“Toppling themselves?” Eichorn, your use of the CIA “world handbook” to point out that Syria’s economy is ranked 145 does not refute the fact that Syria is trying to build itself out of American hegemony, a term accurately used by Jakhongir early in this thread. Jakhongir uses the language of the day, but I prefer to call it socialist yoke. The point I was making, which you conveniently overlooked, was that the US presence with military bases and CIA offices riddled through the middle east chokes national sovereignty and free trade. It's to know, Joe, that you've got the CIA World Factbook ready in hand, but there are other sources that might, perhaps even CIA-doctored, that prove that Syria is an emerging economy though ranked only 145th in the world. Wikipedia? It's not a bad place to start.
@Jordan: Jakhongir was not asserting that the US is the only country with an intel presence in the midde east or anywhere else. In fact, he mentioned the competition from China and Russia as "counterbalance." He's right. And his characterization of the US government as hypocritical no one can dispute, not even CIA-supporting Eichorn. But Jordan, you're right, the US with its CIA is not the only country with an intelligence presence in the middle east. My concession, however, to that point is conditional. Who do you think built up the intelligence services in the Soviet Union or in China, two countries who are still trying to raise themselves out of communist feudalism even now decades on from the fall of communism in 1991 and 1989 respectively? The US did. There’s no way that the USSR, a former 3rd rate Soviet economy could develop into a military super power in as few years without the financial, intelligence, and technological aid it received by the US before and since the Hoover Administration. If I could be so bold as to recommend 2 worthwhile readings, I would offer G. Edward Griffin’s book The Creature from Jekyll Island and Anthony Sutton’s Western Technology and Soviet Union Economy. http://peswiki.com/index.php/Site:LRP:Western_Technology_%26_Soviet_Economic_Development.
The only CIA Agent that I know from his writings and interviews and who I find worthy of trust is Michael Scheuer, an ex-CIA agent in charge of the CIA's Bin Laden unit in middle east intelligence. I also appreciate Glen Chancy's arguments on Syria as one of the holiest places on earth. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/chancy4.html. His article alerts me to the fact that United States government's foreign policy is anti-Christian and not just anti-Muslim, a policy crafted in tandem with the depopulating forces within the CFR, the UN, and NATO. To the US State Dept., destroying Christian communities is the necessary collateral damage as part of its recolonizing efforts in the middle east from a theocracy to a secular democracy. It won't work. Scheuer, whose opinion obviously is not infallible as Eichorn would imbue with his CIA reference, asserts that if Assad goes, Israel’s security goes. Why? Because Syria plays the role of moderate among middle east theocracies. In fact, Syria's moderate position in the middle east is actually a benefit to Israel.
The only CIA Agent that I know from his writings and interviews and who I find worthy of trust is Michael Scheuer, an ex-CIA agent in charge of the CIA's Bin Laden unit in middle east intelligence. I also appreciate Glen Chancy's arguments on Syria as one of the holiest places on earth. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/chancy4.html. His article alerts me to the fact that United States government's foreign policy is anti-Christian and not just anti-Muslim, a policy crafted in tandem with the depopulating forces within the CFR, the UN, and NATO. To the US State Dept., destroying Christian communities is the necessary collateral damage as part of its recolonizing efforts in the middle east from a theocracy to a secular democracy. It won't work. Scheuer, whose opinion obviously is not infallible as Eichorn would imbue with his CIA reference, asserts that if Assad goes, Israel’s security goes. Why? Because Syria plays the role of moderate among middle east theocracies. In fact, Syria's moderate position in the middle east is actually a benefit to Israel.
@J. Eichorn: Eric Margolis explains that “Syria’s conflict is confusing. It began a year ago when insurgent groups slipped in from neighboring Lebanon. They were armed, supplied and trained by the CIA, Britain’s MI6, and Israel’s Mossad. (Please forgive for not citing the CIA World Factbook as proof). Their finances came from the US Congress, which voted in the 1980’s to fund overthrowing Syria’s Assad regime because of its antagonism to Israel and support for Palestinians, and from the Saudis. Syria has fragmented along ethnic/religious grounds. Some of the Sunni majority, particularly the powerful merchant class, still support Assad. So do Syria’s ancient Christians, about 10% of the population. Like Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Syria’s Assad protected his nation’s Christian sects from fanatics who call Christians western-backed traitors or idol worshipers.” The conflict in Syria is not easy to read.
The only CIA Agent that I know from his writings and interviews and who I find worthy of trust is Michael Scheuer, an ex-CIA agent in charge of the CIA's Bin Laden unit in middle east intelligence. I also appreciate Glen Chancy's arguments on Syria as one of the holiest places on earth. http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/chancy4.html. His article alerts the reader to the fact that United States government's foreign policy is anti-Christian and not just anti-Muslim, a policy crafted in tandem with the depopulating forces inside the CFR, the UN, and NATO. To the US State Dept., destroying Christian communities is necessary collateral damage in its recolonizing efforts in the middle east to turn a theocracy into a secular democracy. It won't work. Scheuer, whose opinion obviously is not infallible as Eichorn would imbue with his CIA reference, asserts that if Assad goes, Israel’s security goes. Why? Because Syria plays the role of moderate among middle east theocracies. In fact, Syria's moderate position in the middle east is actually a benefit to Israel.
Eichorn, to reply to your contention about my claim of Syria as an emerging economy, "And are you defining Syria as an emerging economy?" see if you can't find Syria in the list of emerging economies here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country#List_of_graduated_developing_economies. The point I was making by using the phrases like “emerging economy” and “emerging country” was that these countries want to their economies to flourish independent of western financial, military, and political yoke; they'd prefer to trade freely with countries than to war with them.
Joe, I don't know if my example was the worst. It may be, it may not be; it doesn't matter. What I do know is that your drawing on the CIA as a source of economic data reveals a credibility problem. With its hand in distributing a million doses of LSD to Americans, with its covert wars in too many countries to speak of, with its mind-control games, with its coups and assassinations of democratically-elected governments and leaders from around the world and peaceful organizations here at home, to call up the CIA as a source of logically consistent truth says to me that you've not only got a credibility problem but a moral one as well. And Joe, when you argue, “You're talking about two nations that are on the brink of toppling themselves from the inside out,” do you stop and ask yourself "Who is on the inside?" or do you already know who is on the inside or do you care? Without asking this question or fact-checking, or maybe you have, you are inadvertently dismantling the strength of your own position. See here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_orfcGnaseE&feature=player_embedded.
And anyone reaching for the CIA World Factbook is fighting a credibility battle, given the nefarious deeds that the CIA and other intelligence agencies have committed against American citizens and peoples abroad. CIA World Factbook? You offer nothing specific except a lone number that doesn’t even refute what to you is the worst example you’ve ever seen. If it is the worst example you’ve ever seen, it would be fairly easy to refute, yet you cannot marshal any specific evidence to refute except with a blustery checking of the throat before you the thrust of my argument which was that the US should, according to many US presidents, stay out of entangling alliances with other nations. That was my point. It shows that you have no specific rebuttal to make other than to say “That’s not so.” If that’s all that you can do, why get involved in the discussion where viewpoints are presented? Let’s hope that it’s not because you don’t have one. You didn’t even have the courtesy to link any article or any link to support your point. If you’re the kind of person, who in person labels statements to strangers as “the worst example” then your mama didn’t teach you anything. But you’re not in the same room, you’re on Facebook. I’ve had some heated, interesting, and protracted discussions on Facebook on topics that range from religion to politics to the economy. I have never seen any remark so rude or so cowardice as yours. If you perceived my comments as a challenge to your friend Jordan and wanted to seize on something to shut me, I kind of understand that; to your credit you’re defending your friend. Good for you. But it is stupid to refer to someone’s comments as the worst. I don’t know anyone who does that. Now I do. The people I talk to and work with will always cite credible evidence. To cite the CIA World Factbook is laughable. I am sure that Providing information that might show how they’re wrong is always preferable.
I don’t know you, dude. s a bastion of authority not remotely, outside of influence of other countries, but preferably the point I was making was th though I did not explicitly define Syria as an emerging economy by putting in in the same class as China With a nod to Jordan, yes, other nation states are involved in intelligence gathering. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developing_country#List_of_graduated_developing_economies. Here is a list of developing countries. The one helpful thing that came from your comment is that, yes, I do need to read more on
could work better without interference from the west. A nation that's GDP per capita ranks a whopping 145th in the world (CIA world factbook)?
“Sometimes I can understand the outrage against "imperialist America", but this is about the worst example I've ever seen used.” I want to be careful not to make assumptions about you based on your comments, but this seems to be an apology for mass murder. “Sometimes I can understand . . .”? Wow! That’s big of you. I’m glad that you can under those who want their government reigned in a little. But that Christian Exceptionalism elevates you to a higher asshole. Imperialist America is a foreign policy that is designed by the UN and the CFR, agents for the international Left. That’s a fact. Check your world factbook. And what organizations during the 20th century were responsible for more mass murder than any other? I’ll give you a hint brightboy: China, USSR, Hitler (yes, Joe, Hitler was a lefty—a socialist), Cambodia, Cuba, and others. There are socialist forces in the middle east as there are throughout the world
and that shows US military bases surrounding Iran. I realize that it is a map of bases surrounding Iran, but Syria is a major ally of Iran. During the Iraq War, the US propaganda hinted at invasions into Syria, claiming that Syrians were entering Iraq and fighting as "insurgents," essentially trying to establish ground for an attack on Syria. As China and Russia and India begin making key trade agreements outside the purview of the US dollar and political hegemony, it emboldens other middle-east nations to throw off the socialist yoke the US has imposed on those states. The US wants one country to go a certain way, while these emerging countries are seeking their own way with the help of trading partners like capitalist China, like capitalist Russia, capitalist India in sync with US imperial collapse. I just think that Iran and Syria are symbolic for the grip that the US is losing around the world. Knowing that they're losing their empire, the US still wants to shape the outcome of the emerging economies.
You don’t say much of anything specific until you attack my statement as though hovering over a topic with vague platitudes is the product of a sophisticated analysis. It’s not.
Another cloud over the CIA?
