Middle East – Page 2 – Monica Perez Show

France & Syria…some backstory

November 17, 2015 by Monica

A few weeks ago, I read this article and was surprised at the focus on France and the accusations against Sarkozy and Hollande with regard to Syria. The suggestion in this article, that the former and current presidents of France might be acting in their own interests and contrary to those of the French citizenry … Read more

OMGosh! She used her own email address! Podcast of August 15, 2015 Show

August 17, 2015 by Monica

Of all the things Hillary Clinton has done, been investigated for or been accused of, this is the one that’s got legs? Could be a diversion…. Hour 1 Hour 2 Hour 3 I found these two videos interesting – the video embedded in the first article is a short clip of Hillary in 2000 saying … Read more

Peeling the Onion on Iran: Podcast of July 18, 2015 Show

July 20, 2015 by Monica

Hour 1 Hour 2 Hour 3 Check out the latest from Wesley Clark:

ISIS IS US?? Podcast of May 30, 2015 Show

June 2, 2015 by Monica

hour 1 hour 2 hour 3

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

March 25, 2015 by Monica

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.”

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

March 25, 2015 by Monica

The Propaganda

FoxNews Reports ISIS Video of Beheading Copts Faked

February 21, 2015 by Monica

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.

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

February 17, 2015 by Monica

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?

February 14, 2015 by Monica

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

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

February 14, 2015 by Monica

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