white supremacist opened fire on black worshippers at a Charleston church in June, killing nine, an NRA board member suggested the worshippers and pastor might have survived had they been armed.

Following its playbook for cases of mass slaughter, the NRA currently says it won't comment on the Oregon murders "until all the facts are known." (Fact: a guy wearing body armour and carrying several guns murdered nine people). But it isn't hard to imagine what it will eventually say.

Allow students to carry weapons, issue weapons to professors, hire armed undercover mercenaries, install gun racks in class, whatever. Just make sure more and more people have guns.

It sounds crazed, but as America's gun anarchy grows, it has a weird logic.

Common-sense solutions — like the crackdown Australia imposed after the Port Arthur massacre in 1996 — are not just politically impossible in America, they're impossible, period.

There are as many guns as people in the U.S. Plus, guns don't have expiry dates.

That means that for generations to come, nutcases and violent racists and other criminals will have all the firepower their hearts' desire.

A line stretches outside a blood donor clinic for the shooting victims in
Roseburg. CBC National news reporter Chris Brown said every person he
spoke to in line rejected gun control. (CBC News)

So the old rules don't sound as sensible. If I were to cover war zones again, I might take a different view.

For all the logic of the no-guns rule back in the day, I suspect I'd be awfully happy to have some sort of weapon, the more destructive the better, if my car was headed off by a bunch of characters dressed in black in a Toyota pickup in some nasty corner of nowhere.

America, too, is now full of nasty, violent corners of nowhere. They erupt all the time, and if you're there, you're on your own.

If I spent much time in a public place in the U.S., like a government building, or subway stations, or, above all, a university or even a high school, I think I'd rather have a gun than hide behind a desk, hoping the latest whack job with a Bushmaster doesn't find me.

I might not trust myself totally with a gun, but I trust myself more than I trust all the violent, crazy, evil people the NRA has helped arm.

It's happened. The ceremony of innocence that was once the American ideal is drowned. Common sense is moot. It no longer even applies.