The Defence Intelligence Agency provides military intelligence to the United States Department of Defense and intelligence community. A conservative American organisation called Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit in May 2014, and in response received a very important and very revealing report from the DIA about the conflict in Syria.
The report dates from August 12, 2012, and, despite being written by an American intelligence organisation, is actually intelligent and prescient, and deeply revealing about the conflict in Syria and its foreign sponsors. It can be read here.
It begins with a summary of “The General Situation”:
A. Internally, events are taking a clear sectarian direction
B. The Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al Qaeda – Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.
C. The West, Gulf Countries, and Turkey support the opposition, while Russia, China and Iran support the regime.
The report has a section on AQI, which it notes “is familiar with Syria. AQI trained in Syria, and then infiltrated into Iraq”. It notes that AQI “supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning, both ideologically and through the media. AQI declared its opposition of Assad’s government because it considered it a sectarian regime targeting Sunnis.” It observes that AQI acted as Jaish al Nusra in Syria. “One of its affiliates… AQI, through the spokesman of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), Abu Muhammad al Adnani”, declared the Assad government the “spearhead” of the Shi’ite enemy. Adnani later became the chief spokesperson for ISIS.
The report then outlines “The Future Assumptions of the Crisis”.
The first is that “The regime will survive and have control over Syrian territory”. I will return to this point, but consider what it means already. The West, along with its allies in the Middle East, is supporting sectarian jihadis in fighting in Syria even though they assume that the insurgents they support will not be successful in overthrowing Assad, let alone in achieving a more humane and liberal system of government. This casual admission about Western policy and its cynicism deserves a moment’s pause and reflection.
The second assumption is “Development of the current events into proxy war”. It explained that Syria would control the coastal areas, in the West, whilst the insurgents would try to control eastern areas, adjacent to Turkey and Iraq.
Then the report discusses “The Effects on Iraq”. It explains “opposition forces will try to use the Iraqi territory as a safe haven for its forces”, whilst trying to recruit and train fighters in Iraq.
Point C in the “Effects on Iraq” section are particularly fascinating. It says:
If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).
That’s right. The DIA predicted the establishment of a Salafist state in Eastern Syria, as this would serve the interests of the states that support the rebels in weakening the Assad regime. Remember – the supporting states are listed as the “West, Gulf Countries and Turkey”. One can dispute whether the West was equally welcoming of this outcome as the other states, and whether they realised that ISIS would turn out differently to the House of Saud, but I must stress that this report was written by the DIA.
The report then explains that “The deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation and are as follows”. A list the follows, which features a point 1 and 3 only: the rest of the report appears to be redacted.
Point 1 explains:
This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraqi and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters. ISI could also declare an Islamic state throughout its union with other terrorist organisations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying the Iraq and the protection of its territory.
Point 3 of ‘predicted consequences’ is: “The renewing facilitation of terrorist elements from all over the Arab world entering into Iraqi arena”.
Finally, the report’s classification appears to be secret.
There is also another set of documents released to Judicial Watch. They show that after the fall of Qaddafi, weapons were shipped from Libya to Syria. It doesn’t explicitly explain precisely who sent and received these weapons. However, one can assume that after the fall of Qaddafi, it would have been his successful military opponents who would send the weapons.
And given their always readily observable Islamist complexion, one can reasonably conclude that this is official confirmation of US knowledge of former Libyan rebels aiding Syrian rebels.
This is consistent with a story Seymour Hersh wrote in the London Review of Books in April 2014. Hersh wrote that the US had a role in creating a “rat line”: “authorised in early 2012, [it] was used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition. Many of those in Syria who ultimately received the weapons were jihadists, some of them affiliated with al-Qaida.”
As’ad AbuKhalil notes that the documents show “that the US knew all along that the Syrian rebels are made of Islamists (this is from 2012): that is when the US government publicly talked about the dominance of “moderate Syrian rebels”. The US seems to have approved arms shipments from Libyan Islamist terrorists to the Syrian Islamist terrorists, and even of the likely rise of Islamist Jihadi threat in Iraq.”
The US knew all along that the conflict was driven by a clash between jihadis, supported by the West, Gulf States and Turkey, and was “taking a clear sectarian direction”, though they assumed that Assad would “survive and have control over Syrian territory”, and they continued to support the jihadis anyway.
This may remind some of other conflicts. For example, the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, where the US offered some support to both sides of the war, prolonging it and contributing to its final gruesome toll of perhaps over a million dead. In that case, the US preferred a weaker Saddam Hussein and Islamic Republic of Iran. The death and suffering in both countries did not trouble US leadership.
Another similar case is Western, Saudi and Pakistani support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan. In his history of the CIA, Tim Weiner observes that “the mission was not to liberate Afghanistan”. As CIA chief in Pakistan Howard Hart observes, the “wonderful order” was “Go kill Soviet soldiers… Imagine! I loved it.” Weiner describes this as a “noble goal”. Afghans and others might be less impressed at massive Western support for the jihadis whose members later became warlords, the Taliban and al Qaeda.
As prescient as the DIA report seems, it did not require any unique genius to observe where the trends in Syria were headed. Writing in July 2012, I quoted Haytham Manna, a courageous leftist Syrian activist, who warned that the militarisation of the conflict undermined “the broad popular support necessary to transform the uprising into a democratic revolution”.
He observed the same trends as the DIA:
“The pumping of arms to Syria, supported by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the phenomenon of the Free Syrian Army, and the entry of more than 200 jihadi foreigners into Syria in the past six months have all led to a decline in the mobilisation of large segments of the population, especially amongst minorities and those living in the big cities, and in the activists’ peaceful civil movement. The political discourse has become sectarian; there has been a Salafisation of religiously conservative sectors.”
It didn’t take any particular brilliance to doubt the sudden outpouring of compassion for Syria, which, as is usual with Western “concern” for the Middle East, was expressed in discussion over whether Syria should be bombed, or whether more arms should be sent to the rebels instead.
Just as Western support for Islamist fanatics in Afghanistan in the ‘80s was a disastrous policy with long-term catastrophic effects, particularly in Afghanistan, so it appears Western support for Islamist fanatics in Syria has been a disastrous policy with long-term catastrophic effects, particularly in Syria, but also in Iraq, and perhaps other places soon.
It is terrible to say, but Syria’s uprising appears to have been defeated, both by its enemies, and by its ostensible friends. In June 2012, Manna wrote in the Guardian that the struggle began in March 2011, and in the second week, he launched the three nos: No to violence, no to sectarianism, and no to external intervention.
However:
“Powerful players tried to recruit the tens of thousands of young people who went out in public for the first time to their own regional or international causes. Within the first three months many players had intervened in the conflict, which was seen by many, inside and outside Syria, as an opportunity to change some basic geopolitical facts about the Middle East.
The aims of those intervening from outside Syria were at odds with the revolutions’s songs of dignity and freedom.”
He concluded by asking: “Has the arming of the insurgents already seriously weakened any chance of a political solution and a democratic transition in Syria?” At this point, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the answer is yes. A brutal and murderous tyrant has been legitimised by the fanatical jihadis the West funded (and is now turning on), whilst the country has been devastated.
And yet, one day soon, the record of the tragedy will be forgotten. And then Western pundits will solemnly debate the next humanitarian intervention to rescue an oppressed people from a foreign dictator
– See more at: https://newmatilda.com/2015/05/25/how-west-was-one-syrian-catastrophe#sthash.DIUxfDBm.dpuf
Where’s Charlie Pierce when you need him to take apart the most ridiculous Politico screed yet?
In this installment of Politico Is Not Neutral Ever, senior media writer Jack Shafer takes liberals to task for criticizing Fox News. But he doesn’t stop there. He also hammers Bruce Bartlett’s study proving Fox News is bad for Republicans.
But Fox in its current incarnation is neither a help nor a hindrance. Fox News—and its Svengali Roger Ailes—aren’t the Republican kingmakers they’re made out to be. I explored this point last month, noting that the network is better at employing presidential candidates than electing them. Whatever ambitions Ailes and Fox chief Rupert Murdoch may have to elect a president—in 2012, Ailes had his heart broken by Chris Christie and David Petraeus, both of whom declined his invitation to run—their first priority has always been to make money, which Fox News does, clearing a reported $1.2 billion a year. If you think of Fox News as a news-entertainment hybrid designed to make money, its combative programming style begins to make more sense.
Oh, I see now. We’re just supposed to look at Fox as entertainment wrapped in newspaper. Gosh, when you look at it that way, then of course it stands to follow that no viewer actually believes the crap Fox spews, right?
For Shafer, it’s all a big joke. I’m guessing he hasn’t actually had the pleasure of sitting down to a family dinner with brainwashed Foxites and crazy Uncle Liberty, to borrow a phrase from driftglass.
Like many Fox critics, Bartlett inflates the network’s power. Fox’s most popular program, The O’Reilly Factor, pulls in about 3.3 million viewers on its best nights. In a country whose voting-age population exceeds 234 million, 3.3 million ain’t squat. What’s more, the O’Reilly/Fox audiences aren’t even uniformly Republican! According to a Pew survey from 2012, 45 percent of O’Reilly viewers (and 55 percent of Fox viewers) self-identify as independent or Democrat, which means many of the eyes and ears absorbing the Fox message are only tangentially connected to Republican politics. It’s comic to think of Democratic and independent Fox viewers pushing the Republican Party further to the right.
Well, then. Since they self-identify as Independent or Democrat, there isn’t a damn thing to worry about, am I right? Shafer missed the part in that survey where they broke down the Indie/Dem split. 30 percent Independents, which we can reasonably translate to the Tea Party/Libertarian side of the Independent grouping, and 15 percent Democrat, which likely translates to the last few remaining Southern Democrats who haven’t re-registered. Or the LaRouche contingent, though I doubt they number in the double digits on any scale. Hardly your mainstream definition of those two groups.
That same Pew survey shows that 60 percent of Fox viewers self-identify as conservatives, which blows the rest of Shafer’s statistics right out of the water.
In a much quoted television interview five years ago, conservative Republican David Frum said, “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we’re discovering we work for Fox.” Bartlett repeats Frum’s quip as his paper’s kicker. But catchy as the Frum line remains, it’s just not true. The Fox tail does not wag the Republican dog.
Sure, it doesn’t. That’s why the crowded Republican primary field is elbowing each other in the teeth while saying more and more outlandish things for attention in order to land that coveted spot in the first Fox News debate in August. Any candidate facing the prospect of being bumped after one lousy poll knocks their average down to 11th spot isn’t going to agree with that statement.
And that’s all before we get to the nonstop hate pouring out of that place, the unending echo chamber Fox News has spawned to churn out right-wing hate memes faster than the mashed potato bowl can be refilled at said family dinner, and the outright lies they’ve spread about policy.
Does anyone think Mike Huckabee would have a prayer in the primaries without that six-year gig at Fox News? Would Sarah Palin have been as influential as she was during the health care debate without Fox News? How about Betsy “Death Panel” McCaughey?
Fox News serves up hate and propaganda on a daily basis, for one purpose only: To keep conservatives angry and hateful so they’ll support policies that actively work against their own interests. I don’t care if the average Fox News viewer is age 68, because that 68-year old votes. Ailes and Murdoch know it too.
“Many conservatives live in a bubble where they watch only Fox News on television, they listen only to conservative talk radio — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, many of the same people,” Bartlett told CNN’s Brian Stelter on Sunday. “When they go onto the Internet, they look at conservative websites like National Review, Newsmax, World Net Daily.”
“And so, they are completely in a universe in which they are hearing the same exact ideas, the same arguments, the same limited amount of data repeated over and over and over again. And that’s brainwashing.”
Mr. Shafer is arguing that brainwashing is a good thing, as long as you remember that it’s just entertainment wrapped in newsprint. What sane human being argues that point seriously?
On a more serious note, Fox News is responsible for far too many interventions into our policies and politics, going all the way back to the 2000 election when they called Florida before California polls had closed. That wasn’t entertainment. It was intervention.
Fox News wasn’t the only cable station to sell the Iraq War hard to Americans, but they’re certainly the top cable station pounding the drums for more war now. That’s not entertainment. It’s warmongering.
Fox News has done more to promote billionaire-funded think tanks as legitimate than any other media outlet online or on air. That’s not entertainment. It’s propagandizing.
Apparently Politico doesn’t require its media writers to actually watch that thing they’re defending, or Shafer would have backed away from his keyboard slowly before writing that kind of apologist tripe.
CLEVELAND – (CT&P) – Alarmed over public outrage after a series of incidents in which innocent civilians and their canines have been brutally murdered by crazed cops, leaders of the National Fraternal Order of Police have announced that they are bringing in speakers from civilized countries in western Europe to lead seminars at next fall’s FOP convention in Miami.
The seminars will outline basic policing techniques used in countries where police officers do not routinely shoot dogs for no apparent reason, fill 92-year-old grandmothers with lead when they raid the wrong house looking for a joint, shoot fleeing unarmed black men in the back multiple times, or leap atop automobiles and fire 137 rounds into a couple on their way to get supper at McDonald’s.
“We need to work on our image a little bit,” said Buford “Civil Rights Violation” Matthews, current president of the FOP. “We thought that if we bring these guys in from countries where they don’t just out-and-out murder unarmed suspects, we could play that up and act like we actually give a shit about the people we’re hired to ‘protect and serve.’”
Matthews told Fox News host Sean Hannity that although no officer has ever done anything wrong in the history of law enforcement, public image is what counts, and right now the general public for some insane reason just does not have the confidence it once had in its local police forces.
Hannity agreed, but expressed concern over the FOP bringing in Marxist revolutionaries from communist countries such as Great Britain, Denmark, and Belgium.
“Can we really trust countries that provide health care to poor people?” asked Hannity.
Matthews soothed Hannity’s fears by telling him no one would take the speakers seriously, and popular seminars such as “How To Properly Lead A Fleeing Unarmed Suspect With A Glock,” and “Where Do I Aim To Safely Dispatch A Standard Poodle?” and “How To Properly Insert A Broomstick Into A Suspect’s Anus” would not be discontinued.
“Don’t worry Sean, we have no intention of changing our modus operandi,” said Matthews. “After all, we have to take our sexual frustration out on someone. In today’s modern society with the threat of ISIS showing up in overwhelming numbers all over the United States, it’s just not enough to go home and beat our wives all the time. We have to express our insecurity problems somehow, and once the right-wing gets around to outlawing the filming of cops on duty, well then, we can really get back to using some time-tested methods of brutality!”
HELENA, MONTANA – (CT&P) – During a campaign stop at a nuclear weapons supply depot in northern Montana earlier today, presidential candidate Mike Huckabee temporarily lost his mind.
While being interviewed by Mike Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Huckabee seemed to drift off into his own world and began advocating a return to the “divine right of kings” exercised by monarchs during the Middle Ages.
Arguing against marriage equality, Huckabee claims as president he would not be bound by decisions issued by the Supreme Court if they violate commandments issued by the “Supreme Being.”
Huckabee, tried to argue that the president of the United States would not have to follow a potential Supreme Court ruling favorable to same-sex marriage because the Supreme Court was not the “Supreme Being.”
Economist Bruce Bartlett, a former adviser to both Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, warned over the weekend that Fox News had damaged the Republican Party by creating a bubble for conservatives to brainwash themselves.
In his paper “How Fox News Changed American Media and Political Dynamics” published earlier this month, Bartlett theorized that watching the network was essentially “self-brainwashing” for viewers, making them believe that the United States was a more conservative nation than it actually was. And so the Republican Party had responded by running radical conservatives that representative Fox News viewers, but not the true state of the electorate.
“Many conservatives live in a bubble where they watch only Fox News on television, they listen only to conservative talk radio — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, many of the same people,” Bartlett told CNN’s Brian Stelter on Sunday. “When they go onto the Internet, they look at conservative websites like National Review, Newsmax, World Net Daily.”
“And so, they are completely in a universe in which they are hearing the same exact ideas, the same arguments, the same limited amount of data repeated over and over and over again. And that’s brainwashing.”
Bartlett asserted that it was a bigger problem for conservatives than liberals because they did not have their own network for a long time, and then they “drank very heavily from the Fox waters.”
“It’s a well-kept secret, but 95% of the climate models we are told prove the link between human CO₂ emissions and catastrophic global warming have been found, after nearly two decades of temperature stasis, to be in error. It’s not surprising.” – Maurice Newman, AC, Chair of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, writing in The Australian newspaper, May 8, 2015.
Mr Newman’s implication that discrepancies resulting from the recent climate fluctuation somehow invalidates climate models is incorrect.
Climate models have been thoroughly and critically tested against observations and are able to simulate with fair accuracy the component of climate change caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols as well as natural factors like solar variations and volcanic eruptions.
However, long-term climate simulations do not and likely never will reproduce the timing of shorter-term random fluctuations, like the recent slowdown in surface temperatures. In the long run, this fluctuation, like many before, will just be noise on a gradually increasing temperature signal.
That the discrepancy is a “well-kept secret” is demonstrably false given the large number of scientific papers discussing and trying to explain exactly this issue.
http://rt.com/op-edge/261469-isis-suicide-bomb-yemen/
Friday’s ISIS suicide bombings in Yemen and Saudi Arabia – killing a total of at least 43 people – is yet more bitter fruit of the policy pursued by Britain, the US and France and their Gulf allies for the past eight years.
This strategy – of fostering violently sectarian anti-Shiite militias in order to destroy Syria and isolate Iran – is itself but part of the West’s wider war against the entire global South by weakening any independent regional powers allied to the BRICs countries, and especially to Russia.
The strategy was first revealed as far back as 2007 in Seymour Hersh’s article “The Redirection”, which revealed how Bush administration officials were working with the Saudis to channel billions of dollars to sectarian death squads whose role would be to “throw bombs… at Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran and at the Syrians,” in the memorable words of one US official.
21 dead after suicide bomber strikes Shiite mosque in S. Arabia, ISIS claims responsibilityMore evidence of precisely how this strategy unfolded has since been revealed. Most recently, last Monday saw the release of hundreds of pages of formerly classified US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) documents following a two year court battle in the US.
These documents showed that, far from being an unpredictable “bolt from the blue,” as the mainstream media tends to imply, the rise of ISIS was in fact both predicted and desired by the US and its allies as far back as 2012.
The DIA report, which was widely circulated amongst the various US military and security agencies at the time, noted: “There is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria, and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).” Elsewhere, the “supporting powers to the opposition” are defined as “Western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey”.
In other words, a Salafist – that is militantly anti-Shia – “principality” was “exactly” what the West wanted as part of their war against not only Syria, but “Shia expansion” in Iraq as well. Indeed, it was specifically acknowledged that “ISI [the forerunner of ISIS] could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria.”
The precision of the declassified predictions is astounding. Not only was it predicted that the terrorist groups being supported by Washington and London in Syria would team up with those in Iraq to create an “Islamic State,” but the precise dimensions of this state were also spelt out: recognizing that “the Salafist[s], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” The report noted that the consequences of this for Iraq would be to “create the ideal atmosphere for AQI [Al Qaeda Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi.”
Mosul, don’t forget, was taken by ISIS in June 2014, and Ramadi fell earlier this week.
Recent months have seen the West and its regional allies massively stepping up their support for their anti-Shiite death squads. In late March, Saudi Arabia began its bombardment of Yemen following military gains made by the Houthi (Shiite) rebels in that country. The Houthis, the only effective force fighting Al Qaeda in the country, had taken key territories from them last November, and were subsequently threatening them in their remaining strongholds. This was when the Saudis began their bombardment, with US and British support, naturally, and, unsurprisingly, Al Qaeda have been the key beneficiary of this intervention, gaining a breathing space and regaining valuable lost territory, retaking the key port of Mukulla within a week of the commencement of the Saudi bombardment.
Al Qaeda have also been making gains in Syria, taking two major cities in Idlib province last month following a ramping up of military support from Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. And of course, Britain has been leading the way for a renewed military intervention in Libya in the guise of a “war against people smuggling” that, as I have argued elsewhere, will inevitably end up boosting the most vicious gangs involved in the trade, namely ISIS and Al Qaeda.
So why the sudden urgency on the part of the West and its allies to step up support for Al Qaeda et al now?
The answer lies in the increasing disgust at the activities of the death squads across the region. No longer perceived as the valiant freedom fighters they were depicted as in 2011, their role as shock troops for the West’s “divide and ruin” strategy, promising nothing but a future of ultra-violent trauma and ethnic cleansing, has become increasingly obvious. The period between mid-2013 and mid-2014 saw a significant turning of the tide against these groups.
It began in July 2013 with the ouster of Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi following fears he was planning to send in the Egyptian army to aid the Syrian insurgency. New President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi put an end not only to that possibility, but to the flow of fighters from Egypt to Syria altogether. The West hoped to step in the following month with airstrikes against the Syrian government, but their attempts to ensure Iranian and Russian acquiescence in such a move came to nought and they were forced into a humiliating climbdown.
Then came the fall of Homs in May 2014, as Syrian government forces retook a key insurgent stronghold. The momentum was clearly with the government side; that is until ISIS sprang onto the scene – and with them, a convenient pretext for a US-led intervention that had been ruled out just a year before.
Meanwhile, in Libya, the pro-death squad parties decisively lost elections to the first elected House of Representatives in June 2014. Their refusal to accept defeat led to a new chapter in the post-NATO Libyan disaster, as they set up a new rival government in Tripoli and waged war on the elected parliament. Yet following a massacre of Egyptians by ISIS in Libya in February of this year, Egypt sent its airforce in on the side of the Tobruk (elected) parliament; it is now, apparently, considering sending in ground troops.
Losing ground in Yemen, in Libya, in Egypt and in Syria, the West’s whole strategy for using armed Salafists as tools of destabilization was starting to unravel. Thank goodness, people in certain quarters must be thinking, for ISIS.
BAGHDAD – (CT&P) – Islamic State Supreme Leader and insane asshole Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi told CNN today that the ISIS leadership was “absolutely delighted” with their recent real estate acquisitions and couldn’t wait to get down to some serious looting, pillaging, and wholesale destruction of priceless artifacts.
“We are really happy with our recent purchases in Ramadi and Palmyra,” said al-Baghdadi, who sported a stylish infidel dried ear necklace for the interview. “I just can’t wait to see what our architects and interior designers are going to do with our new properties.”
Omar Abdul-Fattah al-Sphincter, Islamic State Head of Housing and Urban Development, who was also interviewed, said “We’re going to do great things with Palmyra. We just can’t wait to level all those blasphemous infidel ruins and put up tents and shacks to house our troops, and Ramadi, with its world-famous goat brothels, well that was a real bargain!”
Baghdadi told Wolf Blitzer that his troops were really looking forward to some down time after the intense 15 minute battle required to run off Iraqi and Syrian regular army forces, which outnumbered the jihadis ten-to-one.
“My boys have barely had time recently to rape and kill innocent women and children because they’ve been so busy with beheading, throwing homosexuals off buildings, and roasting people alive,” said Baghdadi. “I know they’re really looking forward to fucking some of those sexy goats in Ramadi and relieving some stress by destroying the priceless ancient ruins over in Palmyra.”
Almost every decent person on the planet has been shocked and disgusted by the actions of the Islamic State, and are clamoring for their governments to stop the wholesale destruction and slaughter. However, despite the fact they possess enough firepower to destroy the earth ten times over, Coalition partners and Arab states around the region have not come up with any coherent plan to stop the religious fanatics.
NEW YORK – (CT&P) – Fox News host and giant horse’s ass Bill O’Reilly has flatly denied recent claims that he abused his wife and kids by dragging them around by the neck and screaming at them when they disagreed with him. He also denied calling them pinheads, adulterers, bitches, freeloaders, and gold-diggers while holding their heads underwater and yelling “I am the one true God and you shall worship me!”
Earlier this week court documents revealed that O’Reilly (referred to as Mr. Anonymous in the documents) water boarded his wife on a regular basis and used a car battery to deliver electric shocks to his two daughters whenever they disagreed with one of his political or philosophical positions.
“All allegations against me in these circumstances are 100% false,” O’Reilly told Politico on Tuesday. “I have always been 100% correct on everything I have ever done as a husband, father, and person. I am in fact infallible, and perfect in every way. Jesus ain’t got nothing on Bill O’Reilly! I’m God’s gift to women and the American people. Without me, western civilization would collapse.”
“I want everyone to know that if all this criticism in the media continues, I’m going to kill every last person in the United States!” said O’Reilly as he foamed at the mouth. “Fuck you unappreciative assholes!”
Although O’Reilly continued to rant and rave throughout the custody battle about the liberal media and the hidden conspiracy of “pinheads” arrayed against him, the judge awarded custody of his two daughters to O’Reilly’s former wife Maureen McPhilmy.
“That asshole should never have been allowed to reproduce in the first place,” said the judge.
LOS ANGELES – (CT&P) – The nation’s second-largest city voted Tuesday to increase its minimum wage from $9 an hour to $15 an hour by 2020, in what is perhaps the most significant victory so far for labor groups, Marxists, and America haters who are engaged in a national push to raise the minimum wage and destroy the country.
The increase, which the Leninist city council passed in a 14-to-1 vote, comes as workers across the country are rallying for higher wages and several large companies, including Facebook and Walmart, have moved to raise their lowest wages.
Several other cities, including San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle and Oakland, have already approved increases, and dozens more are considering doing the same. In 2014, a number of Republican-leaning states like Alaska and South Dakota also raised their state-level minimum wages by ballot initiative.
The move was met with alarm by right wingers and capitalist pigs on Wall Street and in Congress.
“Raising the minimum wage would cause a huge stream of filthy illegal aliens entering the country once again,” said Rick Perry. “We’re much better off keeping the inner cities cesspools of poverty and despair. That way those damn Messicans will stay put!”
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) told CNN, “I’m alarmed by the number of cities that are passing this ill-advised pay hike for lazy bastards who can’t get real jobs. These cities pose a real threat to the economy of the United States and our whole way of life. It’s only a matter of time before they adopt Sharia law and develop their own nuclear weapons. I think the best thing we could do is bomb them into submission before they kill us all.”
Former U.S. representative from Minnesota and thoroughly insane person Michele Bachmann said that “If God wanted us to have a living wage he would have put it in the Ten Commandments. This is all Obama’s fault. Once you start showing compassion for the less fortunate by providing them health care, then they start demanding food and other things. I think beyond a doubt this signals the beginning of the End Times and worldwide apocalypse, which is good.”
Although House Republicans have repeatedly voted against raising the minimum wage and prefer instead to ignore anyone who does not make over $100,000 per year, the tide seems to be against them. Despite their best efforts to oppress the lower classes and return to the “Golden Days” of the Middle Ages, most pundits believe that the GOP will be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
ISIS fighters enter ruins of ancient Palmyra after taking full control of city – reports
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