Washington Launches New Drone Assassination Program in Syria
via Global research
by Bill Van Auken
World Socialist Web Site
Sep 3, 2015
The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) are carrying out a secret drone missile assassination program in Syria, the Washington Post reported late Tuesday.
The existence of the so-called targeted killing program has come to light in the wake of last month’s assassination of a British citizen identified as 21-year-old Junaid Hussein, a hacker who is described as a cyber expert for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Hussein is alleged to have had some connection to one of the two armed men who were shot and killed outside a “Draw Mohammed” contest staged by right-wing anti-Muslim groups in Texas last May. He is also said to have been responsible for hacking the Twitter and YouTube accounts of the US Central Command, the Pentagon command responsible for the wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan. He was sentenced to six months in jail in Britain in 2012 for hacking and publishing information from an address book of former prime minister Tony Blair.
US officials who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity claimed that the drone assassination program in Syria was directed exclusively at “high-value targets.” They insisted that Hussein fell into that category because of his alleged involvement in “recruitment,” which may mean little more than his postings on social media.
The Post report, citing an unnamed senior US official, also referred to “others killed in a recent weeks” in strikes carried out under the CIA-JSOC assassination program.
The extension of the drone killing operation into Syria marks a further expansion of a practice of assassinations that has been found illegal by United Nations agencies and which the Obama administration had previously claimed it was scaling back.
It moreover involves the CIA, a civilian agency which by definition cannot claim that its killings are carried out in accordance with the laws of war.
The White House indicated last April, after President Barack Obama’s admission that a January CIA drone strike in Pakistan had killed two Western hostages, US and Italian aid workers Warren Weinstein and Giovanni Lo Porto, that the administration would take the drone killings out of the hands of the CIA and centralize them under the command of the Pentagon. At the time, Obama stressed the need for “transparency” in the assassination program.
Instead, yet another front in the secret drone war has been uncovered, and the CIA, instead of being removed from it, has joined in a seamless operation with the US military’s special forces.
The Post cited unnamed officials as stating that this “hybrid approach” involved the CIA “finding and fixing” those targeted for assassination, while JSOC was responsible for “the ‘finish’”, i.e., the actual killings. The officials went on to indicate that “the cooperation between the CIA and JSOC in Syria is increasingly viewed as a model that could be employed in future conflicts.”
JSOC, it should be pointed out, has been involved in atrocities equal to or surpassing those of the CIA. In December 2013, it targeted a convoy of vehicles carrying people to a wedding in Yemen, killing between 12 and 17 of them.
The Post article did not make clear how those targeted for assassination in Syria were being selected. Earlier reports established that Obama had personally chosen the individuals to be incinerated by Hellfire missiles in regular White House sessions known as “terror Tuesdays.” These assassinations amount to arbitrary executions in which charges are not presented against those to be killed, much less proven through any kind of judicial process.
Syria has now joined Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries where drone strikes have been launched. The reference to “future conflicts” makes clear that Pentagon’s planned expansion of its drone fleet (with the number of daily flights to be increased by up to 50 percent over the next four years) will see illegal killings introduced into other parts of the world with all of the attendant slaughter and terrorization of civilian populations.
The CIA-JSOC drone attacks amount to only a small fraction of the 2,450 air strikes carried out by US-led regular military forces against ISIS over the past year. This public campaign of airstrikes has had little effect in terms of dislodging ISIS from the broad swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory that it has occupied.
The CIA-JSOC operation appears to have a different purpose, which may be tied to the CIA’s earlier function in Syria, which was funneling arms and aid to the so-called “rebels,” the Islamist sectarian militias that serve as proxies for the West, Saudi Arabia and the other reactionary Sunni monarchies of the Persian Gulf in a war for regime change against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
An effective assassination campaign against “high-value targets” in ISIS would decapitate the Islamist group, while leaving its fighters to be recruited into a new front deemed acceptable by the CIA to receive US arms and assistance.
The extension of the drone killing program into Syria represents another escalation of a US-led intervention that has turned the country into a vast killing field, while destroying its economy and infrastructure
Americans Are Fleeing US Cities in Record Numbers
via Activist Post
by Joshua Krause
Jun 23, 2015
One of the most significant demographic trends in American history, was the growth of our cities during the 20th century. The industrial revolution lowered the labor costs associated with agriculture, while creating more jobs in our urban areas, thus fueling a mass migration into our cities that continues to this day. However, that trend may be reversing for the first time.
According to a Bloomberg analysis of census data between 2013 and 2014, millions of Americans are fleeing our cities. But these cities aren’t shrinking, the locals are being replaced by foreigners. While their research noted 100 cities, it focused on 20 urban areas that experienced the greatest loss of local residents. New York City came in 2nd place after losing 163,000 US citizens. Americans are largely leaving due to soaring housing costs, and are being replaced by two different kinds of immigrants. Highly skilled immigrants working in the tech sector who can afford the rent, and low skilled workers who are willing to split the rent, and cram as many of their friends and relatives into tiny urban apartments.
Instead of the “White Flight” from our urban areas that was widely documented in the latter half of the 20th century, we’re now experiencing “American Flight.” As our nation takes in more and more foreign citizens, these people are mostly settling into our urban areas, which are now being referred to as “global cities.” It’s safe to say that by the end of the 21st century, what we now recognize as an American culture, will cease to exist in urban areas, and will almost exclusively exist in rural and suburban locations.
MUST READ — Alex Jones: Disinfo Agent for Satanists
via Conspiracy School
by David Livingstone
08/16/2015
The Disinformation Company
The work of right-wing loud-mouth conspiracy celebrity Alex Jones, including a number of documentaries, like Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement and New World Order, and his book The Answer to 1984 Is 1776, were distributed and or published by Satanist and Crowleyite Richard Metzger’s Disinformation Company, a company that connects technopagans and transhumanists. Metzger was the host of the TV show Disinformation, the Disinformation Company and its website Disinfo.com, featuring the tagline “everything you know is wrong,” that focuses on current affairs titles and seeks to expose alleged conspiracy theories, occultism, politics, news oddities and purported disinformation.
Metzger admits that from an early age he identified himself as a “warlock,” and that, “through a careful study of [Kenneth] Anger’s work and through this influence, in part, I continued to move towards combining my career ambitions of working in film, television and publishing with my private magical interests.”[1] Anger, the notorious producer of Crowley-inspired underground films, was the key figure around which swirled the network of Laurel Canyon musicians, occultists, and members the Mason Family and the Church of Satan. Ultimately, Meztger considers the Disinformation Company to be a “magick business,” and explains:
Magick—defined by Aleister Crowley as the art and science of causing change in conformity with will—has always been the vital core of all of the projects we undertake at The Disinformation Company. Whether via our website, publishing activities or our TV series, the idea of being able to influence reality in some beneficial way is what drives our activities. I’ve always considered The Disinformation Company Ltd. and our various activities to constitute a very complex spell.[2]
In addition to Alex Jones, the Disinformation Company has also been responsible for a number of apparently establishment-critical or conspiracy-inclined documentaries, such Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (2004), Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War (2004), Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (directed by Greg Palast), Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005), Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (2006), Slacker Uprising (a movie of Michael Moore’s tour of colleges in swing states during the 2004 election, as well as 9/11: Press for Truth (2006), 9/11 Mysteries (2006).
Disinformation, also known as Disinfo Nation, was a television show hosted by Metzger, which aired for two seasons on Channel 4’s late night “4Later” programming block in the UK. The sixteen 30-minute episodes produced for C4 were then cut down to four one-hour “specials,” intended for the Sci Fi Channel in America, but never aired due to their controversial content. Those four shows have subsequently been released on a DVD, with a second bonus disc presenting highlights of DisinfoCon, a twelve-hour event held in 2000, featuring Metzger, and a host of occult celebrities, including Marilyn Manson, Kenneth Anger, painter Joe Coleman, Douglas Rushkoff, Mark Pesce, Grant Morrison, Robert Anton Wilson, Todd Brendan Fahey and others.
The bizarre irony is that, Disinformation seems to produce just that: disinformation. A telling example is Metzger’s interview on Disinfo Nation of Ted Gunderson, a former FBI agent who is known for his investigations of a secret and widespread network of groups in the US who kidnap children and subject them to Satanic ritual abuse and human sacrifice. However, Metzger’s “documentary” is obviously a mockery, in the Discordian style of “humor,” and the playing of both sides typical of Robert Anton Wilson. Gunderson’s focus has been on abuse within the CIA and military establishment, and he mentions that southern California is a pivotal area of Satanic cult activity. However, although Meztger’s documentary claims to be a “deep and undercover look” at the “shadowy figures” in Satanism today, he juxtaposes Gunderson’s comments by reporting on a pitiful group of bumpkin Satanist wannabes.
[…CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE]
[interviews with the author:
Roosh V: Interview with Ezra Levant
via Rebel Media
Aug 13, 2015
[related: Zionist Ezra Levant Confirms Jewish Lobbyists Behind Canada’s Hate Speech Laws]
AI robot that learns new words in real-time tells human creators it will keep them in a “people zoo”
by Glitch.news
[related: Ex Machina – The Global A.I. Brain Revealed]
Androids are being developed that have an uncanny resemblance to people. A pinnacle example is an android crafted by roboticist David Hanson that resembles the famous and deceased science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. What makes android Dick so remarkable isn’t so much his appearance as it is his ability to hold an intelligent conversation.
The creators of android Dick uploaded the deceased author’s work onto the android’s software, as well as conversations with other writers. If the android was asked a question that had been posed to the real Dick, the robot would answer the question as Dick would. The robot was also able to answer a series of complex questions. If the robot was asked a question that it was unfamiliar with, its software would attempt to answer the question using what is called “latent semantic analysis.”(1)
Android Dick in conversation
Android Dick’s speaking abilities were put to the test in an interview with a reporter from PBS NOVA. Android Dick’s brain is comprised of a tapestry of wires that are connected to a laptop. As the conversation proceeded, Philip’s facial recognition software kept track of the reporter’s face. In addition, speech recognition software transcribed and sent the reporter’s words to a database in order to assemble a response.
The questions posed to Dick were by no means trivial. When the reporter asked if the android could think, it responded, “A lot of humans ask me if I can make choices or if everything I do is programmed. The best way I can respond to that is to say that everything, humans, animals and robots, do is programmed to a degree.” Some of the androids responses were pre-programmed, whereas others were assembled from the internet.(2)
[…CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE and watch the VIDEO INTERVIEW with the robot]
[PN Brain: Philip K. Dick + BINA48 + Occult symbolism in film adaptation of Dick’s “A Scanner Darkly”]
Paul Watson Promotes Zionist Disinformation About Muslims and Free Speech – Non-Aligned Media
by Brandon martinez
via Non-Aligned Media
Aug 13, 2015
My critique of Paul Joseph Watson’s burgeoning neoconservatism and his Zionist disinformation about Muslims and the real culprits behind the war on free speech.
PN 