Trump

[jared_7]

How did this thread become another Rowan rant about Obama?

Whats the issue?

To suggest Obama "created" ISIS is obviously wrong. To suggest the US' only role in their formation was the hole left after the Iraq war is also wrong. The US has been found, in hindsight, to have funded dozens of terrorist groups across the Middle East, Asia, and South America. To default to the position that "this time they aren't" is at best naive, at worst stupid.

There is evidence that the US armed the Iraq-arm of Al Qaeda to destabilise the Syrian government. ISIS, or parts of it, have spawned from that branch. There is a reason why many of them are walking around with US-military-issue M-16s.

Anyway, Rowan's point is that everything Trump says should not just be dismissed out of hand because he is Trump. A stopped clock is right twice a day.

Trump's rise, like that of, say, Brexit, is in response to a wave of discontent with establishment politics, endless wars, and money being filtered to corporate interests. Maybe its an opportunity to address some of the issues, rather than simply attacking the end result? I raised a number of points the other day about Clinton's endless lying and deception, and was in effect told "she's a politician so its fine". Now, questioning the US' role in Syria is attacked as conspiracy mumbo jumbo despite the fact we know for a fact the US has done this hundreds of times before. Talk about mouthpieces for the problem.

[rowan]

The way they use Trump is to make him appear completely absurd, then have him spout perfectly logical comments every now again - such as "the Iraq War was wrong, Obama and Clinton aided the rise of ISIS, and the US should actually work with Russia to fight terrorism in Syria" - in the hope that people will be stupid enough to simply dismiss them as more Trump absurdity. The entire campaign is a charade, Trump and Clinton are working for the same people and are known to be close friends behind the scenes, and all of this has been scripted to help bring a serial war-criminal, shameless sycophant and compulsive liar to power

[cashead]

There is evidence that the US armed the Iraq-arm of Al Qaeda to destabilise the Syrian government.

And that's part of a long-term, protracted war of attrition. Sooner or later, both sides start negotiating with each other. How do you think they got Bowe Bergdahl back form the Haqqani network?

[rowan]

Al Qaeda, like ISIS, was an invention of the media; a blanket term to cover all Saudi-backed Jihadists, because they did not want to implicate their faithful allies directly, as well as Islamic terrorists abroad, and thereby a convenient excuse for US military involvement through the Middle East. But that one wore thin, so Al Qaeda was rebranded as ISIS.

[Digby]

Paul Manafort, who is heading Trump's flagging campaign, has just been implicated in the Ukraine, where their National Anti-Corruption Bureau claims to have found secret, handwritten ledgers by Yanukovych amounting to around US$13 million (rounded up) during his time working with the Party of Regions.

It's particularly damaging at a time when the campaign is already seen as being in meltdown mode, not even a month after the Republican National Convention, where Trump formally accepted the nomination.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/po ... trump.html

On the one hand it's a dodgy bunch of people he associated with and I suppose people are sadly all to ready to believe this of those in politics, on the other a scribble on a bit of paper that he was scheduled to receive some monies doesn't actually amount to much, even if the monies were they paid amounts to rather a lot. I'd hope were this to become a thing it'd be because of more than a scrap of paper that anyone could've written for any number of reasons.

[Sandydragon]

Al Qaeda, like ISIS, was an invention of the media; a blanket term to cover all Saudi-backed Jihadists, because they did not want to implicate their faithful allies directly, as well as Islamic terrorists abroad, and thereby a convenient excuse for US military involvement through the Middle East. But that one wore thin, so Al Qaeda was rebranded as ISIS.

Cook was largely talking b*llocks at that point. Whilst many intelligence officers get annoyed at the ability of the media to lump different groups together and call them the Taleban or ISIS, or AQ, non serious observer ever decreed that they didn't exist. What is true is that much of the atrocities attributed to AQ were carried out by subsidiaries, but with financial backing and other support from the AQ centre, which led them to claim credit/ be blamed for the attacks.

To claim that all Islamic terrorist groups are just cover stories is just crazy.

[Sandydragon]

Of course, the fact that the CIA used Islamic terrorists to further its aims in Afghanistan, and then discarded them, is viewed as evidence positive that such groups are actually under the control of the CIA. Personally, I think its dubious to ever assume that the CIA controlled them. The CIA provided weapons and training to a good many and in return they provided intelligence back, but to envisage a map room in Langley filled with little pins being moved around is a bit of a nonsense.

The US was monumentally dumb in walking away from these groups post the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, but that's a long way away from the claims of the CIA controlling such groups after that.

[Sandydragon]

Al Qaeda, like ISIS, was an invention of the media; a blanket term to cover all Saudi-backed Jihadists, because they did not want to implicate their faithful allies directly, as well as Islamic terrorists abroad, and thereby a convenient excuse for US military involvement through the Middle East. But that one wore thin, so Al Qaeda was rebranded as ISIS.

I should have known. That quote has been attributed to both Robin Cook and a French Intelligence Officer (jailed for providing information to the Serbs during the Kosovan War). Pierre-Henru Bunel. Its quoted many times across the alternative media world, but the original website was a PAkistani media report from 2008 which is no longer available. RObin Cook of course died in 2005.

Its also worth noting that Al Qaeda never translates as The Database, as claimed by Cook in the Guardian. The term for database is Qaeda Bayanat, where as AQ derived from Al Qaeda al Askaria, which means The Military Base, but this was soon shorted to The Base, or Al Qaeda.

[rowan]

I don't speak Arabic but have read that the word Al Qaeda simply translates to The Base.

I've also read that the CIA did knowingly and willingly enlist foreign Jihadists - principally from Pakistan, North Africa and Saudi itself - to fight a proxy war against the Soviets, who had initially been drawn into Afghanistan to defend the socialist government from US-backed muhajideen, who ultimately forced its downfall in 1992. The US knew precisely what it was doing in Afghanistan, and the endgame was the collapse of the Soviet Union - even if it did transform Afghanistan into a medieval hell-hole run by terrorists and warlords, and completely devoid of human rights (notably women's rights, of course).

[Sandydragon]

The US willingly enlisted Islamic fundamentalists to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, just in the same way that the USSR enlisted plenty of unsavoury characters to fight against regimes supported by the US. The mistake that the US made at the end of the Cold War was in believing that these groups would no longer be relevant to them and basically ignored the growing threat thereafter, until it bit them on the arse.

[cashead]

Al Qaeda, like ISIS, was an invention of the media; a blanket term to cover all Saudi-backed Jihadists, because they did not want to implicate their faithful allies directly, as well as Islamic terrorists abroad, and thereby a convenient excuse for US military involvement through the Middle East. But that one wore thin, so Al Qaeda was rebranded as ISIS.

I should have known. That quote has been attributed to both Robin Cook and a French Intelligence Officer (jailed for providing information to the Serbs during the Kosovan War). Pierre-Henru Bunel. Its quoted many times across the alternative media world, but the original website was a PAkistani media report from 2008 which is no longer available. RObin Cook of course died in 2005.

Its also worth noting that Al Qaeda never translates as The Database, as claimed by Cook in the Guardian. The term for database is Qaeda Bayanat, where as AQ derived from Al Qaeda al Askaria, which means The Military Base, but this was soon shorted to The Base, or Al Qaeda.

General rule of thumb: if a quote (or a story) can be attributed to more than one source, it's likely to be bullshit.

[rowan]

General rule of thumb: Where there's smoke there's fire. & there's scores more where this came from:

[cashead]

Yeah, sorry, I'm not going to take anything that a guy who does videos on chemtrails and the dangers of GMO, while also shouting about false flags very seriously.

[Sandydragon]

Some information on the creation of ISIS..

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/16/pre ... -creation/

[rowan]

First paragraph was enough to tell me this was silly propaganda, attempting to link the so-called 'Arab Spring' protests to the heavily militarized rebellion that began at the other end of the country, and quickly became outright terrorism.

[Sandydragon]

First paragraph was enough to tell me this was silly propaganda, attempting to link the so-called 'Arab Spring' protests to the heavily militarized rebellion that began at the other end of the country, and quickly became outright terrorism.

Strange that a good few sources claim that the Syrian uprising emerged from local protests over farming, which were boosted by the huge perceived change process that was the Arab Spring. Of course what would the witness know, he was only an eye witness after all.

of course, that narrative doesn't blame the US or Nato for interfering and arranging a rebellion.

[Stones of granite]

First paragraph was enough to tell me this was silly propaganda, attempting to link the so-called 'Arab Spring' protests to the heavily militarized rebellion that began at the other end of the country, and quickly became outright terrorism.

Strange that a good few sources claim that the Syrian uprising emerged from local protests over farming, which were boosted by the huge perceived change process that was the Arab Spring. Of course what would the witness know, he was only an eye witness after all.

of course, that narrative doesn't blame the US or Nato for interfering and arranging a rebellion.

and the farming protests were themselves a direct result of the drought that had been plaguing Syria, which, as any fule 'no, is directly the result of climate change caused by Al Gore's film, and therefore down to the CIA.

[rowan]

Syria was on America's hit-list even before the invasion of Iraq. Here's the evidence, straight from the horse's own mouth:



Obviously you'd rather believe Assad started it all with his brutal response to Arab Spring protestors, but those students, teachers and doctors did not suddenly morph into heavily-militarized insurgents pouring in fromt the north - and whom the US has freely admitted to training and arming, btw. Doh!

[Stones of granite]

Syria was on America's hit-list even before the invasion of Iraq. Here's the evidence, straight from the horse's own mouth:



Obviously you'd rather believe Assad started it all with his brutal response to Arab Spring protestors, but those students, teachers and doctors did not suddenly morph into heavily-militarized insurgents pouring in fromt the north - and whom the US has freely admitted to training and arming, btw. Doh!

What happened to the invasion of Syria you promised us months ago?

[morepork]

Trump says:

"your mother sucks cocks in hell!"

[WaspInWales]

Trump also says:
I will beat ISIS within 30 days of being elected president.

He also says that he will expand all areas of the US military; more troops, more planes, more boats and promises 'peace through strength'.

This is the kind of rhetoric that gives many Americans hard ons even though it's likely to result in higher taxes. Beadle hands reckons the expansion can be paid for by 'cutting government waste, collecting uncollected taxes and slimming down the federal workforce'.

Polls are narrowing so he must be doing something right.

[rowan]

Polls are narrowing so he must be doing something right.

Probably more just a case of Hillary doing everything wrong

[WaspInWales]

Polls are narrowing so he must be doing something right.

Probably more just a case of Hillary doing everything wrong

Well there is that but it easy to associate Trump's rhetoric with some of the American electorate.

[Digby]

Did Donald ever come back on his notion that the Russians hadn't invaded Ukraine, although they had but that didn't matter because Ukraine wanted an invasion to resolve the issue over Crimea rather than nogotiations, and that were he elected he'd let Putin do as he wants as he and his advisors do as they're told by the Russians and see the return of the Soviet Union as being a popular idea in the USA?

[Mellsblue]

Possibly the most erudite and incisive critique of Trump to date:
http://www.itv.com/news/2016-10-07/hes- ... -on-trump/