Environment

NOAA predicted a warmer than normal winter. They've been crazy wrong so far.

Snow falls in the Sahara for the second year in a row.

Electric vehicle sales are up, but not as much as Ford pickups.

War

War on terror includes 76 countries including most of Africa.

War is the health of the state. Warfare expands socialism so it's incompatible with an America First policy.

"Lurking not far below the surface of the "America First" slogan was the ghost of Senator Robert Taft’s profoundly correct understanding that free enterprise prosperity, minimal government and maximum personal liberty were incompatible with a permanent, fiscally debilitating Warfare State leviathan designed to function as the world’s boots-&-suits-on-the-ground hegemon."

Yes.

War

Interactive map shows all wars in progress.

US grows military presence in Africa.

"If you’re a reader of TomDispatch, then you know something of real importance about this country that most Americans don’t. As an imperial power, there’s never been anything like the United States when it comes to garrisoning this planet. By comparison, the Romans and imperial Chinese were pikers; the Soviet Union in its prime was the poorest of runners-up; even the British, at the moment when the sun theoretically never set on their empire, didn’t compare. The U.S. has hundreds of military bases ranging in size from small American towns to tiny outposts across the planet, and yet you could spend weeks, months, years paying careful attention to the media here and still have no idea that this was so. Though we garrison the globe in a historically unprecedented way, that fact is not part of any discussion or debate in this country; Congress doesn’t hold hearings on global basing policy; reporters aren’t sent out to cover the subject; and presidents never mention it in speeches to the nation. Clearly, nothing is to be made of it."

Wow.

Trump exaggerates the threat from North Korea.

War

The truth about ISIS.

"As a former soldier and war correspondent who has covered 14 conflicts, I look at all the media hoopla over tightening siege of Mosul, Iraq and shake my head. This western-organized “liberation” of Mosul is one of the bigger pieces of political-military theater that I’ve seen.
Islamic State(IS), the defender of Mosul, is a paper tiger, blown out of all proportion by western media.  IS is, as this  writer has been saying for years, an armed mob made up of 20-something malcontents, religious fanatics, and modern-day anarchists.  At its top is a cadre of former Iraqi Army officers with military experience.
These former officers of Saddam Hussain are bent on revenge for the US destruction of their nation and the lynching of its late leader. But IS rank and file has no military training, little discipline, degraded communications, and ragged logistics."

But they are great at media.

As Iraqi forces finally get around to taking Mosul from ISIS, casualties soar over 500.

American fighter killed in Iraq.

NASA is a cover for the military.

War wiping out gorillas in Congo.

Five unethical US military experiments I hadn't heard of.

Environment

Record wheat harvest during hottest year ever.

Global warming profiteers call for more tax money.

Zika spraying wiping out bees.

Governments have failed to preserve endangered species so east African species are going extinct.

War

Don't rethink NATO. Withdraw from it.

US illegally bombs Libya again.

US failures in Africa.

War

Israel cuts water supplies into Palestinian territory. This is another problem with socialist water.

General lies to Congress about African missions.

War

US blames Assad, Maliki and Saddam Hussein for the rise of ISIS.

Former Syrian ambassador admits the moderates he supported were really allies of ISIS and al Qaeda.

This is the real reason for war.

"The U.S. government was nice enough to gift our loyal friends the Afghans $17 billion of your tax money, and, in the true spirit of giving, asked nothing in return for itself.
What that means in actual dollars and nonsense is that the U.S. government wasted $17 billion in taxpayer money in Afghanistan on various projects that never made it off the ground or were doomed to fail because of incompetence or lack of maintenance, according to a new report."

It wasn't wasted. I went to profiteering.

Hillary's west African legacy.

War

African airstrip typifies US way of war for the near future.

Politics

Like many have warned for decades, deaths have surpassed births in much of Europe.

It's OK that the terrorists Hillary backed in Libya killed four Americans in an attack on the Benghazi consulate, but it could be trouble for her if revealed they committed genocide against black Africans.

War

CIA and Pentagon admit theyre no good at human spying.

"The unit would most likely be based in or near Irbil, a Kurdish region and therefore a safe destination for U.S. forces. It will likely work together with Kurdish militiamen though it will also be operating unilaterally without coordination with the Iraqi military intelligence services, considered to be both unreliable and possibly even subversive due to reported penetration by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
This development means that American soldiers will be actively engaged in combat operations in both Iraq and Syria without the consent of any national government. It raises some significant legal issues and perhaps even threatens the security of other U.S. troops that are advising the Iraqi Army, particularly if there is an incident in which civilians are killed."

Rulers don't care. They benefit when bad things happen.

"There have been reports that some of the 300 advisers sent to Iraq in June 2014, which was followed by an additional 50 special ops soldiers in December ordered to “advise, train and assist,” have already been exceeding their mandates by directly participating in fighting between local militiamen and ISIS. This has been denied by the Pentagon even though Kurdish officers have confirmed their presence with cell phone photos. "

Of course. These guys won't sit on their guns while their team is in a firefight. Rulers know this.

"Jeff Stein, a well-informed former military intelligence officer writing for Newsweek, believes that “American spies are going to be back in action in a big way against the Islamic State…”"

About time. I've said over and over the war on terror is an intelligence war, kind of like the Cold War.

"Human agent spying, the second oldest profession if not the first, has oddly been eschewed by many in the federal intelligence community’s war against terrorist groups because of its alleged expense. In reality, the costs of HUMINT are far lower than technical collection, which requires a large initial outlay for development and construction of equipment combined with an expensive infrastructure to operate. Indeed, the cutback in the spy culture at CIA came about because running drones and surveillance satellites was taking so much out of the budget. It was part of a shift in priorities that also brought a rise in the power of Agency paramilitaries, recently supplanting the senior operations officer managers in the clandestine services division that supervises spies."

Great.

Warmongers promote terrorism.

"Graham prefers "allies," like the Saudis and Gulf Arabs.
But both have bailed out of the air war on ISIS, and sent troops and bombers instead to attack the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Result: The Houthis have been in retreat and al-Qaida and ISIS are moving into the vacated territory.
Another Mideast base camp for terrorists is being created – by us."

Lovely.

The US is waging drone and special op war from new bases in Africa.

314 killed in Iraq.

US kills Iraq forces near Fallujah in friendly fire incident.

ISIS attacks are intended to draw the US and allies into a wider war.

Documents show CIA agent lobbying to create a Sunni terrorist state in Syria and Iraq, i.e. ISIS.

Drone pilots rebel because drone attacks inspire terrorists.

War

Obama sends more troops to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria, escalating the war again. It won't work. It has never worked. This is another step to an full invasion.

Detailed analysis supports Russian claim Turks ambushed its fighters.

Russia sends long range air defense missiles to shoot down Turkish planes that threaten Russian planes. Note they didn't deploy those until Turkey struck.

Tangled threads of US lies about war in Syria and against ISIS are unraveling.

Linking the Paris attacks and terrorism in Africa to toppling Qaddafi.

Giant armies don't prevent war. They wage war, making us less secure.

War

Downed Russian pilot says Turks broadcast no warning before shooting down his plane.

Russian jet posed no threat to Turkey.

Putin calls Turkey and allies accomplices of terrorists, and he's right.

The mainstream media discovers the US created ISIS to take over eastern Syria and western Iraq.

"A revealing light on how we got here has now been shone by a recently declassified secret US intelligence report, written in August 2012, which uncannily predicts – and effectively welcomes – the prospect of a “Salafist principality” in eastern Syria and an al-Qaida-controlled Islamic state in Syria and Iraq. In stark contrast to western claims at the time, the Defense Intelligence Agency document identifies al-Qaida in Iraq (which became Isis) and fellow Salafists as the “major forces driving the insurgency in Syria” – and states that “western countries, the Gulf states and Turkey” were supporting the opposition’s efforts to take control of eastern Syria.
Raising the “possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality”, the Pentagon report goes on, “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)”."

Oops.

"Which is pretty well exactly what happened two years later. The report isn’t a policy document. It’s heavily redacted and there are ambiguities in the language. But the implications are clear enough. A year into the Syrian rebellion, the US and its allies weren’t only supporting and arming an opposition they knew to be dominated by extreme sectarian groups; they were prepared to countenance the creation of some sort of “Islamic state” – despite the “grave danger” to Iraq’s unity – as a Sunni buffer to weaken Syria." 

It's about time they figured it out.

Great observation:

"Saddam Hussein was the first Frankenstein’s monster U.S. policy created in Iraq, al-Qaida was the second, and now ISIS is the third." 

True.

French troops are all over Africa, so its military spending is high.

Pat Buchanan exposes the exaggeration of terrorist power.

Chart of deaths from terrorism shows deaths growing, so the war on terror is a failure. 

War

A new strategy of our rulers is to start a war somewhere, say Syria, then blame the war on global wawrming.

Much like Republican warmongers, Hillary wants to fight two wars in Syria, one against ISIS and the other against Assad, Iran and Russia.

Maybe the long history of French military oppression in the Middle East and Africa motivated the Paris terrorist attacks.

War profiteers and spies profit off Paris attacks.

War

More effective than government, Anonymous disables 1000 ISIS twitter accounts.

Former CIA director blames Snowden for Paris attacks. Scapegoat for government failure.

Every terrorist attack proves the war on terror is a failure.

"Since 2001 the US has expended enormous efforts to kill a handful of men – bin Laden, al-Zarqawi, al-Awlaki, and this weekend, Jihadi John. Others, many without names, were killed outside of media attention, or were tortured to death, or are still rotting in the offshore penal colony of Guantanamo, or the dark hell of the Salt Pit in Afghanistan.
And it has not worked, and Paris this weekend, and the next one somewhere else sometime soon, are the proof.
We gave up many of our freedoms in America to defeat the terrorists. It did not work. We gave the lives of over 4,000 American men and women in Iraq, and thousands more in Afghanistan, to defeat the terrorists, and refuse to ask what they died for. We killed tens of thousands or more in those countries. It did not work. We went to war again in Iraq, and now in Syria, before in Libya, and only created more failed states and ungoverned spaces that provide havens for terrorists and spilled terror like dropped paint across borders. We harass and discriminate against our own Muslim populations and then stand slack-jawed as they become radicalized, and all we do then is blame ISIS for Tweeting."

It can't work.

ISIS is a tool of the US and allies, but an unreliable one.

Theory attacks in France are designed to motive native French to mistreat Muslims in order to radicalize them.

ISIS mastermind in Paris ran numerous attacks but led a charmed life or was protected by western intelligence.

Worse Republicans make Obama look less bad on Syria and ISIS in which nobody will ally with Russians and Assad, but they should.

"If we declare a no-fly zone over Syria, or establish a "safe zone," we risk war not only with Syria, but Russia, Iran and Hezbollah.
None of these allies of Assad will meekly stand aside while we take military action to deny the Syrian regime and army the right to defend itself and survive in its war against ISIS, al-Nusra and other assorted jihadists and rebels.
Having invested blood and treasure in Assad’s survival, and securing their own interests in Syria, they are not likely to submit to U.S. dictation. Are we prepared for a war against both sides in Syria?
Who would fight Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and Syria alongside us?"

No kidding.

The new space race is a satellite arms race.

The US admits one base in Africa, but the real number is between 11 and 60.

War

The US intelligence paradigm can't work.

"Whatever the efforts of that expansive corps of intelligence analysts (and the vast intelligence edifice behind it), when anything happens in the Greater Middle East, you can essentially assume that the official American reaction, military and political, will be “surprise” and that policymakers will be left “scrambling” in a quagmire of ignorance to rescue American policy from the unexpected. In other words, somehow, with what passes for the best, or at least most extensive and expensive intelligence operation on the planet, with all those satellites and drones and surveillance sweeps and sources, with crowds of analysts, hordes of private contractors, and tens of billions of dollars, with, in short, “intelligence” galore, American officials in the area of their wars are evidently going to continue to find themselves eternally caught “off guard.”"

There's too much data and too many analysts to distill intelligence into something useful. Lack of information - no matter how much you have, it can never be enough - colored with pretense of knowledge is the downfall of all central planning.

Number of Iraqi refugees tops 3.2 million.

The US won't say Russia is attacking al Nusra Front because the US is allied with that al Qaeda group.

Syrian President Assad makes more sense than US rulers.

Despite 15 years and much money, Obama says the Afghan army stinks.

US scrambles to cover up war crime of attacking hospital in Afghanistan.

Condolence payment absurdity.

"Turns out the basic payout for a dead civilian in one of our war zones is . . . brace yourself . . . $2,500. That’s the sum we’ve been quietly doling out for quite a few years now. Conscience money. It’s remarkably cheap, considering that the bombs that took them out may have cost, oh, half a million dollars each."

Amazing.

How the US co-opted the Arab Spring.

Obama to send troops to Cameroon to fight Boko Haram.

War

The way back from 9/11.

ISIS keeps getting stronger, so the US expands the failed policy.

"Let’s take a moment to consider failure and its options in Washington. The U.S. has been warring with the Islamic State (IS) for more than a year now. The centerpiece of that war has been an ongoing campaign of bombings and air strikes in Syria and Iraq, thousands upon thousands of them. The military claims that these have resulted in death tolls high enough to stagger any movement. In Iraq, the Obama administration has also launched a major effort, involving at least 3,400 military personnel, to retrain the American-created Iraqi army that essentially collapsed in June 2014. Impending offensives to retake key IS-held cities are regularly announced. In addition, in Syria there is an ongoing $500 million Pentagon effort to find and train a force of “moderate” Syrian rebels to battle IS militants. Despite such efforts, reports now suggest that the Islamic State is at least as strong now as it was when the U.S. intervened in August 2014. If anything, from Turkish border areas to al-Anbar Province in Iraq, it has expanded its holdings. Only recently, its fighters even began to move into the suburbs of Damascus, the Syrian capital."

It's failing in Africa too.

The kingpin strategy is a failure. Kingpins are created by governments to increase funding.

Socialism

After stealing the land from white farmers, trashing the economy, Zimbabwe's government wants to give it back fifteen years later. That won't magically solve Zimbabwe's problems.

War

US aggression in the Middle East has radicalized Africa, and the US is opening military bases there.

The US is slowly admitting it put neo-Nazis in power in Ukraine.US considering sending nuclear weapons with the heavy weapons NATO is already sending to Russia's border.

NATO's secret plan to defend Baltic states from Russia.

The US Navy joins the cyberwar.

Health Care

Ebola outbreak computer models grossly overestimated the severity of the outbreak, especially the CDC. They defend fearmongering.

Hospital wet wipes spread superbugs.