WSJ.: "CLINTONS TWO GRIFTERS"

The Clintons: "Grifters-in Chief". WSJ, October 27, 2016

Grifter: American slang probably derived from the word "graft". In carnival, and circus slang a grifter is a confidence trickster, a pickpocket, a crooked gambler, a con artist and a person who swindles another out of money through fraud. The Clintons are grifters according the Wall Street Journal...I fully agree.

The Wall Street Journal published two devastating and unprecedented articles on the Clintons and the Clinton presidency yesterday, October 27, 2016. The "Grifters-in -Chief" by Kimberley Strassel and the "Cold Clinton Reality" (Bill McGurn) both hammer the Clintons as corrupt officials who mix politics, business and the activities of a supposedly charitable foundation all for personal enrichment. McGurn, analyses the devastatingly frank and revealing Doug Band Wikileaks-hacked emails (posted to John Podesta) which reveal the chicanery and venality of the Clintons and their band of facilitators and co-conspirators. McGurn asks "Why isn't the IRS investigating the Clinton Foundation?" Ms Strassel does not to mince words as she warns that a "Hillary Clinton presidency will be built from the ground up on self-dealing, crony favors, and utter disregard for the law." Strassel spells out the ugly facts about Clinton corruption in "black and white" which she carefully derives from the "memo from longtime Clinton errand boy Doug Band...who for years worked both for the Clinton Foundation" and headed his own consulting firm Teneo.

That the WSJ could finally find some column space and courage to attack the Clintons and the their awesome (yes that overused word fits here) political machine and their media facilitators is shocking. And further that they could bring themselves to publish these devastating, accusations is a huge story in itself. I am astounded but I as a concerned patriot welcome it. Finally, the truth that the Clintons are "grifters" (thank you Ms. Strassel) is a powerful and fitting appellation for these two confidence tricksters, frauds, large-scale pick-pockets,and swindlers on a massive scale.

So when you enter that booth to pull the lever...be fully aware that there is a "grifter" on one of the ballots. Don't put her in the White House.

CLINTONS :BRIBE FBI?

Virginia Governor- $700,000--To FBI--Pay to look the Other Way,

Only the Tip of the Iceberg.

The Wall Street Journal published one of the most troubling revelations about Clinton corruption on Monday (yesterday)...It exposed how the infection in the body politic originating with the Clintons and their facilitators and paid operators have become like a metastasizing cancer and has even reached into the inner sanctum of the FBI...a frightening development considering the power and (perhaps former) prestige of that organization.

The Journal revealed the stench of a money trail that, during the highly sensitive investigation of MrsClinton's email fiasco by the FBI,led from the Clinton machine to a top FBI official who was intimately involved in Mrs.Clinton's email probe. According to the Journal, present Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, a former "bagman", operative, and longtime "friend" of the Clintons steered hundreds of thousands of dollars to the wife of FBI deputy-director Andre McCabe. McCabe was "running the Washington DC field office" at the time and served as Director Comey's "right had man", according to the Journal. McCabe, as the head honcho in DC was no doubt deeply involved in the sensitive probe into Mrs. Clinton's mishandling of confidential and top secret emails. If anyone could alter the outcome of the investigation McCabe who was right there on the ground would be the man to get to. The ugly details indicate that Governor McAuliffe provided nearly three quarters of a million dollar to the campaign of Ms Jill McCabe who was running for a house seat in Virginia. The funds represented approximately one-third of the total the candidate had raised.

Comey's FBI office has claimed that there was no quid pro quo. But the Journal pointed out that their investigation revealed that "98% of the McAuliffe donations to Mrs. McCabe' came after the FBI launched its Clinton probe".

We can expect that this is only the tip of the iceberg of the saga of past and future Clinton scandals. Hillary may be able to win the election, but she and her morally and ethically challenged husband, and our nation will again be forced into the mire of another Clinton regime. Another four years of this? Can we survive it?

WHY TRUMP?

Why Trump over Clinton?

Mr. Trump is a novice politician. He speaks like the workmen in the Queens neighborhood in which he was raised---emotionally, imprecisely and sometimes crudely. In the past, like the hard-hat workmen of Queens, he has treated women and others in a boorish manner. He is not a perfect candidate, nor a perfect individual. But he does understand and identify with the concerns of a great swath of the working class American electorate. He has amply demonstrated his ability and competence by singlehandedly creating a world-class business, starting in a hardscrabble neighborhood in the suburbs of New York and growing it into a phenomenal multi billion dollar corporation situated in premiere locations around the world.  It is ironic that if fell to Mr. Trump...a billionaire businessman- to  become the political voice and advocate of working class Americans. But he has. He alone enunciates the polices and the direction (what it seems) is a clear majority of the what average Americans  want.   He stands for a more equitable distribution of wealth; a secure border; control of rampant immigration, the flood tide of which effects the jobs both native born Americans and those recent immigrants who reside and work here already.  He wants to "drain the swamp of corruption" in Washington DC, and end the ugly dictatorship of the "inside-the-Beltway -elites" who control and manipulate policies for their own benefit.    His concept of a more open, lower taxed, lower regulated US economy give us all hope of an end to economic stagnation. He would review and revise the harmful global trade deals our nation's leaders have formulated that bring prosperity to only the corporatist, big business, and a handful of the well-connected and super wealthy.


As for our other choice...Mrs. Clinton, is part of the problem not the solution. She is the ultimate insider who has gamed the system for her own benefit for three decades. She is indeed well-rehearsed and well-prepared.  Well prepared to take the reins of the existing establishment and keep going in the same old direction. Every word she speaks is parsed, tested, and replayed over and over again to to keep the establishment types happy.   She represents the very problem that the average working Americans are attempting to correct. Their goal is eliminate the dictatorship of the few, well-heeled, well-connected, over the many.  By her own admission, (to Goldman Sacks audiences), her life in the heady world of the wealthy and powerful have changed Mrs. Clinton's perceptions, altering any vague  understanding and empathy she may have had with the "regular working Joe and Jill".  After decades of living off the taxpayer's dime she is well versed in how to live high on the hog by means of "pay to play" schemes  and well versed in how to hide her "private" policies and formulated to enunciate only "public platitudes"  to the people.  Her stilted public persona is not shyness. It is simply the result of the need to constantly lie.  She has the facial tics of a habitual mendicant, or prevaricator.

In my view, Clinton is too corrupt to serve as President. Her past is shot through with examples of venality too numerous to reprise here. But the most recent and most egregious is her relationship with the Clinton Foundation--a sinister slush-fund for the Clintons and their hangers on. The catastrophic email scandal which has dogged her all these months mistates her errors and misdeeds.  She did not simply "mishandle" secret documents. She did do that, and yes it is a felony, punishable by jail time. But the question of why she erased and "bleached" 33,000 government property emails is more telling. The answer to that question is that as Secretary of State she was selling access to her office for private gain. That is ugly corruption of the first order. Imagine what she, Bill, and Chelesea could manage to rake in were she to have the power of the President's office?

A related fault and equally disqualifying factor is that she can not be trusted to tell the truth. She has, by her own admission, both a private and a public stance on issues. In a severe crisis, such as the recent Great Recession, how could anything she states to the nation be believed and accepted by the electorate and the citizenry? Her positions will always be suspect...and her ability as a leader would be severely compromisedan issue which could not be tolerated in a leader.

Our nation is not a true democracy, nor a parliamentary democracy...where the electorate actually chooses the parties which best represent their interests and then the parliament chooses its leader...the Prime Minister. In the USA we, with our ancient and creaky, two-party system..we always have a Hobson's choice...having to pick only of the better of two evils.

This time it is clear..Mrs. Clinton with her sinister ties to the powerful, rich, and foreign-dominated Clinton Foundation, and the un-American dynastic implications of her candidacy is much more dangerous to our nation's well-being than the less than perfect Donald Trump. Pick the candidate who will work his heart out for you...who has a chance to unite the nation, not the one who will divide it, and who is in it for only her own benefit.

ATTEMPT TO HIDE CLINTON WAR-MONGERING RECORD

TRUMP DID NOT SUPPORT IRAQ WAR

APPLES AND ORANGES:TRUMP ON-AIR MUSING NOT EQUAL TO FORMAL VOTE OF SENATOR

The Clinton camp is attacking Donald Trump for his supposed early support for the Iraq War. Forty days from the election why does this seem so important to them? The reason: they would like to nullify their candidate's well-deserved reputation for war mongering. They want the voters to forget her Senate-Iraq war-vote and her persistent support of that disastrous conflict, her position in favor of toppling of Syrian dictator Assad and the humanitarian crisis which ensued there, and her warring efforts in Libya and the resulting political, humanitarian and economic basket-case that resulted in that now failed nation. They would like to make the false claim that the musings of private-citizen Trump were equivalent to the formal vote and powerful support of a US Senator and the US Secretary of State. They would like to claim that Trump supported the Iraq War too, so as to muffle and obscure the use of that issue against her.

Let us be clear, Trump's pre-Iraq War conversations on the air with Howard Stern, Neil Cavuto and Sean Hannity..in the distant past, were simply those of a PRIVATE CITIZEN. Reviewing those transcripts one come away with the impression that Trump was NOT a war-supporter. He is at times uncertain, and unclear, speaking as he does in his New York syntax, but clearly no flag waver. Significantly, the reason why he was chosen as a subject of interview by these TV and Radio hosts was the very fact that he WAS NOT a war supporter, at a time when most celebrities were wrapping themselves in the flag and beating the drums for an attack on the "evil" Saddam Hussein. Trump was making news as an interesting dissenter from the mainstream view. Furthermore, Trump was not a member of Congress or a political figure...he was a businessman and an entertainer at the time. He didn't take his opinions too seriously, and we should not either. His musings had no impact other than as making news as a minority view about the impending war.

We can not compare the rambling radio and TV conversations of Mr. Trump with the FORMAL VOTES of Ms Clinton who was a sitting Senator at the time of the Iraq War vote, or the Secretary of State during the Benghazi affair and the Libya fiasco. Mrs. Clinton held the responsibility of a representative of the people and as a high government official to make the fearful decision of sending our young men and women into a terrible war to face death or horrible mutilation. It is these decisions of Mrs. Clinton as a Senator and as Secretary of State on war that interest the voter, fearful of her past missteps on matters of use of force. Most significantly, after the Iraq War proved to be one of the most devastating mistakes in US history, she continued to support it and other conflicts in the same region. She continued making similar mistakes concerning use of military force, apparently not learning from her earlier experiences.

Mr. Trump on the other hand, may have been an uncertain and wobbly opponent of the war in his on air ramblings, early on...but his position on Iraq evolved. When he entered the competition for the Republican nomination, a position in support of the war would have been a more tenable political position. The GOP at that time held that Iraq was a "necessary war". During the nomination process Trump held firm, stating that the war was not justified. He alone spoke of the mistake of the Iraq War. He had the courage of his conviction. Among the 16 other candidates, he was the only one who firmly opposed the Bush-Cheney Wars. He took heat for that position at first, but he held to it, often stating: "The Iraq War was a disaster."

Don't let the Clinton lie-machine get away with it. Clinton can not be trusted wielding the vast power of the military. She has proved her incapacity, by consistently making the wrong decisions.

WHY NOT CLINTON?

WAR HAWK, GLOBALIST, CORPORATIST, BOUGHT BY MEGADONORS, SCANDAL RIDDEN ELITIST, WILL NOT CHANGE DIRECTION OF NATION

I watched the debate last night (September 26, 2016) between candidates Madam Secretary Clinton and Mr. Trump, (or "Donald" as Mrs Clinton so dismissively referred to him). As a former college debater, I scored Clinton, "the debater" a winner, but she lost as candidate Clinton for not advancing her political situation.

Clinton wobbled and was on the ropes during the first quarter hour, but with the "third debater" Lester Holt, on her side, she recovered and, in the end, won on scored points. But she may have not advanced her position in the polls. Secretary Clinton showed herself to be very well rehearsed and practiced as a political debater...she was smooth, scripted, and smug. Perhaps she was too smooth...too scripted and and to my thinking, way too smug.

Mrs. Clinton has so far spent some $100 million dollars on TV ads generated to falsely brand Mr. Trump as a racist, liar, and woman hater. Yet, most recent polls show her losing ground to Mr. Trump, both nationally and in the battleground states, indicating that her massively costly campaign of vilification has not been successful. But she doggedly continued in this same vein of attack last night. I found the ad hominem thrusts unpleasant to watch...as many others may have. It did not change my negative opinion of her as a female (not so humble) Uriah Heep of politics: sinister, plotting and insincere.

But Mrs. Clinton's main problem is not Mr. Trump. It is that a vast number of American voters who know her all too well--- do not like or trust her. Added to that is a deep American distaste for and resentment against the establishment of an American political dynasty, a cadre of elite families who trade the top positions in government back and fourth between them as in some tin pot South American nations of the 1930s. Voters aware of her long history of misdeeds, peddling access to public office and personal and political scandals, real and self inflicted all while public officials fear the turmoil and conflict of another bout with Clintonism. They are repelled by her and her husband's ethics and moral challenges and her facilitation of his misbehaviors and her sliming of his female accusers. They question the challenge and the obvious conflicts of interest posed by the Clinton Foundation. Of concern also is former president Bill Clinton's possible position in the White House and his penchant for selling access to power to the highest bidder, foreign and domestic.

The necessary goal of altering these issues of trust and character and conflict of interest where not altered by the debate, and I contend that her "win" on debating points did not change any voter's minds. I conclude she may have won a tactical battle last night, but has made a strategic blunder. Instead her performance in the debate only seemed to have underscored her "unlikability quotient". She has, after all, a long history of Strategic blunders from incidents way back during the Travelgate era, to her Senate, Iraq War vote, to her Bengazi attack and Libya war mongering, and her email scandal decisions. These when taken together seem to be characteristic of Mrs. Clinton's mental processes...and one must ask do we want her in the White House?

Which brings me to the reason why I cannot cast a vote for Mrs. Clinton.

I. DO NOTHING COAT TAIL RIDER. Mr. Trump Has actually produced something. He took a loan from his father to create a huge international and immensely successful international business. He has actually created jobs and met a payroll. He was chosen by the GOP primary voters. Republican voters had a clear choice of 17 candidates...they chose Mr. Trump fair and square. Mrs. Clinton's ascendency was more of a monarchial coronation. She has plotted and schemed her way on a cursus honorum, not on her own but on the coattails of her husband and others to establish a nominally creditable curriculum vitae for president....but her accomplishments in each post were minimal or often missing altogether. Each position being only a way-stop for her presidential event. The first attempt was a failure. Then as a booby prize she was handed the position of Secretary of State. In each post she proved only her limitations. Now having been a nominal carpet bag Senator, and a failed and careless Secretary of State she seems to think she deserves to be usshered into the White House because it is owed to her and she deserves it.

2.BOUGHT BY MEGADONORS. During the primaries, Mr. Trump shunned the megadonors. He did not follow the path of the other candidates to the doors of the Koch brother and the Adelsons of this nation who think they can buy our candidates and control them with cash. Mr. Trump's campaign was self funded, and as a consequence he was able to freely address the needs and concerns of the average American as he saw them, not having to comply with the directives from the elite, super wealthy one-tenth-of-one-percenters to whom the other candidates went hat in hand for an imprimatur. Not so Mrs. Clinton, who is in bed with the monied class and mega donors. She owes these elites and wealthy and will no doubt repay them amply on the taxpayer's dime while in office.

3. WAR HAWK. Mrs Clinton's foreign policy is one of continued USA interventionism abroad. She has staked out a foreign policy position even further right of the disastrous presidency of George W Bush. I and the American people are well aware we can not afford to continue to spend trillions of dollars abroad in such adventurism when the needs here at home are so great. Mr. Trump has called for a retreat from these costly adventures and an emphasis on making America great again by attention to the home front. He will not waste our children's blood and our wealth in senseless wars around the world.

4. CORPORATIST AND GLOBALIST. Mrs. Clinton's policies favor international corporations and unrestricted free trade, and a form of globalism and trade polices which have had drastic effects on our nation's trade balance, the working class jobs, and the cities here at home which were once bustling with industry are now idle and in decay. Her policies would not address this issue or alter the course of our decline. She is not for America first.

5. FOCUS ON FRINGE, IGNORES NEEDS OF WORKERS AND BUSINESSMEN Mrs. Clinton has focused her attention on the urban minorities that may make her election possible in populated cities on the east and west coast as well as the needs of her megadonor supporters, government elites, denizens of Hollywood and academics who rabidly support her. She has ignored the desperate plight of the vast majority of average, hard-working Americans, of all creeds and races, and of small businessmen, and the underemployed across this broad land who are suffering economically as a result of the drag of the Great Recession much of which was an economic consequence of her and her husband's policies of deregulation and global trade deals..

No Ms. Clinton your day has come and gone. We reject you.

CLINTON EMAIL STORY= A NEW WATERGATE

CLINTON EMAIL STORY, NOT "OUT OF CONTROL"  IS ANOTHER WATERGATE




The editorial board of the illustrious Washington Post...a former great sheet..which once published the Watergate stories, an act which ultimately took down a sitting president, today sealed its fate as a top down controlled politicaal rag, useful only for nailing on the outhouse wall..as my grandpa used to do with similar out of date and useless paper products. The editors of WP managed this base feat by publishing an opinion piece entitled: "The Hillary Clinton Email Story Is Out Of Control, " Wash. Post, September 8, 2016.


Apparently, unhappy with Mrs. Clinton's performance at the National Security Presidential Forum on Wednesday last, and Mr. Lauer's LEGITIMATE efforts in questioning the Democrat candidate regarding the email issue, the editors opined: "one would think that her (Mrs. Clinton's) homebrew server was one of the most important issues facing the country this election."  Unfortunately, for the misinformed editors, Mr Lauer and the vast majority of the nation were and are correct, the Clinton email story is of primary import.  The Post's editorial board is sadly wrong or so partisan they are incapable of envisioning an issue (the interplay of the Clintons, the Clinton Foundation and egregious conflict of interest) which threatens the very foundations of our nation.



The email controversy is not a minor mishandling of a few "(c)" confidential or "secret" or classified emails...The facts uncovered by the FBI indicate that Mrs. Clinton's handling of these were indeed careless and cavalier...she or her aids may have indeed committed a felony. But that is not the real import of this story.  As  it was in Watergate, Nixon was not unseated by a simple break in of DNC offices.  The email scandal is not what appears on the surface either.  It is not the illegal use of a home brew server.  What should concern us all is WHY Mrs. Clinton had to hide her emails from public scrutiny.   This story concerns the underlying  REASONS for the USE of a home brew server and its  coverup.  The story IS critical and, rather than out of control, it deserves close scrutiny by the media and the electorate.  The question is NOT "THOSE DAMNED EMAILS"...as Senator Sanders so famously stated. The real story is  WHY SHE WAS SO DETERMINED TO HIDE HER EMAILS.



Some have wondered as this saga has evolved into an embarrassing politically damaging mantra, how could a savvy pol like Hillary do this to herself?  Mrs. Clinton is not stupid, far from it.  And she is definitely not careless, (regardless of Mr. Comey's characterization). A more precise and calculating person would be difficult to find in all of Washington.  So why did she generate this horrible career-threatening mess by attempting to go around the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) laws to hide her inconsequential "personal" correspondence from scrutiny?   The answer is there were more sinister and much more threatening elements in her personal communications which were necessary for her to hide and maintain her presidential aspirations..



What is clear now is that in contravention to the transparency agreements she signed with the Obama Administration, prior to her tenure as Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton  was intimately involved with her husband in the machinations of the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation.  As a result of revelations, and surviving emails it is clear now to all that as Madam Secretary she used her position of authority and power as an officer of the state (Secretary of State) to enrich her husband and herself by means of shunting "donations" and "speaking fees" to the Clinton Foundation and its many related operations and funds.  The Foundation, which started out as a legitimate Presidential Library fund for past-President Bill, grew into a $100 billion dollar international slush fund.  It served as a source of wealth for the high-living Clinton's and their daughter, as a means of keeping key actors in their organization on their payroll and available for Mrs. Clinton's planned 2016 run for president, and as a source of future campaign funds.



 When Mrs Clinton lost to Obama in 2008, she pressed the President for a high level government post to add luster to resume as she planed for her 2016  presidential resume.  The Obama Administration handed her the position of Secretary of State. The post came with the particular advantage of high visibility, global exposure and interaction and great political power for a potential presidential candidate. In spite of promises to the contrary husband Bill, under these new circumstances, could continue to sell his "presidential expertise" and official contacts to the highest foreign and domestic bidder, as he had been doing all along. But with this new situation  he could also sell access to Hillary as the Secretary of State.  He did so with enthusiasm and gusto, as numerous surviving emails make clear.



What an opportunity for corruption for this ethically challenged couple, who in the past were wont to sell off "sleep nights" in the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House, or purloin national trinkets. Their past efforts were literally chicken feed in comparison to the $100s of millions of dollars they were able to rake in with this new  "pay for play" gig.  What damage they did to the nation and its interests in hot pursuit for  their own personal gain while they were paid government employees are unknowable.



The money they raked in was mind boggling, literally approaching the GDP of a small nation.  With their new "Pay to play" gig they made themselves rich as Croesus and as powerful as Caesar.  But the possibility of unwonted exposure was a severe threat to their long term plans.  Mrs. Clinton, who used her thirteen different Blackberrys, for "family business" had to keep all of these so-called "personal" emails strictly private.  Yes, some were no doubt related to the size of her pantsuits, Chelsea's wedding, and her Yoga dates, but those were not really what she was hiding and would not have required the massive subterfuge and effort she expended in her coverup.  The real reason: Her correspondence would have made it perfectly clear, exposed to public knowledge, that she was selling off access to her government office for personal gain, avoiding the FOIA act and disabusing the binding legal agreements she signed with the Obama Administration.



Thus the need for massive secrecy about her private email and her "home brew" server, her thirteen different blackberries, and five iPads, her lies, and more lies about the need for "convenience", about using "one" instrument, about her aides smashing blackberries, others"bleachbiting" her server after the data was subpoenaed. ( And not as she stated so innocently when a journalist queried about "wiping her server" with the response: "What do you mean? Wiping it with a cloth?").  Clinton's behavior was criminal corruption.



So Washington Post editors, decisively NO, this is not a story "out of control".  It is NOT about a simple act of carelessness, as the Wapo editors should like to portray it.  It is not, in Watergate terms, (as you Wao creditors should know well), the simple "break in" of the office of the DNC.  This is a story of massive corruption in government, misuse of power, use of government office for self-enrichment. It is a lapse in judgement and ethical standards, an act of criminality  that should disqualify this candidate from consideration for the highest position in the land.



Our nation can not survive the corrupting influences of the Clintons, the powerful, immensely wealthy, international Clinton Foundation and all its permutations,  and the venality and lack of trustworthiness of the past President and Mrs. Clinton,  The email affair, and its causes and underpinnings, rather than being "out of control"  have underscored how dangerous the election of this candidate would be to our nation.  Mrs. Clinton, her husband, and the Clinton Foundation pose a  threat to the very fabric of our democracy, the rule of law and the idea that we are all equal under the law. There shoould be no special place in our democracy for the Clintonian elites.



Think of the descent of the Roman Republic into the tyranny, corruption and decay of Imperial Rome under Caligula. That is a scenario to envision. Imagine Bill padding around the White House, a shapely female intern and a foreign dignitary (and Clinton Foundation donor) in tow, while Hillary in the Oval Office is plotting how to sell off our national treasures to the highest bidder.

Get the picture?

ON OMRAN DAQEESH AND OBAMA'S DECISION TO DESTABILIZE SYRIA

ON OMRAN DAQEESH AND OBAMA'S DECISION TO DESTABILIZE SYRIA

THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION WRINGS ITS BLOODIED HANDS OVER ALEPPO TO TRY TO SHIFT BLAME FOR THIS FOREIGN POLICY DISASTER FROM ITSELF.

THE OBEDIENT MEDIA AND PRESS OBLIGE WITH HORROR STORIES FROM ALEPPO.

SADLY THE MEDIA IGNORE THE FACT OF OBAMA AND CLINTON'S COMPLICITY IN THE CONTINUING DESABILIZATION OF SYRIA, AND RESULTING EXPANSION OF ISIS.

The newspapers and TV reports are filled with pictures and horror stories from Aleppo. They are true. A recent touching photo of a little Syrian boy, Omran Daqeesh, obviously dazed and bloodied, is pictured sitting on an orange ambulance seat, apparently only minutes after having been pulled from the wreckage of his bombed out home. The picture has been displayed around the world. It rightly exposes and underscored the horrible tragedy of war and the sad fact that it is the innocents who suffer the most in these conflicts----children, the elderly, women, the poor and the defenseless. We all should be horrified.

But as well as the horror of war we must also be aware of the actions of those who are responsible directly and indirectly for the onset and continuation of this terrible civil war. Here in the USA, we are faced with the need to recognize that our own government has been complicit in this disaster. The President and his Secretary of State made calculating "political and foreign policy decisions" that purposely destabilized that nation and have made continuing decisions which have resulted in extending and intensifying the conflict in Syria. Their policies have increased the death and destruction and the evil horror of civil war. They bear a good part of the responsibility for the five year length and terrible intensity of the conflict in Syria. They bear equal blame in other surrounding nations...Iraq, Afghanistan, Lybia, Yemen....

In March 2011the Arab Spring protests reached Syria. The unrest grew out of the dissatisfaction with the long reigning Assad regime, sectarian tensions, failed political and economic reforms, climatic changes and a long drought affecting food crop yields, high food prices, and wealth inequality. Syria prior to the civil war was not a democracy. But it was a functioning nation. Early, cruel attempts of the Assad regime to put down the protests and riots, exacerbated the situation, resulting in more demonstrations and wider civil disobedience. In a few short weeks riots swept through the Kurdish areas of northeastern Syria. The unrest ultimately engulfed nearly the entire nation. These demonstrations of dissatisfaction with the Assad government were seen abroad, particularly in the USA, home of the "regime change" policies of recent decades, not as an unfortunate destabilizing event to be somehow quelled, but and as an opportunity to undermine what was viewed as a political foe. It was during this initial stage of instability in which the Obama Administration, foolishly decided to covertly intervene in Syria to increase sectarian tensions, destabilize the Assad government, topple that regime and replace it with some unknown, but (to their erroneous thinking) NEW government more amenable to American direction and interests. In this they foolishly followed policies of predecessors Bush and Cheney who had similar incoherent polices related to Syria. To that end they sent CIA activists, with bags of money into Syria to stir up the restive population and incite riots. The USA covertly encouraged (or looked the other way) as US counterparts in Saudi Arabia and Turkey joined in the destabilization of their neighbor state. The end results of these decisions became and remain a political and humanitarian disaster of proportions we have not seen since World War II.

The complicity of the Obama administration (with Hillary Clinton at the State Department) did not end there. More aid and money was spent by the Obama Administration to intensify and extend the human suffering, deaths and destruction. More and more money and increasingly sophisticated arms were ferried through Turkey's porous border to the insurgents to fight the legitimate government of Syria. Often these funds and arms only ended up in the hands of known terrorist groups. Then too there were major exposes of failure and stupidity. In September 16, 2015 in public Senate testimony Centcom Commander Gen. Lloyd Austin, revealed that the Obama Administration, spent $500 million dollars training what they envisioned would be "thousands" of anti- Assad "opposition" fighters resulted in only "four or five" fighters. The other trainees absconded with their uniforms, equipment and guns to join the various factions of Syria terrorists, such as the Kurds, al Nusra Front. Al Qaida, ISIS and others that make up the fractious groups in this senseless war.

Please note, that Obama expenditure of $100 million per anti-Assad fighter must be some kind of a record of inefficiency and stupidity.