We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Who is responsible for the Pakistan school massacre?

Click here to access article by Nafeez Ahmed from his blog The Cutting Edge. 

After building a very convincing case that the directors of the Empire have provided huge amounts of "counter-terrorism" funding to Pakistan, has had close relations with Pakistani ISI (their counterpart to the CIA), which in turn supported various terrorist groups in Pakistan/Afghanistan with the full knowledge of the US directors, he concludes with a liberal solution! 
In theory, there is a way out. The US must wind-down its self-serving obsession with military aid to Pakistan, much of which is being used to finance the very enemies we are supposedly fighting. Instead of providing billions of dollars of ‘counterterrorism’ focused aid to a hopelessly corrupt government, such billions could be used in coordination with the state to empower genuine grassroots networks....
Then I waited to read of a realistic solution, but none came.

My first impression is that he has been so deeply affected by his years in liberal media such as The Guardian that he is still unable to engage in sound reasoning. My second impression is that maybe he is only safeguarding his future while uncovering the very nasty truths that might otherwise endanger his writing career, and maybe even his life. 

However, I am posting this article because he has uncovered important documented truths which condemn the Empire for its support of terrorism. Pepe Escobar expresses this truth so well and so succinctly by referring to the Empire as the Empire of Chaos after reporting extensively on its history of cultivating terrorist groups in the post-9/11 era.