If there was ever ONE singular reporter/journo/writer/chronicler that’s just all OVER it regarding international affairs, it has to be Pepe Escobar.

Dude’s a hoss, a monster, a truth teller. How he’s still alive and NOT been hit by any NUMBER of special interests including Israel, US, Russia, China, is beyond me. Other’s have been snuffed out for much less than he continues to report.

I have to single out his recent piece on the ME/NorthAfcica (MENA) as one of the best overall looks at the region ever produced. It’s a primer, it’s a bookmark, it’s a resource.

But what really struck me reading it was, I KNOW them terms, I KNOW those distinctions, I KNOW of some of the tribal affiliations he speaks of, and the one’s I don’t, I know the patterns of tribal affiliations, I know a TAD of the history of it all, of Muslim origin, splits and such.

And I ONLY know because I care to read, learn and be informed, all my life.

And I only know a LOT of these things over the past decade and a half or so, because I frequent FDL.

And from LibbyGate on (when I first found it), FDL has continually, one way or another, covered with INCREDIBLE detail, both domestic and international affairs of all sorts.

So kudos to Mz. Hamsher, Emptywheel in the earlier days, David Dayen and Jon Walker more recently, Kevin G and the newbies in the past couple of years.

But to close, on Pepe Escobar, and his article, man it don’t mean much if ya don’t know Salifi from Sufi, Shia from Sunni, the history of American foreign affairs, and much much more.

THis being informed shit’s HARD! N that’s why, I’ve decided to rouse my butt, get off the schtick and post a lot of FDL and Antiwar and Asia Times Online, and other stuff, to my FB page.

It might, just MIGHT, make SOMEONE, a so called liberal, become curious as to why THEY don’t know this shit . . . and if in my time, I DO help ANYone think about it all, learn more, by just merely clickin some keys and sharing what I get from you PRODUCERS of such essential info, then I feel I’ve done good.

Pepe’sPrimer, ‘Brother Obama, Where Art Thou.’