On a December night in 2011, a terrible thing happened on Mount Cudi, near the Turkish-Iraqi border. One side described it as a massacre; the other called it an accident.
Several Turkish F-16 fighter jets bombed a caravan of villagers that night, apparently under the belief that they were guerilla fighters with the separatist Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). The group was returning from northern Iraq and their mules were loaded down with fuel canisters and other cargo. They turned out to be smugglers, not PKK fighters. Some 34 people died in the attack.
An American Predator drone flying overhead had detected the group, prompting U.S. analysts to alert their Turkish partners.
The reconnaissance flight—which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in 2012—and its tragic consequences provided an important insight into the very tight working relationship between American and Turkish intelligence services in the fight against Kurdish separatists. Although the PKK is still considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, its image has been improved radically by its recent success in fighting ISIS in northern Iraq and Syria. PKK fighters—backed by U.S. airstrikes—are on the front lines against the jihadist movement there, and some in the West are now advocating arming the group and lifting its terrorist label.
Documents from the archive of U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden that Der Spiegel and The Intercept have seen show just how deeply involved America has become in Turkey’s fight against the Kurds. For a time, the NSA even delivered its Turkish partners with the mobile phone location data of PKK leaders on an hourly basis. The U.S. government also provided the Turks with information about PKK money flows, and the whereabouts of some of its leaders living in exile abroad.
At the same time, the Snowden documents also show that Turkey is one of the United States’ leading targets for spying. Documents show that the political leadership in Washington, D.C., has tasked the NSA with divining Turkey’s “leadership intention,” as well as monitoring its operations in 18 other key areas. This means that Germany’s foreign intelligence service, which drew criticism in recent weeks after it was revealed it had been spying on Turkey, isn’t the only secret service interested in keeping tabs on the government in Ankara.
Turkey’s strategic location at the junction of Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Middle East made the future NATO member state an important partner to Western intelligence agencies going back to the very beginning of the Cold War. The Snowden documents show that Turkey is the NSA’s oldest partner in Asia. Even before the NSA’s founding in 1952, the CIA had established a “Sigint,” or signals intelligence, partnership with Turkey dating back to the 1940s.
During the Cold War, the U.S. used bases in Turkey primarily to conduct surveillance against the “underbelly of the Soviet beast,” as one NSA document puts it. Today, it targets Russia and Georgia from Turkish soil, collecting information in “near real time.” Since the outbreak of its civil war, Turkey’s neighbor Syria has become a central focus of NSA surveillance.
U.S. secret agents have also provided support to the Turkish government in its battle against the Kurdish separatists with the PKK for years. One top-secret NSA document from January 2007, for example, states that the agency provided Turkey with geographic data and recordings of telephone conversations of PKK members that appear to have helped Turkish agents capture or kill the targets. “Geolocations data and voice cuts from Kurdistan Worker Party communications which were passed to Turkey by NSA yielded actionable intelligence that led to the demise or capture of dozens of PKK members in the past year,” the document says.
The NSA has also infiltrated the Internet communications of PKK leaders living in Europe. Turkish intelligence helped pave the way to the success by providing the email addresses used by the targets.
The exchange of data went so far that the NSA even gave Turkey the location of the mobile phones of certain PKK leaders inside Turkey, providing updated information every six hours. During one military operation in Turkey in October 2005, the NSA delivered the location data every hour.
In May 2007, then-Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell signed a “memorandum” pledging deeper intelligence support for Turkey. A report prepared on the occasion of an April 2013 visit by a Turkish delegation to NSA headquarters at Fort Meade indicates that cooperation in targeting the PKK had “increased across the board” since then. That partnership has focused overwhelmingly on the PKK—NSA assets in Turkey collected more data on PKK last year than any other target except for Russia.
It resulted in the creation of a joint working group called the Combined Intelligence Fusion Cell, a team of American and Turkish specialists working together on projects that included finding targets for possible Turkish airstrikes against suspected PKK members. All the data for one entire wave of attacks carried out in December 2007 originated from this intelligence cell, according to a diplomatic cable from the WikiLeaks archive.
The deep working relationship has continued under Barack Obama’s presidency. In January 2012, U.S. officials proposed supporting Turkey in their fight against the PKK with diverse measures, including access to a state-of-the-art speech recognition system that enabled real-time analysis of intercepted conversations. The system can even search for keywords and identify the person speaking if a voice sample of that individual has been stored.
The NSA offered to install two such systems for Turkey’s intelligence service. In exchange, the Turks would provide voice samples for a number of Kurdish activists. Given its close and enduring relationship with the NSA, agency authorities wrote, they saw little risk in providing the technology. The only thing NSA experts didn’t feel comfortable entrusting to Turkey was the automatic keyword search function.
The partnership is managed through the NSA’s Special Liaison Activity Turkey (SUSLAT) office, which is based in Ankara. In addition to data, the Americans provide their Turkish partners with complete interception systems, decryption assistance, and training.
Using its internal “follow the money” reconnaissance unit, the NSA also tracks PKK’s cash flows in Europe. The Turks reciprocate by providing the U.S. agents with written transcripts of telephone calls made by PKK leaders, as well as intelligence insights about Russia and Ukraine.
But in true “Spy v. Spy” fashion, Turkey is itself is the target of intense surveillance even as it cooperates closely with the U.S.— one NSA document describes the country bluntly as both a “partner and target.” The very politicians, military officials, and intelligence agency officials with whom U.S. officials work closely when conducting actions against the PKK are also considered legitimate spying targets by the NSA. To that end, in addition to the official SUSLAT liaison office and the intelligence workers it has cleared with the Turkish authorities, the U.S. has two secret branch offices, operating Special Collection Service listening stations in both Istanbul and the capital city of Ankara.
The degree to which the NSA surveils its partner is made clear in the National Intelligence Priorities Framework (NIPF), a document establishing U.S. intelligence priorities. Updated and presented to the president every six months, the NIPF shows a country’s “standing” from the perspective of the U.S. In the April 2013 edition, Turkey is listed as one of the countries most frequently targeted by Washington for surveillance, with U.S. intelligence services tasked with collecting data in 19 different areas of interest.
The document places Turkey at the level of Venezuela—and even ahead of Cuba—in terms of U.S. interest in intelligence collection. Information about the “leadership intention” of the Turkish government is given the second-highest priority rating, and information about the military and its infrastructure, foreign policy goals, and energy security are given the third-highest priority rating. The same framework also lists the PKK as an intelligence target, but it is given a much lower priority ranking.
Beginning in 2006, the NSA began a broad surveillance operation–a joint effort by several NSA units—aimed at infiltrating the computers of Turkey’s top political leaders. Internally, officials called the effort the “Turkish Surge Project Plan.” It took six months for the team to achieve its goal. One document celebrates the discovery of the “winning combination” and reports that collection had begun: “They achieved their first-ever computer network exploitation success against Turkish leadership!”
It goes without saying that the U.S. intelligence services also had Turkish diplomats in their sights, particularly those stationed in the United States. A classified document from 2010 states that the NSA surveilled the Turkish embassy in Washington, D.C., under a program codenamed “Powder.” A similar project for monitoring Turkey’s representation to the United Nations operated under the codename “Blackhawk.”
Analysts had access to the telephone system in the Turkish embassy and could tap content directly from computers. In addition, they infected computer systems used by the diplomats with spyware. The NSA also installed trojan software at Turkey’s U.N. representation in New York. According to the NSA document, it even has the capability of copying entire hard drives at the U.N. mission.
The NSA shared many of its spies’ insights with its “Five Eyes” partners—the British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand intelligence services. Within that group, the British had already developed their own access to Turkey, with its GCHQ spy agency monitoring political targets in Turkey as well as elements in the energy sector.
One classified British document states that in October 2008, GCHQ tasked agents with improving access to the Turkish Energy Ministry, as well as enterprises including the Petroleum Pipeline Corporation, the Turkish Petroleum Corporation, and the energy company Calik Enerji. The assignment also included a list of the names of 13 targets, including then-Turkish Energy Minister Hilmi Güler.
In 2008, GCHQ analysts began reviewing satellite images of the rooftops of ministries and companies to assess what types of communications systems they were using and the possibilities for infiltrating them. The documents do not indicate whether those efforts bore fruit.
Turkish Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek is also explicitly named in documents as a GCHQ “target,” despite the fact that he is a dual Turkish-British citizen. Nevertheless, a surveillance order against him includes, among other things, two mobile phone numbers as well as his private Gmail address. When questioned by reporters for Der Spiegel, GCHQ officials said they do not comment on the details of operations.
When The Guardian newspaper ran a story last summer about a planned spying operation against the Turkish finance minister during his visit to London in the run-up to the G-20 summit in 2009, officials in Ankara were so angered that the Foreign Ministry summoned the British ambassador and criticized the “scandalous” and “unacceptable” operation. Contacted for a response to the surveillance operations conducted by the NSA and GCHQ, a spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry said “such things” would only be discussed at the diplomatic level.
This story was reported and published in a collaboration between Der Spiegel and The Intercept. Additional research by Peter Maass.
Photo credits: Burak Kara/Getty Images; David Furst/AFP/Getty Images; Burhan Ozbilici/AP
Predictive/imposed determinism translates (for the purposes of the NSA) into a regime of political and economic unidimensionality over the entirety of the world and over all the human individuals contained within it; it is a subject that is amply documented in academic sources, and yet there is hardly any mention of it in Wikileaks’ entire archives. On the other hand, predictive analytics/determinism forms the very substance of and the basis for the Snowden revelations; how to explain the yawning discrepancy between the paucity of testimony of predictive/imposed determinism in the Wikileaks archives on the one hand, and its overwhelming corroboration, indeed instantiation, by Snowden’s NSA-centered revelations on the other?
How is it possible, more specifically, for American authorities in the White House, State, Pentagon and elsewhere to say with a straight face that ISIS is “Beyond anything we’ve seen” and by implication that as far as their predictive analytics are concerned it was an inconceivable development, when, for example, Philip Bobbitt seems to have very much anticipated the development of such terroristic “market states” in his book ‘Terror and Consent’? And, in turn, how is it possible for the press to accept such astounding and astoundingly profuse professions of institutional blindness, unpreparedness, and ineptness without nary a published and credited remark of incredulity or skepticism?
“how is it possible for the press to accept such astounding and astoundingly profuse professions of institutional blindness, unpreparedness, and ineptness without nary a published and credited remark of incredulity or skepticism?”
Realizing the rhetorical nature of the question – that is indeed the paradigm that needs broken.
One where completely plausible things such as planes purposefully being flown into buildings can happen – and yet are completely swept under the rug in favor of labeling uninvolved nations (Iraq) and relatively small groups (al-Qaeda) with responsibility and complicity to the former; and ascribing a much greater threat to our national security to the latter – all in order to create this completely over-hyped “Terror™” scenario.
This due to something that was not only “thinkable” at the time, but actually was conceived of in a number of fictional stories pre-9/11, as well as officially to the President on December 4, 1998 when the Clinton administration received a President’s Daily Brief entitled “Bin Ladin Preparing to Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks.”
Our leaders and the majority of the media, rather than address this threat from a rational perspective, instead tried to mold it into some kind of westernized, quasi-religious ideology that says that in order to fix these horrifying (yet on the larger scale, these less consequential acts by criminal lunatics) decided instead to go to war with almost the entire “un-democratized” Middle East in order to teach “them” all a lesson.
Unfortunately, most of the government and the media are still feeding the war machine that only creates new monsters, and they still haven’t realized that although crisis does bring change, if we don’t think about the unintended consequences – and worse now – the completely confirmed bad consequences of continuing on this path of destruction, we’re doomed to be forever in a dystopian version of a Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeldian ”Groundhog Day,” always hoping to wake up to a new beginning – but never quite seeing the light of a different day.
Not only do we know now that these western societies teaching methods suck in this regard, we also now know that we cannot seem to learn from our own mistakes.
” “What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?” – Groundhog Day, 1993
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Most americans have receive calls from this number 786-204-4348 I believe that’s the NSA getting a copy of your voice on the state-of-the-art speech recognition system that enabled real-time analysis of intercepted conversations. The system can even search for keywords and identify the person speaking if a voice sample of that individual has been stored. Check you cell phone call history. Do a google search on that number you’ll see there are thousands of people who have got a call from that number and non of them know why.
And the NSA accomplishes this by actually calling us!? This sites comments get dumber by the minute.
Well, the NSA could harvest the voice samples from voicemail messages, Skype calls or simply by turning on the microphone in your smartphone. They wouldn’t necessarily have to call you… I any event it would be less suspicious if they just said “hey Joe” and get their sample when you reply “you’ve got the wrong number”. You can get people engaged in a short conversation pretty quickly and get a proper sample that way.
Testing. I see there is a new commenting system.
The “Islamic State” has apparently killed Steven Sotloff
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29038217
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Testing…
I have not been able to comment since the new system went up. Please IT folks at TI, pay attention to what Lyra1 is saying and fix this.
I mean if you ever deign to read this or let it be published…
On topic to previous articles WRT Ferguson; I presume Ryan Devereaux and the rest of the TI staff spotted this — was pretty prominent on today’s Guardian page.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/homeland-security-department-prevent-terrorism-busy-arming-cops
The really interesting point here is that DHS and Defense Logistics Agency have been separately, apparently, two distinct streams of military aid to US local police.
Everyone has to be a potential “terrorist” for this to be even remotely justified, and I would guess that we are considered just that. And, in spite of so much of it being found illegal and unconstitutional, it’s not being stopped. Those PTB which have the wherewithal to stop any or all of it, don’t want to and pretty clearly aren’t going to, and We the People aren’t going to force the issue. It will continue indefinitely.
Everything has been done to ensure that all citizens are properly protected from terrorists. But the US government also values privacy. If you are a celebrity, you are at grave risk of having your nude photos disseminated on the internet – which is obviously the ultimate privacy violation. So a new program will be implemented whereby a retinal scan will be required to log onto the internet. This will allow the government to monitor internet activity of all users and ensure that no one is downloading your nude photographs. I’m sure everyone will agree this is a small sacrifice in order to protect our celebrities.
Ah, Duce, but the US government already has nude photos of many Americans, or at least the traveling public. Last I heard they still had some form of the PornoScan (see wiki:full body scan) and that’s creating even more issues courtesy of the vigilance of the TSA (motto: “we see England, we see France, we see everyone’s underpants”). So, I wouldn’t sweat the nude photos of celebrities, who at least understand the value of profile.
You have no proof the NSA was the original source for those photographs. However, we all recognize that security breeches do occur, since lax protocols are a major selling point when recruiting contractors to work at the NSA. A program of retinal scans will allow the police to apprehend and incarcerate everyone who has viewed the restricted material after the fact. So it’s just as good as not having a security breech in the first place.
Yep, from ourselves and each other!
It is astonishing how illegal the wire taping of the world seems but yet it goes on. Even if you do not argue for or against its potential it clearly is a violation that even Obama seems to be ok with?
More fun with Pentagon supplied police depts:
How does a police department lose a Humvee?
http://news.yahoo.com/how-does-a-police-department-lose-a-humvee-025942542.html
I am coming to suspect we have little care what side we are on, just so the complex gets its money.
Heeeeeere we go AGAIN… Arming and supporting the rebels (Kurds) in one country (Iran & Iraq) and cutting their throats in another (Turkey). Apparently the U.S. goons (at the NSA & CIA) haven’t learned their lesson about being double agents. The CIA & George H.W. Bush armed Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons and urged him to start a war against Iran (in an attempt to free the 52 embassy ‘hostages’). What did they get? 2 exocet missiles into the side of the USS Stark, and an Iraqi dictator who ended up hating the U.S. The CIA armed the jihadis in Afghanistan and found a way to turn them against Uncle Sam. And what did they get? The Taliban and Osama bin Laden! The NSA arms Syrian Rebels with heavy weapons and what did they get? ISIS.
Now the U.S. wants to arm the Kurds and more ‘vetted’ Syrian rebels, while at the same time keeping them in their (the U.S. and Turkish) crosshairs. What are they going to get this time?
What was the title of this article? The Fun of Empire: Fighting on All Sides of a War in Kurdidstan?
Oh and let’s not forget the kissing of Turkey’s ass while spying on their leaders (and infecting their PC’s with spyware {seems to be a recurring NSA theme}) at the same time… or Germany’s ass, or the U.K.’s ass or _________’s ass (just fill in the blank with the western country of your choice).
The NSA is hard at work pissing off everybody, and finding a way to turn every ally they ever had against America (and let’s not forget the American citizen). Bang up job you did for America Mitch McConnel, Keith Alexander, James Clapper and your lapdogs Peter King and Diane Feinstein (and let’s not forget -President Obama)!
Here we go again, one of the only people who has been looking out for privacy and telling it like it is -who is NOT paid by the U.S. Govt and WASN’T ELECTED: EDWARD SNOWDEN!
How dare you tell it like it is Ms. Poitras.
I may be wrong. But those who cry the loudest do not automatically have the right to create a state. Governance needs good expertise.
Zeitgeist moving forward and Jim Fetzer’s Video:
9-11: Jim Fetzer, False Flag Terror and The Rise of the Global Police State- illustrate concisely what the New World Empire is all about.
http://jtremaine.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/9-11-jim-fetzer-false-flag-terror-and-the-rise-of-the-global-police-state-2/
PKK are terrorists. I remember 30 years ago when I still lived in Austria they bombed the Turkish Embassy in Salzburg. They did that in other places, too. Should the Kurds have their own state? Maybe, but their tactics are clearly terrorist tactics not those of fighters.
in case anyone doubted whether The Intercept was a policy magazine masquerading as investigative journalism, here you have proof.
having ginned up tremendous outrage against the US by providing massively one-sided interpretations of NSA documents, The Intercept moves on to using that outrage to push specific foreign policy objectives, as if one leads to the other.
by letting its readers imagine that any country, any leaders, any democracy, in this world has EVER operated in any fashion other than the one described here, The Intercept perpetuates the lie that this government is especially bad, egregious, or outrageous.
No: what governments need to do in order for states to survive is outrageous. the world is outrageous. to see this requires a steady eye and a balanced mind. propagating black-and-white thinking is the best way to ensure that this kind of duplicity goes on and on.
People should be giving themselves a thorough education in diplomacy, world history, political theory and intelligence history before they even look at this stuff, as without it, you are given an incredibly biased and inaccurate picture of the way the world does work and could work.
For a full report on the Roboski massacre in which 34 innocent Kurds where killed by Turkey on Dec. 28, 2011, and in which the US flew the drone and passed the location to bomb to Turkey read http://kurdistantribune.com/2013/turkeys-kurds-demand-answers-on-roboski-massacre-as-part-of-kurdish-peace-process/ . For a summary on the Kurdish Question read http://kurdistantribune.com/2014/turkey-kurdish-question/ .
Just out of curiosity….Will this comment post as a new comment, top of comments in proper sequence, as intended?
If it does…I found this article to be interesting and pertinent to ongoing conflicts and wars of dubious origins for the sole economic purpose of amassing further control and power of humanity for the elite world class.
“A New Calendar of Holidays”
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/09/new-calendar-holidays.html
Thanks so much for that link, Lyra1.
That calendar is an excellent, thought-provoking resource to have. I just downloaded it.
It seems my last test post did go through, Hope this one does as well. BTW, If you hadn’t mentioned that read more comments button in another post, I probably would have missed seeing that entirely, as it is written in pretty light type. Any chance you IT people can have mercy on over-40 eyes?
@ feline16:
I liked the calendar and I’m glad that you did too.
Regarding this comments section: I’ve decided to stay away until TI IT can rectify the situation…if they ever do comprehend that many potential users have been effected by their supposedly useful (useless) program changes.
Til then, take good care favored feline.
I am using Firefox with Noscripts. Previously, I have only allowed TI, but for the purpose of trying to figure out the exact dance steps needed to post and then visualize a comment, I have now released all scripts on the page.
Previously, following a new comment, I was unceremoniously dumped back at the top of the page, had to scroll clear to the bottom of comments, click on “read more comments”, then scroll back up to the top of the comment section to see them. Rinse and repeat for every comment posted, including replies to comments, which used to show up more or less spontaneously for me in the proper place, without the need for extensive scrolling.
As it stands now, the comment section is almost completely unusable. At the very least, there are a number of truly exhausting steps one needs to go through before even ascertaining if a comment has appeared, let alone having to do it repeatedly should a comment get stuck in the mod file for reasons never delineated.
Sorry if it seems like I’m obsessing over this. I just hate to see what used to be a truly dynamic commenting section (when Greenwald was posting under different organizations) get destroyed by bits and pieces over time, instead of forming the basis for an even better one for all the contributors here at TI.
You can see the full comments by going to https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/31/nsaturkeyspiegel/?comments=all#comments instead of https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/31/nsaturkeyspiegel/#comments
I doubt that will be the webpage you’re returned to after posting a comment, though, so that’s not particularly helpful. Presumably someone could make a Greasemonkey script to replace all the “#comments” links to “?comments=all#comments” links, but that won’t help with encouraging participation since you’d have to have the script in the first place. Only showing mid to old comments, as is done currently, is seriously going to discourage commenting. It makes it look like the comments section is abandoned, and then the lack of evidence of your comment after posting makes it look like the comments are entirely broken. Only the most persistent comment writers will bother to post under those conditions.
This should all be working properly now.
Governor of Texas, Rick GoodHair Perry aka the World’s Newest Metrosexual, is telling us, despite the absence of existing evidence,
So, we can see this man’s hopes for the Presidency of our fallen country expressed in his blow-horning the company line. Note how useful he is, as well as ISIS, to the Power Elite’s Perpetual Profits Program, known as USA, Inc., and all the unnecessary expensive government departments that only thrive during times of paranoia, fear, war, and all other manner of (manufactured) crises.
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/news/2014/08/perry_thinks_isis_might_have_entered_texas_through_mexico_border.php
Pedinska, the new comments don’t show in the initial opening of the article. But when loading the read more comments, one must then scroll up to the very top of the list to see the new ones. In fact, loading the more comments option is absolutely required, as if you don’t do that, even the search 1 Sep strategy will not identify today’s new comments.
Maybe Mussolini is right when he says the point of left-wing comment sections is to confuse and drive the commenters away.
Ok, have now clicked on “read more comments”, located at the very bottom of the page and which would not have been noticed by me except for someone pointing it out to me elsewhere on the web.
If one has to go clear to the bottom of comments already read to do this, then I am guessing that this may be a contributing factor to the low number of comments. I would not have known to do this if I hadn’t read about it somewhere else. I hope they can fix this as it is NOT readily apparent that this is the necessary protocol for following participation here.
I emailed John Cook and got an immediate response that they are aware this is causing problems and are looking into it. Thank you John!
There is an equally compelling argument that incompetence is to blame.
Those proffering this defense would argue the goal was to improve the speed of loading the article by displaying only the first page of comments. However, they define this first page as the group of oldest comments, but which displays in a newest to oldest sequence – which is confusing to begin with. To see more recent comments, the user must scroll to the bottom of the page and press the load more comments button. Then if they enter a new comment, a message displays about the pre-moderation filter. So the user then presses ‘refresh’ to see if their comment has been posted. However, this defaults back to the first page, and so the new comment is not displayed. The commenter presses refresh several times, but still cannot see their post and leaves assuming it was held for moderation. However, if they scroll back down to the bottom of the page, press ‘load more comments’, and then scroll back up to the top of the page, they will generally find their comment has appeared. If they leave their browser open, later return to see if anyone has replied and press ‘refresh’, they are taken back to the first page and must repeat the process all over. This could all easily be rectified if ‘refresh’ caused loading of one page of the newest comments displayed in reverse chronological order.
So since malice and incompetence are both left wing characteristics (some would argue they are human characteristics), I would be open to either explanation.
Pedinska, Regarding your comment – Yes I see it, but I had to search for 1 Sep 2014 before I could see it. It did not show in the normal list of comments. The only reason I knew there were more comments was because the count is 77 this morning, 10 more than last night.
I hope they repair this quickly. It’s the worst ever.
I replied to you (the above is that reply) but my reply is hidden along with your original comment. So now, to experiment, I’m posting my reply to you using the post comment button. We’ll see.
Trying one more time to post a new, individual comment.
It appears to me that the last such was by Tom O’Farrell, 31 Aug 2014 at 1:58 pm. Everything after that seems to be replies appended to existing comments prior to that time.
Is anyone else seeing this?
Yes I see it, but I had to search for 1 Sep 2014 before I could see it. It did not show in the normal list of comments. The only reason I knew there were more comments was because the count is 77 this morning, 10 more than last night.
I hope they repair this quickly. It’s the worst ever.
Testing to see if I can add an independent comment. It looks like the last one was yesterday at 1:38pm and nothing but replies to existing comments since, which seems strange.
Apologies to all if this kink has indeed been worked out.
Tried it again to see your comment and my answer. Even when loading the view more comments option, your comment does not show in the list, nor my answer. I have to search 1 Sep to be shunted to your comment – otherwise it’s a no go.
If clicking on the “Read More Comments” link doesn’t work, I found that exiting from the story altogether, going to the opening page of The Intercept, clicking on the story, clicking on the “Read More Comments” link again and scrolling to the top of the page works to get me to the newest comments. Which is to say, almost completely FUBAR.
It’s like there’s a secret formula for figuring out how to read the comments, and only the smartest people will make it through the maze. That’s a fucked up way to run a comment section. And most folks don’t have the time to be persistent in seeking help and/or answers to the dilemma.
It’s going to peel away participation faster than any number of trolls/assholes in the comment section ever could. :-s
Yup, whoever set this up this way is either devilishly fiendish, or not terribly, um, accomplished in the area of setting up comment sections. So, sabotage or ignorance?
So, sabotage or ignorance?
I’m holding out for a side-effect of them having to install a shitload of privacy options/software/whatever. But no matter what the actual cause, the effect is going to be people declining to participate which, I’m guessing, is NOT what folks at TI actually want.
Can anyone point to a tangible, positive impact on US policy and interests from all this activity? The gobs of data that the national security apparatus obsesses about collecting don’t appear to be having an appreciable impact on US understanding of Turkish intentions.
mmm .. What technology the NSA doesn’t have?
I think we will wake up tomorrow and find that NSA can track the speed at which mobile phones are travelling and provide data for the police to issue speeding tickets. That’s if we are lucky.
If we’re not lucky, we might get bumped off because somebody doesn’t like where our car is heading.
So Apple phones have batteries that cannot be removed. Why is that? For our safety, right?
This country’s budget seems to be concentrated on NSA(CIA,FBI) surveillance and strengthening our massive war machine, pushing our technology such as GMOs. Is this for world domination and “totalism” (Dr Robert J Lifton). If we monopolize the world’s food supply with GMOs we control the world. America supports forcing our
GMOs on the world, supported by both democrats and republicans. There are people in America who are hungry.
too bad it’s not stated that PKK is seen as a terrorist network in Turkey and that they act like it….
Oh so sad, those little Kurds…
She understands why we saved her. CIA
No, I haven’t read the article yet, but really need to comment on the new front page. PLEASE, STOP having the lead picture being so big it takes over the screen. Maybe it’s just me, but I find it overwhelming and unwelcoming. Please resize these opening pictures and allow the front page to say, give “thumbnails” of featured stories.
Pretty Please???
I second that request. Yes, the images are too large and they interfere with the reading of the text, which is the important stuff – no?
And another request please – Could we have all the articles on the front page – the newest ones most prominently at top – next the most recent of the older stories – and the older stories down the right side? Why must we click on Features, Greenwald, Froomkin etc.? It’s so indirect and what’s the benefit again? Don’t know about the others, but I look for author and title first from among all the articles listed. Adding extra steps to the front page is indirect when all can easily be there at firstlook. If you *must offer clickable options, why not simply NSA for those readers, probably many, looking primarily for that subject.
Agree 100%, seer.
It seems this post did go through, but until I saw about that read more comments, I “couldn’t find” it.
Happy getting through this mess…
A really important piece. To most American reporters Kurds is something that happens to milk.
Use http://LookSeek.com the non tracking search leave me alone search engine. If you use it you don’t have to worry about somebody getting your back. This is the only way we can fight back.
Thanks, to all who gave me suggestions.
I really appreciate it.
The article describes immoral behavior on the part of the US government, but morality is a much misunderstood subject. One contributing factor is that philosophers have confused the issue for several thousand years by debating whether morals are objectively real or merely the product of the human imagination. As usual, they miss the point.
Evolution has conditioned the individual to place a high priority on self-preservation, in order to pass genes to the next generation. Yet a society which consisted of purely selfish individuals would not necessarily be a successful one. Humans are a social animal and throughout prehistory there has been competition between groups, or tribes. Groups which are successful, grow in number and pass their genes on to successive generations. So morality – the tendency to place the general welfare above one’s personal interests in certain situations – is merely an artifact of the evolution of the human brain. Various societies have attempted to reinforce this tendency by creating codes of conduct and moral ‘rules’, but the origin and general purpose of morality are clear.
So if morality is understood as a means to ensure the survival of the group, it clearly only applies to individuals and not to the group itself. In current societies, the social group is generally the nation state, and since the welfare of the group is paramount, the actions of the state should be governed only by self interest and not by moral considerations. Here is where evolution fails, since individuals interacting with other groups operate under moral constraints which have been conditioned through millions of years of natural selection.
But evolution has overcome this problem as well. Every society has a small number of individuals who lack any compassion or moral sensibility. These individuals rise to positions of leadership, since they are not handicapped by moral boundaries. When dealing with other groups, they make decisions without any regard to the consequences to those outside groups, only their own welfare, which of course depends on the welfare of their own tribe or state. That is why every nation has leaders who are immoral and why foreign policy is based purely on self interest.
Viewed in this light, the actions of the United States are perfectly normal.
Does this mean we should stop America-bashing? It’s my favourite topic Duce.
And Erdogan of Turkey appears friendly towards ISIS, and early on replaced his secular general officers with religious extremists of his own peculiar thinking, thereby ending the parallel state put into place by Ataturk.
The writer has some facts right but some wrong. First off the US and Saudi Arabia have been funding and training Al-Qaeda for decades and still do to this day so that shoots down some of your story. If they helped the Turkish fight ISIS then it was a plan to use Al-Qaeda / ISIS to attack them to have an excuse to spy on them.
Thank you Laura, Marcel, Michael and Holger! This information once again validates the notion there’s very little the IC does in the name of fighting terrorism that, for some unfathomoble reason, doesn’t also concern guaranteeing the company store’s world-wide petroleum interest$.
Go figure…
I know I saw my misspell twice and still forgot to fix it.
Aren’t migraines fun…? (NO)
Der Speigel is an interesting publication, one of those hybrid or perhaps better said ‘schizophrenic’ publications that run two types of stories; exposés & disinformation, particularly disinformation in relation to geopolitics. Recently, Ukraine has been a target of those professional liars known to work in information operations, provided a platform by Der Spiegel, personalities whose business is shaping public opinion, via editorials, on behalf of intelligence agencies.
That said, I would wonder why anyone would be surprised at this articles revelations; the sociopath mentality required to operate for state apparatus in ‘intelligence’ [sic] precludes any functioning sense of honor or ethics. If one had these at the beginning, over time, it is a near certainty the ideal must atrophy and die. And so it is as easy and natural to spew political lies, back stab & prevaricate, in ‘intelligence’ as one would perform a natural function. But it’s nice to see the fruits of this mentality laid bare for all to see, because this is the sort of behaviors and betrayals create cases of the ‘chickens come home to roost’ as Malcolm X so aptly put it.
Insofar as the switching sides, while presently allying with the Kurds, isn’t that what kids playing games do? How we arrived in the present is as simple as satire:
http://ronaldthomaswest.com/2014/01/21/sardonism/
^
Again, it appears to be all about oil. How is the PKK a direct threat to the good ol’ USofA? I strongly doubt that it is. Why has the PKK been designated a terrorist group? I’m guessing that both the US and Turkey inspire more terror than PKK ever could. And the US has been caught red-handed, again, spying extensively on allies. It will be interesting to see how Turkey responds.
PKK is a guerilla organization who fights with very violent methods for autarchy. To replace one evil with another is not a very helpful way to keep us safe.
Well, look what the google dragged in. A search on “intercept turkey nsa” revealed only scattered notice so far of this article. And this.
https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_spectrum/beginnings_radio_intercept.pdf
Not really on point, but of interest in that electronic surveillance was well under way 100 years ago, and this week is the 100th anniversary of the battle of Tannenberg, in which radio intercepts played a role, as you’ll see. Maybe their interest in this topic was “hey, at least we didn’t start it.”
Turkey has recently had its own wiretapping scandal, but the response of the government has been very unfortunate. From link above:
Arresting the police officers sets a terrible precedent; to maintain morale, police must have the assurance that they are exempt from legal consequences for their actions.
Even worse, terrorists may be allowed to go scot-free. This sets an even worse precedent – that following the law is more important than obtaining a conviction.
If the Turks behave so irresponsibly, it is not surprising the US feels a compulsion to spy on them.
I’m surprised that this article was thought to bear on the purpose for which Snowden ostensibly stole and gave secret and classified documents to the press. The perfectly legitimate spying for and against countries whether friend or foe is a given in foreign policy. Why exposé what the US is doing ? This article alone will suffice to convict Snowden and maybe others.
There have been times the last few years when I have wished my eyes had not been opened and then the veil parts even more. How can one fight this blatant duplicity when so many supposedly enlightened people are in the cheering section. I refuse to believe this is the only course available for caring, peace loving people who once thought the USA stood for something good. Perhaps we, as a nation, have squandered any chance of a moral and just society when any friend is also an enemy. We should have a magic disavow button we could push that says our government is nuts and we want nothing to do with their insanity. Pollyanna, I know.
…you’re not alone, jgreen…
Formatting is fine on my Win Vista browser, actually never been a problem with the Intercept.
What a tangled web the US has woven in the ME. No good can come of it. Foreign policy may as well be in the hands of gangsters who are devoid of ethical and moral standards. The US has a history of double crossing the Kurds.
I assume that after all we have learned about ISIS that most if not all of us are in agreement that ISIS should be confronted and defeated in Iraq and in Syria.
Looking at maps published by MSM it appears that ISIS are not as strong as they claim to be. Their disposition is straggly. I see no reason why the US should take the lead here, other countries must step up as well. But will they?
I had the same opinion at first glance at the maps. However when you look at the land that is actually worth capturing in Iraq they have it. In the country of Iraq much like any other one would not capture and hold a desert with no resources, they would simply maintain awareness.
Point taken. I do not have good knowledge of Iraq topography. Even so it would appear their supply lines are long and must be hard to protect. Unless they are living off the country as they proceed. One report I read was that they only numbered 800 when they broke the will of the Iraqi army, numbering about 25,000 at that time, causing them to turn and flee. Only 800! Admittedly at only a single location but this seems a small number to me. My gut feeling is they are extended beyond what I would think of as sensible from their point of view. Hence vulnerable. Obama is being cautious and planning carefully while he is being criticised as having no strategy, but I suggest he is not incompetent in being careful. Doubtless he has problems getting others to agree and become part of the effort to defeat these unbelievably savage monsters. They are ethnic cleansing as they go, christians, jews, shia, or no matter who or what you are they will slaughter you.
You may wish to peruse the following:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-30/how-isis-building-airforce
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/08/28/found_the_islamic_state_terror_laptop_of_doom_bubonic_plague_weapons_of_mass_destruction_exclusive
https://news.vice.com/video/the-islamic-state-full-length
Sorry, Tom…listened to too many corporate yahoos crying wolf. Let the region settle it themselves. The West stinks at the job.
I am not in agreement. Who is ISIS? Where did they get their money, vehicles, and guns from? How did they get into Syria and then into Iraq? Who is supporting them? It costs money to wage war and move troops in two different countries. What is their country of origin? A lot of questions not being asked. They are just some super dooper evil people who need blowing up by more US bombs. I think the middle east has had enough US bombs, military involvement, CIA operations, Saudi and Qatari money, Turkish bases…. etc.
ISIS was originally supported by Saudi Arabia and Quatar who funded the organization in the hopes of thwarting Assad in Syria. The Syrian dictator is blocking a pipeline that would allow Qatar to sell natural gas directly to Europe thus become a competitor to Russia, Assad’s ally. Initially ISIS was considered a movement born out of the “Arabian Spring” and supported by the west but as it became clear that they had the same overall strategic goal as Al Qaeda, a panislamic state, that support has stopped. Saudi Arabia is the home ow wealthy Wahibits, an islamic sect promoting medieval islamic rule, and they still support ISIS. The organisation also get funds by “taxing” or taking over conquered companies and robbing the banks in the areas they capture, making them the richest militia in the world.
Absolutely concur goldhoarder.
See: “Why Does ISIS Fit In So Perfectly With the PNAC Plan?”
http://www.activistpost.com/2014/08/why-does-isis-fit-in-so-perfectly-with.html
In case you haven’t noticed, the article is about:
Killing separatists fighting for self determination by The Pentagon and Turkey.
Back on topic please.
Dear Intercept IT;
Your comments section programming is not functional.
It is not possible to post a new comment in proper sequence (top of comments block) or for that matter…in any sequence,,,at all.
Further…The View More Comments section is nothing more than a scrolling exercise into endless repetition….also described as a “cloth towel roll.”
Is there a way to revert to the old comments system command line code by deleting the “View More Comments” loop?
If so…please do it.
Frankly…the current comments section programming sucks for those who wish to comment.
I might also point out that there must be someone, somewhere…. who is capable of rectifying this problem.
Perhaps a comprehensive message like: “New Comments Are Closed Until Further Notice”; would help those wishing to comment understand that you are having technical difficulty.
Also, the failure to own this comments section gaggle does not look good to users and may act to reduce your overall account database.
Better yet…just close all comments completely. This will give readers the clear impression that you are not soliciting further interaction on any published article.
I have given up asking that question, or ‘Where is the list of names?”…facepalm.
Talk about turning allies into enemies that, especially in view of recent regional and global (see Africa) events involving irreversible growth of Muslim extremism, has/is pushing Turkey further into a common faith Islamic camp to halt what, it appears, is designed to prevent any challenge to Western economic/financial control that is already severely challenged by China and its allies, including India and increasingly including Russia.
Are you ever on target, good citizen! Thank you!
This article by Thomas Harrington ties in nicely with your assessment: Full Spectrum Dominance, the European Press and the Impending Demise of the EU.
[snip]
You are complicating things I believe. True the US might not want EU strong but still they would of course rather have a strong EU instead of a fragmented one that would be a weak ally against a strengthening Russia. Your analysis lack the motives of Putin, which I believe is to get back at the west for humiliating Soviet and bringing them ten years of severe economic problems following the IMFs advise in the 90-ies.
Russia is out of debt, has bought a lot of gold in preparation for chaotic times (so has China) and have over a period of 15 years modernized and expanded their military capability to a standard that rivals all EU countries. They did not spend 25% of BNP on military expansion because the US told them so. They have strategic goals.
Incidentally the West is in debt over their heads and the US can’t afford projecting their military as they used to. It seems a more probable scenario that Russia’s goal is forcing the West to start arms racing when it is near broke in the hopes of breaking it like the Soviet was broken.
And this too, from 2009, that added to the strategists’ complicated planning.
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090317_turkey_and_russia_rise
As Pogo might say: We have met the Soviets and they are us.
I would say that we met Fascist Europe, and it is now the West.
Yeah. That sounds about right.
Turkey is rather upset with the NSA/GCHQ activities delineated in the this article.
See: “Turkey summons US envoy over spying report”
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/09/01/377340/turkey-summons-us-envoy-over-spying/
Now I finally understand why the U.S. is not sending serious military hardware to the Peshmerga. These brave men have done what the Iraqis have no will to do. They have stood up to ISIS heroically. They got the Yazidis off the mountain, protected Erbil, and continued to help even with Amerli, though not their people. I search the videos from the area daily looking for this “help” we’re sending to them and never see anything. Now I know why. Disgusting!
So, when the NSA tells Turkey “hey, you better go check on these people over here, they might be rebels” and then Turkey goes and bombs them without so much as checking their facts, it is NSA’s fault?
It’s really a shame, that I can’t read the article, b/c of poor formatting.
Its words are strung out all across my screen.Reducing the size of the
type, only gives minimal improvement.
The ‘comments’ are now printed with same amount of digital ink.
But they, too, are strung out across the screen.
I didn’t read them, either.
I was primed to love whatever site Glenn Greenwald
chose.Never, in my wildest dreams, did I expect this.
How about copying the formatting of Salon or the Guardian?
Or, is formatting subject to copyright?
I’d check your system. Salon.com is a horror…so much extraneous BS…like Huffpo.
Try a different browser? Seems to work pretty well with Firefox. I am not able to use the bookmarks, but hope that will be fixed soon. No fun searching through everything multiple times to find a particular thread.
Re: Firefox
Select main menu on Address (Navigation) Bar.
Select customize.
Select Show/Hide Toolbars.
Check Menu Bar.
Set Buttons to small.
From the main menu at the top of the screen you should now be able to control your bookmarks.
There is a possibility, depending on your equipment, that the above action will not be enough to get your browser working the way you want it to. In that case, get the add-on at this link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/classicthemerestorer/?src=search
Select Settings.
Select General UI.
Check Small buttons on Navigation Tool.
Check Fix url bars border-radius.
That should get you good to go.
Also…
Bookmarking of specific comments or threads on TI is working for me in Firefox.
Recovery is not specific to the comment bookmarked, but it does pull up the specific sub-thread.
Highlight comment.
Right click mouse.
Select bookmark this link and file in bookmarks as you choose.
Recovery of that bookmark should yield the specific comment sub-thread.
Doesn’t work with the Load More Comments feature that turns the whole comment section into one of those old cloth towel rolls that one used to find in public bathrooms, which is where this comment system belongs.
@seer:
Wait until enough comments accrue on this article and test it again. It might just work according to program design. I suspect that the “cloth towel roll” may just have been a manifestation of program code incompatibility at the time of web site format change.
However…it could also be true that some consideration might be given to changing the comment design program in it’s entirety. In either case, my time contribution to troubleshooting this issue is finished. Moving on.
No more chances.
A new day dawns.
It is time to throw it away….any bathroom receptacle will work.
The damn thing sucks.
Thanks, but the bookmarks are working as before now.
@ John Kelly:
Sorry to hear that.
Might want to check your OS for adware and spyware…depending on the system.
This is critical with Microsoft systems. Try this one: Junkware Removal Tool http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/junkware-removal-tool/ – also free.
Also…use a good AV scanner like Malwarebytes which is free. Run a full scan.
Also…Install a good file and registry cleaner like CCleaner….also free.
Use your disk clean-up utility program.
After everything is nice and clean….restart.
If your system uses restore points create a new one and delete all prior restore points.
Restart.
Once you are reasonably sure that you don’t have any garbage messing you up, it is best to start fresh with a new install of Firefox.
Make sure that you have another secure active browser on your machine.
Just export your existing Firefox bookmarks to a file of your choosing. Use Booksmarks menu. Show all Bookmarks. Click Import and back-up. Click export. Pick a file.
Caution: Do not use any prior existing identities in Mozilla files that is do not use Mozilla backup file to save your bookmarks.
Delete Firefox and all existing Mozilla files.
Use a good file and registry cleaner.
If your system uses Restore points create a new one and delete all prior restore points.
Restart.
Run your cleaning program one more time. Make sure to get the registry.
Restart.
Reinstall Firefox.
Set all options as you desire, and import your bookmarks from your preexisting file.
That should get Firefox 29.0 or greater running properly.
@ John Kelly:
Although the information I provided above might be useful now or at some future point in time ; it was provided prematurely.
Test your system thoroughly on other web sites before implementing those more radical measures.
This site is not operating properly. Period.
Are you admitting to tracing through archived threads for comment material to an argument?
You could try reducing the size of your browser window. For me, that concentrates all the text into a frame about
6 inches wide, making it much easier to read. Also, that leaves space on my desktop to keep a notepad open and easily accessible. But I agree, the new format looks good, but the text could be much better arranged for
people with eyesight difficulties. And the comment system – please!
Use eLinks as your browser.
Working fine with Chrome and Torch
weknowtheirdream – did you sign up for The Intercept RSS updates? If not please do. I’ve found that for long articles in particular, the updates arrive with the full article and I can read them in my mail program enlarging the text, even changing the font to an easier on the eye one. Of course I can also control the size of the window and read easily without having to come to the website till I’m done. I hope that helps. I empathize with you – I too have difficulty with eyesight and eye pain.
Nice to finally see to finally an article from Ms. Poitras on TI.
Very useful information, particularly at this time in that it indicates the US is playing both sides against the middle (ISIS and PKK) to further divide IRAQ while securing the prize of Syria. As usual, land and land resources (oil) appear to be the ultimate objective in the Middle Eastern foreign policy. Any type of fabricated terror in the the form of any terrorist group will work to create the necessary fear and chaos, particularly when control of both groups can be manipulated by one master. But of course…the US National Security Directorate is instrumental in coordinating NATO conflict imperatives but it is only proper to have that evidence.
Many thanks to those brave journalists who are intent upon exposing the truth.
Good article, and I agree that it is more evidence that the US deep state is embroiled in some sort of global Hegelian chess tournament.
Have you seen that Bill Binney has signed the AE911truth petition?
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/08/high-level-nsa-whistleblower-need-new-investigation-destruction-world-trade-center-911.html
Should the journalists at The Intercept (a) sideline Binney as a ‘crank’, and distance themselves from his testimony? (b) continue to refer to his whistle blowing but ignore his decision to join the calls for a genuine investigation into the WTC disaster? (c) actually engage with the subject at the root of just about all that is reported at The Intercept (i.e. the events that initiated TWoT paradigm)?
Thanks for posting that link Myers.
Great questions that you raise. I must select your “(c)” option and would actually encourage use of your posted link as part, or the subject, of an article posting by perhaps Mr. Greenwald.
In my humble view…it appears that the United States is ripe for an internal “terror” attack and my further research into the progress of Middle East acquisitions, point to the fact that it is; in fact, the TWoT paradigm that will need to be addressed to avert another disaster.
Thanks….I’ll be rooting for the truth.
How radical of you, Myers! Been eating your carrots I see. ;)
“Also, I would add that the 9/11 Commission left out data that Tom Drake passed to them showing vital data prior to 11 Sep giving warning of an attack. This should also not be acceptable.” – William Binney
For any investigation to be complete I agree that if pertinent information was withheld as Binney contends then it needs to be addressed. Having said that, the remaining justifications for re-investigating that I have read thus far, (i.e., “This all smacked of waiting for something to happen so they could leverage it to do what they really wanted to do” – Binney) sounds more like a religion or an ideology trying to back the reasons they think something happened into a theory the are proposing, rather than letting the science and the best evidence available lead us where it will.
In the end, I hope that Binney and others do not become marginalized because of their views on this subject (which are outside their areas of expertise) – and I wish they would spend more time hammering home the facts that they do know about regarding the NSA and government overreach – where their credibility can and has served us all in getting to the answers regarding state over-surveillance, civil liberty violations, and government overreach.
“rather than letting the science and the best evidence available lead us where it will.”
The scientists and experts provided the evidence to question the official narrative back in 2011.
See: “9/11: Explosive Evidence — Experts Speak Out (2011)”
http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/911_explosive_evidence_experts_speak_out_2011/
“The scientists and experts provided the evidence to question the official narrative back in 2011″
Agreed; I’ve seen it and read it and more importantly a majority of their peers did and it was found lacking.
Because that’s how science works – not by supplying theories that do not provide enough evidence yet to support them – but by presenting all of the evidence available in order to have them determine what the facts are.
That said, if new evidence becomes available to change things I’m all for it, such as what the 9/11 Commission left out that Tom Drake passed to them showing data prior to 11 Sep giving warning of an attack, as well as information in the redacted 28 pages.
@ Sillyputty:
The link that I provided did not provide much theory. It provided scientific evidence regarding controlled demolition which is enough for me to question the official narrative. I am aware that there are disputes regarding how the demolition was accomplished, but have not seen any credible scientific disputes denying evidence of demolition. If you have a link to something like that, I would like to see it.
Of course the redacted pages should be released. There is no reason to trust any official government MSM narrative regarding 9-11-2011 or any other issue for that matter.
After all…the nation governments have been just so transparent and truthful about their spying and other secretive activities.
@Lyra1 – as I mentioned above, I don’t think I’ve missed much regarding both sides of this issue, but with that said, thank you, and please keep posting links that you feel bolster your claims.
Here is one link that counters them, I will post others as time allows:
http://ae911truth.info/wordpress/
@Lyra1 – here is another link countering many of the alternative theories regarding the World Trade Center collapses:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/9-11_conspiracy_theories
“After all…the nation governments have been just so transparent and truthful about their spying and other secretive activities.”
Regarding this statement, you and I both know that it adds nothing to the debate – in fact it detracts from the position of those who posit it.
The fact that the government lies and is secretive does not prove or provide any additional credible evidence for the position you are taking.
It may be the case at some future time that it is proved that the two (government keeping secrets & your theory) are interrelated; however until that time the statement has nothing to do with proving or disproving the topic at hand.
Here is another link countering many of the alternative theories regarding the World Trade Center collapses:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-14665953
The links that you provided are interesting but do not change the fact that too many scientists and credible people do not believe the official narrative. In fact, all of that data has been accumulated in several data bases, so much so that it would be impossible for anyone with prior education or working experience in intelligence, aerospace, or security to ignore the glaring holes in that narrative because it defies the laws of both aerodynamics and physics. Questions like: How does a commercial airliner penetrate concentric concrete walls like butter? Or punch a nice hole into the Pentagon at an altitude which would be aerodynamically impossible for an aircraft that size to maintain, and then leave no visible signs of wreckage or damage to the ground? Then of course…Building Seven collapsed in free fall without any clear reason other than possible detonation.
You may wish to label all people who question that narrative as “conspiracy theorists” but that term would then apply to many credible people who just want answers to logical questions.
See: “9/11 In A Nutshell” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrJiKbK0tVM
I would like to see the 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry and Thomas Drake’s testimony to the 9/11 Commission.
“And high-level former NSA official Thomas Drake provided testimony to the 9/11 investigations documenting that the “official story” of 9/11 makes little sense, as the intelligence agencies had all of the information they needed to stop it. Drake’s testimony has – for no real reason – been classified.
Drake is seeking to declassify his testimony to the 9/11 Commission:
I would argue for declassification and release because the 9/11 Commission asked for it in the public interest, my testimony was given to Congress via testimony (oral and written) to investigators as a material witness and whistleblower, because of NSA’s coverup of its accountability for 9/11, and the coverup committed by NSA to obstruct official Congressional investigations, plus declassification is timely in terms of ongoing efforts to reform NSA by Congress and the President.
I do know that my testimony and evidence was fully suppressed and censored as a deep state secret – so secret that it was not included in the classified report of the 9/11 Joint Inquiry.”
The US Government has had their chance to disseminate their official narrative for over 13 years over the MSM controlled by six state-controlled media conglomerates. It is time to hear the truth. You are right, I don’t trust them
@Sillyputty
Thanks for posting links which you regard as authoritative in answering the questions of 911 researchers; I am always interested in looking at where people direct a reader with the intention of countering ‘the alternative theories’ regarding WTC (and 911 in general).
Just to make the point that at the head of this thread, it was posted that Bill Binney has signed the AE911 petition, and therefore we can take from that that he supports the call for a new investigation into WTC events, and that he accepts the AE911truth line that the official NIST investigation was compromised. I think that this is noteworthy, as he is obviously a principled and bravely outspoken man, and he is- to my understanding, regarded as an intelligent man who is capable of fully grasping the fundamental concepts under discussion in considering the validity of the NIST reports (i.e. the proper conduct of scientific research, the need to account for all evidence, the need for transparency and repeatability in scientific assertions/ models). If you have done anything more than the most superficial research you will of course have come across many hundreds of highly regarded academics, scientists and professionals who raise questions or support the calls for a new investigation into the officially ignored evidence around 911. Their concerns are summarily documented in the Toronto Report:
http://torontohearings.org/
The question for me then is, Do the webpages that you linked to address the concerns laid out in the Toronto Report?
The answer is ‘No’.
Do the webpages that you linked to address the concerns laid out in the Toronto Report?”
Not sure, as the report – which should be freely available to the public requires payment to access, which I refuse to supply. However, I did follow leads to the International Center for 9/11 Studies and its founder, U.S. attorney James Gourley (ultimately the authors of the report that is not freely available for public scrutiny) in order to attempt to validate what findings they may have arrived at. Other than securing release of previously unseen video, there is no evidence that the Toronto Report changes the scientific consensus on this matter in any significant way.
And as I have noted repeatedly, the websites I listed are not all inclusive – there are many more that support the scientific consensus, and I encourage you to seek them out. One caveat: Don’t expect to have to pay money to get all of the available data that is related to the current scientific consensus on this matter – it’s public knowledge, freely available and verifiable by several unrelated sources.
Yes, there may be data that we haven’t see and should, but regard in the underlying premise that “the planes did it” – the evidence seems quite conclusive – unless and until other reputable facts surface to seriously challenge the science and peer reviewed results that we have.
The above If this post correctly) was meant in reply to: Myers – 02 Sep 2014 at 3:28 am
Gotta’ love the “new & improved” comment section…
@Sillyputty
It appears the comment setup has been changed – the first page shows the newest posts, un-nested. The ‘READ MORE COMMENTS’ button loads the entire set of comments in nested format. This is actually a sensible setup, if this hypothesis is correct, as it allows you to check back and see recent comments without searching through all the old ones, or if you prefer, to load and read everything.
un-nest test @ Benito Mussolini 02 Sep 5:32
@Sillyputty
On payment, well I think that it would be great if a public body stepped forward to cover the publishing costs of the Toronto Report, I would agree that it would best serve the authors’ arguments if the book were freely available. I would add though that I would say the same for all pay-to-view scientific and academic journals….
As you would have seen if you were at all serious about exploring this topic, the presentations that are summarised in the written report are available for free on Youtube, so the evidence in question (together with the judicial verdict) is most definitely freely available for public scrutiny. Much of the evidence presented there is also available for free in articles submitted to the journal of 911 studies; also to be considered would be the presence of critical perspectives within the wider academic literature:
http://911inacademia.com/journal-papers/
I am afraid I do not see the ‘scientific consensus’ that you mention. Where is it to be found? You write that there are several other sites that cover the same area of refutation with regard to the AE911 claims, but I would ask which do you mean? JREF? 911Myths.com? Debunking911.com? If you consider that these present a scientific consensus well so be it, I guess people can easily check to see if they agree with you. In my exploration, I find that serious academic researchers have little time for engaging with the arguments put forward (often anonymously) on such websites and instead study the official explanation and try to get response from the government bodies charged with providing a full and accurate account of what happened. If such explanations rely on, for example, computer models -the details of which are secret, I support the critics who call out such reports as unscientific. Likewise if there is significant, solid evidence that is not even mentioned in those official reports, they cannot be regarded as complete and accurate. The call is for a genuine investigation, not for one or another theory to be believed, and this is what Binney has come forward to say.
I would argue that there is no scientific consensus on the WTC disaster, indeed I would put forward that most scientists are unaware of the most basic points of evidence (such as the demise of WTC7 for example).
@Lyra1 – “The links that you provided are interesting but do not change the fact that too many scientists and credible people do not believe the official narrative.
The fact that you feel that “too many” scientists and credible people do not believe the official narrative (on any subject matter) sways me not at all, nor is it a counter-argument. It is a straw man. What sways me are facts and the best evidence available – which to date precludes the scenario you are proposing re: the demise of the towers. That new evidence may arise to change that is possible – and I welcome it if it arrives. Until then, the current theories fit the available evidence.
Again, that’s how science works – peer review and more peer review until reasonably certain and repeatable outcomes are obtained – which seems to be the case thus far. More evidence? Bring it. If i changes things so be it.
“In fact, all of that data has been accumulated in several data bases, so much so that it would be impossible for anyone with prior education or working experience in intelligence, aerospace, or security to ignore the glaring holes in that narrative because it defies the laws of both aerodynamics and physics.”
This seems just another variation of an appeal to authority – in other words, reasonably educated Americans don’t know enough intelligence to make the decision, and there’s so much data, therefore they must be correct. Both scenarios I reject and I reject that line of argument equally among the camps that feel direct human intervention other than air-planes alone caused the towers collapse as I do for those who claim the case that the planes and the dynamics of the situation were nought to do the damage in question.
Strangely and disturbingly – this argument of “too much data” echos the NSA’s rational for continuing what they do. The NSA argument, too, is that the average American just isn’t knowledgeable enough and equipped to handle the truth – I disagree.
And again – from what I’ve see/heard/read, the onus on refuting the “official narrative” remains with the detractors, which in my view and the view of most other scientists and specialists in the fields in question, they simply have not done so using the evidence and combined expertise that is available. That may change and time will tell – but until then…
“You may wish to label all people who question that narrative as “conspiracy theorists” but that term would then apply to many credible people who just want answers to logical questions.”
You know me better than that – so no I wouldn’t nor have I – and yes, people want answer to logical questions, as do I.
“declassification is timely in terms of ongoing efforts to reform NSA by Congress and the President. – Thomas Drake
Completely agree. Time to clear the closets of any and all skeletons that continue to affect our civil liberties and our right to know what our government is doing and has done on the American citizens behalf.
““That is how heavy a secret can become. It can make blood flow easier than ink.”Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man’s Fear
@ Sillyputty:
You seem to assume that I am trying to sell you a “scenario” or a specific theory regarding 11 Sep 2011. I’m not nor has anything I’ve said indicated that. I am merely saying that so much evidence of doubt itself regarding the official narrative, is, in itself enough reason for me to question that narrative.
Frankly, I don’t care what you perceive to be the truth nor would I attempt to dictate to anyone or question their intrinsic perception of truth. I would ask for the same courtesy in return. There is only so much time in the day and vilifying or demeaning others to push my ideology is not on the agenda.
If we agree that all previously classified documentation and undisclosed testimonial pertaining to 9/11/2001 should be immediately released, then we agree on the major point which is ultimately the pursuit of the truth, as opposed to any individual’s perception of data which culminates into opinion.
Everyone has the right to form their own opinion….that includes everyone.
Test of new comment function.
Second test. New comment function.
Just for information purposes.
It is now possible to make a new comment using the New Comment Block (Add Comment Radio) however; it only shows as a stand-alone on the first page of the article.
After that it goes into the “no man’s land” of your “Read More Comments” loop where it nestles….out of sequence.
Suggestion: Delete the “Read More Comments” loop. Revert to the old comments program. Just throw the new comments program out until it can be adequately tested and troubleshot on a Test System as opposed to a live system. Users are not appreciative of this gaggle and which will, eventually reduce your account data base.
“people want answer to logical questions, as do I.”
In order to ask logical questions one must avail oneself of information not reported in the MSM such as the govt-controlled BBC. The very first question a curious person might ask is “Why was the crime scene packaged up and shipped to China before a serious investigation could be carried out?” What would an investigation of the material itself have revealed that it should be hidden from view? And incidentally, that steel returned to the US as washing machines and refrigerators etc., boosting China’s GDP and fueling the loss of manufacturing jobs in the US. —– Cui bono, ultimately?
Another fact never placed into evidence I would regard demands this logical question: “Why was a military drill scheduled for that day playing out the scene of airplanes attacking the WTC, and as a result of that drill scenario Northern Command ordered to stand down?” What an odd and suspiciously convenient coincidence!
Another logical question a curious person might ask: On Sept 10, 2011, Donald Rumsfeld announced the Pentagon had misplaced a couple of trillion dollars, a fact all but forgotten by the next day and its horrific events. Where is that money? How could so much money vanish? What did that money buy that it was lost, not recorded in the books?
Another fact you are likely not aware of: Beneath the WTC there was a two-story vault housing a billion or so dollars worth of precious metals. These metals were being stored for various banks and the metals exchanges and they survived beneath ground level – yet no one knows or has told what happened to all that ‘real’ money.
Another – Building 7, not hit by a plane came down we’re told but from a fire begun by debris falling onto the building. That building housed billions of hand drawn financial records that under new mandate were subject to rules regarding retainment for longer time periods that previously required. This meant transferring those records to digital format, CD, DVD, a mighty time consuming task that may have brought to light a long history of too many white collar crimes to easily defend if discovered. The SEC was housed in Bldg 7. What records of its were destroyed? And after the ‘pull’ as Larry Silverstein, owner of said structure, described the collapse that was about to occur, no mention was made again of those records – except by those asking logical questions.
A rational person has to ask himself how many steel-framed buildings have fallen directly into their footprint as a result of fire? Did 7’s steel framework soften at all the critical connections at exactly the same time? The fire was small and contained, so, if not, then how did that building fall fair and square into its precise perimeter?
The notion of killing two birds with one stone comes to mind, but in the case of 9/11 it was a whole fucking flock of birds sent down the memory hole to its communal death.
These are only a very few of the logical questions I have asked. I have no answers – only questions and I would like those questions addressed by a real investigation. There is still extant evidence and those involved are still alive to be subjected to questioning UNDER OATH, unlike before when oath-taking was dispensed with. But Sillyputty, logical questions can never be formulated without making oneself aware of incidents, anomalies, and facts not reported in the corporate media.
http://www.wtc7.net/background.html
I’d provide other links but this comment system makes doing that too difficult.
“What sways me are facts and the best evidence available – which to date precludes the scenario you are proposing re: the demise of the towers.”
How do you know what facts there are and what the best evidence might be if you don’t look at ALL facts and evidence available? And how can one accept an interpretation based in limited facts as the one true interpretation when only a small portion of facts inform its conclusion?
Is this cognitive default of yours the reason you still believe, in the main, candidates put forth for high office are authentically worth voting for? Is it possible Sillyputty, that instead of taking into account the sad realities of our predicament, you are holding to some idealized reality that has long been shown to be defunct, replaced by a heavily controlled system of eliminating candidates who would challenge the status quo, promoting only those who support it, either by willingly going along, or via intimidation, generally will accede to its corruptive power?
With respect to 9/11, are you, again, holding up an ideal that has been shown to have been abandoned by our leaders; and are you allowing yourself to be cajoled into an agreement with those leaders that exploits your innate idealism by appealing to it while at the same time acting against it.
If your thinking on this matter is limited by a conviction that an ideal you revere is functioning as intended, how then would you be able to recognize that that ideal is *not doing what you trust it is, what you wish it were, and that your thinking is therefore improperly guided?
A good start would be releasing those 28 pages, unredacted, to the American people and the whole world so that we can see for ourselves which are the Middle East countries, our allies, that were heavily involved in 9/11.
http://28pages.org/
That’s right.
Supportive link: “Rep. Massie speaks at Press Conference Regarding 9/11 Documents”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItE28oeMnas
I have problems with contradictions like this:
“28Pages.org avoids speculating on what’s in the 28 pages; we’re simply focused on finding out.” – 28Pages.org
And;
“an entire section said to describe the involvement of specific foreign governments in the attacks. – 28Pages.org
Sounds speculative to me – That said – I agree that the pages need to be unredacted and released.
Not at all Sillyputty, as members of congress are permitted to read those 28 pages, after being issued special clearance to do so, they have been shocked by what they’ve read, shocked to the degree they have had to revise for themselves down to its roots the accepted version of all our recent history since 9/11.
No, not speculative. But classified, and so those congresspersons with this secret knowledge are bound by some oath or other to not reveal the contents, though they do hint, and promote release of the document – well, the ethical ones do that.
@seer – I meant speculative in that 28pages.org seems to be speculating where it says that the as yet unreleased pages are “said to describe the involvement of specific foreign governments in the attacks” yet provide no evidence to back that claim up.
I’m fine with the proposition of releasing the docs – my point was that the comment itself seems a bit hypocritical unless a specific source other than 28pages.org is cited as provided.
I could find no attribution – if you do, please post back. Thanks.
Well one has already been revealed, Saudi Arabia, and the other is__________, aka the only Western Democracy in the region. Yes, I’m speculating, but it’s an educated speculation. ;)
The site, 28pages.org, has many links to information already known, Sillyputty. Scroll down to view them. They include Lyra’s Massie video among many others.
And in fact, you may recall Bob Graham was all over this for a number of years once the commission report had been published. Remember? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4qaWPAqy5M
Silly, you’ve fought the good fight but these people cannot be convinced.
It has been almost 13 years since 9/11 and conspiracy proponents still haven’t been able to articulate a complete narrative of what REALLY happened. It’s a bunch of disparate guesswork (what about this, what about that!?) and once something gets refuted, they move onto the next checklist item. It’s like religion in a way – at some point faith overcomes fact.
I know you like quotes so here is a good one:
“It has been almost 13 years since 9/11 and conspiracy proponents still haven’t been able to articulate a complete narrative of what REALLY happened.”
Hey Nate, guess what, people who question the results of a faux investigation are not required to prove any version of what really happened. First off, they couldn’t prove anything without a fair investigation. And secondly, no one is saying they know what happened, but everyone is saying NO ONE KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED, and that is why we call for a real investigation!
Sillyputty, does not know how to look at evidence – she seems to be in the thrall of a serious case of confirmation bias, as you likely are yourself.
Seer, your ilk hasn’t proved jack squat. Tell me, which investigations and publications have been proven false? Let me guess, all of the below?
“The 9/11 Commission Report, studies by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Investigations by non-government organizations such as those by scientists at Purdue University, Articles supporting these facts and theories appearing in magazines such as Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, and Time.” Source: wikipedia.
Because it is one GIANT conspiracy and everybody involved at every level is a culpable soulless monster. No reinvestigation is needed in anybody’s minds but 9/11 truthers.
Another quote hat sums up people like you:
You fall into the “Illiterati” category
Quick question: is there a point in time where you say “screw it, I was wrong!”? If 50 more years pass will you still delude yourself?
@Nate
‘ No reinvestigation is needed in anybody’s minds but 9/11 truthers.’
I am concerned that you take such a brittle approach Nate.
In Autumn last year a group of whistleblowers traveled out to Moscow to award Snowden with the Sam Adams Award. Among them were Ray McGovern and Coleen Rowley who have both publicly expressed support for re-investigation of 911. Daniel Ellsberg has publicly supported a new investigation, and now Binney, another whistleblower close to the story of the NSA revelations has come forward with the same support.
Years back, Glenn Greenwald wrote some probing journalism about the anthrax attacks, and recently Grahame MacQueen has published a book detailing the unraveling of that official story and its links to 911, hos work is endorsed by Denis Halliday (the former UN Assistant Secretary-General).
Unlike you I see more and more public figures of the utmost integrity openly supporting calls for a new investigation.
Try not to be so fixed and entrenched in your viewpoint and more open minded would be my advice.
Myers – I care not for your pretend “concern” about my supposed approach.
Requesting a re-investigationis is about as useless as a climate change skeptic asking for a new science doohickey testy thingy. There is already consensus from a disparate group of institutions that you plainly gloss over.
But noooooo. Myers said a bunch of non-expert, contrarians like Daniel Ellsberg and William Binney called for a new investigation!! What’s stopping them from doing the leg work? After all, they’re the tiny minority that disagrees. The burden of proof of what REALLY HAPPENED falls on them. Don’t hold your breath Myers.
You’re not moved by actual evidence, you made up your mind already. But at least tell us this – what is your perception of what ACTUALLY happened?
Nate
‘ I care not for your pretend “concern” about my supposed approach.’
-Sorry that you feel that way Nate, my intentions are honest and well meaning, my concern genuine, as it is toward anyone (including myself on occasion) who loses sight of their open mindedness.
‘There is already consensus from a disparate group of institutions that you plainly gloss over.’
-I am not saying that there isn’t a consensus, only that I have not read of any, and do not know where else to look (suggestions?).
‘Myers said a bunch of non-expert, contrarians like Daniel Ellsberg and William Binney called for a new investigation!! What’s stopping them from doing the leg work? After all, they’re the tiny minority that disagrees.’
-Endorsements are important, especially in highly controversial subject areas. The only detailed book that I have come across that claims to debunk the work of independent 911 researchers, is ‘Debunking 911 Myths’ by the Popular Mechanics crew, with a forward by John McCain. (That is McCain who distributed the false conspiracy theory ‘Obsession’ videos as part of his election campaign.)
You may view it as a weakness, but I do feel re-assured about the veracity of what I am reading when I see endorsements by the likes of those above mentioned, or, for example the late Lynne Margulis (Presidential Medal for Science award winner), or say Roger Bowen (former General Secretary of American Association of University Professors), or those experts listed on the ‘Patriotsquestion911′ webpage.
‘ The burden of proof of what REALLY HAPPENED falls on them. Don’t hold your breath Myers.
You’re not moved by actual evidence, you made up your mind already. But at least tell us this – what is your perception of what ACTUALLY happened?’
– This is where I think we diverge. The burden of proof is upon the public bodies who were paid to provide the public with full, accurate and trustworthy accounts of the events that have changed the shape of governance around the world. If academics, professionals and independent researchers uncover discrepancies, contradictions, omissions in those accounts, then that is totally- valid with or without an accompanying THEORY about the events themselves, to publicise their findings and seek correction or clarification in the public record. To assert that it isn’t shows a rigidity of thinking that is of little use in understanding the world I would say.
Your starting point is an assumption that experts in their fields are both well informed about the evidence and narrative of 911, and that those who question these are contrarians, revisionists, or a minority of non-experts. I think this is wrong. An appropriate starting point would be to ask ‘What is the evidence around those events? How well informed are the world’s experts about it?’
I have linked to some of the best repositories of unaccounted for evidence already in this thread, and from my reading most of the world’s experts are almost totally ignorant of that research.
@ Myers:
What is painfully obvious to the casual observer following this thread, is that which is not being said.
Your original post lead to an implied question posed by another commenter regarding the legitimacy of an unbiased investigation into 9/11.
The obvious answer to that question should be another question:
Why would anyone object to further investigation if such an investigation would lead to the truth regarding the reported facts of an event that so many competent independent experts in the fields of engineering, aerospace, and intelligence have clearly disputed?
If one does object to a further independent investigation, perhaps the objecting individual would have a vested interest in hiding the truth or would be suffering from severe cognitive-dissonance.
In either case, that individual has the problem…not you.
Objectivity requires that I concur with you Myers. Common sense is common sense.
More on this topic with many supportive links at:
“Movement to Declassify 9/11 Information Gathers Momentum”
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/08/movement-declassify-911-materials-gathers-momentum.html
well put, world chess, and our players aren’t good
Au contraire. Our players are the most amoral, manipulative, cynical, Power Elite-serving, malefactors on the planet. If they can’t make an effective move, they will control their opponent’s perception of the board, by any means necessary, to the Power Elite’s advantage.
So… , it now becomes clear that ‘spying’ is the basic means being used for ‘profits’ especially the sale of arms to control the peoples all around the World, i.e., Imperial US, KNOWS NO REAL FRIENDS just targets for profits!
It cannot be any greater genocide of the masses, nor greater tool the rich have over the Working Peoples of the World!
Fight back! and join with people that demand equality for all such as Socialist Equality Party. And JOIN THE MOVEMENT of Peace is the right of ALL PEOPLES.
What article were you reading!?
All the articles.
Nate, I find this article fits with all of Our Nation’s doings/deed such as wars, reducing wages and workers’ protections, retirements, health benefits, corporations welfare, allowing new work card status to bring into the US lower paid workers, supplying military weaponry to police forces spying on many fronts what citizens are ‘doing’ , all plus more fit together which paints a vivid picture of the class war going om in the US and by the US all around the World.
So how would you fit all that detail(which is in many articles) into just this article? Do you want to limit the truth? If so why?
The turkish Government and the islamic terrorists of ISIS are partners. We should help the kurds, the PKK wants Democracie and a life in freedom for all people of the region. Turkish Government want to create a islamic state, thats why they help the terrorists of isis.
The US would be abdicating its responsibilities if it did not play one side against the other in these regional conflicts. The Turks are a useful regional power who have cooperated with the US in the war against Syria. And the PKK is useful as well – if the Kurds can establish an independent state in Northern Iraq, it will control some oil fields which could provide US companies with lucrative contracts.
So it doesn’t appear the bombing of the villagers in 2011 was an accident. By providing the information to Turkey, the US could demonstrate it was cooperating in their operations against the PKK. At the same time, the US would score points with the PKK by not actually providing the coordinates of their fighters, and helping to increase their local support by angering the relatives of the villagers who were targeted by Turkey.
So once again, US foreign policy has been revealed as engaged and effective, although they probably don’t appreciate receiving this publicity. While double dealing is a productive strategy, you generally prefer not to advertise it. Turkey will likely make another show of outrage and the PKK will probably denounce the US as well. But both will continue angling behind the scenes for increased US support, so no real damage will be done.
Yes, I’m SURE that the surviving families of the CIVILIANS murdered with the support of the USA! USA! USA! will be utterly thrilled and comforted by your words.n
This is an old debate.
One must consider the relative balance and proportion of things.
quote”One must consider the relative balance and proportion of things.”unquote
Says the murderer of his first wife and son, notwithstanding 300,000 other human beings he had slaughtered.
Bahhummingbug’s statement seems relatively innocuous. Even if he did do the things you accuse him of (and I’m withholding judgment since you’ve provided no proof), you are employing an ad hominem attack, which in no way disproves what he wrote.
@ BM
What! … I thought Chronic was referring to Dick Cheney!
*I didn’t do nothing.
Meanwhile, Benito makes use of his secret access…
http://httpics.com/Civil/bmussolini.jpg
BM, this is the live, as we speak, definition of hypocrisy. Realism it’s called and the very same realism is the excuse used to justify the unethical accumulations and destructive uses of money. Money, we’re told, is devoid of morality, of ethical concerns, so that when we invest it our consciences are relieved of the obligation to review the ethics of the uses our investment produces. It is this attitude to money that generates the need for endless war. Only the profit potential is of importance, and so money is elevated beyond such mundane concerns as ethics, of distinctions such as right & wrong.
But this is an old European notion, a false notion, which we Americans were supposed to have risen beyond so to enable men and women to be responsible for advancing and enhancing the freedom they so treasure. That old notion of realism subjugates the individual to the power of the state, to the monarch who despite all oaths to God is duty bound to the realism of money, removing from that individual the right to be free and and the obligation to be responsible.
But true realism, the realism that values the good, the realism of the people who wish for peace and prosperity, notes the great importance of the high ethical standards freedom demands of its practitioners, and the responsibility of those who would be free to apply those high standards in their own individual lives.
A living authentic freedom results from the practice of high ethics. Were enough of us to actually practice them in our daily lives, we would by example restore the American people to the freedom so hard won for us by our founders, and so deftly stolen from us by the false realists and their money-lust with its downward path to the hell of death and destruction.
(mostly years of progress)
According to whom?
‘Honesty is always the best policy’ *grandma
“The US would be abdicating its responsibilities if it did not play one side against the other in these regional conflicts. The Turks are a useful regional power who have cooperated with the US in the war against Syria. And the PKK is useful as well – if the Kurds can establish an independent state in Northern Iraq, it will control some oil fields which could provide US companies with lucrative contracts.”
Again you demonstrate your clarity of vision Mr. Mussolini. Of course, I agree.
BTW….I suspect that my comments will assume their more mundane quality now that the problem with the comments section in the TI new website design has been resolved. Aren’t you the comical one?
Playing all sides is an old trick, Duce. Two good examples in Napoleon’s cabinet were Talleyrand (of course) and Joseph Fouché, the latter being Napoleon’s sometime minister of police, with a long career of playing off all sides in France and outside, be it Directory, Bonapartist, Bourbon, whatever.
Of course, it helps, if you’re going to play all sides against each other, that you’d better not get caught, as your son-in-law found out.
“Fouché was always in everyone’s shoes … needed intrigue like food.” — Napoleon
Your name says it all, fascist.
This is another example of how difficult it is to put the genie back into the bottle. The “Kurdish Situation” had its origin in the partition of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, principally by the UK, France and the US, and principally for the benefit of the seven sisters, which is to say, seven large oil companies. (There’s an interesting series about this on Al Jazeera.) Had the so-called democracies who won WW1 really been interested in the lofty principles of self determination, there would have been a Kurdish state in what is now southwestern Turkey, Northern Iraq, and southwestern Iran. Instead, we have the situation as it now is, with the US fighting against the Kurds in Turkey, reluctantly working with them in Iraq, and actively supporting them in Iran.
The lesson that should be learned from this is that outside powers should work only in favor of self determination, and never in support of their own greedy self interests. But there is no doubt in my mind that the US and the UK, in particular, and probably no other government as well, will ever reach that conclusion.
If you are taking into account the whole picture around Ottoman Empire before , during and after WW2, most of your comments related with oil is true.
Regarding “self determination” why major powers did not let in ?reland, Corsica, Bask Region in most provences in Russia? but only discussing this issue around Ottoman Empire land only? Just for simple curiousity. If one day comes and hispanic people in US would demand “self determination” how USA goverment will react?
Best regards
Just goes to show none is holier than thou
The problem of human degradation to the point where none trust the other bcos all want their selfish desires fulfilled at any expense
When the NSA says they have “got your back” what do they really mean?
Does the NSA actually say that?
Yes, of course they do. That’s the primo implication of “we’re spying on you to keep you safe.”
“When the NSA says they have “got your back” what do they really mean?”
It means that they are stuck in a Schrodinger ‘s Cat conundrum – where everyone is at the same time both spied upon and a spy.
Sheldon explains it all here.