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We have forgotten that the sanctions preceding the illegal invasion of Iraq intentionally destroyed water treatment centers and directly killed 500,000 children under age five and about 1.2 million others.
The West's on-going impunity as it continues to perpetrate genocide in Iraq should alert us to the dangers of repeated offenses elsewhere. Preliminary reports, for example, indicate that NATO is targeting water infrastructure as it illegally bombs Syria.
The illegal invasions of Iraq and Libya were sold to us through lies and deceptions. And yet we remain seemingly immune to reasonable, well-documented information that the war on Syria is also being perpetrated by means of lies and deception.
Strategies of deception are being perpetrated by warmongering imperialists in all of these wars, yet despite the on-going holocaust, and the real threat of nuclear war, the same genocidal strategies are being successfully employed again. And the public remains remarkably oblivious to what is happening.
What are these strategies, and how can we counter them?
A "soft power complex" engineers domestic hatred towards perennially re-branded enemies, and consent for permanent, illegal warfare, beneath false banners of "democracy", "freedom", or "humanitarian intervention". It also engineers murderous chaos and destabilization in target countries. Sometimes there are unforeseen consequences, but none of the strategies are mistakes, as apologists would have us believe.
Sources of the globalized deception are "Non-Governmental Agencies" (NGOs) -- such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), -- as well as oligarch--funded foundations, Public Relations (PR) companies, think tanks, and intelligence agencies.
Mainstream media (MSM) often uses PR-engineered sources for its stories -- the "White Helmets" in Syria would be a good example -- and it often tells its stories using commentators who have largely undisclosed links to the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). For example, an October, 2013 analysis by the public accountability initiative, titled, "Conflicts of interest in the Syria debate|An analysis of the defense industry ties of experts and think tanks who commented on military intervention", discloses widespread conflicts of interest involving 22 media commentators who offered ostensibly "objective" commentaries about a previously planned, illegal (future) invasion:
Industry ties of commentators profiled (Commentator / Identified as / Industrial ties):
Stephen Hadley / former National Security Advisor / Raytheon, Rice Hadley Gates, APCO Worldwide
James Cartwright / former Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff / Raytheon, TASC, Accenture, Enlightenment Capital
Frances Townsend / CNN national security analyst and member of CIA and DHS advisory committees / MacAndrews & Forbes, Monument Capital Group, Decision Sciences
Anthony Zinni / former Commander in Chief of US Central Command / BAE Systems, DC Capital Partners
Jeremy Bash / former Chief of Staff to DoD and CIA / Beacon Global Strategies
Nicholas Burns / former Under Secretary of State / Cohen Group, Entegris
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