Passengers onboard the plane intercepted by Turkish jets said that security forces were making the crew and passengers sign fraudulent papers suggesting that the plane made an emergency landing and no Turkish military were involved in the incident.

Hours after Turkish authorities announced that the Syrian Airlines passenger plane intercepted by its F-16s was granted a departure clearance, the aircraft remained on the tarmac in darkness.

“Four people onboard have been beaten up, two crew and two passengers, as they tried to force them to sign documents,” Sherin Azis, a hostess on the plane, told RT by phone. “We don’t know what these papers are about. We are scared for the fate of the captain. He was taken away and threatened with arrest if he does not sign an emergency landing paper.”

Fatima al-Saman, a passenger and a mother of three, also told RT that the captain was being forced to sign a release stating that military planes were not involved and the plane just made an emergency landing.

“If we do not agree to these terms, they will take the captain kind of hostage,” al-Saman said. “They are threatening us. The captain has now returned and said that ‘either I sign the document that I made an emergency landing or they are taking me hostage.’” 

A top US official told the Associated Press that military action will be needed to eliminate radical Islamists from the haven they’ve developed in northern Mali.

Johnnie Carson, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told reporters that the thuggery and terrorism that these extremist militants are responsible for “must be dealt with through security and military means,” which can help establish a “strong, credible government” in Mali.

Carson’s statement is notable for several reasons. First, the apparent safe haven that these militant Islamists have in northern Mali is a direct result of the US-NATO war in Libya. When mercenaries returning from Libya waged a military coup in Mali, extremists flooded to the area to take advantage of the resulting power vacuum. That their presence is now justifying further military intervention is ironic to say the least.

Furthermore, American military action that aims to eliminate extremist groups in lawless regions and set up a “strong, credible government” has a terrible track record as a policy option, as the failing quagmire in Afghanistan has demonstrated.

Finally, in every US military intervention since 9/11 extremism and militancy has been fostered instead of eliminated. In Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Yemen, in Libya, and in Somalia – problems of extremism and terrorist groups worsened following intervention. Why intervening in Mali will be any different is a mystery.

The U.S. Army is planning to develop new protective headgear for soldiers that will shield them from ballistic munitions, small arms ammunition and blunt trauma as part of missions that will include “homeland security operations.”

http://dprogram.net/2012/08/17/u-s-troops-to-get-new-headgear-for-homeland-security-operations/

“The U.S. has begun to recognize that the war is a total failure and the Obama administration is scrambling for a partial withdrawal by 2014. As Dexter Filkins wrote recently in the New Yorker, reiterating the establishment view: “After eleven years, nearly two thousand Americans killed, sixteen thousand Americans wounded, nearly four hundred billion dollars spent, and more than twelve thousand Afghan civilians dead since 2007, the war in Afghanistan has come to this: the United States is leaving, mission not accomplished.”

http://news.antiwar.com/2012/08/10/afghan-police-commander-kills-three-us-special-ops/

For what people? Why did we do this? You really think the terrorists are going to get you? Has your own government made you so afraid that you let people die for nothing?

Go on and keep waving your flag and “supporting the troops”. Keep fooling yourself. You let poor young people go out and get horrifically killed because you don’t have the guts to face the truth.

And you wonder why other people of the world hate the U.S.A.

Your arrogance has been bred so that you think there will be no repercussions. You are simply unable to fathom what it is like to put yourself is someone else shoes.

You are not human anymore.

The cost of America’s police stateAt the height of the Occupy Wall Street evictions, it seemed as though some diminutive version of “shock and awe” had stumbled from Baghdad, Iraq, to Oakland, Calif. American police forces had been “militarized,” many commentators worried, as though the firepower and callous tactics on display were anomalies, surprises bursting upon us from nowhere.

via Salon

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Although all 16 U.S. secret state intelligence agencies confirmed, again, that “Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier,” reaffirming the “consensus view” of not one, but two National Intelligence Estimates The New York Times reported last week, the march towards war continues.

Last Saturday The Daily Telegraph, citing The Wall Street Journal, reported that “military planners have asked for emergency funding from Congress to address a perceived shortfall in defence capabilities that could undermine the ability of US forces to respond to an Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz.”

Plans are underway “to modify weapons systems on ships that are at present vulnerable to Iranian fast-attack boats, many of which carry anti-ship missiles,” the Telegraph averred.

Feeling the heat from pro-Israeli lobby shops and congressional grifters, President Obama told The Atlantic on Friday: “When I say we’re not taking any option off the table, we mean it. I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff. I also don’t, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say.”

In other words, despite repeated assertions by Iran that its nuclear program is strictly for civilian, not military purposes, facts borne out by multiple on-the-ground inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and assessments by American spy agencies, the bar for Iranian “compliance” is continually set higher, moved from an “active program” to a mere “capability,” it is now clear that war is the first, last, indeed only “option.”

Source:

Antifascist Calling…: Secret State Agencies: ‘No Hard Evidence’ Iran Building Nukes, March to War ContinuesAlthough all 16 U.S. secret state intelligence agencies confirmed, again, that “Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program years earlier,” reaffirming the “consensus view” of not one, but two National Intelligence Estimates The New York Times reported last week, the march towards war continues.

via Blogspot

Original Article

Yesterday, the State Department “quietly” warned that Syria’s nuclear weapons program “may still be in operation” and their other suspected WMDs threaten the region.  In other words, the final push for another war is being sold using the same marketing strategy that’s been proven to work time and time again.

Foreign Policy magazine writes:

This week, the State Department sent a diplomatic demarche to Syria’s neighbors Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia, warning them about the possibility of Syria’s WMDs crossing their borders and offering U.S. government help in dealing with the problem, three Obama administration officials confirmed to The Cable. For concerned parties both inside and outside the U.S. government, the demarche signifies that the United States is increasingly developing plans to deal with the dangers of a post-Assad Syria — while simultaneously highlighting the lack of planning for how to directly bring about Assad’s downfall.

Syria is believed to have a substantial chemical weapons program, which includes mustard gas and sophisticated nerve agents, such as sarin gas, as well as biological weapons. Syria has also refused IAEA requests to make available facilities that were part of its nuclear weapons program and may still be in operation.(My emphasis)

Swap out the word “Syria” for “Iraq” or “Libya” and we’ve all read this press release for the business of war before. What worked for attacking an innocent Iraq worked for attacking an innocent Libya. And now it’s also being used as an excuse to destroy two more nations which have never even threatened the West: Syria and Iran.

Even the blind should notice the same trends leading to war:

• Claim the leaders are bad guys (which is not difficult because most leaders are).
• Incite, fund and arm rebels (terrorists) to lure those governments into fighting back.
• Claim the leaders are killing their own citizens (which almost all leaders do including the good ole U.S.).
• Slap economic sanctions on the government while simultaneously creating a shadow government, central bank, and economy for the puppet rebel leaders.
• Scare domestic populations until they’re okay with more war.
• Bypass any authority to commit tax money and troops for war.
• Drop billions of dollars in bombs by remote control destroying innocent life and infrastructure.
• Murder the former leader in cold blood if need be.
• Consolidate any and all resources into the hands of Western cartels.
• Fund these same cartels with more tax dollars to reconstruct the devastated war zone.
• Rinse and repeat.

The only difference lately is that “providing aid to terrorists” is no longer used as an excuse for war. Perhaps, this is because Israel and NATO, led by the U.S., are the only ones currently aiding terrorists, as they did to oust Gaddafi in Libya, and who they are now arming to instigate a civil war against Assad in Syria.  They’re even openly funding terrorists in Iran to do the exact same thing. Furthermore, the FBI has proven to be the only provider of aid to supposed domestic U.S. terrorists.

But you, Activist Post readers, already know all this.  But understand that WMD is not just any propaganda, it’s the “nuclear option” of propaganda.  It’s the only way to claim these countries are a threat of any kind, because they have very little or no history of actually attacking the West.  And they will keep beating this WMD war drum because it works.

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Original Article