The Dark Side of America

The Dark Side of America
02 February, 2013 – By Timothy V. Gatto

Saudi ArabiaI’ve been staying out of most world events as of late, preferring to watch things unfold silently as there are so many that seem to have all of the answers. I don’t claim to have any answers, but I sure do have a lot of questions. There is a good chance that many of you have the same questions that I have. Sometimes, the questions are more important than the answers. In this 21st Century, there are so many of our leaders that will give us the answers to any questions we ask, they just aren’t the right answers. In fact, they lie continuously.

One question I have is why do we support a collection of fundamentalist Islamic States like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE with their Wahhabi and Salafi militant Muslim sects? According to the “official” 9/11 explanation, all of the hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and were members of the extremist Wahhabi Muslim sect. Just like the majority of al-Qaeda.

In the recent fighting in Syria, the so-called “rebels” are made up of mostly non-Syrian Salafi and Wahhabi extremists. They also have support from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE and other nations that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council with help from Turkey, United Kingdom, Israel and France. Why put extremists in a country that was ruled by a moderate Alawite?

The so-called civil war in Mali is presumably being caused by forces loyal to al-Qaeda; in fact, they gave it the name al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM). French forces have responded to this “threat” by sending in 3,500 ground troops courtesy of the United States Military Airlift Command. Mali, which used to be a French Colony, has always had trouble with the Tuareg tribe in the north of that country. Former Libyan leader Mohamar Gadhafi employed many of these people in his army. When we engineered the “Libyan Spring” the Tuareg’s fled the country because they lost their employment and because “freedom fighters” were executing anyone of color at the time. They left with storehouses of arms and ammunition, a perfect beginning to finally wrest Northern Mali away from the rest of the country, something they have been trying to do for hundreds of years. Why is this an American interest? Why are we involved transporting French troops? Who gave authorization for our military to use our tax dollars to transport these French troops?

We saw what the blow-back led to in Libya. Not only was our Envoy and three other Americans killed and our compound burned out, but the country is separated into different fiefdoms with various strongholds led by different sects. Who is telling us the truth about what is going on over there? From the reports I’m reading about the insurrection in Mali from Global Research and others, this is an imperialist expansion for resources by the French.

The rest of Africa is just as perplexing. We have American military officers embedded with almost every army in every country on the continent. The continent is rich in mineral and metal deposits as well as oil and natural gas. Didn’t we learn from the debacle in Iraq that we just can’t go in and grab resources? Wouldn’t it have been cheaper to buy the oil?

Speaking of Iraq, American’s still don’t understand that this was an illegal and immoral war. John “Bomb Bomb Iran” McCain grilled Chuck Hagel about his opposition to the surge. Hagel told them it resulted in needless American deaths. I’m surprised he didn’t bring up the fact that at about the same time the surge was “working”, the Sunni’s started getting paid not to fight the Americans. Maybe it was just a coincidence (if you believe in coincidences). It’s really amazing that so many people in the U.S. never read the Downing Street Memo or realize that Bush and company planned on invading Iraq way before 9/11. Ignorance is bliss, so they say. Ignorance is frustrating, especially when it’s willful ignorance or should I say feigned ignorance.

There are a lot of supposedly ignorant Americans. Either they are ignorant or they just don’t have the backbone or the wherewithal to question authority in any shape or manner anymore. Seems to me that one of the greatest generations this nation ever witnessed was the one that took to the streets and protested the senseless death and carnage we rained down on Southeast Asia. While many in that generation forgot the effectiveness of grassroots protests and organization, the U.S. Government never forgot the lessons of that era. It dawned on them much too late in that war that the media was the message. Since then, they have incrementally gained total control of the American media.

The people in politics and the media like to call it “spin”. That’s another way to say propaganda without offending anyone’s sensibilities. They call torture “enhanced interrogation”. They call those who fight against Western domination and imperialism “insurgents”. When they resort to violence against out interests they are called “terrorists”. When they act on our behalf they are called “freedom fighters”. The government is very good at what they do.

Now that France has claimed victory in Mali, what will they do next? Will they keep a contingent of French Forces in that country to keep the peace? Will French firms move in and exploit the mineral and petroleum reserves there? What do you think?

Our peace-loving ally Israel reportedly bombed a Syrian facility outside of Damascus Wednesday. It was ostensibly done to stop Syria from transferring biological or nerve agent munitions to Hezbollah. With Syria fighting for its very survival, why would they start shipping their weapons out of the country? Does that make any sense? Yet, that was the reason given by the Israeli’s for the attack. They are also reportedly deathly afraid that these weapons will fall into the jihadist’s rebels hands.

“Israel has publicly warned that it would take military action to prevent the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons falling into the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon or “global jihadists” fighting inside Syria. Israeli military intelligence is said to be monitoring the area round the clock via satellite for possible convoys carrying weapons.” Guardian 30 Jan 2013

So why was the attack described as an attack on a convoy by the media in the U.S.? This situation makes Russia nervous about the Israeli attack.

“If this information is confirmed, then we are dealing with unprovoked attacks on targets on the territory of a sovereign country, which blatantly violates the UN charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motives to justify it,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday.’ Guardian 31 Jan 2013

Meanwhile, Israel has suffered a defeat in the UN where a United Nations Commission has declared that the settlements in the West Bank are illegal and that the approximately 500,000 Jewish settlers should leave or face possible war crimes charges. Where was the coverage of that little tidbit in the U.S. Press? …more