09.11.15
Glass Jaw Day
Fourteen years ago Osama bin Laden showed the world the United States had a glass jaw. After one very hard hit, the world superpower would appear to rise up, united only to see its people and leaders fail in spectacular fashion as they abandoned all principles they thought they stood for.
Fourteen years later, we’re subdued and fearful owners of a combination corporate dictatorship national security state equipped with an armored car-driving paramilitary police force and surveillance apparatus designed for the suppression of civilian participation. Add to that an embedded racial apartheid, one that puts African Americans and the poor in prison for profits, targets of extortion in the way of organized heists disguised as fines for petty infractions and legitimately resentful of their terrible officials.
The largest military and national security complex in world history was erected. And it’s only strategy, with the only exception being the recent agreement with Iran , is attacking much poorer nations with overwhelming force, selectively bombing impoverished regions of misery and lawlessness, launching pinprick military raids/assassinations and creating or exacerbating failed states.
A small example, yesterday, from Fox News and overseas sources (delivered by mercenaries probably on the US payroll, yet), reasonable evidence that ISIS can manufacture small amounts of mustard gas in Syria, for use in mortar shells and improvised bombs aimed at local militias opposed to them.
And who brought it about? We did when an illegitimate war was launched, one that destroyed Iraq and destabilized the entire region, a place where we’re still bombing people, making things worse, stirring the pot, training lousy local fighters who desert, and arming the same with weapons that eventually get turned over to even worse people.
One Kurdish soldier said that of 52 mortars ISIS launched at his team during one attack, three released yellow smoke that caused their skin to immediately water, discharge liquids, blister and create large wounds. Soldiers exposed to the gas vomited and experienced extreme abdominal pain and severe burning and itching eyes. Other mortars discharged a silver glittery substance that stuck to their skin like glue. The Kurdish soldiers said the Iraqi military also said ISIS used these chemical weapons on their forces.
The attached photos, if genuine, show wounds that appear to be caused by a blistering agent.
The nature of the story appears to show that only small amounts, militarily insignificant, are being produced and put into mortar shells, in and of itself a hazardous undertaking. The primary aim would appear to be to cause an additional measure of terror and demoralization.
The incident also appears to describe a failed improvised weapon, I’m guessing — something sticky and flammable — styrofoam or styrene dissolved in an organic solvent until thickened, to adhere. In this case, there was no ignition.
And what are we looking forward to in 2016?
More of the same, almost certainly.
Why, here’s the alleged leading candidate of the Democratic Party, being distasteful and awful, as it turned out, in making what she thinks is an off-camera joke about the killing of Moe Gadaffi.
Hilarious. Failed states and refugee crises.
Still the best song that applies. Shoulda been a contender.
Incidentally, it’s the only rock video to show anthrax mailer Bruce Ivins entertaining in a Maryland bar AND his vanity-pressing white label single, “Pass Me By.”
Ivins’ anthrax mailings touched off the biggest investment in bioterror defense in world history (we’re always number one in these dubious achievements), all to counter a threat, the predicted scope of which has never materialized.
The best and only bioterrorist minted during the war on terror? Our man! Paid for by the US taxpayer.
Also eyeball the video for the “puffer machine.” (We’ll check you now, for purity!) Designed for the detection of explosives at airports, many were bought. None of them worked and it was subsequently canned.
George Smith said,
September 11, 2015 at 3:39 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/12/health/4-pentagon-labs-face-inquiry-on-handling-of-deadly-germs.html
Fort Ivins, I mean Fort Detrick, aka USAMRIID, ordered to temporarily suspend work with “select agents” like anthrax because of DoD mishandling of disease-causing microorganisms.
Christoph Hechl said,
September 15, 2015 at 2:53 am
Recently stumbled across this one:
https://i.imgur.com/84UlMJR.jpg
George Smith said,
September 15, 2015 at 9:00 am
Yeah, she’s been transparently obvious as a neoliberal hack for awhile, America’s Tony Blair, really.
Here are a couple other examples of hack fake populism…
The always popular but meaningless desire to praise and reward salt-of-the-dirt [sic], American small business
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/small-business/
Then, the whistle stops to talk to small town America about “meth” and “drug addiction”…
“I want to focus on the people of rural America,??? she said, her voice becoming hushed as she listed the devastation that drugs have caused in parts of the country. “Meth, pills, overdoses, lost lives, broken families.???
She pledged to improve treatment of addiction, and especially in making such facilities available in rural areas for addiction and mental health.
“Health is health,??? Mrs. Clinton said.
Why do people do meth? A lot because they’re stuck in nowhere lives in a dead economy and it’s cheap. As for “health is health,” more emptiness. Who came up with that?
Second, in the US when leaders say they’re going to do more about drugs, that means more people are going to jail, a procedure minted by her husband.
George Smith said,
September 15, 2015 at 9:21 am
Plus, her endless devotion to “small town America,” as if that’s where all the voters are who’ll get her elected. She’s the very essence of 24/7 intelligence-insulting bullshit developed to make her seem humble and authentic, traits she’ll never have. As if it matters, anyway.