How many people are excited that all the major networks will be airing the vice presidential debate tomorrow night for 90 minutes?

How many can name both candidates? How many know which is which in these photos? How many give a rat’s ass? How many would rather chew construction nails than watch the damn thing?
Is it an overestimate to say zip, nada, zilch, zero?

Granted, Syria is difficult to unravel. Duterte’s killing spree of poor people suspected of drug use is not. It’s one of the most straightforward issues in world politics today because he’s proud of the vigilante campaign, his national police chief cites the statistics, activists are in the street protesting at great risk to themselves.

But nut cases who pretend they’re political analysts are defending him, claiming he’s in the crosshairs of the US Pentagon who are demonizing him. Why would they waste their money when every word out of his mouth condemns him as a vigilante monster?

That isn’t politics. You can’t just blow smoke from your nether-regions, mix some paranoia with it & call it political analysis. Before you claim Duterte is being framed & vilified, you have to be able to prove it. Unless you do like those who make up evidence to support their crazy-assed suspicions.

A White Helmet in Aleppo buried in rubble. A fellow first responder died.

Spin again for us that ugly tale about USAID & the White Helmets. We lost the plot somewhere between the slanders & the apologetics for Assad.

The differences about Syria could not be more volatile nor more consequential. Many rail against the left as a whipping post but there is no left on Syria–or at least not much of one. What the complexities of the conflict have done is expose the theoretical & political bankruptcy of those who call themselves leftists but employ the analytical methods of libertarians: impressionism, paranoia, speculations, slanders, & conspiracy thinking.

Assadists dispute indisputable facts claiming Assad is not a dictator, there was never a popular uprising against him, & that Syria & Russia are not engaged in carpet bombing. They are certain the US is in a regime-change operation. In a formulaic way they understand the character of US military interventions & that there is no such thing as a humanitarian intervention headed by the US Pentagon.

On the other hand, many who understand the political character of the Assad dictatorship & of Syrian & Russian bombing do not understand the character of US militarism & want the US to impose & enforce a No Fly Zone–which is the quickest way to Armageddon. They don’t understand what the US has been doing militarily in Syria since 2011. They also don’t understand the character of a No Fly Zone as an act of war. Or do they?

It’s possible the US had its crosshairs set on regime change in Syria prior to the 2011 uprising against Assad. It’s possible that in the future they will try to get rid of him. But now they subordinate that goal to unity on destroying the popular opposition to Assad & making a mangled mess of the paramilitary operations. All of the regimes involved can live with dictatorship but non can tolerate popular democratic uprisings against it.

It’s a mistake to think opposition to Assad manifests only in the armed militias. It was a massive unarmed movement before Assad militarized it by bombing entire cities. His carpet bombing, mass arrests, disappearances, torture for over five years have certainly not made Syrians change their minds about the character of his despotism.

It’s not clear where this political breach among activists is headed. What is clear is that while these differences are being slugged out in exchanges of invective, Syrian civilians are being bombed to smithereens. What is clear is that the only principled, practical, possible way to resolve differences is to demand all military forces involved in Syria stop the bombing & to demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all ground & air forces. Anything less is a capitulation to militarism & Armageddon.

In a speech on Friday, Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte compared himself favorably to Adolph Hitler, saying Hitler massacred millions of Jews & he would be “happy to slaughter” the estimated three million drug addicts in the Philippines.

In fact, since Duterte took office on June 30th, the official death toll is 3,500 suspected drug users & street dealers murdered—half in police operations (according to the Philippines National Police chief) & the rest by vigilante death squads. That’s one-thousand people murdered per month. According to the Philippines National Police, 21,682 drug suspects have been arrested & 729,915 others have surrendered to authorities to avoid summary execution. What will happen to those arrested & those who surrendered since under neoliberal healthcare the government has neither the budget nor infrastructure to address addiction? There are less than 50 accredited treatment & rehab centers in the entire country. Will they remain incarcerated? Or will they be gleefully slaughtered & disappeared?

Duterte ran his election campaign on an anti-illegal drugs platform promising an all-out bloody war to eliminate drug use within six months of taking office. In the campaign he threatened to drown drug suspects in Manila Bay to fatten the fish or to hang them until their heads severed from their bodies because he didn’t want to waste electricity on them.

The criminally psychotic Duterte has not taken kindly to even tepid criticisms of his death squads. When UN officials criticized his methods last August, Duterte criticized UN work in the Philippines & said, “Maybe we’ll just have to decide to separate from the United Nations. If you’re that rude, son of a bitch, we’ll just leave you.” After Duterte compared himself to Hitler, the UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Adama Dieng, toned down UN criticism of death squads & told Duterte to “exercise restraint in his use of language that could exacerbate…crimes against humanity.” What’s with the “could” stuff? Duterte publicly incites death squads & boasts about them to the world. His national police chief publicly reports the numbers of those killed, arrested,& who surrendered, albeit more than likely underestimated.

Dieng also expressed alarm about Duterte’s comparison between his campaign to execute three million drug users & Hitler’s genocide against Jews. So did Martin Schaefer, the foreign minister of Germany, who said Duterte’s comment was unacceptable because “It is impossible to make any comparison to the unique atrocities of the Shoah & Holocaust.” No one in their right mind is not absolutely horrified by what Hitler did to six million Jews & millions of others including Roma, disabled, homosexuals, political activists. But only racist Zionism claims that the holocaust of Jews stands unparalleled in the world history of genocides & barbarism. What about the Atlantic slave trade & the colonial savageries in Africa, the Americas, the Middle East, Asia, & elsewhere? Is the holocaust unique because it happened to white people in the metropolitan centers of Europe?

A spokesperson for the US Anti-Defamation League also protested Duterte’s comparison. He said, “The comparison of drug users & dealers to Holocaust victims is inappropriate & deeply offensive.” How does one respond appropriately to such racist insularity & stinking elitism? To such a profound lack of human solidarity & contempt for the poor?

From those Zionists quoted in media so far, only Ronald Lauder, the head of the World Jewish Congress, made a statement that wasn’t completely shameful. He said in part, “Drug abuse is a serious issue. But what President Duterte said is not only profoundly inhumane, but it demonstrates an appalling disrespect for human life that is truly heartbreaking for the democratically elected leader of a great country.” Now if Lauder could just get that straight about Palestinians!

A spokesperson for Human Rights Watch (HRW) made the least compromised statement about Duterte’s pledge to murder three million drug users. HRW called on the US & EU to warn the Philippines that aid could be suspended if the death squads were not stopped. The HRW statement read: “Foreign donors such as the United States & the European Union, which provide technical & financial assistance to the Philippine security forces, particularly the Philippine National Police, urgently need to send a strong message to the Duterte government that it risks an immediate suspension of that aid unless the abusive “war on drugs” & its skyrocketing death toll comes to a halt.”

From that statement we learn the US & EU bankroll Duterte’s police force which claims responsibility for half the murders of poor people suspected of drug use. Who knew!? So does that mean the US can pull the plug on those death squads by stopping all aid to the national police force? We already knew the US gave the Philippines more than $120 million in military aid this year, that the US & Philippines hold annual war game exercises, that the US is negotiating for air & naval bases for its buildup in the South China Sea.

All that would explain the shameful response, or more aptly lack of response from Obama & the US government to Duterte’s death squad campaign. Obama was scheduled to meet with Duterte after the G20 meeting in China in early September, reportedly to raise the issue of extrajudicial killings. Duterte dared Obama to raise the issue & called him the “son of a whore.” In response, Obama called Duterte “a colorful character” & cancelled the meeting. It might not have been a productive meeting with Duterte shooting off his mouth. But if Obama presented Duterte with a financial accounting of US aid to the Philippines, especially to the National Police carrying out Duterte’s dirty work, things might have gone more smoothly.

The response of US State Department officials are as pitiful as those of US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter who said he is “deeply troubled” by Duterte’s words. Just not troubled enough to stop negotiating for those bases & war games or to even threaten to end military aid. There is no report of Obama’s response to Duterte’s comments about Hitler except one media source that he appears to be ‘playing it down’ or as one think tank expert said “taking the long view” in dealing with Duterte.

The so-called long view has been laid out quite clearly by Ashton Carter. Despite Duterte’s recent threats to sever the military relationship with the US, extrajudicial executions will not stand in the way of US military plans & alliance with the Philippines. Duterte is a loose cannon, probably deranged, but he is not in full charge in the Philippines. There is an established oligarchy with vested interests in a US military alliance & in the economic aid they receive from the US, Europe, & elsewhere. The oligarchs might have thought Duterte would be an effective president during the period of re-militarization & to crush opposition to neoliberal economic policies. But they will not allow his genocidal impulses to destroy their economic relationship, partly dependency, on the the IMF, World Bank, US & Europe.

This protest last Friday in Manila against Duterte’s death squads may be the only situation when the slogan “Black Lives Matter” can be coopted to “All lives matter.” Students & faculty from the St. Paul University stood in front of their school to demand an end to the executions. Our fullest solidarity with them & our deepest respect.

(Photo by Mark R. Cristino/EPA)

There is a relentless campaign by Assad supporters to discredit the first responders in Syria known as White Helmets who pull survivors & bodies out of the rubble after Syrian & Russian bombing. The accusation is that they are not volunteers as they claim but a political construct of the US & NATO who are embedded with “jihadist” & terrorist militias as a support network. They are also accused of participating in acts of terrorism.

The accusation is made because White Helmets only do rescue work in areas “under terrorist control,” which is another way of saying in the cities where Syria & Russia are bombing. How that is considered evidence of criminality rather than just civilian rescue operations remains an enigma smelling of conspiracy theory.

The chief evidence against White Helmets is their funding sources which are primarily from USAID, the UK, Holland & German governments. Those funding sources would give pause if you didn’t know how these international aid programs operate. We know something about them from international aid to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, to Gaza after the 2014 Israeli bombing siege, & to Afghanistan throughout the 15 years of the war. Many governments pledge millions in aid & deliver zip. There is usually massive corruption & theft involved for aid that is delivered.

In Haiti, the International Red Cross, Clinton Foundation, & other NGOs plucked those donations to the bone in grand larceny schemes. Nations pledged $5.4 billion to rebuild Gaza but then put Israel in control of the process so that nothing was rebuilt in Gaza. International aid programs are a scam that enrich a lot of NGOs but not the victims of war & disaster. What is called humanitarian aid is often a form of military aid.

The case of international aid to Afghanistan is apropos to Syria because it involves USAID. In 2012, 70 nations pledged US$16 billion over 4 years, contingent on the Afghan government reducing corruption & increasing accountability for expenditures. Actually, the US muscles other nations for pledges so they will shoulder the financial burden of US-NATO wars. Then Secretary of State Clinton refused to divulge how much aid the US had pledged but claimed it was the largest amount.

USAID is the agency most involved in dispensing aid & not just in Afghanistan. They claim the aid goes for development & humanitarian projects like schools, health facilities & reducing child mortality but cannot provide evidence of that because most of it is likely used to maintain the prisons & torture centers run by the CIA & US military, to facilitate CIA drug trafficking, & to bribe Afghan officials. There are credible reports that CIA agents associated with USAID wheeled in suitcases packed with money to bribe Afghan politicians. That’s why there’s so much corruption & no accountability & no way of knowing how much of that $16 billion in pledges was actually delivered or what it was used for.

In September 2015, USAID announced $419 million in humanitarian aid to Syria, claiming the total of US aid was now over $4.5 billion & that the US was the largest donor to Syria. According to the announcement, the aid went to four different UN agencies: UNICEF, UNHCR (for refugees), IOM (for refugees), & OCHA (for coordinating humanitarian aid). Other unidentified NGOs were also to receive aid money to be used for medical care, vaccination campaigns, clean drinking water, food, shelter, & provisions like blankets & winter coats. There is no system for accountability, including from the UN, so who knows what that money was used for?

In May 2016, after an investigation, USAID accused several NGOs operating In Turkey of systematic corruption involving a network of NGO staff & commercial vendors engaged in bid-rigging, bribery & kickback schemes on contracts to deliver humanitarian aid to Syria.
One of the NGOs implicated was the International Rescue Committee (IRC), headed by former UK foreign secretary David Miliband. It is Henry Kissinger’s “charity”. Its board of directors include Timothy Geithner, Madeleine K. Albright, Kofi Annan, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, James D. Wolfensohn. Another major NGO implicated was the International Medical Corps (IMC), “one of the largest suppliers of medical aid to Syria,” which has connections to the Clinton & Gates Foundations.

Millions of dollars were involved but neither the IRC nor the IMC was suspended from receiving USAID funding. Both organizations made a display of firing people. Corruption is standard operating procedure for USAID. The investigation only took place because an organization subcontracted to administer USAID’s work reported the problem.

The White Helmets receive a reported $100 million–$23 million from USAID, $65 million from the UK, & the rest from Holland & Germany. How much of that is actually dispersed, to which agencies, & in what form? Equipment like ambulances? Medical supplies? To set up field hospitals? Is any of it channeled through the NGOs like the IMC? What do these governments get out of bankrolling first responders other than good press & justification for billions in humanitarian aid used for something else?

But the real question in this campaign of vilification is why would disreputable people with connections to USAID (linked to the CIA) risk their lives by living in areas bombarded by Syrian & Russian war planes so they can rescue survivors & bodies out of mountains of shifting cement & metal rubble? What exactly is the nature of the crime they are being accused of? Risking their lives to save people?

Photo is White Helmet workers rescuing a wounded boy from a collapsed building following airstrikes on July 17, 2016 in Aleppo.

(Photo by Thaer Mohammed / AFP /Getty Images)

Now I have Canadian generals asking to be my friend. Before, it was only US Pentagon guys. Are those trolls going through every military in the world till I friend one? Just a word of advice: they can skip NATO, India, Pakistan, Syria, Russia, Iran, Egypt, & Israel.

With Sanders enthusiastic campaigning for Clinton, Chomsky’s entirely predictable support for Clinton as lesser evil (he never could get that straight), & Angela Davis doing the “We have to defeat Trump by any means necessary” thing, lots of people are waiting for voters who refuse to vote lesser evil to fold.

They’re waiting for panic to set in, for contrition from hard-assed types who say no to both (the majority of US voters), & they’re beating the drums furiously for Clinton. There are even unsavory types guilt-baiting Jill Stein supporters as white supremacists because they’re not whipped into a frenzy against Trump’s racism.

Jill Stein has some serious political failings, particularly on Israel & US militarism, but she is crystal clear on lesser evil voting & undaunted by the lowlife baiting of her as a white supremacist.

Voting lesser evil is an understandable choice if you don’t know how the US government is really run. The president is not a free agent. He/she is not just a ventriloquist dummy but they don’t formulate US policy; they administer policy formulated in think tanks, special agencies, special consultants like Kissinger, the Pentagon & CIA, corporation officials & Wall Street bankers.

If you’re campaigning for Clinton & ignoring her political past (chock full of racist policies) or because she is more likely, in your fevered delusional imagination, to go to war against Assad, don’t pretend you’re doing the righteous thing because the only person you’re fooling is yourself.

When pretty people carpet bomb a city of 275,000 people for two weeks, it’s done for humanitarian purposes. There are “jihadists” & Islamist terrorists there that have to be exterminated, even if it means leveling Aleppo. If civilians are buried in rubble it must be because they were collaborating with the terrorists.

Calling Syrian & Russian bombing of Aleppo war crimes is just to demonize Assad & Putin when in five years of bombing, arresting, torturing, disappearing, killing, & driving out millions of Syrians, Assad has meant nothing but to show his love & commitment to the Syrian people.

Pretty is the way you can distinguish between the war crimes of dictators & the humanitarian bombing of beloved & stylish leaders.

Photo is Bashar & Asmas Al-Assad. No one so western could possibly be a monstrous dictator.

Social media has been set afire with news that Angela Davis told an audience she has “serious problems” with Trump but is “not so narcissistic to say I cannot bring myself to vote for her,” meaning of course, Clinton. Davis was speaking yesterday to the Black Studies Conference held at the University of Texas in Austin.

That’s a peculiar formulation. Maybe Davis could explain for our enlightenment what narcissism has to do with electoral choices. Perhaps she could also elaborate on why she does not have “serious problems” with Clinton on several scores.

Davis is renowned as a revolutionary which means a lot of different things to different people. But generally people who identify as such do not vote for capitalist politicians, particularly corrupt & venal ones. Davis however called herself a “passionate” supporter of Obama as he entered his second term. Everybody has to be allowed some illusions–even whoppers like that, since in his first four years Obama had already betrayed almost every one of his campaign promises–most notably about war & Guantanamo.

But Davis should have no illusions about Clinton. After all, Davis is a scholar & just wrote a book titled “Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, & the Foundations of a Movement.” She has also long been involved in prison reform. So it’s unlikely she is unaware of the disaster of welfare reform under Bill Clinton & championed by Hillary. It’s far-fetched to think she wouldn’t be aware of the massive incarceration of Black youth for minor offenses, often including life sentences without the chance of parole for smoking a joint–also under the Bill Clinton presidency & championed by Hillary. And for heaven’s sake, Davis must be well-informed about Clinton’s monstrous associations with Israeli apartheid. Everybody else in the world knows because Clinton boasts about them. Certainly Clinton’s vaunted association with Kissinger must also trouble Davis.

So once again, can Davis explain to us what narcissism has to do with any of that? It seems to have less to do with personal psychology than shoddy scholarship or stinking rotten politics.

In March, Davis swore on Democracy Now not to endorse a candidate because she believed in independent politics. But then in June when she was given the Sackler Center award at the Brooklyn Museum, she told the audience, including Elizabeth Sackler & Gloria Steinem, that “We have to defeat Trump by any means necessary.” That’s a cagey way of endorsing Clinton & played well with that audience.

Incidentally, Elizabeth Sackler is the daughter of Arthur Sackler who with his two brothers Mortimer & Raymond made billions off pharmaceuticals including falsely peddling OxyContin as non-addictive which created an epidemic of addiction & overdoses in the US. The three brothers had & their extended family continues to have involvement with Israel, including bankrolling the medical school at Tel Aviv University since 1964. Certainly Elizabeth Sackler can’t be held accountable for her family’s investments & largesse but it would be interesting to know if she is part of that.

Davis has a lot of political cachet & authority. She’s regarded as an icon, a model, a paragon of political principles. So what’s with the back-handed endorsements & this narcissism crap?

It’s worse than regrettable that Bernie Sanders, Noam Chomsky, & Angela Davis waste their political authority shilling for a two-bit shyster politician who will cause immense suffering to millions of people.

(Photo is Davis by Michael Tran/Getty Images)