The Strip: ISIS militants skimming hundreds of millions of dollars of US funds: "A Dilemma for US & Bagdhad"

The only two installments of my “weekly column” The Strip appeared almost a year ago! I guess I’ll call it an annual column and consider myself ahead of the game! In any case, The Strip is about getting to the meat of the matter and stripping out the propaganda from a particularly egregious mainstream media story. Yesterday, such an article appeared in The Wall Street Journal, begging me to give it The Strip. Here it is…

The Propaganda

The article titled, Militants in Iraq Siphon State Pay: Islamic State skims funds headed for government employees in occupied areas, creating a dilemma for U.S. and Baghdad, reports that the US is giving hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Iraq government and one of the things the Iraq government is spending its money on is cash payments to government employees operating in captive ISIS territory. One or two thousand ISIS militants holding the city of Mosul in Iraq are forcing government workers there to remit 30% of their pay to the Islamic State. The White House is not comfortable directing the Iraq government to stop this flow of funds because “people can’t starve.”

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The Strip: ISIS militants skimming hundreds of millions of dollars of US funds: “A Dilemma for US & Bagdhad”

The only two installments of my “weekly column” The Strip appeared almost a year ago! I guess I’ll call it an annual column and consider myself ahead of the game! In any case, The Strip is about getting to the meat of the matter and stripping out the propaganda from a particularly egregious mainstream media story. Yesterday, such an article appeared in The Wall Street Journal, begging me to give it The Strip. Here it is…

The Propaganda

The article titled, Militants in Iraq Siphon State Pay: Islamic State skims funds headed for government employees in occupied areas, creating a dilemma for U.S. and Baghdad, reports that the US is giving hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Iraq government and one of the things the Iraq government is spending its money on is cash payments to government employees operating in captive ISIS territory. One or two thousand ISIS militants holding the city of Mosul in Iraq are forcing government workers there to remit 30% of their pay to the Islamic State. The White House is not comfortable directing the Iraq government to stop this flow of funds because “people can’t starve.”

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Self-Defense Is the Only Right

Or perhaps I should say, self-defense is the only operative right.

Every year on January 22 my mother used to take me on the bus to Washington DC to march for the Right to Life. Thomas Jefferson famously wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Even looking beyond the glaring hypocrisy of a slave-owner penning these words (and I love Thomas Jefferson, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t read the Declaration of Independence without thinking of that every time!), I have to say I’m not quite sure my mother or TJ got it right exactly–powerful and poetic though their claims are.

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MH17: MSM Rushes to Judgment: Podcast of July 19, 2014 Show

If you have any trouble listening to the podcast, try wsb. Hour 1 Hour 2 hour 3 This is a must watch press conference from eastern Ukraine about the stalling tactics of the west in beginning the flight MH17 investigation. This directly contradicts MSM propaganda reports. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AuZ1Ok3s_I] As I said, there is some disgruntlement even … Read more

What's at the bottom of the rabbit hole? The Report from Iron Mountain. Podcast of June 7, 2014 Show

Hour 1

Hour 2

Hour 3

This is a must read, full stop: The Report from Iron Mountain. (See also, “another update” below.)

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What’s at the bottom of the rabbit hole? The Report from Iron Mountain. Podcast of June 7, 2014 Show

Hour 1

Hour 2

Hour 3

This is a must read, full stop: The Report from Iron Mountain. (See also, “another update” below.)

Read more