The publication of the survivors: on sale January 14... The dead would have wanted it that way...

 

Charlie Hebdo killings must not lead to self-censorship, Tony Abbott urges

Australian PM stands up for free speech, saying: ‘We should not stop being ourselves because of this kind of attack’

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/09/charlie-hebdo-killings-must-not-lead-to-self-censorship-tony-abbott-urges
No self-censorship here, you can be assured....

 

I am quite pleased with myself... Unusual. In the toon at top, I tried to really express the dynamics of what is happening in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. I tried to really express the insanity of all — simply. Though many images around the world from great cartoonists expressed sorrow, defiance and sharing spirit, I depicted the insanity of it all in the irreverent style of Charlie. I hope the "survivors" determined to publish one million copies of the next issue of Charlie Hebdo, in their horror and sadness at the events of loosing so many friends would recognise in my small toon, the mirror that Charlie has been. Even irreverent to itself. This is why I think my toon is the most accurate, unfortunately.

 

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Conflict, not Cartoons: Hebdo Shows the Common Goals of Both Sides in Terror War

 

WRITTEN BY CHRIS FLOYD   THURSDAY, 08 JANUARY 2015 17:13

Juan Cole has some insightful words on the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. As he points out, the shooters were neither "attacking free speech" nor "defending Mohammed"; they were using a time-honored tactic of radical extremists (of all stripes): "sharpening the contradictions," hoping to provoke an overreaction that would lead to repression and persecution of Muslims in general -- thus helping the extremists recruit new members. This is what bin Laden did with such spectacular success with 9/11: provoking an endless global war, with Western "interventions" and "targeted assassinations" and drone strikes that have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people -- all of which, as our own security services tell us, have fed the flames of extremism and made the situation worse. 

It would be nice if we tried a different approach, but this is not going to happen. By this time, the symbiosis between the West's military-industrial-security complex and the extremists it purports to fight is virtually complete. The MISC holds the commanding heights of society now, and it is utterly dependent on a steady supply of terrorist attacks (and the constant production of new terrorist entities to fight) in order to keep its power, privileges -- and profits -- going strong. It is probably not too far-fetched to say that the modern American system -- a militarist state protecting the interests of a small, rapacious elite -- would collapse without terrorism. "Security" is the only "legitimacy" this system has. Its power rests entirely on the belief -- the completely unfounded, hysterical, hallucinated belief -- that only the System (with its wars, its death squads, its torture, its mass surveillance, etc. etc.) can protect "us" from terrorism … the very terrorism that the System itself foments and creates with its depredations. And organized terror depends on the System feeding it recruits. (And of course, in many cases, feeding it directly with arms and money when it suits the System's agenda, as in the stoking of jihad in Syria, just to take one example.)

 

read more: http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2459-conflictnot-cartoons-hebdo-shows-the-common-goals-of-both-sides-in-terror-war-.html

 

 

There are two ways to look at the alleged terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

One is that in the English speaking world, or much of it, the satire would have been regarded as “hate speech,” and the satirists arrested. But in France Muslims are excluded from the privileged category, took offense at the satire, and retaliated.

Why would Muslims bother? By now Muslims must be accustomed to Western hypocrisy and double standards. Little doubt that Muslims are angry that they do not enjoy the protections other minorities receive, but why retaliate for satire but not for France’s participation in Washington’s wars against Muslims in which hundreds of thousands have died? Isn’t being killed more serious than being satirized?

Another way of seeing the attack is as an attack designed to shore up France’s vassal status to Washington. The suspects can be both guilty and patsies. Just remember all the terrorist plots created by the FBI that served to make the terrorism threat real to Americans. http://reason.com/blog/2014/07/22/human-rights-watch-all-of-the-high-profi

France is suffering from the Washington-imposed sanctions against Russia.

Shipyards are impacted from being unable to deliver Russian orders due to France’s vassalage status to Washington, and other aspects of the French economy are being adversely impacted by sanctions that Washington forced its NATO puppet states to apply to Russia.

This week the French president said that the sanctions against Russia should end (so did the German vice-chancellor).

This is too much foreign policy independence on France’s part for Washington. Has Washington resurrected “Operation Gladio,” which consisted of CIA bombing attacks against Europeans during the post-WW II era that Washington blamed on communists and used to destroy communist influence in European elections? Just as the world was led to believe that communists were behind Operation Gladio’s terrorist attacks, Muslims are blamed for the attacks on the French satirical magazine.

The Roman question is always: Who benefits? The answer is: Not France, not Muslims, but US world hegemony. US hegemony over the world is what the CIA supports. US world hegemony is the neoconservative-imposed foreign policy of the US.

According to National Public Radio, Charlie Hebdo is about free speech. The US has free speech, claim NPR’s pundits, but terrorists have taken it away from the French.

Just how does the US have free speech when NY Times reporter James Risen was psychologically put on the rack to force him to reveal his source, despite the fact that Risen and his source are protected by the US Constitution and whistleblower protections. Clearly, in the US “national security” has trumped everything else.

“National security” has nothing to do with national security. It has only to do with protecting the criminals in the US government from accountability for their crimes. Every time you hear Washington invoke “national security,” you know for a 100% fact that the government has committed yet another crime. National security is the cloak for Washington’s criminal operations. “National security” prevents the government’s crimes from coming to light and, thereby, protects government from accountability.

One wonders what role “national security” will play in the trial of alleged Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Tsarnaev has been in custody since April 2013 and under indictment since April 22, 2013. Yet jury selection is only now beginning in January 2015. Why this long delay? The guarantee of a speedy trial no longer means anything, but with all sorts of charges in addition to the bombing for which the government claims eye witnesses and confessions and with the Tsarnaev brothers already convicted in the media, the long delay is a puzzle. Yet, we have not heard from Dzhokhar Tsarnaey himself. It is difficult to push away the thought that Dzhokhar’s trial has been delayed in order to compete his conditioning and acceptance of his guilt and in order for the many questions raised by alternative media to be forgotten.

The print and TV media have dished up the government’s explanation without investigation. However, the alternative media have taken great exception to every aspect of the case. As the US government has taught us since the Clinton regime, the safest assumption is that everything the government says is a lie.

The most suspicious aspect of the event was the speed with which an army of 10,000 heavily armed troops consisting of police from various jurisdictions and National Guard soldiers outfitted in military gear and provided with tanks or armored personnel carriers were on the streets of Boston. Never before has such a massive force equipped with military heavy equipment been employed in a manhunt, much less for one wounded, unarmed, 19-year old kid.

For such a force to be assembled and deployed so quickly suggests pre-planning. What was presented as a manhunt for one badly wounded suspect looks more like a test case and precedent for locking down one of America’s largest cities, while squads of troops evicted US citizens from their homes at gunpoint and conducted indiscriminate searches of houses that contributed nothing to apprehending the alleged suspect. The chances are zero that any household would have harbored a badly wounded unarmed fugitive dying from the lack of medical care.

Not only was Boston and its suburbs locked down, the Federal Aviation Administration restricted airspace over Boston and issued a “ground stop” for Logan airport. Why?

Several other cities in Massachusetts and even some other states put their police forces on alert. Why?

On the scene were the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, the CIA, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the National Counterterrorism Center. The US Attorney General committed the full resources of the US Department of Justice.

Why?

The only plausible answer is to raise the fear level in order to gain the public’s acceptance of the lockdown of Boston and police invasions of citizens’ homes. It makes no sense that danger from a badly wounded unarmed 19 year-old could possibly justify such expense and trampling of constitutional rights of citizens.

A non-gullible person must wonder if the bombing was an orchestrated event for the purpose of coordinating state, local, and federal governments in the lockdown of a major city. A poll of Bostonians last July found that 42 percent harbored doubts about the official version of events. http://www.globalresearch.ca/four-in-ten-bostonians-skeptical-of-official-marathon-bombing-account/5390848

The gullible always say that if a conspiracy existed someone would have talked. But people do talk. It just doesn’t do any good. For example, during George W. Bush’s first term a NSA whistleblower leaked to the New York Times that the NSA was bypassing the FISA Court and spying on American citizens without warrants. Under US law, NSA was in a conspiracy with the Bush regime to commit serious felonies (possibly for the purpose of blackmail), but the New York Times spiked the story for one year until George W. Bush was re-elected and the regime had time to ex post facto legalize the felonies.

Operation Gladio was a conspiracy kept secret for decades until a President of Italy revealed it.

The Northwoods Project was kept secret until years afterward when the second Kennedy Commission revealed it.

More than one hundred first responder police and firemen report hearing and personally experiencing multiple explosions floor by floor and even in the sub-basements of the World Trade Center twin towers, and these testimonies had no effect whatsoever.

It only took one high school physics professor to shoot down NIST’s account of the collapse of WTC 7. The fact that it has been conclusively proven that this building was brought down by controlled demolition has had no effect on the official story.

The co-chairmen and legal counsel of the 9/11 Commission published books in which they say that information was withheld from the Commission, that the US Military lied to the Commission, and that the Commission “was set up to fail.” Neither Congress, the media, nor the US public had any interest in investigating why information was withheld, why the military lied, and why the Commission was set up to fail. These extraordinary statements by the leaders of the official investigation had no impact whatsoever.

Even today a majority of the US population believes Washington’s propaganda that Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed some provinces. Neither judgement nor intelligence are strongpoints of the American public and juries.

Government tells Americans whatever story the government puts together and sits and laughs at the gullibility of the public.

Today the US public is divided between those who rely on the “mainstream media” and those who rely on the alternative Internet media. Only the latter have any clue as to what is really happening.

The stories of Charlie Hebdo and the Tsarnaev brothers will be based not on facts but on the interests of government. As in the past, the government’s interest will prevail over the facts.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

Charlie Hebdo And Tsarnaev’s Trial: Cui Bono?

Tech companies including Facebook, Google and Apple have condemned the attacks on the offices of the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in which 12 people were killed, including eight journalists.

Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, in a post published on his personal profile page on Friday morning, called for a rejection of “extremists trying to silence the voices and opinions of everyone else around the world”.

“I won’t let that happen on Facebook,” he wrote. “I’m committed to building a service where you can speak freely without fear of violence.

“My thoughts are with the victims, their families, the people of France and the people all over the world who choose to share their views and ideas, even when that takes courage.”

Zuckerberg also revealed he had received death threats two years ago in response to content depicting the prophet Muhammad on the social networking site.

“An extremist in Pakistan fought to have me sentenced to death because Facebook refused to ban content about Muhammad that offended him.

“We stood up for this because different voices – even if they’re sometimes offensive – can make the world a better and more interesting place,” he wrote. 

More than 188,000 people have so far “liked” the post, which has been shared more than 16,000 times.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/09/mark-zuckerberg-apple-google-respond-charlie-hebdo-attack

Excellent empathy... now how about paying some taxes?...

 

please visit: https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/wake-up-charlies-why-these-world-leaders-are-a-threat-to-you,7250

 

See toon at top...

 

In a democracy, one needs to fool 50 per cent of the population plus one person.... In a kingdom, one needs to fool 66.66 per cent of the population. Of course "fooling" populations is achieved via various methods — most based on disinformation, misinformation and the stick (the stick, especially in "kingdoms rule").

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – An Iraqi novelist and cartoonist was killed on Saturday evening by unidentified gunmen in a heavily guarded neighborhood of the holy city of Karbala.

Alaa Mashzoub was shot 13 times by an armed group in the neighborhood of Maitham al-Tammar as he was making his way home by bicycle, a security source in Karbala told Kurdistan 24.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the assassination of Mashzoub.

Karbala police in its late-night statement said it had launched an immediate investigation into the “heinous crime” and would bring those “trying to destabilize the city” to justice.

“Our city is safe, stable, and will remain a city of peace and security,” read the statement issued by police.

Authorities have yet to reveal any details regarding the possible motive behind the killing. Iraqis and activists on social media networks, however, speculated he was likely to have been killed over his political views and open criticisms of politics in the region.

Recently, Mashzoub’s personal social media posts on Facebook indirectly criticized the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the former supreme leader of the country, Ruhollah Khomeini.

Two weeks ago, he lamented Iran’s influence on his country, stating Khomeini had lived in Iraq for 13 years before going to Paris to launch his “Cassette Revolution,” speeches by the exiled preacher smuggled by tapes to Iran. Khomeini eventually returned to Iran “to govern, and then to ignite the war between his country and his former host country [Iraq],” according to Mashzoub.

 

Read more:

http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/4462aea2-ceec-41a1-88c3-cd38d733a5f1

 

 

See toon at top.