Banes of Our Existence, a Political Cartoon

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

Original political cartoon by Michael Ramirez as seen on Real Clear Politics.

"FALSE PARADIGM" is added by Topher Morrison.

You ever wish political cartoons would be a little more balanced?  Wish they would stop browbeating a false paradigm while feigning comedy?  Above is an original cartoon by Michael Ramirez. Below is my enhanced version.

As seen through the patented objectivity lens of Topher Morrison

Donald Trump: Obama Supported Al'Qaeda in Libya

Topher Morrison

PurpleSerf.com

The boisterous real estate mogul, star of The Apprentice and potential independent presidential candidate admits yesterday on the Michael Savage program what no presidential candidate thus far has had the audacity to proffer.  The Obama administration, through NATO, backed our "enemies" in Libya.

Background

          As early as March of 2011 stories began to pour out of Libya that insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq, a majority of which were Libyan nationals, had been returning home to fight another enemy, dictator Mohammar Gaddafi under the aegis of NATO and ultimately president Barack Obama.  I mirrored the reports from historian Webster Griffen Tarpley here and ex CIA agent Michael Scheuer here.  

          By August there were more reports that an Al-Qaeda junta had been established as interim government.  Since that time it has been widely reported and officially admitted that NATO for months had been providing air support and intelligence to the Lybian Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) a terrorist organization according to the U.S. State Department.  This group has since been renamed Al'Qaeda in Libya and has been lead almost exclusively by Abdul Hakim Belhaj a cohort of the late Osama Bin Laden and de facto commander of Tripoli.  

          Having completed his mission thus far in Libya with the successful assassination of Ghaddafi and with the power brokers attempting to establish a government Belhaj and Co. are setting their sights on Syria, but Belhaj may again have some help there too as he is not the only element ready to aid the Free Syrian Army (FSA). 

          Meanwhile... stateside former government officials, experts, and think tanks have written an open letter to President Barack Obama called "Open Letter to 44" posted on the self styled hedonistic hegemon blog, Great Satan's Girlfriend.  The letter from neo-conservative luminaries such as Jamie Fly of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) and William Kristol of the Weekly Standard and a Fox News contributor calls for Obama to establish links and support the Syrian National Council who runs the paramilitary group, FSA.  

          Concurrently there are similar hawks like Tom Ridge, former head of Homeland Security and democrat Gen. Wesley Clark attempting to de-list anther Iraqi based Iranian terrorist group MEK from the same U.S. State Department list for operations in Iran.  At this point it's no longer confusing why Obama stopped referring to the War on Terror, evidently he may need these sordid forces.

Donald Trump on the Michael Savage Program

          Since the beginning of the campaign season numerous interviews have been taken of prospective presidential candidates and as of yet none have criticized president Barack Obama for this blatant abuse of power and ignorance to facts on the ground in Libya.  The following is a transcript from Michael Savage's interview with Donald Trump, full interview and audio found here.  While he doesn't state explicitly that the administration backed Al'Qaeda, it's obvious who he was referring to:

TRUMP: "When we had Libya and Ghaddafi was absolutely routing about 7 or 8 months, see people forget, but he was routing the so called, you know the wonderful rebels as they call themselves..."

SAVAGE: "yes..."

TRUMP: "...like Gone With the Wind even though they come from Iran and also they were our enemies, but now you know... now they're our great friends, but they're not our friends.  

SAVAGE: [laughs]

TRUMP: "So, they came to us 7 months ago and they said 'we're being routed, we can't hold out more than another two days, will you help us?'  Obama said 'yes, here, through NATO', but [the U.S. is] NATO.  So Obama said yes.  Now, if he would of said 'yes, I will help you but we want 50% of your oil', they would have have said 'absolutely, a 100% you have a deal, sign right here on the dotted line.'  You would've had it signed in ten minutes, it would have been over and would have gone home." 

SAVAGE: "Unbelievable..."

TRUMP: "And we would have picked up 2 trillion worth of value, we didn't do that...we're stupid, we're stupid.  And now by the way if you went to 'em and said...and you know now they're all splitting up the oil, all the rebels having a lot of fun, you could probably have 20 ghaddafis eh by the way the worst one will emerge as the leader and the one who will hurt our country the worst or the most."

SAVAGE: Always, its always true the most viscious win.

TRUMP: Those are two examples Iraq keep the oil we didn't do it, its gone.  The other is Lybia... 

          While Donald Trump's analysis and forecast is honest and more importantly the first time any prominent celebrity has echoed the sinister reports coming out of the middle east he later reminded everyone that in wars long since passed invading armies upon victory got to keep what they conquered.  Keep the oil, he insists throughout the interview.  It isn't obvious whether Trump is criticizing Obama's recklessness or his ineptitude, but unfortunately it seems as though he doesn't mind running government like an empire or at least like a business.  Growth through acquisition.

Al-Qaeda Junta Installed in Libya?

Pepe Escobar 
RT

EDITORS NOTE:  Back in March we mirrored an article posted by Webster Griffen Tarpley on this very issue, that according to the US Army in 2007 Libyan nationals from the east of Tripoli, from cities like Darna and Bengazi, where actually found to be Al-Qaeda operatives and trainees.  This recent report from Libya corroborates Mr. Tarpley's and the US Army's accounts.  The Obama administration and NATO have much explaining to do...

Debt Wars: Why Defense Cuts Are Essential

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

Massive defense cuts are necessary to any honest GOP plan to reduce the debt.  The American people clearly bought "fiscal responsibility" from the Tea Party and its candidates, we are waiting for delivery.

"War is just one more big government program."

- Joseph Sobran

We have never spent more money on American defense than we do now.  Estimates range anywhere from a conservative $739 billion (calculating Department of Defense spending only) to 1.415 trillion dollars, which calculates much of the country's defense mechanism (FBI counterterrorism, Homeland Security, etc.) including interest on their debt - the cost of freedom.

Source: Winslow T. Wheeler, Director Straus Military Reform Project, Center for Defense Information

What are we defending against?  Is it worth the changes in our culture since 9/11?  Our current World Wide War on Terror is aimed ostensibly against yet another ideology, but instead of Communism we are faced with Islamic fundamentalism.  As evidenced by the Cold War, ideas "good" or "bad" are notoriously difficult to combat with big defense budgets and military stratagem.  In fact, it was one American president, his unparalleled naiveté, gullibility, and his "great blunder", which lead to not only Hitler, the rise of the Soviet Union, and WWII, but also to the fractionalized and tumultuous Middle East we know today. 

President Woodrow Wilson (D) is famous
for his campaign to make the "world safe for democracy."
His theories proved otherwise and lead to the death of millions.
Read "Wilson's War" for the break down.

While it is crucial to have a war of ideas delineating the differences between fact and opinion; concepts, beliefs, and ideologies will ultimately prevail or fail on their own.  While there is little doubt there are combatants willing to sacrifice their lives in order to advance their radical ideas, Islam's jihadists, for the foreseeable future, will be incapable of rhetorical, let alone, physical invasion.  To repel invasion and to ensure self determination or what we call sovereignty is the ultimate motive of our armed forces; today their motive is evidently much different.  Moreover, even if the penultimate threat of a nuclear armed Al' Qaeda materialized, the fear of this potential event isn't sufficient to justify the invasions of pre-nuclear states Afghanistan, Iraq, or Yemen.

Lets expand a bit, maybe we are being a little myopic when it comes to the War on Terror as there are of course other threats over the horizon.  Humanitarian crises, like the Libyan Civil War or Clinton's interdiction in Kosovo, justify our intervention on this basis of enforcing a UN mandate or international law, not necessarily the judgement of Congress.  It is argued that if we leave them unresolved and if tyranny is left unchecked it will embolden dictators and despots all over the world to oppress their people.  How this effects the United States' national security is anyones guess, but humanitarianism isn't the only call to arms, there is the cosmos to worry about too!


The Pentagon has been prepping for war in space as early as 2004 and ever since space has been a contentious subject between the US, Russia, and especially China.  Considering our mutual ability to shoot down satellites and with potentially massive stores of energy on the moon future resource wars in the mass expanse above our blue planet would be catastrophic.  


If that weren't enough to worry about, state-sponsored and multinational brigades of hackers have raised much alarm causing the Pentagon to declare the internet "operational domain."  With all of these dire possibilities cropping up virtually everywhere (pardon the pun) it seems as though the Pentagon believes the sky is almost certain to fall without constant intervention.  


There is, however, an alternative way of understanding this paranoid view of the world, our unbelievable spending associated with it, and our legitimate national security challenges.  By recognizing the phenomena of mission creep (after reading the definition, think WWII) and considering the warning given to us by our 34th president, Republican General, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it becomes clear how much we as a nation have departed from our founding principles. 

President Eisenhower's military industrial complex (MIC) has on one hand become the epitome of a self-fulfilling prophet:

“The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior, which makes the original false conception come 'true'. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.” 

             -  Robert K. Merton, from Social Theory and Social Structure 

And on the other hand (as evidenced in the interest paid on the debt incurred by defense organs) the MIC which includes multinational banks and the Federal Reserve, benefit from the Pentagon's "reign of error":

“…a lot of people are getting rich, building careers, and accreting power out of hyping the money flow. While soldiers at the pointy end of the spear and taxpayers are getting hosed, generals are going through the revolving door to big jobs in industry; congressional staffers on defense committees move into high ranking political jobs in the Pentagon, which then gives them a spring board to big jobs with the defense contractors; industry titans move between jobs in industry, the Pentagon, and back to industry; and contractor PAC money flows to congressmen.  The result is a self-sustaining harmonious circular flow of money through the political economy of the MICC -- what we in the Pentagon call a self-licking ice cream cone.”

            - Excerpt from Madison's Nightmare by Chuck Spinney at The Atlantic 

While it has recently been reported that "liberals see chance for big cuts in defense" I find it easy not to hold my breath.  While it is fun to poke holes in neo-conservative dogma, especially when faced with the obvious incongruent belief that while small government is crucial to freedom so is a large military (constituting 19% of federal spending), it is sobering to realize that Big Peace is a bipartisan sham.  

It is a sordid fact that liberals are often times if not more culpable than "conservatives" when it comes to groveling before the military money pit.  My cynicism is corroborated by three recent phenomena: 1) the total disappearance of the anti-war left after the election of Barack Obama 2) that one of the most liberal senators turned rabidly liberal president actually asks for more money from Congress, amidst a deep recession and perilous debt, for special forces to infiltrate over 70 countries around the world and 3) that apologists of Barack Obama, namely Center for American Progress' Lawrence Korb, lie openly to their base that the president "has dumped George W. Bush's overall strategy for preemptive attacks against terrorist states."  Mr. Kob, those aren't love letters Obama is dropping preemptively on Libya.  

John and Lindsey Should Shut Up!

Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com

Some would say John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are some of the most independent Republicans on Capitol Hill.  Many used to call John McCain the "Maverick Republican" for this very reason, the thing is, you don't hear it much these days.  Why do you think that is?  Because it's not cute anymore!  That little catch phrase that was used to market and prop up this barnacle of American politics has lost its meaning due to his political failures and ideological betrayals.  Plus, nobody takes John McCain seriously especially after being soundly defeated twice in the last decade once by fellow Republican George W. Bush and once again by Democrat, Barack Obama.

Today men like John McCain and Lindsey Graham make headlines by annoying us and pissing off the electorate not by expanding the debate or proffering novel ideas.  Both Graham and McCain are military men and currently serve as members of the Senate's Armed Services Committee.  Both epitomize the rife incongruencies festering within the neoconservative wing of the Republican party.  That "Big Tent" Republicans have been talking about over the years is purportedly composed of one thing; the distaste for "big government." The problem with Republicans like Graham and McCain is that for some reason while big government fails in every other area of American life (taxes, healthcare, business, you name it) it miraculously succeeds in the Pentagon!  How do they make this phenomenal leap in logic?

In the clips bellow McCain and Graham tag team the "isolationist" wing of the Republican party and tell the Congress of the United States, the most important and powerful body of American government to "shut up!"  What is more un-American than telling the representatives of the American Republic to shut up?  Moreover, Sen. Graham calls the War Powers Resolution, passed in 1973 by a super majority over the veto of President Richard Nixon, unconstitutional!  Wikipedia provides a quick summary:

"The War Powers Act requires the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30 day withdrawal period, without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war."

How is this unconstitutional, the war powers rest with the Congress! Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, raise and support the armed forces, control war funding, etc. This guy is supposed to be a lawyer!

The War Powers Act, as it is called, gives the President the room he needs to make quick descisions in a time of need to repel an invasion or some imminent threat to the US.  Ghaddafi posed none of this!  Presidents from both parties have ignored this provision and what began as a "Kinetic Action", a laughable euphamism, is now slated to become a full blown ground invasion by October!  The US is now engaged in 4 wars throughout the Middle East and is also posturing to tackle the Syrian conflict.  American interventions are causing a global realignment between Iran, Russia and China; moves which will not benefit our national security position.  We are on the brink of World War 3 and these hawks cry for more blood!

This isolationist rhetoric is preposterous.  Words unfortunately have very specific meanings and in this case McCain and Graham use "isolationist" to achieve what they cannot in truth.  To "isolate" means to cut off, segregate, quarantine, or sequester.  Japan for 200 hundred years isolated themselves from the outside world - no wars, but also no trade.  Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and other properly termed non-interventionist Republicans advocate leaving other countries alone, but engage the entire world in free trade!  This does not sound like isolationism to me.  The best diplomats we have in this country are in business, men and women who build, innovate, and grow our society businessmen who exchange ideas, goods, and services.  These associations made within free trade create interdependency which mitigates the danger of countries with mutual interests from annihilating each other.

John McCain may have invoked (albeit incorrectly) the almighty Ronald Reagan as some kind of hawk, which is another argument entirely, however I shall invoke bigger heavyweights since unconstitutionality is at hand.  In the words of Thomas Jefferson "Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto" and when it comes to giving a sh*t about the future of NATO or the UN for that matter I defer to George Washington who said "I am for free commerce with all nations; political connection with none; and little or no diplomatic establishment."  Perhaps John McCain and Lindsey Graham should crack open a history book instead of cracking skulls in the Middle East, or least using our young men and women to do it for them.

Watch politicians embarrass themselves and our Constitution below:



For McCain to scold anyone these days is like when your grandfather interrupted an argument between you and your dad - its annoying and both of you end up telling him to leave.

Ex CIA Officer Outlines Libya Fraud on CNN

The American Dream
April 4, 2011

Every once in a while, establishment control of the mainstream media cracks for a moment.  In an effort to achieve higher ratings, mainstream news programs will invite guests on that promise to be “interesting”, but then they will say something that is not part of the script and the entire system will go into a state of chaos for a moment. One example of this happened recently when two CNN “infobabes” interviewed former CIA officer Michael Scheuer about the situation on the ground in Libya. They asked Scheuer some questions regarding the role of the CIA in Libya, but the interview rapidly moved in some directions that the “infobabes” were not anticipating.  Instead of sticking to the “Republican” or the “Democrat” script, Scheuer ripped both parties and he detailed many of the reasons why we should have never gone into Libya at all.

The “infobabes” grew increasingly uncomfortable as Scheuer described how large numbers of the resistance fighters in Libya have fought against U.S. troops in the Balkans, in Afghanistan and in Iraq.  They did not seem pleased at all when Scheuer declared that the civil war in Libya is “none of our business” and that to the rest of the world this conflict looks like “Americans killing Muslims for oil” all over again.

The funniest part of the interview was when Scheuer accused one of the “infobabes” of “carrying the water for Mr. Obama”.  After that statement, the female anchor that Scheuer was addressing was visibly flustered and quickly went to a commercial.

Video of this CNN interview with Michael Scheuer is posted below.  This is a video that should be shared with everyone you know….

Wasn’t that hilarious?

When a big time establishment news network such as CNN goes “off script” it can be a beautiful thing to watch.

Of course Scheuer was exactly right.  We never should have gotten involved in the civil war in Libya.  It was none of our business.  When the rebels picked up arms and started shooting at government forces, they should not have been surprised when Gadhafi’s forces started shooting back.

Over the past few decades, there have been some very real genocides happening all over Africa, but the U.S. never seemed to care about any of those.

But now the mainstream media has been trying really hard to spin the civil war in Libya into a “great humanitarian crisis”.

Well, that might fool some of the American people, but as Scheuer aptly pointed out, the rest of the world sees this as just another U.S. war in the Middle East for oil (and banking).

But instead of getting a balanced view of the war in Libya, most of the time the corporate media has focused on an endless parade of establishment Republicans and establishment Democrats that fully endorse the war.  Of course the Republicans all try to score some political points by questioning how Obama is going about doing things, but in the end most Republicans and most Democrats are fully on board with what is going on in Libya.

Nearly everyone in the mainstream media seems to be fully on board with this war as well.

Why?

Well, because virtually all of the major media outlets are owned by the establishment, and the establishment wants this war.

Have you ever noticed that the news seems to have the same “flavor” no matter what channel you turn to?

There is a very good reason for that.

In an article that I previously authoried entitled “Who Owns The Media?“, I explained that six incredibly dominant corporations control most of the news that we see today….

Back in 1983, approximately 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the United States.  Today, ownership of the news media has been concentrated in the hands of just six incredibly powerful media corporations.  These corporate behemoths control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day.  They own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites. Sadly, most Americans don’t even stop to think about who is feeding them the endless hours of news and entertainment that they constantly ingest.  Most Americans don’t really seem to care about who owns the media.  But they should.  The truth is that each of us is deeply influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded into our heads by the mainstream media.  The average American watches 153 hours of television a month.  In fact, most Americans begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long without watching or listening to something.  Sadly, most Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and entertainment and the ownership of all that news and entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands each year.  The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal.  Together, the “big six” absolutely dominate news and entertainment in the United States.

Read the full article posted at End of the American Dream.

The CIA's Libya Rebels

The Same Terrorists who Killed US, NATO Troops in Iraq

Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
TARPLEY.net
March 24, 2011

Washington DC, March 24, 2011 — The current military attack on Libya has been motivated by UN Security Council resolution 1973 with the need to protect civilians. Statements by President Obama, British Prime Minister Cameron, French President Sarkozy, and other leaders have stressed the humanitarian nature of the intervention, which is said to aim at preventing a massacre of pro-democracy forces and human rights advocates by the Qaddafi regime.

But at the same time, many commentators have voiced anxiety because of the mystery which surrounds the anti-Qaddafi transitional government which emerged at the beginning of March in the city of Benghazi, located in the Cyrenaica district of north-eastern Libya. This government has already been recognized by France and Portugal as the sole legitimate representative of the Libyan people. The rebel council seems to be composed of just over 30 delegates, many of whom are enveloped in obscurity. In addition, the names of more than a dozen members of the rebel council are being kept secret, allegedly to protect them from the vengeance of Qaddafi. But there may be other reasons for the anonymity of these figures. Despite much uncertainty, the United Nations and its several key NATO countries, including the United States, have rushed forward to assist the armed forces of this rebel regime with air strikes, leading to the loss of one or two coalition aircraft and the prospect of heavier losses to come, especially if there should be an invasion. It is high time that American and European publics learned something more about this rebel regime which is supposed to represent a democratic and humanitarian alternative to Gaddafi.

The rebels are clearly not civilians, but an armed force. What kind of an armed force?

Since many of the rebel leaders are so difficult to research from afar, and since a sociological profile of the rebels cannot be done on the ground in the midst of warfare, perhaps the typical methods of social history can be called on for help. Is there a way for us to gain deeper insight into the climate of opinion which prevails in such northeastern Libyan cities as Benghazi, Tobruk, and Darnah, the main population centers of the rebellion?

West Point study reveals the nationalities of foreign fighters

captured in Iraq. Per capita, Libya leads the way, eastern 

Libya, Benghazi and Darnah to be more precise.

It turns out that there is, in the form of a December 2007 West Point study examining the background of foreign guerrilla fighters — jihadis or mujahedin, including suicide bombers — crossing the Syrian border into Iraq during the 2006-2007 timeframe, under the auspices of the international terrorist organization Al Qaeda. This study is based on a mass of about 600 Al Qaeda personnel files which were captured by US forces in the fall of 2007, and analyzed at West Point using a methodology which we will discuss after having presented the main findings. The resulting study¹ permits us to make important findings about the mentality and belief structures of the northeastern Libyan population that is furnishing the basis for the rebellion, permitting important conclusions about the political nature of the anti-Qaddafi revolt in these areas.

Read the rest of Dr. Tarpley's article at Tarpley.net

BIDEN: Readmitted To Hospital for Chronic Foot In Mouth Disease!

With unparalleled conviction Sen. Biden gives us a lesson in constitutional government, but will he abide by those principles he so eloquently and succinctly espoused in 2007?  The things that come out of this guy's mouth over the years are priceless!  Alas, this is indicative of our politicians since the dawn of government; say one thing and do another, Republican or Democrat it is all a sham.  Obama's entry into Libya, at the behest of the UN no doubt, is a doubly impeachable offense.  March 2011 will go down in infamy; the year our Republic was unquestionably commandeered by world government!  Ladies and gentlemen we are no longer a sovereign state.  


Meanwhile...


America watches March Madness, the Obama's are on vacation, and Charlie Sheen implodes to success.