by Gordon Duff, New Eastern Outlook:

Yesterday, I received a report from Syria. It told of blistering heat and no electricity, of fuel lines, of food shortages and economic suffering by the Syrian people. This is an excerpt:

“I wonder if people in EU, US and UK had to deal with the repercussions of their government sanctions on Syria, would they fight harder to get sanctions banned as a hybrid war, sadistic strategy.

It is 41 degrees in Damascus, the cloud cover makes it heavy and oppressive. Electricity where I am is on for an hour, sometimes two before it cuts for three or four hours, just as the air conditioning makes your environment bearable. For some living close to me, they were without electricity for 14 hours in this sweltering heat. I wet my clothes to keep me cool while I am working, it is the only thing that helps. Mobile phones do not have time to charge. Food goes rotten because the fridge is off much of the time.

Syrians traditionally store enough food in their freezer to last them two or three months. They are having to throw much of it away. At the same time, food prices are sky high. Nobody can afford to eat luxury items like chicken anymore. Lemons have become a luxury item, the price of one kilo has trebled in a few months. Parents do not know if they can feed their kids every day, they are living hand to mouth.

All the roadside kiosks are seeing their livelihood go down the drain, literally, as everything in their freezer section melts or goes bad.

The queues for fuel, while not as bad as before, are still a stressful scrum with cars lining up to take their ration.

These are only a few of the effects of sanctions. Sanctions are designed to hurt, to deprive, to depress and, ultimately, to kill slowly and more painfully than the swift ending of life by a mortar or a bullet. Sanctions strip people of their dignity and leave them beggars in their own home.”

Syria is but one nation targeted by the Trump regime, there are others and the stories like this are in the millions, told by those who still live.

When Syria was attacked, it was not just starvation, it was terrorism as well with up to 400,000 dead and 5 million refugees. Iraq suffered a far worse fate, 2,000,000 dead.

Both nations are still partially occupied by the United States, the nation that engineered this suffering. Now it is all coming home to roost, as here in the United States, what was done to Syria and Iraq, to Yemen and Iran, and to the best of Trump’s ability Venezuela’s people as well, is being deployed against the most vulnerable of Americans.

We had another police killing yesterday, one we know of, there may well be others, in fact it is likely. This was in Los Angeles, another African American, his crime was riding a bicycle “improperly.”

To understand how privilege applies, Dylan Roof, white mass murderer who killed 9 a the Emanuel AME Church was arrested with considerable care and, before being processed, was taken to the local Burger King for lunch by police as Dylan told them that murdering so many people “made him feel hungry.”

As American humorist Jim W. Dean so often says; “You just can’t make this stuff up.”

This is not unusual, this is the norm, this is how things work but you will not know unless you ask people, people who trust you with the truth.

Problem there, the divide in America is so profound that the victims of insanity and brutality that started long before the current epidemic under Trump don’t want to talk to the media, such as it is and have no faith in political process.

You see, political process in America reeks of corruption and privilege as well. Privilege, as with exceptionalism, is a form of corruption whether it is state sponsored apartheid as in Israel or the other version of apartheid, the American one, with walls and children in cages and bodies in the streets.

Let us be clear about something else, while the media tries to smear the most well know victims like Beonna Taylor, every person of color in the United States is victimized unless “hand selected” like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a despicable human being reviled for his love of all things fascist.

We might take a moment to discuss Breonna Taylor as well. This is a young woman of color living in Louisville, Kentucky, employed as a paramedic/first responder. Police broke into her home and killed her based on a false warrant.

This is someone who had never committed a crime of any kind, police simply kicked down her door and murdered her for being black skinned, there is no other explanation.

Yesterday, according to reports in the Washington Post, local prosecutor Tom Wine, a Trump backer, offered freedom to a number of drug suspects, if they would falsely incriminate Beonna Taylor, in order to aid Donald Trump in his election chances. Sources tell us Wine would then be nominated as US Attorney by Trump appointee William Barr.

This level of corruption is seen every single day, even reported every single day but as the victims are of color in a land of “white privilege,” those who protest being falsely imprisoned or murdered by police are “violent hooligans.”

Again, “you just can’t make this stuff up.”

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