Crisis, What Crisis?—The al-Qaeda Takeover of Syria

written by neil clark - monday april 27, 2015

This weekend it was reported that al-Qaeda affiliated rebels were “almost completely in control” of the last major government held city in the Idlib province in northern Syria.



This is really big news as it means that the Syrian government’s coastal heartlands including the important port of Latakia, a Baathist stronghold are under direct threat. It’s a major advance for the cause of al-Qaeda, yet what is most revealing is the lack of reaction or any concern from Western leaders.



You‘d think that Western leaders would be alarmed at the al-Qaeda advances given how much they warn us of the “threat” from radical Islamists and how many Western troops were lost in the “war on terror” in Afghanistan.



In fact, the lack of concern regarding the militants’ gains in Syria exposes the fundamental deceit at the heart of Western foreign policy. The elites claim to be fighting radical Islamists, yet in Syria they’re doing everything they possibly can to ensure that the side that’s fighting radical Islamists, the secular Syrian government, is weakened and eventually defeated.



Last month, Syria’s President Assad drew attention to the West’s phony war against ISIS. He noted that there were only about 10 raids a day from the coalition of “rich and advanced” countries against the Islamic State. “The Syrian air force, which is very small in comparison with this coalition, conducts in a single day, many times the number of air strikes conducted by a coalition which includes sixty countries. This doesn‘t make sense. This shows the lack of seriousness…there is no serious effort to defeat terrorism,” Assad said.



Far from trying to defeat terrorism — the West and its regional allies have been supporting it.



Israel, the country which we’re repeatedly told by its cheerleaders in the West is in the “front line” of the “war on terror,” has been acting as al-Qaeda’s de facto ally in Syria. It’s made at least ten bombing raids on the country since 2012 — but tellingly, not a single one up to now has been directed at the radical Islamists fighting Assad‘s forces. All have been on Syrian government/army targets or on groups fighting with the Syrian army against the terrorists — such as January‘s attack, which killed a senior Iranian general and six Hezbollah fighters. (Today, news broke that another Israeli air strike had killed “four militants” on the Israel/Syria border, but we don’t know which groups the "militants" belong to.)



In March, it was reported that Israel had opened its borders with Syria to provide medical treatment to wounded al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front soldiers and after treating them, released them straight back over the Syrian border to continue their fight against a secular government which protects Christians and other religious minorities.



The help that the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) has given to Syrian rebels at the Golan Heights has been documented in a series of UN reports.



Israel clearly doesn’t want its activities in Syria to be subject to too much scrutiny.



READ THE REST HERE

Allen West: Tea Party Statist and no friend of Liberty or the Constitution

The below article is from 2011, but since Allen West is trying to make some kind of a comeback I feel I should warn Tea Party Activists that he is a Tea Party statist, a fake conservative and no friend to Liberty and the Constitution. He defends the Patriot Act, which portions of it destroy our Constitutional Civil Liberties. And he defends the NDAA that allows indefinite detention of Americans, though he does this by saying the NDAA bill does NOT allow for indefinite detention of Americans when every politician says it does. Denial anyone? Or subterfuge?

ARTICLE STARTS HERE:

As a black conservative and Republican, Allen West is not your typical Tea Party member. West rode the Tea Party wave all the way to the U.S. House last November from Florida’s 22nd congressional district. He is the first black Republican to represent Florida since Reconstruction.

But in addition to being a member of both the Tea Party Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus, Allen West is also a Tea Party statist.

Before his election to Congress, West was a lieutenant colonel in the army until his retirement after an investigation into his harsh interrogation techniques while fighting in the Iraq War resulted in a $5,000 fine. After his “service” in the military, West worked for a defense contractor as an advisor to the Afghan National Army. He run unsuccessfully in 2008 for the congressional seat he now holds. After speaking at CPAC in 2010 and being endorsed by Sarah Palin, West won the 2010 election against the same Democratic candidate who had earlier defeated him. He was the keynote speaker at the recent 2011 CPAC. West is a favorite of Tea Party members for his attacks on President Obama and government spending and his support for the military and the war on terror.

I have never been too impressed with the Tea Party movement, especially when it comes to issues like the war on drugs and U. S. foreign policy. And although most Tea Party supporters claim they are opposed to big government, in poll after poll a majority of Tea Party Republicans say they have a favorable view of former president George W. Bush. The George W. Bush who doubled the national debt, gave us the first trillion-dollar deficit, drastically expanded Medicare, and not only began two wars that unnecessarily shed American blood and drained the treasury, but waged another war on the domestic front””on the Bill of Rights.

I don’t know how West feels about Bush, but I do know that he is a Tea Party statist who supports the welfare state, the warfare state, and the national security state.

I want to briefly look at these in reverse order, focusing mainly on the welfare state that West would claim to oppose. Read the rest here and read about all the big government stuff Allen West supports.

Remembering the victims and first responders of the 9-11 Disaster and the men killed in Benghazi