This is a sketch of Passenger Pigeons as they appeared in the skies of the USA in 1875.

The Passenger Pigeon (click here) was mostly extinct by 1896 with meager attempts to end their demise. 

Aldo Leopold, considered to be among the first conservationists stated: Men still live who, in their youth, remember pigeons. Trees still live who, in their youth, were shaken by a living wind. But a decade hence only the oldest oaks will remember, and at long last only the hills will know.

It doesn't take long to kill, be it people, wildlife or land; but; it takes a long, long time to rebuild it all. Some of what is lost never returns.

The Middle East needs peace. It needs to value life and not destroy it. 

When the USA, which is suppose to be a bastion of morality, breaks it's own rules and engages in and promotes war, that casts a very long shadow. But, when the USA demands peace and sets the example it needs to set, the returns are enormous.

There is a great deal of unrest in the Middle East for many reasons, but, the primary reason is due to religious bigotry. That bigotry served the USA well when it came to cheap oil. The hatred of religious difference goes back decades if not century and millennium. But, while the USA did not create the hatred, it has not stopped it. 

War in such an atmosphere of hate only creates more of it. The hatred never stops and consumes populous of people estranged from any of quality of life. 

The USA has to stop fighting wars and encouraging them and soliciting them for profit. There is no reason to cause this level of destruction and despair to any society. 

War provides no solace. War is lost reason. War has a very long timeline to recovery regardless of it's short duration. War is abhorrent. The USA engages in war without a second thought. War has become routine for the USA.

I don't want to kill anymore people, I don't care if there are chemical weapons, I don't want to kill anymore people. I find the USA becoming more and more disgusting and a country I no longer recognize. I do not want the blood of people on my hands anymore. I don't want profits from war. I am a good and decent human being that values life regardless of what others value that is an affront to life. 

I don't want a military strategy to protect the wildlife and endangered species as an aspect to war. I want the populous of a nation to value what they have and protect it.

The end of war has to start somewhere and it has to start now. If we continue as a country to seek war and violence as a definition of who we are as a people we will never stop. Oh, it will different next time or there won't be a next time.

No.

There won't be a this time or a next time or forever.

Poaching runs rampant during war.

February 16, 2010

By Hana Namrouqa

AMMAN - Authorities have seized endangered animals (click here) destined for two neighbouring countries at the Kingdom’s border with Saudi Arabia, officials said on Monday.
In two separate incidents over the weekend, inspection teams at Al Omari border crossing discovered cheetah and lion cubs kept in “inhumane conditions”, according to the Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN).
On Friday, four lion cubs confined in two small cages were discovered in a car headed for Saudi Arabia. The following day, four cheetah cubs in two small straw baskets were found in a car from Saudi Arabia destined for Syria, said Mahdi Qatramiz, head of the RSCN’s conservation and hunting regulation section.
“The lion cubs were to be smuggled from Syria to Saudi Arabia via Jordan, while the cheetah cubs were en route from Saudi Arabia to Syria,” he told The Jordan Times yesterday.
The cubs, aged between two and three months, were being transported without any health certificates or consideration for their well-being, Qatramiz added.
“The cubs are in good health now and are being kept at an animal shelter… they will soon be sent to Africa with the help of concerned agencies,” the RSCN official said, noting that officials are currently unsure which region or country in Africa the endangered species originated from.
The 2002 Agriculture Law prohibits trade in wild animals unless a permit is issued for export or import of the animal through the Kingdom, according to the RSCN.
“Cheetahs are listed under the first appendix of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and thus are not allowed to be hunted or traded for any commercial purposes,” Qatramiz noted.
The convention is an international agreement between governments which aims to ensure that the international trade in wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival, according to the CITES website.
It was drafted as a result of a resolution adopted in 1973 at a meeting of members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Qatramiz said the lions are listed under the second appendix of CITES, which allows the trade of lions if a permit is obtained, humane travel conditions are ensured and a certificate indicating their origin and the final destination is provided.
He added that the smugglers, a Syrian and a Saudi, were referred to court for legal action.

Ecotourims is a product. It protects the land, it's integrity and it's productivity.

Date: 30 June 2010

A brief introduction to Eco tourism Industry (click here)

Eco tourism Industry is an industry which is fast catching up with the other flourishing industries of the world. Eco tourism industry is growing by leaps and bounds. Eco tourism market makes up 6% of the GDP all over the world. The yearly growth rate is 5%. Eco tourism refers to the practice in which the place one visits is not harmed in any way, thereby maintaining the natural equilibrium of the place. This includes aspects related to maintaining the flora as well as the fauna of the place. Every effort is made to keep the place in it's original form....

I would not scoff at 6 percent of the global GDP. It demands peace, but, returns far more than dollars of income, it returns land to function and productivity. These nation's peoples valued their land at one time, but, the perversion of religious arguments have caused hardship. The land provides food, not just for it's wildlife, but, for people. It is a time in the world to stop destroying the land we live on and the biotic content that sustains us.

The Iranian Cheetah is critically endangered.

This is an Iranian cheetah in a picture from 1945. Food is food after all.

August 31, 2013 (click here) cheetah conservation day, is the reminiscent of the glorious past, great ambitions and respectability of Iranians. It reminds us that Iran is the only country in the ancient continent that successfully saved the last remnants of Asiatic cheetah and it reminds us the promise we made to conserve them. This day reminds us the great responsibility we have in saving this natural heritage in front of God almighty and humankind. We promised to join hands and cooperate to conserve the cheetahs. We believe that Asiatic cheetah’s greatest threat is lack of suitable public knowledge, therefore we witness people kill cheetah and its habitat defragmented by constructional activities such as roads and mining and also livestock overgrazing. So our second greatest mission, after the conservation of cheetah’s habitats, is to spread awareness about cheetahs.

The USA State Department better resolve to seek a peace mission to return the dignity to the land in the Middle East. The people need it. The professional community of scientists have already resolved such priorities. Perhaps the USA State Department could model itself after those on the ground who truly dedicate themselves to peace and the return of dignity of the land and it's people for priorities of quality of life.
  
Mar. 6, 2007 — An international team of scientists (click here) led by the Wildlife Conservation Society working in Iran has successfully fitted two Asiatic cheetahs with Global Positioning System (GPS) collars, marking the first time this highly endangered population of big cats can be tracked by conservationists. Once found throughout the continent, Asiatic cheetahs now live only in extremely arid habitat on the edges of Iran's Kavir Desert. WCS's government partner in Iran, the Department of Environment/CACP project estimates their remaining numbers between 60 and 100 animals, making the Asiatic cheetah one of the most imperiled cats on earth... 

The illegal and immoral war in Iraq has ended, it is time to stop being stupid about this planet.
 

Life has value as long as it is valued, but, when it takes a back seat to faux priorities there is danger.

Fennec Fox

...The Nubian Lion (click here) – which once ranged from Morocco to Egypt, was last seen in the 1920s. The Saharan Cheetah is “possibly” extinct according to IUCN, with rare glimpses every few years leaving a grain of hope. The Arabian Oryx – with a similar fate to the Egyptian Barbary Sheep – went extinct in the wild, but has been salvaged in zoos. Certain members of the ibis bird family are gone, while others like the endangered Hermit Ibis, no longer frequent Egypt. And in the late 1800s the infamous Egyptian Papyrus Plant disappeared, followed by the Lotus Flower in the Nile Valley, due to the changing influences of modern irrigation systems, dams and the loss of swamps. (Fortunately, papyrus was reintroduced by the 20th century thanks to a few European specimens.) Today, such plants can be seen in ornamental gardens, such as the lovely pond in front of the Egyptian Antiquities Museum in Cairo....

The Cattle Egret of the Nile River. This picture is from 1995.

The Cattle Egrets of Egypt do not fish. They thrive on insects. It is due to that fact the birds are endangered because birds are susceptible to insecticides. Over the decades, since 1980, the birds have increased in numbers, however, the wildlife in Egypt has lost priority and the beauty of the land is no longer valued as it once was.

The devastating truth of a war anywhere is that civilization is lost and life of any kind becomes valueless.

During the Bush/Cheney years the USA regarded killing important, it was everywhere in society. The idea animals were so important to protect it inhibited logging and the like was a growing burden for some areas of the country. When a populous sets aside the value of human dignity and the beauty within that quality of life, the value of that human being deteriorates and becomes as worthless as the beauty it once appreciated.

Earlier this year Lebanon was proud of recovering their teenagers from war and devoting their land to conservation.

March 1, 2013
The Daily Star

BEIRUT: Lebanon (click here) joined one of the most important international conventions on endangered species Thursday, becoming the 178th country to do so.
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) will enter into force on May 26. It has been active since 1975 and regulates trade in both CITES-listed endangered species and animals or plants requested by specific countries.

An announcement from the convention’s secretariat said that 100 CITES-listed species live in Lebanon, including the red fox, jungle cat, dalmatian pelican, black stork, greater flamingo, Eurasian spoonbill, common jackal, common wolf and wild cat.

It added that CITES-listed trade with Lebanon consists mainly of raw corals, reptile skins, leather products and live plants, birds and tortoises.

Jason Mier, executive director of the nongovernmental organization Animals Lebanon, told The Daily Star the significance of Lebanon’s membership could not be downplayed.

“It’s not every day that a country joins an international convention, and as Lebanon is the 178th country to finally join, the vast majority of countries have already joined.”

Mier noted that Iraq now remains the only Middle Eastern country that has neither joined nor is in the process of joining the convention, with Bahrain now making inroads toward membership....

Turkey is among the longest lived allies of the USA when priorites of life was still important.

The Bush White House has one of the worst records on species protection of any modern administration.

When a nation turns it's back on beauty, conservation and the higher values of a civilized society, why expect it to emulated in it's foreign policy?

I am quite sure protecting species and expecting refugees in Dick Cheney's world is the least of priorities.

Weekend Edition June 6-8, 2003

Bush's War on Endangered Species Going Critical (click here)

...But the Bush administration, under the guidance of Interior Secretary Gale Norton, has taken a different approach: a direct assault on the law seeking to make it as extinct as the Ivory-billed woodpecker. Give them points for brutal honesty.

On May 28, Gale Norton announced that the Interior Department was suspending any new designations of critical habitat for endangered and threatened species. The reason? Poverty. The Interior Department, Norton sighed, is simply out of money for that kind of work and they’ve no plans to ask Congress for a supplemental appropriation.

It’s no wonder they are running short given the amount of money the agency is pouring out to prepare oil leases in Alaska and Wyoming and mining claims in Idaho and Nevada.

Critical habitat represents exactly what it sounds like: the last refuge of species hurtling toward extinction, the bare bones of their living quarters. Under the Endangered Species Act, the Fish and Wildlife Service must designate critical habitat for each species under the law at the time that they are listed. It is one of three cornerstones to the hall, the other two being the listing itself and the development of recovery plans.

The law hasn’t worked that way for many years. Of the 1,250 species listed as threatened or endangered, the Fish and Wildlife Service has only designated critical habitat for about 400 of them. Despite what many mainstream environmentalists are saying, the attempt to unravel critical habitat has a bipartisan history and has even included the unseemly connivance of some environmental groups, such as the Environmental Defense Fund....

Primarily Falcons are considered an Endangered Species in the Middle East.

MIDDLE EAST: Some birds are trapped, but the scale of this operation is unknown. Live birds of unknown provenance are often offered for sale at the Sharjah soukh and elsewhere and are known to be used for training purposes. Most birds are trapped in the post-breeding season and are apt to be juveniles, but this can still pose a significant threat in areas where local breeding populations are small (Aspinwall 1996).

Syria: Even as early as 20 years ago, Baumgart (1984) reported that this species is scarcely recorded in the wild and that its presence was generally confirmed by the falconry trade, which involved several hundred to a thousand falcons annually.

Israel: A few pairs of brookei nested in mountainous areas in northern and central Israel until the mid-20th century, but they were apparently extirpated by pesticides (Shirihai 1996). The last nest found was in Nahal in the Carmel in 1952, and two or three pairs bred in Galilee until the mid-1950s (Vaurie 1965, Mendelssohn 1972). Since then, there have been a few single birds recorded oversummering in various northern and central localities, but no confirmed nesting attempts (Shirihai op cit.).

United Arab Emirates: Regarded as Threatened, with an estimated breeding population of 5-10 pairs (Aspinwall and Hellyer 2006).

NORTHERN SAHEL: Thiollay (2006) saw nearly as many of these falcons during surveys in 2004 as in his earlier ones in the 1970s at Adrar des Iforhas, Mali and south-central Aïr, Niger.

If the USA doesn't value it's own land and it's own people when will it value others?

Volume 14

Number 1

War and Protected Areas, 2004 (click here)

 

WARS ARE ALL TOO COMMON in many parts of the world, causing huge loss of human life, untold suffering, and large-scale social and economic disruption. Wars also have multiple impacts on biodiversity and protected areas, and livelihoods of local people dependent on natural resources.

 

Some environmental effects of armed conflict may be positive: for example, vegetation and wildlife may flourish in areas where access by people is limited, such as demilitarised zones. Impacts can be highly variable, and may be positive in some areas and negative in others (McNeely 1998). Very often, though, war has serious negative effects directly or indirectly on conservation. This article focuses on the negative impacts, and actions that protected area

managers and conservation authorities can take to mitigate them.

 

Negative impacts are driven by factors such as the breakdown in rule of law; increased abundance of firearms; disruption of economic activity, agricultural production and trade; increased dependence on wild resources; and mass movements of people. The main direct impacts occur through habitat destruction, over-exploitation of natural resources, and pollution

One of the values still remaining in the USA is the idea wild animals are important. It is called civilization.

Black-winged Pratincole (click here)

The global status of the bird according to the IUCN Red List is Near Threatened, but, in 2008 it was listed as Endangered in Iraq.

This estimate below is at the IUCN Red List and it is very dated. 

Glareola nordmanni (click here) has a very large range, breeding in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan and sporadically in Belarus, Hungary and Azerbaijan. It migrates to southern Africa, mainly Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia, and irregularly to West Africa. It is now rarely recorded in West Africa, possibly indicating a dwindling 'sub-population' of breeding birds from south-east Europe that once wintered in larger numbers (Dodman 2002). Some birds winter in Ethiopia, as the observation of 5,000 birds at river Baro in January 1973 indicates (Ash 1977). Passage birds are regularly recorded in Cyprus, Turkey, Israel, Iran, Iraq,...

There is every reason to believe the less dense migration to southern Africa is due to chronic upheaval of people and their effect on land and natural resources.

Michael Jackson was an interesting man. Extremely talented and able to conduct an empire unlike any other.

He carried with him an air of civilization in most of his music and performance.

He was a man of conscience. He enjoyed entertaining, but, so many of his songs really taught a lesson. He was more interested in reaching people and having them relate to a human side in touch with feelings that translated into humanitarian values.

We lost so much of civilization in the years of the Iraq War and our country is having a difficult time reclaiming it for the sake of political aspirations. When a civilization collapses it is very difficult for it to recover and as we have learned from generational problems in other nations, there is permanence that takes over providing impoverished values and strife. Eventually, civilization is not only collapsed, but, gone.

A country has to decide how much it values it's civilization and the permanence of it's people to accept life without disruption, because, if that civilization implodes the following generations suffer and never understand their own greatness.

The United States is such a young country compared to those of Europe and Asia that it stumbles a lot for it's lack of historic hardship. The French remember their revolution and shun returning to it. Germany is the same way when it comes to a country once so scared by economic loss it spawned a madman. I dare say Russia seeks not war above all else, but, accepts it as survival's only choice.

Spain lost a million people to civil war. The aftermath is what George Orwell wrote about (the picture is Aragon, Spain) :

I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites. Up here in Aragon one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilized life—snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.—had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England; there was no one there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned anyone else as his master.

Civil war is something that happens to many nations. It is unfortunate because so much of civilization is lost during these times. I don't believe the USA has the right to interfer in history or decide outcomes. And it certainly doesn't have the right to use assets for war when those assets are so needed to recover a forgotten generation of Americans.

The USA doesn't have the scars that other nations have and to that end they don't appreciate their own well being and the promise of the future. 

It's Sunday Night

"Threatened" by Michael Jackson (click here)

Tonight’s story is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction
A monster had arrived in the village
The major ingredient of any recipe for fear is the unknown
And this person or thing is soon to be met
He knows every thought, he can feel every emotion
Oh yes, I did forget something didn’t I? I forgot to introduce you to the monster.

You’re fearing me, ‘cause you know I’m a beast
Watching you when you sleep, when you’re in bed
I’m underneath

You’re trapped in halls, and my face is the walls
I’m the floor when you fall, and when you scream it’s ‘cause of me
I’m the living dead, the dark thoughts in your head
I heard just what you said
That’s why you’ve got to be threatened by me

You should be watching me, you should feel threatened
While you sleep, while you creep, you should be threatened
Every time your lady speaks she speaks of me, threatened
Half of me you’ll never be, so you should feel threatened by me

You think you’re by yourself, but it’s my touch you felt
I’m not a ghost from Hell, but I’ve got a spell on you
Your worst nightmare, it's me, I'm everywhere
In one blink I’ll disappear, and then I’ll come back to haunt you
I’m telling you, when you lie under a tomb
I’m the one watching you
That’s why you got to be threatened by me

You should be watching me, you should feel threatened
While you sleep, while you creep, you should be threatened
Every time your lady speaks she speaks of me, threatened
Half of me you’ll never be, so you should feel threatened by me

The unknown monster is about to embark
From a far corner, out of the dark
A nightmare, that’s the case
Never Neverland, that’s the place
This particular monster can read minds
Be in two places at the same time
This is judgement night, execution, slaughter
The devil, ghosts, this monster is torture
You can be sure of one thing, that’s fate
A human presence that you feel is strange
A monster that you can see disappear
A monster, the worst thing to fear.

You should be watching me, you should feel threatened
While you sleep, while you creep, you should be threatened
Every time your lady speaks she speaks of me, threatened
Half of me you’ll never be, so you should feel threatened by me

You should be watching me, you should feel threatened
While you sleep, while you creep, you should be threatened
Every time your lady speaks she speaks of me, threatened
Half of me you’ll never be, so you should feel threatened by me

You should be watching me, you should feel threatened
While you sleep, while you creep, you should be threatened
Every time your lady speaks she speaks of me, threatened
Half of me you’ll never be, so you should feel threatened by me

What you have just witnessed could be the end of a particularly terrifying nightmare.
It isn’t. It’s the beginning.

Dennis is home. I betcha Kerry doesn't have a photo like this.

Former basketball star Dennis Rodman shows a picture, which he took with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as he arrives at Beijing Capital International Airport on Sept 7, 2013. Rodman returned to China on Saturday from his second visit to North Korea this year where he again met the reclusive country's leader Kim Jong Un, but did not come back with jailed American missionary Kenneth Bae. -- PHOTO: REUTERS 

Published on Sep 07, 2013
11:39 AM  

...He showed a waiting crowd of reporters dozens of pictures, (click here) some of them of him with Mr Kim, the roughly 30-year-old leader of the rogue nuclear-armed state who Rodman describes as his "friend", but quickly became angry, throwing insults before rushing to the parking lot.
"It's not my job to bring him back," he said when asked about Bae.

A 107 year old man is dead for no dam reason. A SWAT Team?

PINE BLUFF, Ark. (AP) — Police in the southeast Arkansas (click here) city of Pine Bluff say a 107-year-old man is dead after SWAT officers shot back at him during a standoff at a home.

Pine Bluff Lt. David Price tells KATV that police officers called to the home Saturday were told Monroe Isadore had pointed a weapon at two people there.
Officers had the threatened pair leave the home and approached a bedroom. Police say Isadore shot through the door at officers but missed hitting them.
More officers were called, including a SWAT team that inserted a camera into the room and confirmed Isadore had a handgun.

Police say SWAT officers released gas into the room when negotiations didn't work. They say Isadore shot at officers and they fired back, killing him.

107 years old and they killed that man. The USA has lost it's mind. I am quite sure the old guy was covered in body armor with a room full of "Full Metal Jackets."

Anyone in Arkansas every hear of a tranquilizer? There are sometimes when someone seems out of control and is no immediate threat to human life, the OFFICIAL position is to let the situation BREATH. 

Everyone was safe and some old man sat in his bedroom feeling threatened enough to pull a gun. What was the gun doing in his room in the first place if his ability to confront life was that impaired? What has this country come to? 

I suppose the old guy was so big, mean and strong to tackle would have caused a broken hip which is at least as deadly as a rifle shot, but, then who wants that liability to deal with? Such bravery I've never witnessed.

For Obama his war mongering schedule could not be better staged.

Sunday, September 8th - Sunday Talk Shows that distracts from any other available topic.

Monday, September 9th - Interviews with news agencies that distract from any other available topic.

Tuesday, September 10th - Address to the nation that distracts from any other available topic.

And last, but, never least...

Wednesday, September 11th - Appearances at memorials to bring about that final sense of nationalism and respect for soldiers.

Well done, propagandists, well done! Why Psyops could not do better.

Unsettling to the USA War Machine is the newly elected Senate in Australia. It would appear there is no new majority to pull strings for the military contractors.

With that new reality, can Australia now be considered a threat to USA national security? 

What a shame and the USA just focused so intensely on the Pacific.

September 8, 2013 - 3:29PM 
Tim Colebatch
Tim Colebatch is The Age's economic editor.

....They include Wayne Dropulich, (click here) a gridiron-playing engineer who is likely to win election as a senator from Western Australia. His Australian Sports Party has no policies other than advocating lots of sport, and won just 0.22 per cent of the vote. But with preferences from other small parties, he is likely to get a Senate quota ahead of the second Labor candidate, who had 12.33 per cent.

In Victoria, Ricky Muir is set to win the final seat. He stood for the Australian Motoring Enthusiasts Party, which appears to have no policies apart from representing what it sees as motorists' interests. He won 0.53 per cent, but with a swag of preferences, he appears set to unseat Liberal senator Helen Kroger, who had 10.52 per cent....

Poor Rupert Murdoch, he is probably regretting the day he left Austria for the USA. His "Australian" got a conservative elected Prime Minister, but, he has no affection for war. I suppose it is reassuring at some level the USA can still make unilateral attacks into other sovereign nations and consider old allies a bother.

Rubbing elbows with evil doers not allowed. What do they consider the petroleum industry then?

By WILL LESTER 09/05/13 08:47 PM ET EDT

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner (click here) have declined invitations to meet with a planned delegation of Russian lawmakers to discuss Syria.
Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson confirmed Thursday that Reid had turned down the offer. Boehner spokesman Michael Steel said the speaker had also declined the offer.
"We are really disappointed by their decision not to meet with their Russian colleagues," said Maxim Abramov, spokesman for the Russian Embassy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed on Monday to send a delegation of Russian lawmakers to the United States to discuss the situation in Syria with members of Congress....

Sharing is caring, Harry. The Russians just wanted to share. Not very open minded I suppose. 

Perhaps there is such a thing as The Russian Flu that Harry has no vaccine for. 

Call me crazy, but, I would think Russia would be offended by that. But, the Great Superpower can shun any delegation in the name of Peacemaker Missiles. 

It is starting to head in the right direction. Kerry is at least walking and talking rather than ranting and conjuring up the necessary demons.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, and France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius walk in the garden of the Quai d'Orsay, in Paris prior to their meeting on Saturday Sept. 7, 2013. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon)

Kerry pursues diplomatic offensive for Syria action (click here)

September 08, 2013
By Nicolas Revise, Michael Mainville

PARIS: US Secretary of State John Kerry continues a diplomatic offensive in Europe on Sunday to win backing for military strikes in Syria, after Washington and Paris said support for action was growing.
Heading into a crucial week for US plans to launch the strikes, Kerry was to meet Arab League ministers in Paris and head to London before returning to Washington on Monday to continue rallying support at home.
The US Congress returns from its summer break on Monday to consider President Barack Obama's plans for strikes and UN inspectors are to release a report into an alleged chemical weapons attack by the weekend.
Fighting continued to rage inside Syria, with reports that rebel forces had taken control of the historic Christian town of Maalula, north of Damascus....

Well, bully for the rebels. If the people of the USA continue their offensive against the Obama Bunch long enough the rebels might live long enough to win their fight. Then we will actually have someone to recognize as the country's leadership. Won't that be great. To actually have a recognized leader rather than one built by USA Nation Building.

I don't know about anyone else, but, I am up for a new experience.

And look here, I knew it was too early to pull military funding for Egypt and drop bombs instead.

Why is it that USA boots on the ground are better boots on the ground than the ones already there?

By Shadia Nasralla

CAIRO | Sun Sep 8, 2013 12:15pm IST
 

(Reuters) - The Egyptian army (click here) launched an attack against Islamist militants in North Sinai on Saturday, killing at least nine people, security officials said.
Two Egyptian soldiers were killed late on Saturday when an improvised explosive device detonated in a road in the North Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid near the border with the Gaza Strip, security sources said.
Radical Islamists in the rugged desert region adjoining Israel, who expanded into a security vacuum left by the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, have been staging almost daily assaults on security forces and other targets.
Dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles backed by attack helicopters were used earlier in Saturday's operation near Sheikh Zuweid, a few kilometres (miles) from the Palestinian Gaza Strip, security sources said.
The army said nine militants had been arrested....

The United States of America has a far greater problem than Syria.

It can't keep it's own children alive.

Antiq Hennis was gunned down in Brooklyn while father Anthony Hennis pushed him along in his stroller. (click here)

Ready for global war? Evidently, the New York Times is.

With the World Watching, Syria Amassed Nerve Gas (click here) 
By DAVID E. SANGER, ANDREW W. LEHREN and RICK GLADSTONE  
Published: September 7, 2013
WASHINGTON — Syria’s top leaders amassed one of the world’s largest stockpiles of chemical weapons with help from the Soviet Union and Iran, as well as Western European suppliers and even a handful of American companies, according to American diplomatic cables and declassified intelligence records... 

You see, that headline assigns responsibility to create guilt for deaths of Syrians. The article in the first paragraph sets up the outcome and the scenario. It is the RESPONSIBLE Western nations versus the Irresponsible Eastern nations. Bombs at the ready, here comes WWIII.

It is a perfect set up. Syria is the newest of rouge nations, from a chemical weapons stand point, and The West having conveniently neglected their responsibilities for decades is focusing on ONE NATION as the problem. But, ah, in the background lurks the REAL evil doers. 

The West should be ashamed of itself. The international Dysfunctional Family. Shame, shame, shame, shame. The omnipotent and all powerful West was suppose to end this before anyone died, you see. The responsibility hangs heavy on the conscience of the nation's most able to stop Assad and never did. God is watching.

The Triad of Evil waits in the wings, Syria, Russia and Iran. If all is played exactly correctly in a short period of time the world will be erased of all the evil doers and not just Assad. Can the world wait for this to be over after all? 

I think there is a wrinkle in that plan. You see, if Russia is sending planes for evacuation then I would think there is a place to evacuate to, after all.

08.09.2013
MOSCOW, September 8 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry (click here) has sent a plane to Syria for citizens willing to leave the war-torn country, a spokeswoman said Sunday.
“An Il-76 plane took off for Latakia on Sunday morning. The plane will carry both Russians and citizens of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) from Syria,” emergencies ministry spokeswoman Irina Rossius said.
Late last month, nearly 90 people, mostly women and children, returned to Moscow from Syria onboard the Ilyushin Il-62 plane. The plane took off from Latakia, a major port city in Syria’s northwest.
Almost 730 citizens of Russia and other former Soviet republics have fled civil war in Syria on Emergencies Ministry planes since January, the ministry said in August....

And to think the New York Times pulled out all the stops and had among their best write this disaster of an article.

My god, what are journalists attempting to do? Kill more people? In the hearts and minds of the American citizens, they should want to kill an abundance of people responsible for a dreamed up threat to their country? 

The only real threat is the USA itself. It is Obama's War Department that is at the ready to launch rockets into Syria in a moment's notice. That is an international act of war. Call it what you want, but, a country launches weapons into another sovereign nation's borders that is war. It is an act of war. 

So, before Obama decides his bombs are sacred bombs that don't carry the responsibility of killing and his bombs think and don't kill people but only defend them, he needs to think again. As a matter of fact, he needs to apologize for this rollercoaster ride the media has allowed to become the next new reality of the American people.  

The American media came to a conclusion before the facts were actually known. It was the conclusion the entire of the world outside what the USA deems the most holy of relationships/alliances has to be eliminated. The media is always at the ready to announce the next great American act of bravery in killing other people. The innocent people. The innocent people now dead due to civil war. You know, the ones that are nameless and faceless, but, assigned victims of a civil war. A civil war that was never to be engaged but only to be surrendered. 

The nameless and faceless victims this time are different than those in Iraq. These victims belong to Assad, whereby the ones in Iraq belonged to THE OLD SADDAM. 

The American journalist never demonizes the great American military. The great American military always does the right thing. It always only kills those deserving of being killed. It is a good bully that protects the American people. 

The American media are nothing more than propagandists willing to build any scenario that will sucker citizens into believing they are "The Super People" on the planet. The Super People of the last remaining Super Power. 

Has it ever occurred to anyone in the media that once a Super Power is the LAST ONE STANDING, it isn't necessary to be a Super Power anymore? I thought the American paradigm was based in competition after all. And. It would seem there is none. If there are no other Super Powers than the USA War Department with it's at the ready War Machine must have a greater and more saintly mission and that is to bring down every other nation that it disagrees with. But, I ask. Once every other evil doer is vanquished will allies become as abhorrent for past indiscretions as the evil doers. After all, if the USA can go after Saddam Hussein for threatening Bush's father, who is to say we can't go after France for providing the name French Fry?

How completely embarrassing, "A Coalition of the Willing" rather than "Allied Forces 2, a Sequel."