BIDEN DELIVERS MESSAGE TO TURKEY ~ IT'S NOT PERSONAL , IT'S STRICTLY BUSINESS

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"Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand"

 

It was a scene straight out of the Godfather as US Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Turkey to announce that we would directly support NATO member Turkey's incursion into northern Syria, while in July Turkey's President Erdoğan barely survived a military coup, which is widely believed to have enjoyed US support. Biden’s reversal was at the same time a double-cross of the Kurdish forces which the US had promoted as its proxies in the Syria conflict. This brings to mind a famous scene in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, where Michael reassures his crime family before assassinating a police captain ~ “It's not personal, it's strictly business.” : Allen L Roland, PhD

 

 “A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security”
~ Henry Kissinger

 

In a classic example of American Foreign policy, whose moral integrity greatly resembles a Kissinger inspired American crime family ~ we literally threw Turkey's president Erdoğan under the bus with a thinly disguised US supported coup and then rapidly shifted gears once the coup obviously failed.  However, the failed coup was seemingly supported by the CIA, with the failure also being coordinated with President Erdogan ~ thus making it an intelligence op which was meant to fail and mislead public opinion which it most certainly did. Of course, the real objective is Iran ~ in that regard ~ as Michel Chossudovsky states ~ US military policy consists of creating conditions  for America’s staunchest allies (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel) to confront Iran, and act indirectly on behalf of US interests and “do the job for us”.

 

WSWS aptly describes the Godfather analogy on August 27th ~

"The Godfather is, indeed, an appropriate reference point for a discussion of the planning and execution of US foreign policy. Its global operations are directed by a cabal of intelligence agents, acting in the interests of the financial and corporate elite, whose operations have an essentially conspiratorial and criminal character. Outside of and beyond any democratically controlled decision-making, these forces overturn governments and start wars to further the sordid commercial and geo-political aims of American imperialism" as Biden essentially told Erdoğan" "don't take our recent actions personally, it's strictly Business".

 

See Godfather scene ~ YouTube video / 4 minutes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by5YzWJ9W4U

 

Which brings us to our business which is essentially War, Drone assassinations, Regime change and Weapon sales as part of an out-of-control Military/Industrial/Congressional complex ~ all operating under the cloak of American exceptionalism.



WSWS elaborates; "Thirteen years after the invasion of Iraq, which resulted in the deaths of at least a million people, some 4.4 million Iraqis are internally displaced, with over a quarter million forced to flee the country. Questions of foreign policy are not decided, much less deliberated, within the framework of elections. Nowhere in the 2016 presidential race is there a serious debate, for instance, on the character of the US alliance with Turkey or the consequences of launching a de facto NATO invasion of Syria. Congress holds no hearings or votes. It neither seeks nor desires to play a serious role."

The only anti-war peace candidate still standing is Jill Stein who most likely will be denied a place at the Presidential debates and is now marginalized to a lone voice in the impending political darkness. Note in 1988, Democrats and Republicans teamed up to create a corporation called the Commission on Presidential Debates. They set out to deceive Americans by using an official-sounding word like “commission” in their name. The League of Women Voters immediately withdrew its sponsorship of the presidential debates because the demands of the establishment parties would ~ in its own words ~ “perpetrate a fraud on the American voter."

 We are obviously almost beyond the moral point of no return as WSWS explains; "The launching of a NATO invasion of the Syrian war zone brings ever closer a direct clash with nuclear-armed Russia, which is militarily supporting the Damascus regime ~ Nobody should believe that the criminal cabal that runs US foreign policy will proceed with any more deliberation or caution in launching a war whose body count will be in the hundreds of millions, if not billions, than it does in plotting wars in which “mere” millions of lives are squandered."    See WSWS article ~ http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/08/27/pers-a27.html

 

Department Homeland Security Police Tank with militarized police

 

Our political leaders are all apparently committed to war, especially Hillary Clinton, and we as a nation have become a total security police state immersed in apathy and fear as the 15th anniversary of 9/11 draws near.

 

This thinly disguised New World Order committed to Military might was obvious in Hillary's recent speech to the American Legion convention last Wednesday as reported by WSWS ~  " Hillary Clinton’s speech to the American Legion convention Wednesday was a full-throated declaration of the right and responsibility of the United States to control the world by military force. Clinton pledged to keep the US the dominant global military power, to uphold the military alliances through which US imperialism controls Europe and the Far East, and to wage war unilaterally if deemed necessary, regardless of world opinion"   See article http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/09/02/pers-s02.html

 

Gordon Duff,  senior editor Veterans Today sums it up our current state of national apathy where evil has thrust its eager hand ~  "America is much more than a police state and far more a “total surveillance state” than even the harshest critics imagine."

 

Duff elaborates;  "What we are saying is this, a monstrosity beyond imagination is there already, waiting to be triggered, one beyond party politics, beyond the concerns of religion or ethnicity.

During seven years of the Obama presidency, something happened that is not being discussed, not even by Obama’s political enemies. Bush era clamp downs on individual freedom after 9/11 have been not only carried forward, but have been pushed on to levels unimagined.

That this was done under a liberal democratic president is unthinkable. Even more unthinkable, however is that Obama’s political enemies not only don’t think he went far enough, they are attacking Donald Trump as well for being, and this is the truth of it, “weak on tyranny and dictatorship.”

See VT article ~ http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/08/31/neo-us-while-no-one-was-looking/

 

Evil has indeed slipped its hand into our protective glove of national apathy ~ for the criminal cabal that controls US foreign policy and its wars cannot be stopped until we, the people, realize that this strictly criminal business as usual approach has become deeply personal; that the war machine no longer serves us, and that peace begins with each one of us ~ much like my first anti-war 1970 bumper sticker proudly proclaimed ~  PEACE BEGINS WITH ME.

 

“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.”  ~ Mahatma Gandhi

 

 

Allen L Roland, PhD

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2016/09/biden-dellivers-message-to-turkey-its.html

 


Heart centered spiritual consultant and advisor Allen L Roland can be contacted at allen@allenroland.com Allen is also a lecturer and writer who shares a weekly political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com. He is also featured columnist on Veterans Today and is a featured guest on many radio and Television programs

BLACK OPS / THE EMPIRE'S DARK SIDE

America's clandestine Black Operations (Black Ops) is now fully operational in 105 countries. After more than 10 years of American secret wars, night raids, detentions and assassinations, as well as massive surveillance and billions of wasted dollars ~ the blow back has been 36 new terror groups as well as one that was born during the illegal American invasion of Iraq, nurtured in an Iraqi Prison camp and is now known as the Islamic state of Iraq (ISIS) which just murdered in cold blood a Japanese reporter and Jordanian pilot and controls a huge swath of the Middle East and all under the nose of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC): Allen L Roland, Ph.D

 It’s the golden age of Black Ops and it shows no signs of slowing down. American Special Operations Forces are a vivid picture of a dark world of special operations that is being built right before our eyes but, like a stealth bomber, is seldom seen or actually understood by most Americans.

 

A black operation or black op is a covert operation by a government, a government agency, or a military organization. This can include activities by private companies or groups. Key features of a black operation are that it is clandestine, it has negative overtones, and it is not attributable to the organization carrying it out. The main difference between a black operation and one that is merely clandestine is that a black operation involves a significant degree of deception, to conceal who is behind it or to make it appear that some other entity is responsible such as "false flag" operations.

 Nick Turse, explains this massive secret global war in Truthout ;

 "During the fiscal year that ended on September 30, 2014, U.S. Special Operations forces (SOF) deployed to 133 countries ~ roughly 70% of the nations on the planet ~ according to Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bockholt, a public affairs officer with U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM).  This capped a three-year span in which the country’s most elite forces were active in more than 150 different countries around the world, conducting missions ranging from kill/capture night raids to training exercises.  And this year could be a record-breaker.  Only a day before the failed raid that ended Luke Somers life ~ just 66 days into fiscal 2015 ~ America’s most elite troops had already set foot in 105 nations, approximately 80% of 2014’s total….. “The command is at its absolute zenith.  And it is indeed a golden age for special operations.”  Those were the words of Army General Joseph Votel III, a West Point graduate and Army Ranger, as he assumed command of SOCOM last August….. Votel now sits atop one of the major success stories of a post-9/11 military that has been mired in winless wars, intervention blowback, rampant criminal activity, repeated leaks of embarrassing secrets, and all manner of shocking scandals…..  "We need to continue to synchronize the deployment of SOF throughout the globe,” says Votel.“We all need to be synched up, coordinated, and prepared throughout the command.”….  Left out of sync are the American people who have consistently been kept in the dark about what America’s special operators are doing and where they’re doing it, not to mention the checkered results of, and blowback from, what they’ve done. ."  See Article ~

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28633-the-golden-age-of-black-ops-special-ops-missions-already-in-105-countries-in-2015

 In our fear driven world, Black Ops is a perfect reflection of the Empire's dark side except now the blowback is becoming too glaringly obvious to ignore ~ for example the recent hostage beheading of the courageous and caring Japanese reporter Kenji Goto and the inhuman burning alive of hostage Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh  .

 

You can see where this is all leading to as Jordan announces it will execute two ISIS prisoners within hours of the execution of Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh who was burned alive while locked in a cage. 

Remember Shock and Awe and Bush's dubious Mission Accomplished during our illegal attack and destruction of Iraq in 2003 and now 12 years later we are in shock and awe of the pure brutality of their response to a decade of economic rape and destruction. It's called blowback and it's not going away any time soon.

 

The Empire is crumbling, Black Ops has revealed the Empire's dark side and absence of moral bearings while horrific blowback has revealed the tragic moral consequences of our continued illegal and immoral worldwide special operations.

 

“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

 

Allen L Roland, Ph.D
http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2015/02/black-ops-empires-dark-side.html

 

Heart centered spiritual consultant and advisor Allen L Roland can be contacted at  allen@allenroland.com . Allen is also a lecturer and writer who shares a weekly political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com. He is also a featured columnist on Veterans Today and  guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

 

THE MORAL COST OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM

Space shuttle Challenger unnecessarily blows up shortly after liftoff on January 26, 1986

 

American exceptionalism becomes unforgivable when human beings become expendable in order to save costs, make deadlines or protect image and nowhere is that more evident than in the disaster of Space shuttle Challenger on January 26, 1987 along with its seven crew members ~ and all because of a faulty booster O ring seal which NASA managers ignored in order to stick to their timetable. Unfortunately, this was later the same story for the Space shuttle Columbia disaster, with its seven crewmembers, on February 1, 2003 when NASA managers refused to examine the left wing before reentry concluding that the crew could not have fixed the problem if the damage was confirmed: Allen L Roland

 

Unfortunately, this is the shocking sad truth of much of the Bush/Obama version of American "Exceptionalism" ~ any means to the end regardless of the cost, both humanly and morally. It certainly applies to corporate greed and unjust wars, it applies to a deeply unpopular and corporate controlled congress, it applies to misguided government policy, both domestically and foreign ~ and it also applies to many agencies within the government, including NSA and NASA. It's a top down mindset and it infects all of us ~ think GM's recent deadly avoidance decision with faulty starter ignition switches which cost at least 13 American lives.

 

The late Charley Reese summed it up correctly ~ "Congress  - seems to never know what the CIA and other intelligence agencies are doing. Like the Romans, they no longer talk of the republic or liberty. And like the Romans, the American people, or most of them anyway, don't seem to care. ... Like the Romans, we no longer have a citizen army but professional legions, and whether they wear jackboots or not, some federal officers seem to regard Americans with about the same compassion as the Praetorian Guard had for the plebes. 

 

As in Rome, the air is full of suspicion, intrigues and conspiracies, real or imagined, and the air reeks of greed and opportunism. As those on the Tiber, the rulers on the Potomac have grown suspicious of the people, don't trust them and, in some cases fear them. And, as in Rome, they grovel in luxury while taking 40 cents on the dollar out of the sweat of working people to pay for corn and circuses to keep the mob satisfied." - -- Charley Reese - (1937-2013) American syndicated columnist

 

Now take a few minutes and watch the cost of this arrogance and hubris as seen in our Space program and please remember ~ we are paying for this ongoing major moral malfunction of American exceptionalism.

 

20 minute video Documentary ~ Major Malfunction: Revisiting Challenger / and Columbia
http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000002913002/major-malfunction-revisiting-challenger.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_fs_20140602&nl=video&nlid=65700837

 

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget. " - Arundhati Roy

 

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-moral-cost-of-american.html

 

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and heart centered spiritual counselor Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private Skype consultations at allen@allenroland.com

 

Allen L Roland is also a lecturer and shares a weekly political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

 

 

OBAMA HYPOCRISY BUSTED BY HEDGES, MASRI AND ROLAND

President Obama took to the airwaves Tuesday night with a major televised address regarding his plans for Syria but his hypocrisy was laid bare by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges  and human rights activist, environmental scientist Rania Masri on Real News Network while Navy aviator Veteran and a Veterans Today featured columnist Allen L Roland offered his equally blunt post speech assessment of Obama's hypocritical performance on Press TV.

A key paragraph from President Obama's speech on Tuesday night regarding Syria brought a similar impassioned response from all three of these TV interviewees and bears repeating ~ " Terrible things happen across the globe, and it is beyond our means to right every wrong. But when with modest effort and risk we can stop children from being gassed to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That's what makes America different. That's what makes us exceptional. With humility, but with resolve, let us never lose sight of that essential truth."

Here's some Real News response excerpts as well as the video link from a transcript of the Hedges and Masri interview as moderated by Jaisal Noor, TRNN producer. That's followed by my interview link with Press TV just after Obama's speech.

NOOR: So, Rania, let's start with you. As an activist that's been speaking out against this possible intervention, against U.S. involvement in Syria, what's your response to this speech?

MASRI: It really was what we had expected. I mean, those of us who've been spending time at the Hill and following the news, President Obama's speech was what we had expected. The postponement (of the attack) was expected. And the reason that he postponed it was not only because the Russians provided him with a really strong political way out, a political possibility for chemical weapons deterrence in Syria, but also because he simply didn't have the votes in Congress. Were this to go to the House, it would have failed. It might even have failed in the Senate."

NOOR: And, Chris, I want to pose that question to you. It seems like within the past few weeks and days, this war has become or this possible intervention in Syria has become increasingly unpopular. At least that's how it's been reported in the press. What's your response to his speech and the fact also that he had to delay this vote in Congress?

HEDGES: " Well, Rania is right. He didn't have the votes, so he had no choice. But I think this is really symptomatic of an exhaustion on the part of the American public after 12 years of war, 12 years in Afghanistan, ten years in Iraq. They have seen this scenario before. The clips of atrocities, the appealing to American exceptionalism, the high-blown rhetoric of patriotism. Kerry even trotted out once again World War II, calling this the Munich moment and referring to the graves, Normandy. And none of it worked. It didn't work because at this point people have been lied to so many times. The excuses and propaganda that is pushed forth and has been pushed forth year after year just fall flat. It doesn't work anymore. And I think people understand that when you drop Tomahawk missiles, each Tomahawk missile carries a 1,000-pound iron fragmentation bomb or 166 cluster bombs. And they're talking about dropping hundreds of them…. And let's not forget that internally, we are, like all dying empires, being hollowed out from the inside in terms of infrastructure. I live near Philly, I live in Princeton. The school system is shattered with closings and layoffs. Libraries are being shuttered. Head Start is being cut back. Unemployment benefits are not being extended. You know, we've reached a point of both physical and emotional exhaustion …  And I think what we're really watching is a kind of revulsion at this whole (war)process. And while it may be naïve ~ and I think Rania is correct in saying that it probably is ~ at the same time, it's very, very real. And I think Obama is going to have a very tough time pushing this through, and I think we've really reached a kind of endpoint where we just had enough."

NOOR: And, Rania, I wanted to ask you, as someone who's been speaking out against this, what do you think ~ and as someone who's from the region, what do you think the response will be in the Middle East to the Obama speech? And something you've pointed out is that many Syrians working with the U.S. or working with Saudi Arabia have been proponents of the strike. What's your response?

MASRI: " …. Now, for myself as an Arab American from the region, as somebody who's been working on peace and social justice issues both here in the United States and in Lebanon, I have to say that although President Obama's final conclusion was not surprising, his prelude to it was deeply, deeply offensive, deeply unethical, and a historic for him to sit there and to go on at length about these images of the children that have been gassed ~ and how images of children that have been gassed have moved him to action was just repulsive, because the level of hypocrisy in that statement cannot be tolerated ~ the fact that it is the United States government also under his leadership that have funded and supported the Israeli use of white phosphorus against Palestinians in Gaza, the fact that it is the U.S. government that has themselves directly used white phosphorus against the Iraqis in Fallujah. And it is the toxic legacy of the use of white phosphorus in Iraq that is actually greater than the toxic legacy of both the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as report that was published several years ago proved… And I think it's really critical that we poke holes in this. And there is an understanding of amongst a significant segment of the American public that recognizes the lack of credibility the United States has in complaining about chemical weapons when we have not only used chemical weapons, but we're the only country to have used nuclear weapons twice against civilian communities.

But nevertheless, there is this desire that is perpetuated by the mainstream media and accepted by too many Americans that we are exceptional in our morality and in our legitimacy and in our desire to do good. And, unfortunately, the words of Martin Luther King still hold true today. The United States does remain the greatest purveyor of violence in the world."

But Masri was not done with her scathing critique ~ "As for the quotes that you highlighted from President Obama, again, I mean, they're ahistoric. They're extraordinarily naive. And I long for the day when the vast majority of Americans will recognize the fallacies in those statements. We can only be exceptional as a country if we truly live according to the values of our constitution, all our constitution, inclusive of the amendments, of course, and recognize that exceptionalism can only be obtained through morality, through legality, through legitimacy, and not through hypocrisy and not through violence…. So in no way, shape, or form have we been a global anchor for security. I long for the day when we may be become that. But I believe we will only become that if, again, we remember the words of Martin Luther King, who recognized that this country continues to suffer from the vices of militarism, materialism, and racism."

Full video Real news interview of Hedges and Masri  ~ must see 18 minutes ~

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10703

And here's my five minute late hour interview with Press TV, approximately one hour after Obama's speech, and like Hedges and Masri ~ I don't mince words regarding my feelings about Obama's words particularly on the eve of the hypocrisy surrounding the 12th anniversary of the fictitious 9/11 official story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv2wbvvvMng

"The idea of democracy has been stripped of its moral imperatives and has come to denote hollowness and hypocrisy."
Paul Wellstone

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2013/09/obama-hypocrisy-busted-by-hedges-masri.html

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and transformational counselor Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private Skype consultations allen@allenroland.com

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net