An Interesting Passage from Quigley's Tragedy & Hope

On Saturday’s show I mentioned a concept I picked up from Carrol Quigley’s Tragedy and Hope: that culture changes when children’s values are disconnected from their parents;’ this can happen in any of a number of ways from technological progress to outside cultural influences. I believe this method is deliberately used in the United States to move us from our individualist past to the “collectivist future.” Specifically I believe childhood education (literally disconnecting us from our parents), higher education (indoctrinating us to the state), high taxes (causing both parents to work), welfare (breaking up families), the drug war (creating outlaw subcultures), immigration policy (deliberately

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An Interesting Passage from Quigley’s Tragedy & Hope

On Saturday’s show I mentioned a concept I picked up from Carrol Quigley’s Tragedy and Hope: that culture changes when children’s values are disconnected from their parents;’ this can happen in any of a number of ways from technological progress to outside cultural influences. I believe this method is deliberately used in the United States to move us from our individualist past to the “collectivist future.” Specifically I believe childhood education (literally disconnecting us from our parents), higher education (indoctrinating us to the state), high taxes (causing both parents to work), welfare (breaking up families), the drug war (creating outlaw subcultures), immigration policy (deliberately

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FoxNews Reports ISIS Video of Beheading Copts Faked

beheadpic1

In the article below, Fox reports that the ISIS video of beheading Egyptian Copts in Libya was filmed in a studio using green screens and fake blood. Therefore, there is no evidence that this crime even occurred in Libya (or really occurred at all), yet Egypt bombed Libya killing seven civilians less than 24 hours after the video was released. Are these the kind of irresponsible hotheads we want as allies? Coup-installed Egyptian leader Sisi has asked the US to help him “fight terrorists” within Egypt as well, but can his judgment be trusted? The thousands of Egyptians he has killed since the coup have been protestors of the coup–is that terrorism? I’m sure it terrifies him, but that’s not really the point. I have been suspicious of his true motives for the bombing since it happened. I think the real story is that we and our allies including Egypt cannot tolerate the emerging government in Libya that operates out of the capital, Tripoli, and controls the oil rich areas of the country. I suspect that all attacks on “Libya’s ISIS” will actually attack the Tripoli government’s infrastructure and ability to engage in the oil trade.

As for the video, FoxNews reports, “The footage was faked.” Specifically, the video was made in part in a studio against a green screen, and that the parts that were shot outside were shot at a bay not the ocean, so there’s no way it was shot where Egypt bombed; the sea turning red is a post production trick; there were only six men total – 3 victims & 3 jihadis (all of whom appear to be over 7 feet tall) – and that sequence was looped 7 times, so even if all the victims were killed, that means only 3 died, yet Egypt killed 7 innocent civilians in its raid on a location that turns out to be unrelated to where this video was made; and the blood was likely made of cornstarch and wasn’t actually pumping out of the victims–so there’s no hard or soft evidence that anyone even died. Given all this, why is the mainstream media still reporting that 21 Christians were killed? No explanation can change the fact that this video was faked and there is no evidence whatsoever that ISIS killed 21 Christians in Libya. Furthermore, the claim that this just proves how sophisticated ISIS is is an old Saul Alinsky trick – when something goes wrong, use it to your advantage. Similarly, soon after people started to notice that many of the jihadis had British or European accents, the news started reporting that many Westerners were joining ISIS. The bottom line is, as always, The Saint Peter Test...if you consent to Congress authorizing the use of force – that is, killing people – you had better be absolutely certain it is in genuine self-defense or you will have blood on your hands as Egypt does now.

(For more on ISIS: What if ISIS isn’t what it appears to be?)

Here’s the full story from Fox…

ISIS’ army of 7-footers? Experts say video of Copt beheadings manipulated

By Malia Zimmerman

Published February 21, 2015

| FoxNews.com

Video of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians being marched along a Libyan beach before being beheaded by black-clad members of ISIS is hard for any civilized person to watch, but experts who made it through the sickening, five-minute clip told FoxNews.com Friday they came to the same conclusion: The footage was faked.

No one holds out hope the victims, mostly poor fishermen who had gone to Libya to scratch out a living, are still alive. But several anomalies in the video, which was posted online Feb. 15, indicated to trained eyes that at least some of the production was done on “green screen” with background added later, perhaps to disguise the real location of the atrocity. A day after the clip went viral, Egyptian warplanes struck hard at an eastern port city near Tripoli, where the video appeared to have been shot.

“The Islamic State’s manipulation of their high-production videos has become commonplace,” said Veryan Khan, editorial director of the Florida-based Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium. The murders likely took place in a studio, and the background image shown was likely from another location, the Bay in Sirte, a part of the Mediterranean Sea on the northern coast of Libya, according to Khan. There are several technical mistakes in the video that show it was manipulated, she said.

The most obvious, Khan said, is the speaker, “Jihad Joseph” is much larger than the sea in both the close up and wide shots, and his head is bizarrely out of proportion, meaning he was filmed indoors and the sea added behind him, Khan said. In addition, the jihadists featured in the film look to be more than 7 feet tall, towering as much as two feet above their victims.

The perspective is something several Saudi Arabians noted in their tweets about the video, questioning whether the jihadists were a part of some sort of special forces unit since they were so large.

Hollywood horror film director Mary Lambert, who among her many film credits directed Pet Cemetery, analyzed the film for FoxNews.com and quickly concluded Khan was correct.

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"I don't always drive a truck, but when I do…it's a Toyota Hilux."

~Every terrorist on Earth.
When the first picture of ISIS in a caravan of brand new matching Toyota trucks came out, I thought it looked a bit over-produced. The official story was – I kid you not – that 800 ISIS fighters overwhelmed 30,000 Iraqi soldiers who ran away leaving all their American equipment behind. I thought it was weird but I didn’t report on it because yes it was possible that ISIS stole these vehicles from the Iraqis. (No mention, however, that standard operating procedure is to destroy equipment falling into enemy hands if possible, no questions asked, no permission from Congress required. They could have droned them that week on the way to Yemen! But seriously, remember the outrage over Operation Fast & Furious – it’s not cool for people to murder innocents on your dime.)
As the months have gone on, however, I can’t help but wonder how the now 15,000 strong “ISIS force” is still fully supplied with arms, vehicles, fuel, ammunition, food and water, as well as having an organization so well-developed that it can take over oil production and banking like a sovereign nation, produce videos like Hollywood and push out social media like only David Axelrod has done before, not to mention cropping up fully entrenched in far flung places like Afghanistan and Libya.
So now I go back to the Toyotas. Why is it that every terrorist everywhere has these same Toyota Hilux trucks and why does the US seem to give them out like candy on Halloween? Today’s Wall Street Journal published the latest report of the US supplying Toyotas to radical Islamists:
“A team of four to six rebels will each be given a Toyota Hi-Lux pickup, outfitted with a machine gun, communications gear and Global Positioning System trackers enabling them to call in airstrikes.”  http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-give-some-syria-rebels-ability-to-call-airstrikes-1424208053 Note, the “rebels” in that article are the radical Islamists who seeded and cooperated with ISIS. To wit, “According to one Free Syrian Army commander, the combining of forces with ISIS was needed in order to achieve ‘the greater good.’” http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/09/isis-army-parades-in-43-new-toyota-hilux-trucks-donated-by-us-taxpayers/ I’m sure they’re over that now, though, and would never use their new-found power to summon up the awesome might of the US Air Force not to attack ISIS but to target their real enemy–their reason for being–the internationally-recognized legitimate government of Syria.
Supplying the Syrian “rebels” with Toyota Hiluxes is nothing new, however.

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“I don’t always drive a truck, but when I do…it’s a Toyota Hilux.”

~Every terrorist on Earth.

When the first picture of ISIS in a caravan of brand new matching Toyota trucks came out, I thought it looked a bit over-produced. The official story was – I kid you not – that 800 ISIS fighters overwhelmed 30,000 Iraqi soldiers who ran away leaving all their American equipment behind. I thought it was weird but I didn’t report on it because yes it was possible that ISIS stole these vehicles from the Iraqis. (No mention, however, that standard operating procedure is to destroy equipment falling into enemy hands if possible, no questions asked, no permission from Congress required. They could have droned them that week on the way to Yemen! But seriously, remember the outrage over Operation Fast & Furious – it’s not cool for people to murder innocents on your dime.)

As the months have gone on, however, I can’t help but wonder how the now 15,000 strong “ISIS force” is still fully supplied with arms, vehicles, fuel, ammunition, food and water, as well as having an organization so well-developed that it can take over oil production and banking like a sovereign nation, produce videos like Hollywood and push out social media like only David Axelrod has done before, not to mention cropping up fully entrenched in far flung places like Afghanistan and Libya.

So now I go back to the Toyotas. Why is it that every terrorist everywhere has these same Toyota Hilux trucks and why does the US seem to give them out like candy on Halloween? Today’s Wall Street Journal published the latest report of the US supplying Toyotas to radical Islamists:

“A team of four to six rebels will each be given a Toyota Hi-Lux pickup, outfitted with a machine gun, communications gear and Global Positioning System trackers enabling them to call in airstrikes.”  http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-give-some-syria-rebels-ability-to-call-airstrikes-1424208053 Note, the “rebels” in that article are the radical Islamists who seeded and cooperated with ISIS. To wit, “According to one Free Syrian Army commander, the combining of forces with ISIS was needed in order to achieve ‘the greater good.’” http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/09/isis-army-parades-in-43-new-toyota-hilux-trucks-donated-by-us-taxpayers/ I’m sure they’re over that now, though, and would never use their new-found power to summon up the awesome might of the US Air Force not to attack ISIS but to target their real enemy–their reason for being–the internationally-recognized legitimate government of Syria.

Supplying the Syrian “rebels” with Toyota Hiluxes is nothing new, however.

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Peace Prize Winner Politely Requests Limitless War: Podcast of February 14, 2015 Show

My show was really only an hour this week – I had a few minutes of intro before this podcast starts but you’re not really missing anything. I will get into this topic more deeply next week on my show at the regular time, Saturday 3-6PM ET on WSB. Check out the picture above. Do … Read more

What if ISIS isn't what it appears to be?


Update: I wrote this post before a Defense Intelligence Agency document was leaked showing that a “Salafist Principality” (ie, an Islamic State) on the border of Syria and Iraq is “exactly what we want” as an excuse to unseat Assad. This at least validates the fact that the West’s interest in Syria is to oust Assad not stem the tide of terrorism. I go one step further, however, and argue that this leak was a limited hangout the purpose of which was to counter rumors that we didn’t just allow the Islamic State to emerge, we created it! The links below support my argument.
Original Post: Here is a quick and dirty list of some articles I came across that cast doubt on the official narrative concerning ISIS. Many of these sources are not US mainstream media. If you are skeptical of any source that is not US MSM, I ask only this: never dismiss, always refute. That is, if you don’t want to believe it because you don’t know the source, that’s fine, but don’t just dismiss it, actually look at the story and evaluate the evidence and argue why it’s not convincing. Similarly, when faced with stories from the US MSM, don’t just accept them or give them the benefit of the doubt, evaluate them critically, look at the evidence and likewise argue why it is convincing. It takes a little extra time, but very quickly you will hone some serious “truth-dar” and you will be able to cull the plausible from the implausible in no time at all.
Here’s an opportunity to take this approach out for a spin. I haven’t gone over these articles with a fine-tooth comb, so maybe you can help me sort them out and separate the plausible from the implausible, and at the same time discover your inner truthdar! (I hope it goes without saying that I don’t have a position on these sites’ general conclusions on anything, I’m just interested in these specific reports, and even more narrowly, whether their facts warrant further investigation or not.)
Picture of John McCain with “the Caliph” Al Bagdhadi

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What if ISIS isn’t what it appears to be?

Update: I wrote this post before a Defense Intelligence Agency document was leaked showing that a “Salafist Principality” (ie, an Islamic State) on the border of Syria and Iraq is “exactly what we want” as an excuse to unseat Assad. This at least validates the fact that the West’s interest in Syria is to oust Assad not stem the tide of terrorism. I go one step further, however, and argue that this leak was a limited hangout the purpose of which was to counter rumors that we didn’t just allow the Islamic State to emerge, we created it! The links below support my argument.

Original Post: Here is a quick and dirty list of some articles I came across that cast doubt on the official narrative concerning ISIS. Many of these sources are not US mainstream media. If you are skeptical of any source that is not US MSM, I ask only this: never dismiss, always refute. That is, if you don’t want to believe it because you don’t know the source, that’s fine, but don’t just dismiss it, actually look at the story and evaluate the evidence and argue why it’s not convincing. Similarly, when faced with stories from the US MSM, don’t just accept them or give them the benefit of the doubt, evaluate them critically, look at the evidence and likewise argue why it is convincing. It takes a little extra time, but very quickly you will hone some serious “truth-dar” and you will be able to cull the plausible from the implausible in no time at all.

Here’s an opportunity to take this approach out for a spin. I haven’t gone over these articles with a fine-tooth comb, so maybe you can help me sort them out and separate the plausible from the implausible, and at the same time discover your inner truthdar! (I hope it goes without saying that I don’t have a position on these sites’ general conclusions on anything, I’m just interested in these specific reports, and even more narrowly, whether their facts warrant further investigation or not.)

Picture of John McCain with “the Caliph” Al Bagdhadi

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Now what do you think about Brian Williams' Snowden Interview?

Last year when Brian Williams interviewed Edward Snowden, I called it as a put-up job. The interview seemed scripted, not to mention how strange it was that Brian Williams copped a chat in Moscow with America’s Most Wanted. The number one argument I got against this was, “That would mean Brian Williams is lying!” Either … Read more