CIA Press Conference Looks Like SNL Skit as Official Refuses to Answer Questions on Stolen ArmsBy Jay Syrmopoulos The CIA has been operating a covert weapons program in Syria, buying Kalashnikov assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades in Eastern Europe for delivery to moderate Syrian rebels, with the ultimate intent of toppling the Assad government. It was recently revealed that truckloads of these weapons have been systematically stolen in route to the rebels by Jordanian intelligence officers. According to a report by Reuters: Weapons shipped into Jordan for Syrian rebels by the Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia were stolen by Jordanian intelligence operatives and sold to arms merchants on the black market, the New York Times reported, citing American and Jordanian officials. A Jordanian officer shot dead two U.S. government security contractors, a South African trainer and two Jordanians at a U.S.-funded police training facility near Amman before being killed in a shootout, Jordanian authorities had said in November. Incredibly, when a U.S. State Department official was questioned about these revelations by the White House press corp, she refused to comment on the situation, citing an ongoing investigation. When the journalists pushed back and asked who is conducting the investigation, the official again stonewalled the media, claiming that she couldnt even divulge who was investigating the allegations. The awkward press conference was more reminiscent of a Saturday Night Live skit than an official press briefing by the U.S. State Department. When society has gotten to the point at which there is trouble discerning between a comedy entertainment show and an official press briefing by a federal government agency, it may be time to do something different. The utter contempt shown by our government, by failing to inform the populace about activities undertaken in the name of the American people, should raise serious red flags about how little the federal government is actually beholden to the people they claim to serve. Jay Syrmopoulos writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared. f***ing hilarious. we need to have the government admit their wrongdoing and stop arming the mythical moderate rebels. there are no rebels. the only ones fighting the Syrian government are militias paid by the West or Gulf countries, and the IS and Al Qaeda! some of them arms came from Benghazi, those arms also were suppose to go to the syrian rebels, i think they found their way to al qaeda and isis. why else would Killary keep her mouth shut when ask for help. freaking tyranny in our WH and some states. This is the type of pay back the commoner gets for sending his hard earned labor to DeCeipt. This is what happens when government is taken over by the dominant corporations, including those who profit from war, such as banks which fund it, energy corps which fuel it, and the weapons industry which sees war as a goo business model. This is what happens when democracy is perverted by plutocracy, an to condemn government because it has been poisoned; as an alterative, I suggest we take our government back from the corporcrats. I suggest we rescue government,., created to protect our liberty an provide for the common welfare and defend the commonsrather than condemn it because it has been corrupted with the tyranny of wealth. Each year, according to the IMF, private transnational fossil fuel corporations benefit over 5 trillion in government/pubic subsidies. I would suggest that these subsidies to the oil industry. which is the richest industry in history are a result not of government but of a government hijacke by predators. We need not to eliminate government but to rescue it from those who have taken it over from the people. Do not throw out the baby with the bathwater! Without government, all power will be private, unaccountable, totalitarian. There will be no recourse, no appeal, no chance to throw the bums out. Just accept the boot on your throat as inevitible. If only there were an institution which could challenge private tyranny, a form of organized power which did not depend on special interests but represented the people as a whole? Power will always be: whether it is accountable, has limits, can be changed depends on the existence of government. We have regions without effective government: Afghanistan, Somalia, Yeman, etc..government is weak and power therefore is filled by warlords, criminals, gangsters, mercenaries, and psychopaths. Power is a given: only thru the invention of government , as Hobbes argue, can we end the war of each against each which he took as the norm of the pre-government state of nature. Government is the compromise (before being corrupted) between liberty an security: we give up our natural liberty (ie I can kill you if I wantI have that choice) which makes of society a battlefield ruled by fear and violence in to a central government (Hobbes was defending an absolute monarchy, but his argument would apply to any form of rule, based on acceptance or a consent of centralize power. HOw can we create a social contract which balances liberty and security? The problem today is that the corporations and their servants have taken control of government,, through buying elections, laws, policies, and regulators. The solution is not to eliminate government (a fake proposal, since Big Business created and requires Big Government) but a political revolution to take it back from the wealthy and make it accountable and in the service of the people. That is the first step: create democracy, eliminate not government but the fascist form of government in which corporate interests merge with state interests. The state needs a war to stimulate spending to pull out of a recession and to distract attention from economic failures and rally public support to the government. Iraq! The state satisfies its needs to mask its failures and to rally support and expand its power (more DOD spending, larger workforce, as well as the moral clout of a war administration to push through drastic reforms (Patriot Act). The state, through war (ie imperialism as a logical extension of capitalism: globalization) enhances the power of the state (War is the health of the state. Randoph Bournearguing the genetic link between the state and war.while, at the same time, providing huge new markets and lucrative war contracts to those who benefit from war. HItler and Krupp argued about who should build German weapon under the new war contract awarded to Krupp arm Hitler wanted to use ordinary German citizen (thus war as stimulusthis is how US bailed out of the Great Dpression era)..to fulfill his promise to create jobs for German..but Krupp, who needed the Nazis less than they needed him., wanted to use slave labormaximize profits, etc. an thus fulfill the corporate need to produce wealth. State power and corporate wealth both met in the concept of war as both a business model and a theory of fascist authority. In this argument, Krupp defeated Hitler. In the future, for Krupp, Messerschmidt, IG Farben, etc, their new plants to handle the new war contract were build adjacent to the slave labor campIt is sobering to realize that it was not the Nazis who create slave labor a a foundation of fascism but the dominant corporations who insisted on it. And because they had the upper hand (they had the money the Nazis did not: he who pays the piper calls the tune), they got their way. When will the press admit we live a banana republic? Oh! I forgot they are owned by the very people who support this nonsense! And lets not forget they are behind all of this #### yet law abiding Americans need to have their guns taken away! Come on now, cut the government some slack. Have you ever heard of a government that would actually respond to questions about its treachery and betrayal in the so called fight against terrorism? Well have you? The no-name potus and his czar butties will never have to own up to any of this. not to worry Trump has our back, he will make it Bigger, Better, Stronger. Too bad America wont wake up, they want our guns but there shipping in terroist., Wars from bs, open borders, 19 trillion in debt. 911 and the white wash of. 