April 16, 2018
Source: Bigstock
Slavery: The Inconvenient Truth
Highest complements to Mr. Wessels on his courageous and thought-provoking essay published April 3rd. I would enjoy reading a more in-depth exposition of African tribal warfare in the slavery era should he care to tackle the subject.
Sincerely
James Pellerin
This is a lightweight article leaning in the right direction about a question of fundamental importance.
So why be lightweight?
And why reiterate lines of thought used over and over in this context – ‘why would Syria when they’re winning…’ , ‘… proven false flag..’ , ’ … no proof forthcoming..’
etc. ?
After this amount of time it is as clear as night and day that we – the West and USA’s allies and hangers-on – are fatally flawed, deeply in the wrong.
Is it not?
Not a single incontrovertible piece of evidence over numerous instances now. Not a single persuasive argument or explanation. And so on.
The fact is we are being persistently lied to.
The fact is the USA and allies are illegally invading and attacking a foreign country.
The fact is the USA and allies are repeatedly found guilty of lies and illegalities whilst all the time mouthing high principles.
And so on.
Are we supposed to be unaware of all this?
Do our ‘masters’ think our attention span is so poor and our rationality so minute that we’re unaware and oblivious to all this?
By any objective reading of the situation we are the villains.
Make it the plot of a book. Make it a ‘war of the worlds’ book. Where are the villains? Who destroyed whole nations on flimsy pretexts? Who interferes continually in everyone’s, anyone’s nation whilst mouthing inanities about the impropriety of such behaviour?
It needs an argument from me to demonstrate we are the villains? I think not.
Caught flagrante delicto again and again can anyone even attempt to maintain any idea that we might not be the villains?
‘Fighting’ Daesh while protecting their oil convoys into Turkey?
Today arming, protecting, training, encouraging, financing terrorist groups to attack a sovereign nation – whilst mouthing sheer crap about the horrific ‘interference’ of Russia in American elections?
Can anyone see this whole thing as anything other than farce? In block capitals?
Then why not write articles that make that plain, clear, indisputable? That shake people our of their trance?
Anything less than that at this stage is merely a joke, an abdication of responsibility and the more pretensions to sophistication and knowledge and humanity that you have the greater the abdication, the greater the joke. The sick joke. The black humour.
The fact is that ‘wicked’, ‘monstrous’ leaders never annihilate thousands, millions.
They never destroy countries. They never ethnically ‘cleanse’.
People do all of that. People do it to each other.
They do it at the bidding of ‘leaders’. That’s the claim. ‘I was told to do it’. ‘I believe my leaders.’ ‘I have faith in my leaders.’
And it is only ignorance that enables this to happen. Ignorance of the truth.
Ignorance of that ever unspoken first truth:
If you are doing harm to someone you are almost certainly wrong, bad, evil.
And then ignorance of the true state of affairs.
Leaders find it easy to promote this. The antidote is revelation of the truth.
Get busy writing articles that do that.
Not wishy washy articles reiterating the same trains of thought we’ve all gone over numerous times and then stopped short of doing anything about…
Arthur Brogard
Pasadena, CA
A word of advice to Taki: Real men should concern themselves with deftly removing women’s complicated underthings, not wearing them.
B. Peters
The primary reason why Assad continues chemical weapons in East Ghouta now, is to break the back of opposition forces in eastern Damascus and force them to accept a Russian-brokered ceasefire which would return the city fully to Assad’s control.
Let’s look at the dates. There have been five previous occasions this year that they have been reported used in Damascus:
13 January – Douma-Hasrata
22 January – Northwest Douma
01 February – Douma
25 February – Al Shefonia
07 March – Between Saqba and Hamoryah – Reported by a Syrians for Truth and Justice, but not corroborated.
07 April – Douma
All these attacks were designed to shape operations in East Ghouta and drive opposition forces to the bargaining table. The 13 January attack was designed to assist the Syrian Army in reestablishing control over the motor vehicle base in Hasrata and ultimately resulted in the split of East Ghouta into three pockets, (from north to south) Douma, Hasrata and Ein Tarma. The 22 January attack was a continuation of the fight to split East Ghouta into three sections as outlined above. The 01 February was the first attack and a warning against what would become the isolated enclave of Douma, the most intensely defended of the three areas and the one that is only now being evacuated. The 25 February attack was towards the eastern edge of East Ghouta in al Shefonia and was likely designed to prevent reinforcement of either the Jaysh al Islam or Faylaq al Rahman opposition groups. The reported attack on 07 March was between Saqba and Hamoryah, which lies between the Ein Tarma and Hasrata or Douma pockets. It appears that this attack directly led to the ceasefire deal between the Russian-led coalition and opposition forces in Ein Tarma, which occurred about a week later. The 07 April attack occurred shortly after Jaysh al Islam finally accepted, then rejected a ceasefire offer from the Russian-led Coalition. As a result, Jaysh al Islam finally agreed to a ceasefire and evacuations have been ongoing, much to the anger of Syria forces on the ground. I remain skeptical that the 07 April incident was a chemical attack. The Syrian Observation for Human Rights initially indicated that the suffocation experienced by the victims was because the basement shelters in which they were hiding had collapsed leaving little oxygen and a lot of dust. I’ve been off work the last couple days but have continued to watch. I have yet to see where they confirmed that the attack was chlorine-based, which is the type of attack typically used by Assad against his people. Bellingcat, however, has posted a sound, reasoned analysis where they assess that it was.
So, to answer your question, why now? The answer is to force the opposition in Damascus to agree to the Russian proposed ceasefire, at a point when the world is increasingly focused on Assad’s humanitarian abuses. Assad and Putin’s goal is easy to assess; force the peace before the Geneva Process, or the West, can dictate terms unfavorable to Putin and Assad. A couple points in post-script. First, all assessments are theory at this point because Putin and Assad have continued to deny any use of chemical weaponry. You can apply my theory, however, to the remaining two anti-Assad enclaves in Damascus. The first enclave is around Yalda, Babbila and Beit Sahem. It is controlled by opposition forces, I believe the Free Syrian Army. The second is in adjacent Yarmouk, controlled by ISIS. Negotiations with the opposition are ongoing, whereby negotiations with ISIS will reportedly not occur. Unless something changes to alter Putin & Assad’s thinking on the use of chemical weapons, he will use them again on both these enclaves. Second, despite my continuing reservations that some of these reported attacks may not have been chemical in nature, Putin has broken the system of verification and consistently lied about the situation across Syria. The two great examples of this are his continued opposition to the OPCW activities in the UNSC, which has led to the resignation of prominent members. This action has broken the formal mechanism for investigation. The other example is Putin’s use of video-game footage in Syria twice, once to exaggerate Russian air power, and twice to prove Trump was working with ISIS. Unless of course one believes that Voskresenskoye Vremya doesn’t coordinate its reporting with the Russian Government.
Respectfully,
Daniel M. Mulcahy
Syrian Showdown: Trump vs. The Generals
Love your articles, helps me laugh instead of pulling out hair. With two trips in a rifle company to the “Paris of the Orient,“ that is Afghanistan, I’m disgusted at the willingness to send other boys to war in the stead of the hawks and neocons who send them. It always makes my day to see Buchanan calling it like it is, and draft-dodging Bolton for who she is.
My father turned me onto your site for some much needed levity a few years back. Thanks much.
P.S. Always looking forward to “The Week that Perished.“
Jake Naag
Waterloo, WI
It appears you are now on the road to destroying Taki’s. This site has always had thoughtful commenters, and like all sites, a few idiots. Guess what? We the readers can tell the difference, and WE will decide. So now, some recent grad,(cheap labor) will FILTER or delete comments a la Facebook? I cant believe Taki is going along with this, but I must say that going forward Taki’s will be censored out of my daily reading. A bloody shame as Taki’s has had some of the finest essayists on the web, my only question is WHY? Every SJW on the planet is cheering….disgusting.
I dare you to post this.
Faint regards,
Mitchell Novin
