Politics

Pope Francis has quietly gathered an army of between ‘ten to twelve thousand highly trained soldiers’ according to conservative estimates by Vatican observers, and has even deployed a number of these troops in Syria. The Pope has one of the oldest standing military units in the world, the Pontifical Swiss Guard, formed in 1506 by Pope Julius II.   Generally throughout history this private militia, populated by top ex-Swiss soldiers, has functioned as a personal bodyguard service for the Pontiff, with total numbers rarely exceeding one hundred.

If politics is the art of the possible, what’s possible changed dramatically on Tuesday.

In recent weeks, it was possible to imagine the Republican Party’s nomination going to someone other than the remaining candidates: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich. In the final tally, none may have enough delegates to meet the party’s threshold for winning the nomination on the first ballot. For this reason, speculation in Washington has been that House Speaker Paul Ryan might step in.

Earlier this week, Ryan narrowed the frame of what’s possible. Twice.

Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers were CIA assets hired by the U.S. government tasked with committing the attacks on September 11, 2001, in order further the U.S. and Israel agenda of destroying the Middle East.  Former congressman Dr. Kevin Barrett claims the truth about these CIA sponsored Saudi agents may become public if the government decide to declassify the redacted 28-pages on the official 9/11 report. Barrett says the documents prove that Saudi Arabia had a leading role in the attacks, which were ultimately orchestrated by the U.S. government.

A whistleblower working at the UBS bank in Switzerland has claimed that the Panama Papers leak was a CIA operation designed to embarrass countries such as Russia as part of a political propaganda campaign. Bradley Birkenfeld says the 11 million documents stolen from a Panamanian law firm should not be considered genuine. Cnbc.com reports: Instead, he said, the hacking of the Panama City-based firm, called Mossack Fonseca, could have been done by a U.S. intelligence agency. “The CIA I’m sure is behind this, in my opinion,” Birkenfeld said.

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

This is an English translation of an article that I wrote for the German magazine, Compact. I was encouraged by the high level of intelligent discourse that Compact brings to its readers. If only the US had more people capable of reaching beyond entertainment to comprehending the forces that affect them, there might be some hope for America.