Nato is facing urgent questions about the legality of its air strike on a Gaddafi family compound at the weekend, which the Libyan government said had killed the leader's second youngest son, 29-year old Saif al-Arab, and three grandchildren under 12. The grandchildren were not named.

The Libyan government spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, said Muammar Gaddafi and his wife, Safiya, had been in the building at the time, but had escaped injury. He said the aim of the attack was clear: to assassinate the Libyan leader.

Nato swiftly scrambled to deny that it was targeting any individuals, insisting that it was only interested in attacking the military command structure.

The prime minister, David Cameron, told the BBC that UN resolutions permitted attacks against the regime's "command and control" sites because their aim was to prevent "a loss of civilian life by targeting Gaddafi's war-making machine".

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/01/gaddadi-family-deaths-reinforce-doubts

We got rid of Gaddafi and replaced him with some Islamwhaterver fighting nutcases... Welcome to REAL "terror" sponsored by the state... The USA... Many more civilian life were lost after Gaddafi's death. The aim was to turn Libya into a mess.

see also: http://stopwar.org.uk/news/the-catastrophe-in-libya-no-one-wants-to-talk-about-least-of-all-david-cameron

And of course all the lunatics we have unleashed in Libya are now infiltrating Tunisia...

One could ask why the "need" for terrorism with its dark sadism to defeat secular democracy?... Well, it's quite complicated but one of the way the US and its allies can bypass the United Nations or get the United nations on board to destroy secular democracy is through "terrorism" or the fighting thereof at various level including declaring the government of Syria as bad as terrorism. The other way is cash, like trying to buy the present Ukraine government (and half of the population). 

Unfortunately, terrorism has a few bad sides, including that we employ psychopaths to do the job. We pay "rebels" in Syria but the only motivation to die for these 'rebels" has nothing to do with proper government but creating a governing religious fanaticism. A fanatic is a full-blown psycho, religious or not... We are paying full-blown psychos, in cash and with very dangerous weapons. As well, the concept of terror happening here and there will make us accept draconian laws that we would NEVER accept in "normal" time. Terrorism is useful, like dogs are to hold a flock of sheep in one paddock. Our farming masters own the dogs. We are the sheep. Add two and two if you must...

While there are all manner of wild estimates for the military strength of Islamic State, like 200,000 by the Kurdish fighting force, the latest "official" estimates from the CIA and US intelligence  agencies gives the figure at between 20,000 and 31,000.

Let us assume this is reasonably correct, and let us err on the side of the higher figure, 31,000.

At the second State of Origin match at the MCG, the official attendance figure was 91,513.

If one pictures this stadium a third full, that is the military strength of IS.

Given this yardstick, the entire might, military strength, know-how and resolve of virtually the entire West and the majority of Muslim/Arab States appears to be totally incapable of overcoming this blight? Am I missing something?

Peter Loewensohn Cremorne

The late American journalist Henry Mencken insightfully commented "the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed". The Liberals have a brilliant history of keeping the populace alarmed with the big scare: "reds under the bed", "yellow hordes from the north"  and John Howard's Tampa musings. Tony Abbott's equivalent - Islamic State "is coming after us" - is precisely calibrated to scare little old ladies and gullible readers of The Daily Telegraph, with the subtext – only we can keep you safe, vote for us! Great politics, but do we Australians, after 65 years of the same unsophisticated scare tactics practised by Bob Menzies, accept this type of transparent propaganda?  

Bob Barnes Wedderburn 

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-letters/more-than-a-daesh-of-cynicism-in-pms-statements-20150628-ghzq0a.html

Read article from top... In short, the West needs Terrorism to do its "dirty business"... There are of course some unfortunate side effects (deaths), but these can be put to good use by scaring the shit out of us...

We are led by duplicitous psychopaths with their wanking hands on patriotism... 

Panic indeed Gus ....

Having pumped-up the nation’s fear of terrorism to the point where we seem incapable of thinking about anything-else, Prime Minister Tony Abbott must surely be at serious risk of being accused of “crying wolf”?.

Whilst no-one is suggesting that the threat of terrorism shouldn’t be taken seriously, our political leaders have a clear duty to act responsibly, including to calibrate the government’s response in clear proportion to the threat.

Right now, Australia’s terrorist threat level is set at its second highest level, short only of there being evidence of an imminent attack or an actual attack. In the past few years, billions of dollars have been tipped-into our security agencies, allegedly with the intention of “keeping us safe”, whilst other dangers to our survival draw little more than lip service.

To make the point, in the 35 years from 1978–2013, some 113 Australians died as a result of a terrorist attacks, both at home & overseas. In the 9 year period from 2003–2012, there were 2,600 homicides (not including the 850 deaths from domestic violence), 8,500 deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents & nearly 23,000 suicides; not to lose sight of the fact that 230 people died after falling-off ladders, nearly 200 from falling-off chairs & 10 from being struck by lightning.

John Howard was right when he said we “should be alert but not alarmed”.

Regrettably for our nation’s health, Tony Abbott has only ever known how to play the irrational & irresponsible hysteric.

Yes John,

the image above is telling... Chillingly true.

A Syrian rebel group has executed 18 alleged members of Islamic State (IS) in a video mimicking the extremist organisation's own productions.

The video shows fighters from Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam) wearing the orange prison clothes that IS victims often sport.

The IS prisoners, however, are wearing black clothes and are chained together wearing ankle and hand shackles with metal balls attached.

The nearly 20-minute production mimics many aspects of IS's own execution videos, with similar sound effects and visuals.

Jaysh al-Islam fighters in the video said the IS forces were being executed in part as revenge for the deaths of at least three of the rebel group's members, who were beheaded by IS.

The rebel group also refers to a major battle it fought with IS in February.

It accuses IS of being allied with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's regime against its fighters and those of other Islamist rebel groups.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-01/video-shows-syrian-rebel-group-executing-18-islamic-state-fight/6588158

There is NO way that ISIS could be working for Assad... This would be nuts and does not make any sense... Assad is not a Sunni and both groups, including ISIS are Sunnis, despite fighting each other. But it makes sense when another group of fanatics want to win and install their version of extreme Islamwhaterism against a secular (declared despotic by the West) government.

Last week’s two mass murders carried out by militants allegedly associated with the Islamic State (IS) took place shortly after the release of the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Terrorism 2014. Country Reports is 389 pages long, broken down by country and region. It also includes statistical charts, a focus on state sponsors, and analysis of transnational issues. It is worth a read if only to gain some insight into how the United States government views an issue as unwieldy and ultimately indefinable as “international terrorism.”

Initial reactions from interested parties and the media suggest that one can find something in the report to support nearly any point of view if one looks hard enough. The New York Times emphasized in its headline that “Iran still aids terrorism,” a conclusion also reached by the neoconservative Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). Critics and friends of Israel, meanwhile, found the report’s explicit detailing of the Palestinian civilian deaths that occurred during the fighting in Gaza last summer either an “about time” moment or just one more indication that the White House is intent on punishing Benjamin Netanyahu.

I found the report to be somewhat perplexing, at times contradictory in terms of how it defines terrorism and what conclusions it draws. The 21st century might well be called the century of the terrorist. Terrorism is constantly in the news in one form or another and American newspapers have been reporting that “terrorism trend lines are ‘worse than at any other point in history.’” But what is terrorism? It has frequently been pointed out that “terrorism” is a tactic, not an actual physical adversary, though it is less often noted that a simple definition of what constitutes terrorism is hardly universally accepted, while the designation itself is essentially political. The glib assertion that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter fails to capture the distinction’s consequences as the terror label itself increasingly comes with a number of legal and practical liabilities attached. Describing an organization as terroristic in order to discredit it has itself become a tactic, and one that sometimes has only limited applicability to what the group in question actually believes or does.

read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-true-cost-of-the-war-on-terror/

 read from top...

Rolling Stone reports on Saudi war crimes in Saada province in northern Yemen. Here the report mentions how the U.S. role in the campaign is perceived by Yemenis:

Many of Saudi Arabia’s weapons and aircraft were purchased from the U.S. We have encountered remnants of both conventional and cluster bombs likely made in the U.S.A., including BU-97 cluster bomb submunitions, which were transferred to Saudi Arabia by the U.S. in the Nineties. The U.S. has also provided both in-flight refueling and targeting intelligence to bombing missions. As a result, there is a widespread perception among the Yemenis that the American government is equally responsible for the air war.

If the U.S. isn’t “equally” responsible for the war, it certainly deserves a substantial share of the blame. Yemenis have good reason to hold the U.S. responsible for the war that has devastated their country. The U.S. is particularly responsible for the campaign’s attacks on civilian areas because it is actively aiding the Saudis in their operations. U.S. officials are understandably embarrassed to talk about this. Micah Zenko flagged a remarkable recent statement from the State Department’s spokesman. When asked about reports of Saudi war crimes and the targeting of civilian areas, the spokesman did his best to dodge the question:

We remain in close touch with the Saudi Government regarding a wide range of issues. With respect to Yemen, I’d refer you to them for discussion of their operational details. That’s really for – that’s really for the Saudi Government to speak to. And we take all accounts and reports of civilian casualties seriously, and again, have been very clear about our desire to see a humanitarian pause.

When pressed on the current level of assistance that the U.S. is providing, the spokesman again ducked the question and referred the reporter to the Pentagon. The U.S. is facilitating a war that has killed and wounded thousands of civilians, but wants to make it seem as if it has no responsibility for the campaign’s effects. U.S. officials claim that our government favors an end to hostilities, but U.S. assistance with the campaign continues unabated. 

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-outrageous-u-s-role-in-the-war-on-yemen/

The former ambassador denounced the move as “not reasonable at all” and “grotesque.” He also sharply criticized the US for their “obsession with getting rid of Assad and the secular government in Syria” that leads them right to the alliance with “their arch-enemies” and to the loss of “all moral and practical competence.”

“We can only hope that it is a temporary aberration and they will soon return to their senses,” Ford told RT, urging the US government to abandon their policy of de facto aiding Al-Qaeda’s affiliate. He also expressed his support for Russia’s “very reasonable demand that the forces of the so-called moderate opposition disentangle themselves from the embraces of Al-Nusra and allow Al-Nusra to be bombed.”

The former ambassador also stressed that there is “virtually no difference” between Al-Nusra and such groups as Jaish al-Islam, Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Fatah as they are “indistinguishable” in terms of ideology, sectarian bias and their practical methods consisting of “massacres and ruthlessness.”

He also emphasized that the only difference between Al-Nusra and other groups that western countries, including the US, portray as “moderate opposition” lies in the field of tactics.

https://www.rt.com/news/345636-us-siding-al-qaeda-ford/

See toon at top... Read article at top.