Friend Richard McHugh sent me a sad article about a young American Navy woman who was killed by a suicide bomber in Syria on January 16, Shannon Kent. What a waste. What was she even doing there? What is the United States doing there except inflaming the situation and making it worse? And when it's all over, what will this woman have died for? Freedom? Democracy? If you believe that, it's only because you are a product of government schools.  

I am long time reader of the Taliban website, and that's because I like to stay informed about what is happening there, and there is very little reporting about the war in Afghanistan in the U.S. press.  You see, I think they learned a lesson from the Vietnam War, that the daily reports about the fighting and the deaths is what incited the American public to demand an end to the war.  Night after night, Walter Cronkite could be heard saying things like, "Seven Americans were killed today in fierce fighting on the Mekong Delta." But, most Americans today are hardly aware that we are at war.  They refer to this as "peacetime." 

But, a strange thing has happened. About 10 days ago, the Taliban website went down. It disappeared. This is all you get now:

I have to suspect the U.S. government is blocking access to their site in the U.S. And I am asking for someone in Europe or Australia or elsewhere to go to this website and see what you get:

https://alemarah-english.com/

We know that Red China blocks access to unapproved websites all the time in China. It's a daily occurrence. So, if they can do it in China, then our government must certainly have the ability to do it here. 

Are you aware that the U.S. government has been pursuing peace with the Taliban? We initiated peace talks with them. It is our desire to end the war, but only on our terms. There have been several meetings between us and the Taliban in Qatar. However, the Taliban cancelled the recent one. The reason they cancelled it is the lack of progress. You see, the U.S. proposes that the Taliban essentially join the existing government, to blend in with it, where Taliban members will be allowed to seek elected office, etc.. But, the Taliban won't hear of it because they consider the existing government to be a puppet government, like the Vichy government in Nazi-occupied France during WW2.  So, they want the existing government to go away; to dissolve. And they want the United States, and all foreign occupiers, to get completely out of Afghanistan.  

Both sides are adamant, and there has been no progress and no resolution in sight.

But, at this point in time, after 17 years of war, what exactly are we fighting for in Afghanistan? If we are willing to integrate the Taliban into the government, then it means we recognize them as a legitimate element of Afghan society, in which case, what did we attack them for? The answer, of course, is that we accused them of harboring Osama bin laden, whom we said planned the 9/11 attacks, and accepting terror training camps in their country. But, if those things are true, then how can we negotiate with them now? Isn't it hypocritical? 

Of course, it's hypocritical, but we don't care about that because we assume most Americans won't think about it, and the U.S. media certainly isn't going to tell them. At this point in time, SAVING FACE is all we care about. We just want to get out of there without having to admit that we lost. But, the very fact that after 17 years of war, the Taliban is still going strong and occupying as much of the country as they did in 2001, tells you that we lost. But, it's all about perceptions, and that's why we have been pursuing our peace deal.

But, the Taliban is never going to go for it. They want us completely and totally out of Afghanistan, and that includes American private mercenary groups. And they want the current government to dissolve. Hey, they're not insisting on killing them.  They're offering them amnesty if they walk away peacefully. It's better than Vichy officials got, which was immediate death as soon as the Nazis fell. The same thing happened to Quisling in Norway, and the Taliban has referred to the Kabul officials working with us as quislings.  

So where does it leave the situation? At a complete and total stalemate. 

The latest salvo was the Taliban cancelling the latest round of scheduled peace talks in Qatar. And it was right after that that the Taliban website went down in the U.S. 

One thing the Taliban did repeatedly on their website is deny ever targeting civilians. They described vicious attacks on government forces and occasionally on U.S. or other "coalition" forces. But, they denied ever attacking civilians and denounced it as unIslamic. On the contrary, they claim it is the U.S. who has wantonly killed civilians in Afghanistan, and it's pretty hard to argue with that, considering that we have killed hundreds of thousands of Afghans, including bombing wedding parties. How smart do you have to be to know that women and children attend weddings? So, when you bomb a wedding party, aren't you deliberately killing women and children? 

The bottom line is that, unfortunately, there is NO prospect for peace in Afghanistan. America's longest war, which was based on lies, has no end in sight. Will it ultimately end like the Vietnam War where we declared victory and left? In that case, it took the North Vietnamese two years to completely overrun South Vietnam and reunite the country. I don't think the current Afghan government would endure nearly that long. I suspect it would collapse pretty much as soon as we got out. But, how much longer are we going to stay just to save face? If we stay 10 more years, it will just mean 10 more years of fighting and killing and dying before the inevitable outcome of Afghanistan returning to self-rule. So, what would be the point of it? Wasn't it John Kerry who asked what is the point of being the last man to die for a lost cause? Although, it's more like going to be a woman or child dying in Afghanistan. 

So, with regret and disdain, I predict that the U.S. is going to keep the Afghanistan War going- just to save face; until deteriorating economic conditions here at home force our leaders to get us out of there. How long will that be? I don't claim to know, but a lot of people seem to think that it's coming soon. 

   

  

Look at this image of the Oswald shooting. Look at the size of that guy in the middle. Actually, all three of those men. Then on the left, you see normal size men, one of whom is circled. Note that Jim Leavelle was a pretty big guy, probably 6 feet, 200 pounds, and look how small he looks compared to those giants. But, the guy circled is just humongous. He's freakily big. And we know he wasn't. We know who that guy is. He's Detective Tom McMillon.

You see, he actually was human and of human size. He wasn't a freak. In addition to being freakily big, that guy on the right is hypocephalic. Look how tiny his head is compared to his immense body. IT IS MANIPULATED IMAGE. And they did it to completely hide the shooter. Why? BECAUSE HE WASN'T JACK RUBY. 

I've been saying for years now that Jack Ruby was NOT the Garage Shooter of Lee Harvey Oswald, that Ruby was not in the garage at the time, that Ruby got to the garage much earlier than 11:17; he was pounced upon and hustled up to the fifth floor, where he was told that he shot Oswald. 

Ruby had no memory of doing it. Why do you think his lawyers tried to defend him by saying that he had "psychomotor epilepsy" in which he shot Oswald without knowing it? It's because Ruby told them that he didn't know that he shot Oswald until Dallas Police told him that he did.   

Do you get it that the bad guys in this were the Dallas Police and the FBI? And it means two things: it means that they framed the drugged and mentally deranged Jack Ruby, AND it means they must have killed Oswald. They didn't kill him in the garage. That was just an act for television. It was pure theater. Oswald was shot elsewhere. 

It is time for the JFK truth movement to recognize the fact that, like Lee Oswald, Jack Ruby was innocent. Jack Ruby was MK-ULTRA. He was just a prop. And unlike Sirhan Sirhan, Jack Ruby wasn't even there. He didn't shoot Oswald, and he didn't see Oswald get shot. Jack Ruby was off his rocker. He was mentally incompetent. He was mentally gone. 

That Jack Ruby was innocent is the most important element of the JFK assassination case that is still largely unknown to most researchers and students of the case. Please do all you can to rectify that. There will be grasping of the JFK assassination reality without realizing what was done to Jack Ruby that weekend and beyond.  

Highlighted comment

Sassonic19 hours ago

One of the many problems with the "Oswald was innocent" theory is why would he take out his revolver and try to start a gun battle with the Dallas Police when they showed up to the Texas theater? And then outside in the parking lot during the arrest he said to onlookers "I'm not resisting..." Think about it, if you were innocent would you draw your weapon on police? Come on, that's not what innocent people do...

REPLY

Ralph Cinque1 second ago

Where you are misleading people is in accepting the official account of what happened in that theater. Indeed, why would a man who drew his gun on police say "I am not resisting"? That's not what guilty people do. So, why not question whether Oswald really drew his gun? And why not question why Oswald even had a gun on him? And why not question why Oswald went to the theater at all? It's not like he had hankering for a war movie. SOMEONE MUST HAVE TOLD HIM TO GO THERE. It's clear from his movements within the theater that he expected to meet someone there. And it could not have been a rendezvous that he arranged, that he set up. The whole official account of what happened in that theater is fraught with lies. The first account was that Oswald tried to fire his pistol, but the gun misfired. But, the FBI's own expert said that the firing pin never struck the primer of any cartridge in the revolver. His name was Cortland Cunningham. So then, Officer Nick McDonald CHANGED HIS STORY and made it that the reason he wasn't shot was because he jammed the web of his hand into the firing space between the firing pin and the primer as Oswald was pulling the trigger? You believe that, do you? So, the firing pin struck that very thin tissue of his hand? Do you have any idea how painful that would be? He would have screamed out loud, and he would have had something to show us in the way of trauma. So, that was a lie, another lie. If he had really done that, he would have said it from the beginning. And how come there is no account of this in the reports of Oswald's police interrogations? We know Oswald professed his innocence vigorously from the start and all along. So, why wouldn't police ask him, "Well, if you are innocent, then why did you try to shoot a cop in the theater?" But, there is nothing about it in any of the reports by Fritz, Hosty, Bookhout, or anyone else. And why isn't there one word in any of the police reports about Oswald's alibi for the Tippit shooting? Why isn't there a single word about what Oswald said about how he got from his room to the theater? Why such huge holes? They told us what he said about how he got from Dealey Plaza to his boarding room, but then it is a complete blank. How come? It must be because whatever he told them was extremely exonerating. So, the only thing that you said that we have any ability to confirm is that Oswald said he was not resisting arrest. A lot of people heard that. And no one doubted that he said it with conviction. He must have meant it. So, STOP ASSUMING THAT THE OFFICIAL ACCOUNT OF WHAT HAPPENED INSIDE THE THEATER IS TRUE when it is already proven to be a lie. Oh, and by the way, I am making you famous.

REPLY

RC: Well, I don't believe in coincidences, Robert, and with the JFK assassination, I don't believe in coincidences in spades. So yes, that has got to be Oswald. We're seeing the same head, the same shoulders held back, the same long-sleeved shirt, the same hair, the same long neck. It's bad enough they want us to believe that Oswald and Lovelady were almost twins who dressed the same, but we're supposed to believe that there was a third one? So yes, that is Oswald talking to a policeman. And it's obvious that Oswald is the one who INITIATED the conversation because the policeman isn't even facing him. It's Oswald who had something to say to the cop. Why would a guy who just shot the President want to talk to a cop? He wouldn't. He couldn't. He didn't. This displays the consciousness of innocence.  

Let's examine these hands in the Jackson photo of the Oswald shooting.

The only hand there that is real is Oswald's left hand in the center. What is that weird squiggly stuff to our right of his left hand? It's not his right hand. You can't tell me that his hand would be captured photographically looking like that. And this is supposed to be a Pulitzer Prize winning photo. 

And the hand on the other side is supposed to be Jim Leavelle's left, but that isn't real either. First, look at the squiggly forearm above it. That isn't real. You do know, don't you, that a forearm consists of two long bones, and they don't bend like that. It's just something they put in to convey the idea that Leavelle had his hand in Oswald's pants. He didn't. And of course, no police officer would escort a prisoner that way. 

The idea that Leavelle had his hand in Oswald's pants must be something that they came up with during the photo alteration process. There was a lot they had to get covered up to account for the fact that there is no visible trauma to Oswald or his clothing after the shot. And that's because there was no trauma because there was no shot. This was a staged photo that was captured before the televised spectacle. 

And Leavelle was NOT handcuffed to Oswald at all. Leavelle reportedly picked Oswald up and carried him into the jail office, but he could not have done it if he was handcuffed to him. He would have had to uncuff himself BEFORE picking Oswald up. But, even in the 1978 tv movie about this, it shows Leavelle being uncuffed after putting Oswald down. But that had to be fake too. In filming that, Leavelle could not have been handcuffed to Oswald. It would have been physically impossible. 

Of course, they fake stuff in movies all the time, but in this case, it tells us that Leavelle's story was, and is, a lie.

There was no real shooting in the Dallas Police garage.  James Bookhout shot a blank.  It was just a made-for-television spectacle. The cops were acting; they were all in on it; and they had a double playing Oswald. FBI Agent James Bookhout played Jack Ruby, who wasn't there. Ruby was already scurried away up on the 5th floor and kept in his underwear, just to keep him from going anywhere. The question is, what about the reporters in the garage? Were they in on it? I suspect that some of them were, and some of them weren't. Some may have been sold the story the same way that viewers at home were sold the story. 

It was truly monstrous that American lawmen could do this. Oswald wasn't the only one who died that day. America died that day. The America of our ideals ceased to exist that day.  

I found a very interesting and sobering article by John Tirman asking why Americans ignore the numerous civilian deaths that we bring about in our wars. He calls it "colossal carnage." It's an old article, from 2012. But, it cites numbers of fatalities going all the way back to Vietnam.

"The major wars the United States has fought since the surrender of Japan in 1945 — in Korea, Indochina, Iraq and Afghanistan — have produced colossal carnage. For most of them, we do not have an accurate sense of how many people died, but a conservative estimate is at least 6 million civilians and soldiers."

What makes this so interesting is where it got published: the Washington Post. It's considered the second biggest and second most influential mainstream newspaper in the U.S. after the New York Times. The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon and richest man in the world.

But, let's continue with the article, and remember these figures go only until 2012.

"The wars in Korea and Indochina were extremely deadly. While estimates of Korean War deaths are mainly guesswork, the three-year conflict is widely believed to have taken 3 million lives, about half of them civilians. The sizable civilian toll was partly due to the fact that the country’s population is among the world’s densest and the war’s front lines were often moving."

"The war in Vietnam and the spillover conflicts in Laos and Cambodia were even more lethal. These numbers are also hard to pin down, although by several scholarly estimates, Vietnamese military and civilian deaths ranged from 1.5 million to 3.8 million, with the U.S.-led campaign in Cambodia resulting in 600,000 to 800,000 deaths, and Laotian war mortality estimated at about 1 million."

Despite the fact that contemporary weapons are vastly more precise, Iraq war casualties, which are also hard to quantify, have reached several hundred thousand. In mid-2006, two household surveys — the most scientific means of calculating — found 400,000 to 650,000 deaths, and there has been a lot of killing since then."

And remember: that war was based on lies. We, the U.S., crossed an ocean to start that war. We bombarded and invaded them. So, when young Iraqi soldiers fought back, they were just doing their duty, trying to defend their country. So, our killing them was just as wrong as our killing civilians- in my view. They did not deserve to die.

"The lack of concern about those who die in U.S. wars is also shown by these civilians’ absence, in large part, from our films, novels and documentaries. The entertainment industry portrays these wars rarely and almost always with a focus on Americans."

Well, that is certainly true today because Hollywood has turned gung-ho about war. American Sniper, The Hurt Locker, and other 21st century movies have glorified U.S.wars, and these wars have been atrocities. We started them. We were the aggressor.

Americans have been oblivious to the carnage caused by our government and military. "On Iraq, when an Associated Press survey asked Americans in early 2007 how many Iraqis had died in the war, the average of all answers was 9,890, when the actual number was probably well into the hundreds of thousands."

And remember, that was written in 2012, and this is 2019. Johns Hopkins researchers place the death toll in Iraq at over one million people.

"Why the American silence on our wars’ main victims? Our self-image, based on what cultural historian Richard Slotkin calls “the frontier myth” — in which righteous violence is used to subdue or annihilate the savages of whatever land we’re trying to conquer — plays a large role. For hundreds of years, the frontier myth has been one of America’s sturdiest national narratives."

"When the challenges from communism in Korea and Vietnam appeared, we called on these cultural tropes to understand the U.S. mission overseas. The same was true for Iraq and Afghanistan, with the news media and politicians frequently portraying Islamic terrorists as frontier savages. By framing each of these wars as a battle to civilize a lawless culture, we essentially typecast the local populations as theIndians of our North American conquest. As the foreign policy maven Robert D. Kaplanwrote on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page in 2004, “The red Indian metaphor is one with which a liberal policy nomenclature may be uncomfortable, but Army and Marine field officers have embraced it because it captures perfectly the combat challenge of the early 21st century.”

I shall remind you that Professor John Quigley, in Ruses for War, maintains that the aggressor in the Korean War was South Korea, and he presents 100 pages of argument and evidence for it. And you know damn well, that the government of South Korea, which was our puppet government, only did it because we told them to, because we put them up to it.

The author of this article, John Tirman, is a research scientist at MIT, and he is the author of a book called: The Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America's Wars. I just ordered it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195381211?ie=UTF8&tag=washpost-opinions-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0195381211

New Year's is all about being optimistic, and this is the most optimistic song ever written. It's Blue Skies by Irving Berlin. Written in 1926, it sounds as fresh and young today as it did then, and I suspect it always will. Happy New Year!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7h2fU2-yHE&feature=youtu.be