True fakery, fake truthiness, fake news, true fake news, and fake news that might be true...

I see where the White Helmets are in the news again. Well, obliquely, anyway.

As regular readers will know, I'm more than a little skeptical of the official story. You know, those plucky volunteers who work exclusively in areas of Syria held by the "rebels," meaning ISIS/al Qaeda, and their affiliates.

Ya, I'm fully aware Assad is a bad dude and all that, but...

That plucky band of Syrian volunteers was originally organized by James Le Mesurier, a non-Syrian, non-Arab, non-Muslim white guy with deep connections to the UK military. And, for "volunteers," they've managed to hoover up an incredible amount of money from the same constellation of foreign state actors who have been behind the Syrian "civil war" from even before the get-go.

So here's the latest story.  Some version of it has been on virtually every "fake" news channel on the internet (although I believe it's absent from Glenn Greenwald's "The Intercept"). This of course is where things get dodgy. How do we know what's fake news on the internet? That original Propornot disinformation piece at the WaPo, advising us what was fake and what was not, turned out to be more fake than true itself.

Our official media, on the other hand, has not even acknowledged the existence of this story.

Anyway, this alleged report from the OPCW (the folks who are charged with investigating alleged chemical weapons attacks) was allegedly deep-sixed by the OPCW itself. If that is the case, and if that allegedly quashed report is indeed the real deal, then the entire "White Helmets are heroes" narrative goes down the shitter, as does the credibility of the OPCW itself.

That would be a huge story.

The allegedly quashed OPCW report was leaked to an outfit called the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media, a bunch of mainly Brit academics who you'd think would know enough to put a comma after Propaganda. I'm not sure what their fakery rating might be, but they've done some yeoman work on the faker-than-fake Integrity Initiative (lots of initiative, a little light on integrity).

So, who/what to believe? Let me know if you figure it out.

Qatar get's voted off Trump's "Arab NATO" island

Trump made a lot of noise in his speech in Riyadh a week ago about Iran's supposed underwriting of terrorism. No doubt more than a few of the assembled Sheikhs felt the sweat beading up under their Keffiyas; after all, no one knows better than they who's really been behind the financing of Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, ISIS, and sundry other chapters of Head-choppers Inc.

Not that it's much of a secret. Those e-mails Putin stole off Hillary's computer last year revealed that she's been aware of the game for years and obviously was wholly untroubled by the fact.

It's certainly not something you read about in American media of course. We prefer to hew to the Israeli line that Iran is the troublemaker in the neighbourhood. But with Trump shining the presidential spotlight on the matter, something was bound to give.

And today, Trump's "Arab NATO" chums discovered the traitor in their midst; Qatar. Yup, one of the Sunni Kingdoms has indeed been sponsoring ISIS et al. And not only that, they've been way too chummy with Israel's number one existential threat for quite some time.

Looks like we're seeing a new power bloc stepping out of the shadows; a US/Saudi/Egypt/Israel combine. Forget democracy, forget human rights, and above all, forget the Palestinians.

If you think we live in interesting times, you ain't seen nothing yet!

Will NATO toss Erdogan under the bus?

And will this signal the rise of Fethullah Gulen?

Gulen has been cooling his heels in America, being groomed for goodness knows what, but definitely something that can benefit the American Empire.

Meanwhile, Erdogan's antics are more erratic than ever. Yes, he's finally taking a stand against ISIS/ISIL/Islamic State/Daesh, after supporting and nurturing the supposedly mysterious Al Qaeda offshoot for years.

But now he's not only let loose the Turkish military on the Jihadists, but on the very Kurdish "allies" that the US and Canada have been busy training up to assist in the battle against the Islamic extremists!

This is a bizarre situation. On the one side, you have NATO training the Kurds. On the other, you have NATO bombing them.

Something's got to give!

When you look at NATO, and you see the US and their poodle Canada doing one thing, and Turkey doing the opposite, it's not hard to figure out what's gonna give...

Goodbye, Mr. President!


Hello Mr. Gulen!

Al Qaeda is just a Pentagon fabrication

And therefore, al Qaeda's slightly-more-sinister brothers in terror, the Qaeda offspring known variously as al-Nusra, ISIL, ISIS, and Islamic State, can safely be deemed Pentagon spawn too.

The think tank here at Falling Downs had our suspicions way back in '11, when it became obvious that those "Libyan rebels" NATO was continuously driving forward were nothing more or less than particularly lazy and particularly drug-addled al Qaeda "terrorists."

Once we had facilitated their triumph over the evil Gaddafi, it was on to greater triumphs!

That's why the US and her eager minions in the Gulf have been busy helping al Qaeda and its manifold mutations bring freedom to Syria for the last four years!

When you step back and think about it, back far enough so that your head is at least briefly clear of the propaganda smog, you can see the win-win here.

Fabricate an enemy and arm them to the teeth.

Bomb them to ratshit.

Arm them to the teeth again.

... repeat cycle.

It's been going on for years now.

Al Qaeda terrorists discovered in Israeli ambulance

Here's a confusing story out of occupied Golan in Syria.

Seems a Druze mob ransacked an IDF ambulance that was ferrying wounded al-Nusra fighters to an Israeli medical facility for treatment. Also inside the ambulance were two IDF soldiers, presumably there to protect the terrorists from the Druze mob.

Here's what the Greatest Leader Since Moses had to say about it;

"This is a very grave incident. We will not permit anybody to take the law into their own hands, and we will not allow anyone to hamper Israeli soldiers in the course of their duty," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
"I call on Druze leaders to act immediately to calm tensions."

Isn't that rich! The Golan Druze, under illegal Israeli occupation since 1967, are expected to stand by while the IDF supports the al Qaeda franchise in Syria!

At least the PM inadvertently confirmed something many have suspected; that it is part of an IDF soldiers duty to support al- Nusra Front. 

Jihadi Steve declares war on radical Islam

Big Steve opened his trap yesterday, and sure enough, stupid shit came out.

Steve was thinking aloud about what kind of monsters could possibly carry out the cold-blooded murder of a bunch of harmless cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo. Seems those international baddies have declared war on us, in fact, on all countries and people that don't think and act as they want us to; people like ourselves who value freedom, openness, and tolerance.

Yup, when you hear PM Harper tell the tale, the Nations of Virtue were just sitting around, being virtuous, when, out of the blue, a bunch of bloodthirsty towel-heads took a dislike to us!

To be honest, Steve, it seems to me that those folks would be more than happy to mind their own business, it we would just leave them alone. I don't recall any Islamic nation ever bombing Canada, yet we were beyond proud to be raining down bombs on Libya... oh, sorry! Those weren't bombs, they were "projectiles of democracy!"

Of course we were not acting alone; we were joined by a number of other NATO states, none of which was remotely threatened by Gadaffi either.

There are of course other outrages etched in the collective memories of those evil-doers who have the big hate on for our freedoms. Long before NATO destroyed Libya, we destroyed Iraq, which act, incidentally, birthed al Qaeda, and our lengthy run in Afghanistan has set that country back several generations, and we are currently working our magic in Syria and Iraq again!

So I don't know where you get the idea that those people aren't pissed off for good reasons, Steve. And you know what? I think if you or your brother or father or son was one of the folks in this picture, you'd be pissed off too!






They hate us for a lot more than our freedom.

Charlie Hebdo attack reveals al Qaeda has adopted Western-style commando tactics

According to reports from Paris, today's al Qaeda raid marks a radical departure in the terror group's methods.

Typically, one associates al Qaeda with suicide missions. Obviously, this was no such thing. Instead, today's attack was extremely well-rehearsed and professional in nature. This team of al Qaeda killers have obviously played on the same line for some time, if I may indulge a sports analogy.

This was the unveiling of an entirely new al Qaeda strategy. What does this portend for terror ops of the future? Has the day of the lone fanatic with a suicide vest passed into history?

Was this the work of European ISIS sympathizers who have been professionally trained and battle-hardened in the streets of Aleppo? If so, how many such teams are on the loose in the capitals of Europe?

Today we have witnessed a new stage in the evolution of terror...

Or could this be something else entirely?

US Air Force now flying support missions for al Qaeda in Syria

Yup, that al Qaeda, our worst enemies who brought down the twin towers etc.

I was a little confused about the tale of the al Raqqa Brigades fighting ISIS in Kobani.

So I did a little research.

Far from "coming out of nowhere," ISIS was a well documented presence in Raqqa a year and a half ago.

Here's a nice over-view of the infighting among various jihadi groups that clearly shows that the al Raqqa Brigades abandoned the Free Syrian Army and aligned themselves with al Qaeda.

Here's a story that suggests the fall of Raqqa happened with the connivance of the Assad regime.

The city of Raqqa was the scene of much internecine combat between al-Qaeda aligned jihadis and ISIS factions. ISIS eventually prevailed.

That fight has in the last month been transferred to Kobani, where ISIS and the al Qaeda factions are again fighting for supremacy.

This battle is being sold in Western media as a Kurds vs. Islamic State struggle. In reality it's a continuation of the battle between ISIS and al Qaeda, in which the Kurds are backing al Qaeda.

And so is the USAF.

The USAF is now al Qaeda's Air Force!

The murky trail that links the US government to 9/11

The 9/11 conspiracy types who have long linked the US government to 9/11 won't find any surprises here.

It's become overwhelmingly obvious that the US government has of late been supporting elements of al Qaeda in the battle to bring down Syria's government.

Bringing down the Assad government is not a new idea. American policy wonks were having wet dreams about that back in 2003.

James Akin made the case then for regime change in Syria.

James Akin was a top-drawer kind of guy from the oil industry who assumed that it was his prerogative to dictate foreign policy to the government of the USA.

His dreams are coming true, thanks to al Qaeda franchise ISIS.

The question is, when did America begin funding these supposedly anti-American Muslim terrorists?

Given al Qaeda's roots in the Afghan conflict, it would seem that the US has been funding terror since well before 9/11.

Why?

Because the war profiteers desperately need enemies.

NEWS FLASH: US has been funding "al Qaeda" for years!

This blog about Ghassan Hitto from well over a year ago pretty much spells out how the US is funding its own enemies.

Why?

So it can have enemies!

After all, the death merchants who profit so handsomely from one US war after another have zero interest in peace.

If they can influence foreign policy with respect to Iraq or Ukraine or Georgia or anywhere else that a little local disagreement can be blown into a potentially world-threatening catastrophe, they are good to go.

When you read the various points of view about how ISIS came "out of nowhere" to threaten the imaginary stability of the Middle East, you will realize that no matter which narrative finally triumphs, it is the American/NATO war profiteers who will win in the end.

Even when they lose on the ground they will win on the balance sheet.

And that, from the point of view of the American capitalist war profiteers, is how you spell "victory".

IRAN TERROR BIN LADEN IRAN AL-QAEDA

You'll have to look long and hard to find any media mention of Sulaiman Abu Graith before he showed up on the front page of every American newspaper a week ago.

Since then he's morphed into a Senior Bin Laden Adviser, Terror Mastermind, Al Qaeda Mastermind... but mostly, he's become the most useful device ever for putting Al-Qaeda and Iran in the same story.

After all, it's nice to have some terrorists to pin on the Iranian terrorism sponsors, and evidence for that is notably lacking.

That's useful because the Bomb Iran crowd needs to keep alive the fiction that Al-Qaeda is a creation of the Iranian terror apparatus. It helps if you can produce headlines that make that link, even if the content of the story fails to substantiate it.

Hence, in the past week, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and innumerable others have all provided their eager readers with fanciful speculation about the links between the Saudi-sponsored Al Qaeda, and Saudi Arabia's number one enemy, Iran.

Here's a Reuters story from a year ago that describes the Al Qaeda-Iran relationship as "fractious at best and antagonistic at worst." They even have a reference to Abu Graith in the third and forth paragraphs from the bottom. He was such a non-entity he wasn't even mentioned by name, simply referred to as "the husband of one of Bin Laden's daughters."

He is a non-entity no more. He has since become a useful pawn in the anti-Iran propaganda campaign. He gives the media big boys an excuse to print headlines that imply linkages that don't exist.

You can be sure we'll be seeing lots of those in the months to come.

France in Mali; liberation or reign of terror?

Here's the latest Mali news from Al Jazeera.

The Qatar news source is generally pro Western, pro France, pro intervention.

They are also playing the double game just like our allies in Turkey. Some al Qaeda are terrorists when you put them in one context, say Qatar, but they are freedom fighters when you  put them in Syria.

Qatar was huge in the fight against the Monster of the Magheb, because the Colonel had for years railed against what he saw as the corrupt regimes of the Gulf statelets.

Obviously Qatar prevailed in that struggle.

Here are some key terms that we can pick out of the Al Jazeera article about Mali;

reprisal killing
collective punishment
executions
targeted killings

None of these references are to anything the "bad guys" have done.

These are the actions of the liberators, Hollande's Crusaders and their allies in the Malian army.

If a pro-Western news source is painting such a picture, what is the real situation on the ground?

We don't know. There is far more information coming out of Syria, where the evil Assad is blocking press access, than out of Mali, where the virtuous French are blocking press access.

But we're the good guys!

US doubles down on global cop gig

According to this story, not just global cop but global judge and jury too.

So these three dudes were arrested in Djibouti and suspected of wanting to support al Shabaab fighters in Somalia.

On the face of it one might detect in this narrative some concerns for Djibouti or Somalia. Possibly even Sweden or Britain.

So why are they now in a New York jail?

It costs a lot of money to bring folks over from Djibouti and keep them in New York jails.

It will cost even more to put them on trial. This case will run into the millions of dollars in no time.

If the concern is that these three individuals have al Qaeda sympathies and might at some point in the future pose a risk to American interests, then why are US law enforcement officials not busy in Turkey vetting the thousands of fighters with al Qaeda sympathies who have been crossing into Syria?

Gloating idiocy , or what happens when you cut off the head of the snake II

Here's an oh-so-proud chest-thumper of a headline that's been popping up all over the place for the past day or so.

Since Obama took office at least two thirds of the al Qaeda leadership has been eliminated. So says State Department counter-terror boss Daniel Benjamin.

So why are al Qaeda stronger than ever? Stronger in Yemen, Mali, Libya. Practically running the revolution in Syria.

A bigger threat to US interests by far than when Obama took office.

But an imbecile from State can get world-wide headlines for boasting about America's "success"  against al Qaeda?

What's wrong with this picture?

When leaders are eliminated new leaders take their place. The new leaders will by definition be younger, better educated, more competent and aggressive.

That's why the fabled strategy of "cutting off the head of the snake" inevitably leads to there being more snakes.

It's a losing strategy.

Syrians take to streets in show of support for al Qaeda

The mis-handling of the Syrian "spring" has to be one of the greatest US foreign policy debacles of our times. Or is it?

It's been clear that American policy has been to lead from behind the scenes as proxies Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia took the lead in importing and arming the anti-Assad forces. And it's been clear to most of the world for well over a year that the "foreign fighters" who have been converging on Syria have what might delicately be termed "al Qaeda affiliations."

Recently there have been indications that Washington too is aware of this. First the charade of re-jigging the "Syrian National Council" into the "Syrian National Coalition" to make it more "representative". When the Syrians duly jumped through Hillary's hoops on that count, the US suddenly realized that the single most effective fighting force in Syria was in fact the Jabhat al-Nusra, aka al Qaeda, and promptly added them to their official list of terror groups.

This is all in the context of explaining why the US cannot directly arm the  "rebels", and the people of Syria took to the streets to make known their displeasure.

In terms of a Syrian spring, a Syrian liberalization, a democratic Syria, etc, none of this makes any sense.

Can American foreign policy really be that inept and self-defeating?

But what if this entire Syria exercise is just preparing the ground for an invasion of Iran? Suddenly a Syria in ruins is not such a bad thing. Plenty of good excuses to drop tens of thousands of American and/or NATO troops in to restore order/ deliver humanitarian aid / secure the weapons of mass destruction / etc etc.

And those tens of thousands of Sunni fundamentalist fighters on the ground in Syria? I'm guessing that America will permit herself just enough of an accommodation with "al Qaeda" to hand those lads maps to Tehran.

Suddenly it all makes sense!

New Al Qaeda no. 2 bumped back to third after old no. 2 returns from dead again

By golly it's hard to keep up with the line-up in that Al Qaeda of of the Arabian Penninsula franchise.

Typically we get the top guy about once a month, thereby earning everyone else in the command chain a move up. Just like the 12 assistant managers they used to have at the K-mart where I worked. M-1 gets sent to head office and the rest move up a number.

Hell, maybe while the original 19 hi-jackers were studying up on how to fly jets these other guys were studying the K-mart management model at Wharton.

But here's where things get confused. Seems we just wrote about the last no. 2 being dispatched to his appointment with the imaginary 77 virgins, but according to Reuters, he's baaaack!

What this will mean to the chain of command remains unclear. I know at K-mart they'd have a "management trainee cull" every once in awhile. Send the hapless shits over to Woolworths or Sears with explosive belts strapped to their hips... metaphorically speaking of course!

Of course it may be too early to start up a new Qaeda franchise somewhere else. That no. 2 may be back, but he won't be back for long.

Those drones are busier than ever.

Pentagon declares Full Steam Ahead in Afghanistan as anti-US riots rage

Full Steam Ahead to what?

Why the 2014 handover, of course!

Handover to who?

Why, the Taliban, of course!

That's not quite the way the Pentagon crowd tells the story.

Here's Pentagon spokesman George Little;

We're making progress. We have put the enemy on it's heels in many parts of the country.

Well, that may be, narrowly speaking, true. But it's also true that in many more parts of the country the Taliban are stronger than ever. There are more parts of Afghanistan today that ISAF/NATO/US forces simply can't enter than at any time since we liberated the Afghan people in 2001.

That's progress?

If after a ten year fight, the enemy is stronger than ever, what do you suppose is going to happen in the next two years before the handover?

Here's White House spokesman Jay Carney;

The number one reason that US forces are in the country in the first place is to disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately defeat al-Qaeda.

Hey, here's a better idea.

Al-Qaeda has already announced that they're joining us in removing al-Assad from power in Syria. We promise every al-Qaeda operative in Afghanistan a gun and a free flight to Damascus. Maybe throw in a round trip to Disney World once Assad is gone. That should get them out of Afghanistan.

In return we move up our best-before date eighteen months or so. Then we're out.

Meanwhile, they do our dirty work in Syria!

Is that not one of the finest win-win-win scenarios you've ever seen?

War on Shia Islam makes strange bedfellows

Holy jumpin' Jehova, does it ever!

This brouhaha in Syria has got Likud Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut singing from the same page in the hymnal as Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri. Who can even imagine such a thing?

"It's time to help the brave Syrian freedom fighters" Lieberman declared today on CNN.

"Amen", declared Ayman. In fact al-Zawahiri has got his boys in country already. Seems Bashir al-Assad isn't kidding when he says he's fighting Al Qaeda. The smart money says the suicide bombs in Aelpo the other day were Al Qaeda handiwork.

But wait a minute here... Assad is fighting Al Qaeda, we're fighting Al Qaeda, but we're going to support Al Qaeda in their fight against Assad? Does this mean that al-Assad is a greater evil than Al Qaeda?

Not at all. What it means is that yet again contradictory streams in American foreign policy are rising up to bite us on the ass.

As everyone knows, except apparently the toadying Canadian Foreign Minister who last week made an embarrasing attempt to upstage the toadying US congress on his bag-licking mission to the Holy Land, Israel has no greater friend than the US.

We tolerate Assad because he does a pretty good job of keeping things cool on Syria's border with Israel, in spite of the ongoing open sore that is the Golan heights. Do we care about "unarmed protesters" being slaughtered in their thousands? Of course not.

What we care about is that the last couple of generations of stability on that border might be threatened. If Assad goes, we want to have a hand in deciding who is going to replace him.

To that end, the US has been busy busy busy coordinating the "Free Syrian Army" from an American base in Turkey. This is not a secret and has been written up extensively in major media outside the US. Only in America is it deemed un-newsworthy.

Oddly enough, al-Zawahiri and Al Qaeda have precisely the same motivations as we do. If Assad is doomed, they and their Saudi paymasters want to have a say in what happens next.

Which brings us to the real reason we're so concerned about those "unarmed protesters" in Syria; Iran.

The ill-fated debacle of the US invasion of Iraq didn't just destroy that country, it greatly enhanced Iran's influence within it. Have you noticed that the Shia-dominated government in Iraq is not participating in the embargoes on either Syria or Iran?

The war cheer-leaders in Congress and beyond want to make sure that whatever we do in Syria, it doesn't ultimately enhance Iran's influence in the region even more.

Syria is just another front in our war on Iran.

And if that means we have to arm Al Qaeda fighters, we're willing to do it.

Obama and al-Zawahiri; brothers in arms?

Al Qaeda boss Ayman al Zawahiri has joined President Obama and other Western leaders in calling for the ouster of Syrian President al-Assad.

Could this be a turning point in relations between the world's number one terror threat and it's number one target? Will we see a prominent Washington PR firm get the Al Qaeda account and start polishing up the somewhat tarnished brand?

Will we see an Al Qaeda diplomatic mission as the first step in fully normalized relations?

Well, maybe not. First of all, there's the little matter of the $25 million bounty the US has on al-Zawahiri. That could be a deal-breaker right there.

Then there are the particulars of al-Zawarhiri's endorsement of the Syrian opposition. He makes it clear that while he backs them he doesn't approve of their reliance on support from the US and our puppet states in the Gulf.

He also acknowledges that Al Qaeda is already active in the country. That's got to be a conundrum for the Free Syria cheerleaders. How do we cheer on the "peaceful protesters" without also cheering on our Public Enemy Number One?

In fact, it throws the entire logic of American anti-terror strategy into disarray. We've spent billions hunting down Al Qaeda around the world, eliminating as much of the leadership as we can by whatever means possible.

Yet we're going to support them in Syria?

FBI gives up on Al Qaeda, goes after Amish instead

Dozens of FBI agents swooped in on an Ohio Amish community this morning and made seven arrests in the "beard bandit" case.

Contrast that with the FBI's lame response to NYPD efforts to enlist them in the investigation of Jose Pimentel, who according to Mayor Bloomberg was on the verge of unleashing devastating pipe-bomb attacks in Manhattan.

Bloomberg held a news conference the other day announcing the arrest of Pimentel. Seems a platoon of NYC's finest have been shadowing the Al Qaeda operative for almost two years as he planned to assemble a bomb made of match-sticks. Bloomberg was more than a little chagrined about the FBIs lack of interest in the case.

"The failure of federal agencies to get involved in the case is criminal," Bloomberg said. "We hand them this Al Qaeda guy on a silver platter and they won't touch it with a ten foot pole."

FBI spokeman Herb Hancock explained that the agency has become sceptical of so-called terrorist investigations. "Frankly, we're tired of spending millions of dollars following around some dorkshit who can't even light his undershorts on fire just because some undercover cop saw him at a mosque once." the uncharacteristically candid Hancock said.

"We've got our own people in every mosque in the country, and I can say with some confidence that most of these Al Qaeda operatives couldn't tie their shoes without help. We wouldn't touch the Pimentel case with a ten foot pole."

Leaving aside the fact that the shoe-bomber was wearing velcro do-ups, Hancock may have a point. When was the last time all this police work turned up a credible terror threat?

So pull those agents off the Al Qaeda file, and let's end that Amish crime wave once and for all.