This past week (May 21st to 27th 2017) the big news in the US, apart from Russiagate, was the Manchester bombing in Britain in which 22 were killed at an Ariana Grande concert. It was not big news because it was the worst case of civilian slaughter this week, but because most of the people killed were White.
Here is an incomplete list of cases of civilian slaughter that took place this past week. I list those that I knew about as of Saturday the 27th at 21:00 GMT.
Note: “civilian slaughter” is here defined as cases where five or more people were killed at the same time, not counting soldiers, police officers or other armed groups, and not counting accidents, natural disasters or executions:
- 15 killed: Deir Ezzor, Syria: by mortar fire from ISIS. Many of the dead were women and children. More.
Monday May 22nd 2017:
- 22 killed: Manchester, Britain: by Salman Abedi, a suicide bomber, at an Ariana Grande concert. ISIS claimed credit. More.
Tuesday May 23rd 2017:
- 5 killed: Jouba, Yemen: by US Navy SEALs during a raid on Al Qaeda. Eyewitnesses say that a partly-blind, 70-year-old man was killed by US Navy SEALs when he tried to greet them, not understanding who they were. That led to an argument and four more dead bodies. The US says all five were Al Qaeda fighters. In addition, two actual Al Qaeda fighters were killed. More.
- 5 killed: Bosasso, Somalia: bombing by an ISIS-allied group. More.
Wednesday May 24th 2017:
- 23 killed: Mosul, Iraq: An ISIS booby-trap kills a family of 23 taking shelter.
- 5 killed: Mogadishu, Somalia: in a suicide car bombing by al-Shabab. More.
Thursday May 25th 2017:
Friday May 26th 2017:
- 28 killed: Minya, Egypt: gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Coptic Christians on their way to a monastery. Ten were children. No one has claimed credit. More.
- 106 killed: Al Mayadeen, Syria: by US-led airstrikes, 42 were children. More.
Saturday May 27th 2017:
- 10+ killed: Khost Province, Afghanistan: car bomb by the Taliban aimed at security forces. More.
- 6+ killed: Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan: during a government attack on ISIS. More.
- ?? killed: Marawi, Philippines: government airstrikes on an ISIS-allied group. Although 90% of the city has fled, some 20,000 civilians are still there! More.
Also this week: the US said it will sell Saudi Arabia $110 billion in weapons. Saudi Arabia is fighting in Yemen – and backs ISIS!
This week’s standings:
- 52% by US and its allies
- 29% by ISIS and its allies
- 19% by others
What drives most of the slaughter listed above is a fight between the US and ISIS for control of ISIS’s two main cities: Raqqa, Syria and Mosul, Iraq. US-led airstrikes now kill more people than those by Syria.
The December Directive: The number of civilians killed by the US has been going up since December 2016, when President Obama gave commanders on the ground a freer hand. Trump is giving them an even freer hand.
UN human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein:
“Unfortunately, scant attention is being paid by the outside world to the appalling predicament of the civilians trapped in these areas.”
– Abagond, 2017.
Update (October 24th): In Marawi, Philippines, over 1,000 civilians wound up getting killed. The US helped by providing the Philippine government with military training, aerial surveillance and electronic eavesdropping.
Sources: Democracy Now! (they keep up on stuff like this), Religion of Peace (pro-Christian), Wikipedia (Eurocentric), Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye.
See also:
- Top mass killings of 2015
- Are Christians more violent than Muslims?
- #AllLivesMatter
- terrorist groups
- Coptic Christians
- Russiagate
567
Thank You for this post Abagond. The studies that show that most people only care about people who are similar to themselves are disheartening.
My mother was a displaced person brought out of the rubble & horrors from Germany by the Red Cross after WWII & my grandfather (& grandmother) came to America to escape the oppression Christian Syrians faced under the occupying Ottoman Empire — after his cousin was shot to death in the cellar of their home in the mountains of Lebanon.
Most people I meet in the States seem irrationally bored w/ suffering outside of not only the nation’s borders — but outside of their own back gardens.
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“ISIS isn’t worth our time…getting our hands dirty”
The US is the leading cause of violence here. Lose the frame where ISIS is the bigger bad guy while the US has good intentions that sometimes go awry.
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@Scríb: The irony is that ISIS, as it were, are precisely worth the time of those who create the atmosphere in which they manifest. In other words, it’s a feature, not a flaw. With that in mind, it’d take a helluva lot more convincing than that of the despot du jour to wash American hands of this culpability.
To the OP: Here’s a case where we can say that a young man’s murderous action was not just a correlation, but at a minimum the indirect result of US seeking of convenient allies in the toppling of Qaddafi.
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at a minimum
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@ davidly
“…ISIS, as it were, are precisely worth the time of those who create the atmosphere in which they manifest. In other words, it’s a feature, not a flaw.”
Good point. ISIS is worth the time, the money and the blood to its funders in the US, Europe, Turkey and Arab Gulf States. It is easier to loot and control the resources of regions when they are in constant chaos. The propaganda bonanza and control over domestic populations in the funding countries is a bonus.
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“More reasons why the U.S. should just get out of the Middle East. I’ve come to believe that ISIS isn’t worth our time. It’s just getting our hands dirty.” – An Scrib
I surmise what you are attempting to articulate is that the United States’ hands or its meddling with the affairs of the so-called Middle East was always virtuous or in the alternative, squeaky clean. Yeah right!
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As usual, ASG-M makes it all about himself, while positioning POC as “tribes” and “gangs” involved in a “petty” conflict over such trivial things as water — and as if there isn’t a long history in that same region of gangs of white tribes engaging in warfare and other nefarious behavior in order to control those same resources and to protect the religious sites of their own fanatical faith.
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@ ASG-M
You forgot “Do unto others….”
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Love your enemies, so good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you… pray for those who mistreat you…” – An Scrib
LOL, look who is talking!
@Scrib, remember these quotes from Abagond’s “Gospel of Peter post:”
“I think I know the the Bible and the tenets of Christianity pretty well.” – An Scrib
“I still identify as a Catholic for various reasons but I’m not afraid to say that Biblical literalism is crazy.” – An Scrib
Here we are a few months removed from that post and we still have you fumbling through a scripture in regards to “loving your enemy.” You are so funny! In any event, back to the current post. LIAR!
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@ ASG-M
“pray for those who mistreat you”
Ok, let’s put that into perspective. Ways in which I have never mistreated you:
1) linking to a video of the f word
2) posting an image of a raised middle finger
3) telling you to commit necrophilia with the corpse of a dictator who oppressed your people
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@ ASG-M
Tell me, how well have you applied the moral lessons of Jesus Christ in your conduct on this blog?
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@ Scribh
I agree with Solitaire: please follow your own advice.
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I watched RT’s weekend round-up of the news. Despite their Islamophobia and general opposition to US foreign policy, the only case of civilian slaughter they mentioned was the Manchester bombing, which got ten minutes, a third of the show. #WhiteLivesMatter.
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@ Zoe
I think it is a form of moral blindness.
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abagond is changing his viewing habits.
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@ Abagond
#WhiteLivesMatter
Yeah, that is true even when the White people in question are holding lethal weapons and pointing them at cops.
Black people can be holding sandwiches, cell phones and wallets and get shot full of holes because the cops “feared for their lives”.
Which makes me think of your classic post:
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@ Scribh
And the US, which since the days of Eisenhower pushed Islamism as a counterweight to communism and Arab socialism, even going so far as to train and arm jihadists.
And, as the world’s biggest arms dealer, it has a conflict of interest when it comes to peace in the Middle East or anywhere. Saudi Arabia would not want or need $110 billion in arms if the US had been an honest peacemaker.
The US, despite its words, does not desire peace. It was built on conquest and is held together by creating boogeymen: savages, communists, thugs, terrorists, etc. If it were not for ISIS and other pieces of blowback from the Cold War, China (Eastasia) would be the enemy.
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George Orwell, “1984”.
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The US, despite its MSM, For Its words are MSM..
Russia is Eastasia. ISIS is Eastasia. Korea is Eastasia. Vietnam is Eastasia. Libya is Eastasia. Syria is Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
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Its all of the above. I live here. Theres a self righteous sense of morality too. Also, many actually could not tell you what happened in Iraq, or to Coptics or many other incidents on the list because they don’t keep up on the news to begin with.
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@abagond
There you go making these incidental embedded accusations in your anti-RT vendetta. Nothing has been established about RT’s Islamophobia. Point it out, because I have not noticed it.
#WhiteLivesMatter
Feud between Bloods and Crips gangs.
http://aanirfan.blogspot.com/2017/05/manchester-false-flag-part-two.html
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I don’t want to hear & pray w/ prayers for the “military” in Church. (Any military). This is a problem since Constantine painted crosses on the shields of his soldiers & since Augustine’s ‘just war’ theory. The blending of Church & State.
I moved out of NYC & am living an hour outside it so can no longer attend the Syriac or Coptic churches in Brooklyn that I used to live near (& which did not include prayers for the military but only for “peace”). When I went to an Antiochian (Syrian) Orthodox Church here recently they included a prayer for “the victory of the government of Syria” (= Assad) in their prayers for people. I — like many others — believe Assad is a war criminal. I spoke w/ the priest about this. They kept saying the prayers & I stopped going there. Their Archdiocese sent a group of priests over there in 2011 to meet w/ Assad. There is an article about the meeting on their website describing what a “gentleman” he was & also how they had a minder the entire time so did not see anything on their own — but how pleasant etc. he was & also the Grand Mufti (who is now believed responsible for the mass hangings & cremations along w/ Assad). The article is still there — even after the recent second chemical attack on his own people (the first in 2013).
As a further illustration of people’s unrelenting disinterest in the suffering of others: After my experience at the Antiochian Orthodox Church — on Palm Sunday I went to an Anglican Church because it is blocks from my place here (an hour outside NYC). I gave the priest a petition prayer to read along w/ the rest for the Copts that had just been slain in Church in Egypt earlier that very morning. When the deacon — a white locally born & raised American man — read my prayer he misread it as 26 “priests” killed vs. parishioners… faithful… people… (?! children & their mothers & grandparents & families were killed — not some kind of council of “priests”). The moral apathy is shocking… How difficult was it for people who call themselves Christians to acknowledge that the ancient Church of Alexandria was in agony that Palm Sunday morning. I was stunned…
Then I went to a local Greek Orthodox Church. When the pastor mentioned a future trip they are taking to Mt.Sinai/St.Catherine’s monastery: I cheerfully told everyone that I had just spent the previous days studying the photo archive of the collection of icons there which Princeton has just posted online & they can all view the entire collection there before their trip. I said my dad is a ‘black Lebanese’ who looks West African & how very interesting I found it that one can see the icons of the Christ & the Saints at St.Catherine’s get paler & more European looking as the Church became more & more Hellenised (Greek). (The collection consists of very ancient icons to more recent ones).
This did not go over well w/ the priest! He answered that I was wrong because icons in different “regions” look different etc. But I responded that these are Coptic icons in one monastery & that even now today Coptic icons are paler. (After the influence of Europeans). This was followed by silence & a change of subject. I then wrote thanking him for his hospitality & saying I wouldn’t be returning due to transportation (I’m living like a New Yorker here without a car).
Basically like the apostle w/ the oil I have made myself a thorn to these local Churches & I probably have to wake super early & take a train to NYC to go to Church & not feel like a brown skinned kohl eyed militant (or anti-militant). My neighbour across the hall goes to a local Black Church (Protestant) & was giving a raking to people who pray w/ icons. I have an icon on my door that she walks by everyday & an icon wall in my one room loft across from her which she’s been in. So those churches are not an option for me either.
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@ Zoe
That is a fascinating comment. Sometimes people forget how politicized churches, mosques and temples are to both insiders and outsiders.
Thank you.
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@blakksage, Not sure what’s so funny. There’s a great difference between applying the moral lessons of Christ to one’s life and believing, say, that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago. Or that God has a “chosen people.” – An Scrib
Come on An Scrib. I sincerely hope that you don’t think that you’re really a funny person, because you certainly aren’t funny at all. I was merely being sarcastic. You know, … it’s one of my many double entendres, uttered just to confuse YOU. It appears that I was successful yet again. You may not be a funny individual, however; you are definitely a proven LIAR!
Yes, it’s a fact, people like YOU have been on this planet for only 6,000 years, NOT that the earth was created only six-thousand years ago. Even white scientists agree with this date. And yes, Yah does have a “chosen people.”
Amos 3:2 “You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.” Didn’t so-called African Americans go into slavery on ships? That was our punishment for disobeying the Most High.
Psalm 147:20 “He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the LORD (Yah).”
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@ ASG-M
“I see that the tinfoil hats are out in force.”
What, because we remember how you’ve behaved?
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@An Scríbhneoir Gael-Mheiriceánach
lol. im so glad i found out what gas lighting is.
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The sad thing about An Scrib is that he is not only the victim of gaslighting but the perpetrator as well. In other words, his condition; his image; his propensities; his nuances; his incoherency or his discombobulated state of mind appears to be self inflicted.
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“That’s the principle that allowed me to take a comfortable three-week break from commenting recently.” – An Scrib
Too bad you didn’t ask for some advice because would’ve recommended a three-year break from commenting, just for the sake of your sanity. Trust me Scrib, I’m here for your mental wellbeing and will do anything within reason to assist with a speedy recovery. (wink, wink)
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Good title for your post, and an interesting perspective to take on all these murders.
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@ ASGM
Comment deleted.
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@ Solitaire
Comment deleted for quoting ASGM’s deleted comment.
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@ Abagond
Would it be possible to restore the part that didn’t quote his comment? I’d like him to see that second section, but it’s your call.
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@ Solitaire
I restored as much of it as I could.
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@ Abagond
I didn’t save it, either. There isn’t enough left to make sense. Probably better just to delete it after all.
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I feel honoured that you & Abagond were the very first to reply to me on this blog — because I love the content in your comments & your turn of phrase Afrofem. This is I think the second post of Abagond’s I’ve ever commented on: so thanks for hearing me & welcoming me — both of you.
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@ Solitaire
Deleted.
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scrib missed it, it’s gets worse as ya read it, there was a basic intro to it in the malcolm x autobiography
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/Perspectives_1/article_9878.shtml
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very interesting
thats in line with what i was thinking. in my own out of africa theory.
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maybe thats where i heard it. read that back in high school
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Clay ppl yakub nephilim its givin me a headache now
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@Zoe,
John 8:32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
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@TheHipHopRecords
That’s a brilliant cartoon Love…
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@blakksage
Faith Hope & the greatest of these Love…
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The Intercept has a harrowing article about the vise that Syrian civilians currently face: They are targeted by both/all sides of the war. Whether they are trying to flee the fighting, in school, in hospitals or mosques, the US led coalition (plus local allies) and ISIS and its allies is attacking the civilian population with increasing frequency and ferocity. According to the article, “The U.S. Has Ramped Up Airstrikes Against ISIS In Raqqa, and Syrian Civilians Are Paying the Price”:
It is appalling that none of this information is ever presented on the evening television news or any American newspaper (where most Americans get their “news”). Those sources are filled with weather stories, “kitten in the tree” rescues, griping by Trump supporters, propaganda and embedded advertising. On the rare occasion that a group of Europeans or Euro-Americans face violence, that story is put on a 24 hour continuous loop for days. Everyone else just disappears.
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@ Afrofem
That is precisely why I get Electronic Intifada (out of Chicago) delivered straight to my email inbox. & also my friend in New Haven runs thestruggle.org focusing on Palestine & US support of the Saudis etc. etc. etc.
A few other US sources: the Arab American Institute & Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) & Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). There are so many others as well… from Lebanon & Palestine etc. Too many to list here. Even BBC news is more transparent & inclusive than various US news agents.
Millions of Yemeni people are starving to death now. If this were happening in Sweden etc. people here in the States might care a bit more. It is about colour & racism. (I get tired of some people only mentioning ‘oil’ — thinking they are being sympathetic & thinking they are understanding the whole picture…).
The world thinks we are worthless. And worse it is acceptable w/ many people for the world to think we are worthless. We have been demonised in the same manner since at least the Crusades & it got worse w/ the invention of the novel & then film & then television. (See the Jack Shaheen documentary ‘Reel Bad Arabs’. You can watch it on Youtube now for free. Also read his book w/ the same title & the one prior to that ‘The TV Arab’).
The late Palestinian American Columbia University professor & author Edward Said explained it perfectly in his brilliant book ‘Orientalism’. (Apparently such an under-discussed topic that the spellcheck here is telling me — w/ little red dotted line underneath — that there is no word ‘Orientalism’…).
I love your posts Afrofem… they’re a balm…
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@ Zoe
There is so much going on in the world that is never mentioned in American media. If it is mentioned at all, it is distorted by the lens of Orientalism you mentioned in your comment.
Abagond has done a wide variety of posts that explore Orientalism. Two that stand out to me are:
I agree that the vicious attack on the Yemeni people is enough to make a person’s head explode. Tiny, impoverished Yemen getting bludgeoned by its wealthy neighbor, Saudi Arabia is hard to read about. What bothers me most is that before the Saudi attacks, many Yemeni’s were running out of water and down to one meal a day.
I still remember a BBC documentary about a Yemeni extended family of an older couple, their son, his two wives and more than a fourteen grandchildren of all ages. They had just enough water to drink, but none to grow wheat and vegetables. The son used his motorbike as a taxi to earn money.
The one major meal of the day was often stewed okra and wheat bread. When wheat is not available, the family substituted “bread” made from ground wood fiber. The rest of the time the family subsisted on tea.
Sometimes, I think about the fate of that family, so close to the edge in 2010. This war has likely intensified their suffering.
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@ Afrofem
People’s stories & pain get stuck inside my head also.
Re. EATING WOOD… It’s like in Haiti those cookies made of clay that are sold on the street. It’s said to help certain ailments (upset stomach etc… Kaopectate etc. is basically clay) — but people eat them out of hunger.
My mother was starving after WWII in Berlin & then when they escaped the occupied Russian Zone to Frankfurt am Main. (The occupied Russian Zone of Berlin did not get the food air drops from the US like the occupied Western Zone… The Candy Bomber etc.).
Finally she got a sponsorship through the Red Cross to come to the States. The sponsor — a white girl from Montana — sent her a ‘care package’. Among some other things she sent was a tin of DOG FOOD for my mum’s ‘dog’. My mum always told this story laughing w/ that dark Berliner humour — because there were NO dogs left. Those that weren’t eaten by people had long since died of starvation.
My mum & her parents & family did not resort to that (she rather foraged in the wood for mushrooms etc. — where she got arrested by a Russian soldier… another horror story for another day…) but she told me that one day their neighbours offered them meat (after weeks of nothing to eat) & the neighbours dog was also missing. They declined the meat.
When the Trade Towers fell my mum could not watch the footage because it reminded her of the bombing of Berlin — which she was literally under w/ her hair on fire & her leather shoes burning off her feet only from walking between the columns of burning buildings on either side of her. Only instead of three buildings as happened in 2001 in NYC it was an entire City & country. (& no I am not excusing the actions of Hitler & the Nazis & the bombing they did — nor minimising the sorrow I share over the people killed in the towers & planes).
My mum ate rotten fish she & my grandfather found somewhere. She always laughed telling me about that & said it was glowing in the dark. My grandmother refused to eat it.
This is why we Eastern Orthodox & Coptic Christians fast for half the year (& also Muslims — only I am not sure how long they fast). We are meant to know what it is to be very hungry in order to have true empathy for others.
As I wrote above my dad’s family is from Lebanon. From a town called Marjeyoun which gets mercilessly bombed to powder every few years by The Occupier (very badly in 1996/2006).
Germany just had to evacuate tens of thousands of citizens to clear out unexploded Allied bombs. People are still killed by them…
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@ Afrofem
PS: I’ve always wondered if the girl who sent the dog food really meant for my family to eat it: as if telling them THEY were ‘dogs’.
I left out the end of that story & the reason I wrote it: my mother & grandparents ate the dog food the girl sent — because they were starving.
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Gaslighting: State Mind Control and Abusive Narcissism
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47139.htm
https://abagond.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/57b74643c3618815348b4602.jpg?w=500&h=281
Plane over Syria.
Interesting thing about that picture. It shows a plane that is spraying. Why do I say that? With normal contrails there is a gap between the plane and the formation of the vapor trail. Also the trail streams from the heat of the individual engines, not across the span of the wings. What this picture tells me is that they are spraying ‘chemicals’ in Syria, just as they are at home.
Gaslighting is a process that extends over a period of time. Chemtrails is a definite example of gaslight brainwashing. If you ‘believe in’ chemtrails, no matter how much evidence there is, youre crazy.
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this j christian fellow i just tried to remember the name, j christian …
i had to fact check that one, i was incredulous of the memory!
jesus mary and joseph with a 3 on the tree!
he’s getting a real rep as a stormer, sheesh
i learned a new ‘word’ antifa it’s a rather broad category apparently
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2017/05/who_is_jeremy_christian_facebo.html
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ah man dailystormer was apparently spending money on SEO it was up therer with reddit, i refuse to go to them sites, plus they have the ehanced ddos cloudflare probe, why bother, they are riding them coattails
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oh yeah. america likes to drought out its enemies (or flood them out) with weather weapons before conventional military assault.
like they did in Vietnam.
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omg if he cuts off stampies omg dude
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@ Zoe
I have a question for you on the Open Thread:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/open-thread/comment-page-1/#comment-372414
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Last week was again the same pattern: a terrorist attack in London gets almost all the attention by the US press even though there were worse terrorist attacks in at least Nigeria, Cameroon, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and the Philippines. The worst was in Afghanistan, killing 90 people. The one in London killed 7.
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Odd/not odd that the US has troops in countries where it seems to care so little about the taking of innocent lives.
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re: abagond
Is this referring to the terrorist attack last week in Marawi in Mindanao in the southern Philippines or the attack at the casino at the Manila airport? I did find them both covered by US MSM.
Over 100 died in the Marawi attack according to US MSM CNN:
ISIS in Southeast Asia: Philippines battles growing threat>/b>
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/28/asia/isis-threat-southeast-asia/
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@abagond
///Odd/not odd that the US has troops in countries where it seems to care so little about the taking of innocent lives.///
That is the tragedy of the USA.
If people are slaughtered by Assad, ISIS, Serbians, Hutus, Israelis or Somalian warlords, and the American Government does NOT respond, then “the USA is watching with folded arms how innocent lives are taken.”
Just see the criticism on Clinton when the USA did not intervene when former Yugoslavian republics became a battle ground, or on Obama when Putin and Assad outsmarted him after Assad crossed the infamous red line.
On the other hand, if the American Government DOES respond the call for intervention, then the USA will be depicted as “an imperialist, capitalist monster that doesn’t care about innocent lives.”
This doesn’t mean that American Presidents always are acting the right way (see Iraq), but there are plenty occasions when they will be criticized anyway, regardless their actions.
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@ Jeff Elberfeld
“…if the American Government DOES respond the call for intervention, then the USA will be depicted as “an imperialist, capitalist monster that doesn’t care about innocent lives.”
The doctrine of intervention you mention was thoroughly discussed in a 2010 essay by Fabrice Weissman, a former Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders Head of Mission in Darfur. In his essay, “Not In Our Name: Why MSF Does Not Support the “Responsibility to Protect”, Weissman argues that the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) may be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
According to Weissman, R2P was cooked up by a panel of Canadian “experts” to develop rules for future military interventions amid the acrimony of NATO’s involvement in Kosovo in the 1990s. Weissman contends,
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news-stories/ideaopinion/not-our-name-why-msf-does-not-support-responsibility-protect
So while intervening with high-minded rhetoric about protecting civilians sounds good, the reality on the ground for those same civilians can become even more brutal as intervening troops take sides and help facilitate the very atrocities they decried on the part of the local governments.
Then there is the question of surreptitious Western government involvement at the root of various global conflicts….
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@afrofem
Thank you! I have nothing to add to that.
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Update (October 24th): In Marawi, Philippines, over 1,000 civilians wound up getting killed. The US helped by providing the Philippine government with military training, aerial surveillance and electronic eavesdropping.
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