Global Research

100  years ago today, Britain and France carved up Syria, Iraq and Israel. Their imperial mindset still scars the region.

One hundred years ago today, Britain and France drew a line through the Middle East that became the border between Syria and Iraq, with a kink at the end of it that became Israel. You get a sense of the breezy confidence behind the so-called Sykes-Picot agreement from the minutes of the cabinet where the idea was hatched:

“What sort of agreement would you like to have with the French?” Arthur Balfour, the Foreign Secretary, asks Sir Mark Sykes – a brilliant but erratic colonel just back from a tour of the region. “I should like to draw a line from the ‘e’ in Acre to the last ‘k’ in Kirkuk,” says Sykes.

Thus the destiny of millions of people was shaped by the way a printer had arranged some place names on a map.

It was not the first unfortunate encounter Sykes had with a map. In January 1915, he penned a fateful letter to Winston Churchill urging him to seize Constantinople (now Istanbul).

Sykes pointed out that if Britain and France could seize the main city of the Ottoman Empire, not only would that empire crash, and German influence in the east be ended, but the way might be open to invade Germany via the Balkans.

“Could you by June be fighting towards Vienna,” Sykes advised, “you would have got your knife near the monster’s vitals and perhaps might achieve the line Mulhausen, Munich, Vienna, Cracow before winter”.

It is worth contemplating this line – Sykes was very keen on lines – with your finger. To get there, Britain would have had to subjugate the entire Balkan region. To kick things off, you had to land troops in Turkey, at a place called Gallipoli.

“It is not so chimerical as it may sound,” Sykes wrote to Churchill. 40,000 troops died trying to prove him right, but failed.

When Islamic State blew up border posts between Iraq and Syria in 2014, it declared an “end to the Sykes-Picot era”. But you do not have to be a terrorist to object to the imperial mindset that drove the agreement.

The arbitrary drawing of borders, in defiance of geography, ethnicity and common sense, became the hallmark of imperialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

If, today, the Kurds are driving IS out of northern Syria, with bare-headed communist women in the vanguard, that is – in part – a result of Sykes legacy. In 1915, Sykes assured the British cabinet that “east of the Tigris the Kurds are pro-Arab”. Kurdistan was subsumed within a French zone of control and, by the time the post-war order was frozen at Versailles in 1919, the Kurds had become a non-people.

Sykes’ famous pencil-stroke through the Arab world, combined with his enthusiastic support of Balfour’s 1917 declaration in favour of a Jewish state in Palestine, makes him one of the few British figures who exerted strategic influence on the twentieth century.

It was influence born of first-hand knowledge and experience. Sykes had grown up in the Arab world. His assurance to Prime Minister Herbert Asquith that the “spiritual fire” of pan-Arabism lay in Saudi Arabia, while its “intellectual organising power” lay in Syria, Palestine and Beirut was well-observed.

But his expertise prompts the question: how could somebody so knowledgeable get it so wrong?

To read Sykes’ papers today is to observe the tragedy of an intellect shackled by delusions of superiority. Sykes worked on the assumption, central to all imperialisms: that subject peoples behave only according to their ethnic or national “characteristics”, whereas powerful white nations have agency.

Paradoxically, for someone whose name was hated by generations of Arabs, Sykes idolised Arab culture. First because he believed it to be non-revolutionary, in contrast with nationalism in Turkey and India where the problem was “a lot of poor men who have got a little education and greater ambitions”.

Second, because he believed it could encompass both wings of Islam, plus Christianity, and tolerate the Jews.

The one national characteristic Sykes and his generation never seemed to notice was their own. Imperialism turned them into purblind fools who thought that, by drawing lines, they could control history.

What they failed to imagine was that, first, Turkey would develop a modern, secular, national consciousness. This meant their one-way bet against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War proved futile. Turkish secular nationalism would shape the region just as much as pan-Arabism in the next 100 years.

Second, though he understood Islam well, Sykes and his generation saw it as entirely secondary to ethnicity, language and political tradition.

Third, they failed to anticipate the emergence of anti-imperialism: once “very poor men” got educated, and were drawn into cities and factories, it was they who began shaping history and the white officer class who had to stand and watch.

Fourth, they failed to imagine that, one year after Sykes-Picot, a workers’ revolution in Russia, spreading to the Caucasus, would free large parts of the exotic and remote world they had become obsessed with – not just from imperialism but from capitalism itself.

Today, the easy lesson to learn from Sykes-Picot: don’t draw arbitrary lines across the map. Peoples and nations must have the right to self-determination. This was the principle US President Woodrow Wilson outlined as America entered the war, and which caused the British and French governments to hide the existence of Sykes’ map from Washington.

The harder lesson to learn is: never rely on national stereotypes; never reduce the conflicts of the world to ethnicity alone. There are also class, gender, religion, politics and history – attributes Sykes discounted as he tried to predict how the sub-groups of the Middle East would react to British policy.

The final lessons is: accept responsibility. The Sykes-Picot agreement was conceived in the same room David Cameron’s cabinet sits in now. The passage of time should not absolve us from engaging with the situations we messed up.

Israel has officially refused to renew the travel document of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement co-founder Omar Barghouti in a move that amounts to a travel ban and is an escalation of its attacks on Palestinian human rights defenders who nonviolently advocate for Palestinian rights under international law.

Barghouti, who lives with his family in Acre, has Israeli permanent residency and requires an Israeli travel document to be able to travel in and out of Palestine/Israel. His immediate reaction was: “I am unnerved but certainly undeterred by these threats. Nothing will stop me from struggling for my people’s freedom, justice and peace”.

Israel’s decision not to grant a renewal of the travel document on baseless bureaucratic pretences is being viewed by human rights experts as the first step towards revoking Barghouti’s permanent residency.

Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri had threatened as much at a recent anti-BDS conference held in Jerusalem when he disclosed that he was “inclined to fulfill” a request he had received from a far-right Israeli member of parliament to revoke Barghouti’s permanent residency.

The travel ban follows thinly-veiled incitement to physical violence against Barghouti and BDS activists by Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz and Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan. Katz called on Israel to engage in “targeted civil eliminations” of BDS leaders, while Erdan described BDS activists and leaders as threats and called for them to “pay the price” for their work, following this with a clarification that he does not mean “physical harm”. Defending “campaigns to hold Israel accountable for human rights and other international law violations”, Amnesty International has expressed its concern for “the safety and liberty of Palestinian human rights defender Omar Barghouti” following these threats, “including of physical harm and deprivation of basic rights”.

As a leading volunteer with the BDS movement, Barghouti regularly travels internationally to raise awareness about Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights and to advocate for BDS as an effective strategy to end Israel’s regime of occupation and apartheid. Rooted in a long heritage of Palestinian popular resistance, BDS is also inspired by the global boycott movement that helped to end South Africa’s apartheid regime and by the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

The Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council has recently affirmed “the right of all individuals to participate in and advocate for boycott, divestment, and sanction actions”, calling on states and businesses to “uphold their related legal responsibilities”.

Mahmoud Nawajaa, the general coordinator of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the broadest coalition in Palestinian civil society that leads the global BDS movement, said:

“Having failed to stop the growth of BDS in the mainstream, Israel is now launching a desperate and dangerous global war of repression on the movement. After losing many battles for the hearts and minds at the grassroots level, Israel and its well-oiled lobby groups are pressuring western states to implement patently anti-democratic measures that threaten civil liberties at large”.

“By banning our colleague Omar Barghouti from travelling and threatening him with physical violence, Israel is showing the lengths it will go to in order to stop the spread of the non-violent BDS movement for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality”.

The international BDS movement aims to pressure Israel, as South African apartheid was pressured, to comply with international law. It has attracted the support of mainstream unions, churches and political parties across the world and compelled large corporations, including Veolia and Orange, to end their involvement in Israel’s human rights violations.

Prominent artists including Ms. Lauryn Hill and Roger Waters have refused to perform in Tel Aviv; several academic associations in the U.S. and thousands of academics in Europe, South Africa, North America and Latin America have endorsed a comprehensive boycott of Israeli universities. The authors of a recent UN report said that a 46% drop in foreign direct investment in Israel in 2014 was partly due to the impact of BDS.

At Israel’s request, governments in the UK, France, Canada and state legislatures in the U.S. are introducing anti-BDS legislation and taking other anti-democratic measures to repress BDS activism. In France, one activist was arrested simply for wearing a BDS t-shirt.

Israel is also using its security services to spy on BDS activists across the world, as repeatedly reported in the Israeli media and by the Associated Press. This espionage is likely to involve monitoring of citizens’ communications in violation of domestic laws.

Journalist and constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald, known for breaking the NSA surveillance story, has described this well-orchestrated series of draconian measures against the BDS movement as the “greatest threat to free speech in the West”.

Mahmoud Nawajaa added:

“The western governments that are repressing BDS activism at home are giving Israel a green light to continue its violations of international law with impunity. We urge governments, parliaments and human rights organisations to follow Amnesty International’s lead and uphold his rights as a human rights defender under threat”.

On May 9th, the U.S. and Russia issued a “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the United States on Syria”, saying that, “The Russian Federation and United States are determined to redouble efforts to reach a political settlement of the Syrian conflict consistent with UNSCR 225

UNSCR 2254, from the U.N4.”. Security Council, on 18 December 2015, refers several times to, and endorses, “a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition in order to end the conflict in Syria,” and, in one passage, it “stresses that the Syrian people will decide the future of Syria.” It goes on, to state that the Security Council:

Expresses its support, in this regard, for a Syrian-led political process that is facilitated by the United Nations and, within a target of six months, establishes credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance and sets a schedule and process for drafting a new constitution, and further expresses its support for free and fair elections, pursuant to the new constitution, to be held within 18 months and administered under supervision of the United Nations, to the satisfaction of the governance and to the highest international standards of transparency and accountability, with all Syrians, including members of the diaspora, eligible to participate.

U.S. President Barack Obama (backed up fully by his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on this) has many times stated, clearly, his opposition to this. For example, the Wall Street Journal even headlined a news story on 19 November 2015, “Obama Says Syrian Leader Bashar al-Assad Must Go: U.S. President says Syrian civil war won’t end with Assad in power”, and that headline was entirely accurate as a summary of Obama’s repeatedly stated position on war-and-peace in Syria: Assad must go, despite Assad’s being overwhelmingly supported by the Syrian people (something Obama denies, though it has been repeatedly been shown true even in Western polling on the topic — Obama simply lies; he evenplaces this goal (ousting Assad) above his opposition to jihadists taking over Syria; he has specifically been protecting, and sending weapons to, Al Qaeda in Syria).

The most recent Western poll of Syrians was published in English at only a Russian site and headlined (accurately) “Le Figaro poll: Over 70% want Syria’s Assad to remain in power”, and it had been published by Le Figaro on 20 October 2015; but, how many Americans were being informed that their own President was lying to them, if this poll and all the others were being ignored in all of the major U.S. ‘news’ media, and only a few news-sites on the Web made any mention of it — nor of the other Western polls of Syrians,each one of which (going as far back as December of 2011) showed that no potential competitor of Assad enjoyed nearly as much, and as broad-based, support within Syria as he did? Nothing that Obama and his jihadist warriors in Syria were able to do, succeeded at changing that.

President Obama finally suspended his opposition on December 15th of 2015, which allowed UNSCR 2254 to be issued by the Security Council three days later. Obama knew the score all along; he didn’t like it, but he knew about it; and, he finally decided that merely denying it, and feeding the war, was just not going to work.

So, that’s the reason why Obama’s current Secretary of State, John Kerry, finally was able to persuade his boss to allow the peace process to go forward toward a democratic Syria.

The reason, however, why Obama has been opposed to this is that Obama has wanted Assad overthrown since the very moment he first entered the White House on 20 January 2009.

And that’s why Obama continues trying to overthrow Assad, even while yielding to the overwhelming sentiment of other world-leaders, for the jihadists’ war against Assad to end as soon as possible. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, and Obama’s hope remains to crush Assad, just as he had crushed Muammar Gaddafi, and Viktor Yanukovych, and just as George W. Bush had crushed Saddam Hussein — all three of which fallen leaders had been friendly toward Vladimir Putin, whom Obama is very disappointed remains in power, even after U.S. Presidents have removed virtually all of Putin’s Western allies. Overthrowing Putin is the end-goal, and one of the chief means toward that objective has been to strip him of foreign allies. But other means, such as Obama’s proposed ‘trade’ deals, to isolate both Russia and China, might be more successful; and Obama’s step-up in war-preparations on Russia’s northwestern borders is also continuing apace.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Germany has been supplying weapons to Iraqi Kurdistan since October, 2014. That was a crucial moment that determined the further foreign political course of Germany. Feeling pressure from the United States, the Cabinet of Germany lifted a ban on weapons and military vehicles’ supplies to crisis war-torn regions. According to German government officials, Germany realized the Kurds could stand up to ISIS terrorists. “The Kurdish fighters are manning the front line against the Islamic State”, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen stated.

At the same time, Washington celebrated its victory as well: the White House had managed the Germans to dance to the U.S. tune. However, it has become known this January that black markets in Northern Iraq openly sell German weapons. Berlin demanded that the Kurdish leadership account for using supplied armory. The report revealed that a part of the weapons delivered by Germany to the Kurds fell into the hands of terrorists. Inside Syria Media Center focused on this issue deciding to find out the way military cargos were delivered to Iraqi Kurdistan.

Very Important Person

Our activists in Erbil found out that Dilshad Barzani (a brother of Masoud Barzani, the president of Iraqi Kurdistan) was responsible for organization of weapons supplies from Germany. He has been living in Germany for a long time and now he represents the Kurdish government and the Kurdistan Democratic Party in that country. The biggest Kurdish diaspora in Europe which includes about 1,000,000 people is under his control in fact. Dilshad Barzani has close trust-based relationships with Angela Merkel and he often visits various events of the ruling Christian Democratic Union party as VIP.

“The main Kurd of Germany” has an armored car and the agents of Federal Intelligence Service (BND) usually escort his vehicle. He also enjoys encrypted communications equipment that enables him to get in touch with the Federal Chancellor or any government member at any time.Dilshad Barzani is certainly a very powerful person in Germany.

Germany – Bulgaria – Kurdistan

Now, let’s have a look at the way the arms are delivered from Germany to the Middle East.

Sure, Germany cannot supply Kurdistan with arms in a direct way because this does not comply with the International Law. But the West or its special services have never had a trouble with launching a specific cargo delivery at any corner of the world via mediate countries.

As Germans and Bulgarians have agreed to send some amount of Soviet-made weapons stocked at the Bulgarian depots to the Kurds, it would be reasonable to transfer all weaponry through the same country. For the record, details of this traffic had been studied since the beginning of 2015, though Berlin was realizing this was not a perfect deal. As Bulgaria is a NATO member country, it’s not convenient to conduct the operations like that.So, they considered another way, via Ukraine, that looks the most appropriate in the context of secret traffic of semi-legal cargos. In 2015, Kurds representatives came to Kiev several times in order to work out an alternative traffic way. Major General Sirwan Barzani, Iraqi Kurdistan president’s nephew, and Brigadier General Hazhar Ismail were among the delegates.

Nevertheless, the situation has dramatically changed. After Russia launched operations in Syria, Kiev and Ankara began closing their positions. In particular, this is characterized by widening of bilateral military and technical cooperation as well as by intensified exchange of intelligence information. As Peshmerga leaders worried that secret data about weapons delivery to the Kurds could be handed to the Turkish special services, the idea to supply arms via Ukraine was rejected.

Finally, they opted for Bulgaria as a main mediator of the military cargos’ delivery to Kurdistan while the American side took responsibility to provide security and control of the whole operation. Since August 2015, German AF’s cargo planes with weapons have conducted regular flights from the U.S. Ramstein Air Base near Kaiserslautern to the city of Plovdiv in Bulgaria. From there, the cargo accompanied by the US embassy officials and Bulgarian special services’ agents is transferred to the Varna port. The “goods” are registered to an unknown company “Eleko”. Unfortunately, we were unable to find any information about this company or contact it.

From Varna German weapons are delivered by sea to Basra port in Iraq. According to the Marine Traffic website, such sea trips have been conducted on a regular basis since last August. From Basra, the cargo guarded by American troops, is transferred to Kurdistan. A peculiar fact is that weapons for Peshmerga are delivered through Bosporus, literally under the nose of Turkey, which is trying by all means to undermine Kurds’ enforcement and fears that they may use German arms to fight against the Turkish army. However, the agreements with the EU on migrants and Western money subsidiaries compel Ankara to put up with it.

According to the terms set by the German side, Kurds should acquire an end-user certificate for the supplied weapons in Baghdad. This document envisages that the recipient takes full responsibility for the usage of the cargo and is not planning to transfer it to another party. The key figure responsible for acquiring the certificate is Hoshyar Zebari, uncle of Iraqi Kurdistan’s acting president and the Finance Minister of Iraq.

However, it is worth mentioning the Iraqi authorities obviously don’t hail the fact that third countries arm the Iraqi Kurds without any supervision from Baghdad. In an attempt to affect the process, the Iraqi government is deliberately delaying the conformance of certificates or simply refuses to release them. In such cases, Barzani uses his off-shore companies to acquire these certificates in a tiny African state Swaziland for $1 million per a document.

So this may be a reason why German weapons had merged on arms market? Obviously, the Kurds have to recoup such unexpected expenditures. And of course, selling the goods at the black market is a fine way to cut the losses. And here again questions to German leaders rise. Is Merkel really aware of the fact that German weapons are sometimes officially supplied to Swaziland? Moreover, sometimes the German Federal Ministry of Defense turns the blind eye to compliance with any formalities. It often sends military cargo straight to Erbil by air.

Following this scheme, a plane from Germany heads for Baghdad, but on its way it makes a forced landing in the capital of the Kurdistan Region under the veil of technical malfunctions or a need to provide members of the crew with an emergency aid. The weaponry is unloaded during such a not planned stop and then an empty plane arrives in Bagdad. In this case Iraqi government is helpless and has no possibility to find out the nature and the purpose of the secret cargo.

“Grey zone” of Angela Merkel

Nowadays we have a well-developed and effective traffic of contraband weapons to the heart of one of the most hostile regions. The regional policy of Washington and Berlin gave birth to an ideal “grey zone” where oil, people, drugs and weapons are sold without any control. By casting the north of Iraq and Syria into chaos the USA play its own game and try to promote its own interests. Why does Angela Merkel who is more likely to be a puppet than a leader of the European country actively help them? These are the Germans who are to answer this question.

Germany is planning to supply the Kurds with 200 anti-tank guided missiles MILAN, 4 thousand assault rifles G36, and 6 million ammo for them, as well as 5 Dingo armored cars in June. Although there is absolutely no guarantee that these weapons won’t fall into the hands of the Islamic State. German government and personally Angela Merkel should assume responsibility for the fact that weapons supplied by Germany fall into the hands of terrorists

Saudi Arabia is in serious trouble. The Binladin Group, the kingdom’s largest construction company, has terminated the employment of fifty thousand foreign workers. They have been issued exit visas, which they have refused to honor. These workers will not leave without being paid back wages. Angry with their employer, some of the workers set fire to seven of the company’s buses.

Unrest is on the cards in the Kingdom. In April, King Salman fired the water and electricity minister Abdullah al-Hasin, who had come under criticism for high water rates, new rules over the digging of wells and cuts in energy subsidies. The restructured ministry was to save the Kingdom $30 billion—precious money for an exchequer that is spluttering from low oil prices. Eighty-six percent of Saudis say that they want the water and electricity subsidies to continue. They are not prepared to let these disappear. They see this as their right. Why, they say, should an energy rich country not provide almost free energy for its subjects?

When King Salman took over last year, he inherited a kingdom in dire straits.  Saudi Arabia’s Treasury relies upon oil sales for over ninety percent of its revenue. The population does not pay tax, so the only way to raise funds is from oil sales. As oil prices fell from $100/ barrel to $30/barrel, oil revenues for the Kingdom collapsed. Saudi Arabia lost $390 billion in anticipated oil profits last year. Its budget deficit came to $100 billion—much higher than it has been in memory. For the first time since 1991, Saudi Arabia turned to the world of private finance to raise $10 billion for a five-year loan. That this country, with a vast sovereign wealth fund, needs to borrow money to cover its bills is an indication of its fragile fundamentals.

A picture released by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) shows Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud (AFP Photo/)

What does a country do when it enters a period of crisis? It calls the consulting firm McKinsey. That is precisely what Saudi Arabia did. McKinsey sent its crack analysts to the Kingdom. They returned—in December 2015—with Saudi Arabia Without Oil: The Investment and Productivity Transformation. This report could have been written without a site visit. It carries all the clichés of neo-liberalism: transform the economy from a government-led to a market-led one, cut subsidies and transfer payments, and sell government assets to finance the transition. There is not one hint of the peculiar political economy and cultural context of Saudi Arabia. The report calls for a cut in Saudi Arabia’s public-sector employment and a cut in its three million low-wage foreign workers. But the entire political economy of Saudi Arabia and the culture of its Saudi subjects are reliant upon state employment for the subjects and low-wage subservience from the guest workers. To change these two pillars calls into question the survival of the monarchy. A Saudi Arabia without oil, McKinsey should have honestly said, is a Saudi Arabia without a monarchy.

What would the McKinsey transformation produce? “A productivity-led transformation,” wrote the eager analysts, “could enable Saudi Arabia to again double its [Gross Domestic Product] and create as many as six million new Saudi jobs by 2030.”

The King’s son, Mohammed Bin Salman (MbS), took McKinsey at its word. He then copied and pasted the report in his own Saudi Vision 2030. Little of Prince MbS’s statement differs from the McKinsey proposal. The eagerness of the Prince shows his lack of experience. It is unlikely that he has read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, a full-scale assault on the idea of economic transformation. Even more unlikely that he has read Duff McDonald’s The Firm, an evisceration of McKinsey’s smoke and mirrors model. To base an entire country’s future on a McKinsey report seems reckless. But then Prince MbS has a streak of recklessness in him. He led the Saudi war on Yemen – and that has not turned out well at all. The peace talks over that war being held in Kuwait remain stalled. Saudi Arabia made almost no gains in Yemen. Should the man who led Saudi Arabia into humiliating failure in Yemen now be in charge of its economic transformation?

Saudi Arabia is a monarchy. Prince MbS has the King’s favor. His talents are measured by the King and not by the people. They will have to tolerate his shenanigans with the economy just as they have had to tolerate his failed war on Yemen.

What is Prince MbS’s Saudi Vision 2030? Despite the attempts to create some stability in the oil market, there is no indication that oil prices would be raised to safe levels anytime soon. If oil remains below $50/barrel, Saudi Arabia has to revise its own economic project. That means that Saudi Arabia will have to find new ways to create revenues. To shift from an oil-dependent economy to an industrial-tourism-finance economy will require a massive dose of investment. To secure that investment, Saudi Arabia plans to sell a small stake of its state-owned oil firm—ARAMCO. The plan is to raise at least $2 trillion from that sale and from the sale of other state assets. This money will bolster the depleted Sovereign Wealth Fund, which might otherwise run dry by 2017-2020.

The enhanced Sovereign Wealth Fund will be used to develop new industrial sectors such as petrochemicals, manufacturing at the medium scale and finance as well as tourism. Foreigners will be allowed to own property in the Kingdom and entrepreneurial activity will be encouraged by the state. How does all this happen by 2020 – the date proposed by Prince MbS—or even by 2030—the name of the Prince’s plan? Will Saudi Arabia be able to rapidly transform its population from being satisfied with receipts of oil revenues to being workers in an insecure market environment? History suggests a long period of dissatisfaction amongst the public during this kind of enormous transition. Can the Saudi royal family manage the level of anger and humiliation that this change will evoke?

The IMF’s director of Middle East and Central Asia—Masood Ahmed—is sure that the transition will work just fine. In fact, Ahmed believes that the McKinsey plan is perhaps a little too modest. What the Saudis need to do, said Ahmed, is to attract more private investment to help the diversification plan. Where will this private investment come from? Perhaps from China, which has already signed a large ($2.48 billion) nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is China’s largest oil supplier. China’s Sinopec, PetroChina and Yunnan Yuntianhua work closely with ARAMCO to build oil refineries in the kingdom and on the Chinese coastline. Chinese construction companies are building the Haramain railroad that will eventually link Mecca and Madina.

China is the largest trading partner of Saudi Arabia. The Binladin group will mothball some of its cranes, but that does not mean that cranes will hang over the skyline of the kingdom. Chinese construction firms are prepared to build the new infrastructural base in Saudi Arabia. Washington, if it is paying attention, must see the drift of its old ally—either into social chaos or into the Chinese orbit. No other alternative exists.

It was an assessment no one expected from the deputy head of the Israeli military. In his Holocaust Day speech last week, Yair Golan compared current trends in Israel with Germany in the early 1930s. In today’s Israel, he said, could be recognised “the revolting processes that occurred in Europe … There is nothing easier than hating the stranger, nothing easier than to stir fears and intimidate.”

The furore over Gen Golan’s remarks followed a similar outcry in Britain at statements by former London mayor Ken Livingstone. He observed that Hitler had been “supporting Zionism” in 1933 when the Nazis signed a transfer agreement, allowing some German Jews to emigrate to Palestine.

In their different ways both comments refer back to a heated argument among Jews about whether Zionism was a blessing or a blight. Although largely overlooked today, the dispute throws much light on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Those differences came to a head in 1917 when the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, a document promising for the first time to realise the Zionist goal of a “national home” for the Jews in Palestine. Only one minister, Edwin Montagu, dissented. Notably, he was the only Jew in the British cabinet. The two facts were not unconnected. In a memo, he warned that his government’s policy would be a “rallying ground for anti-Semites in every country”.

He was far from alone in that view. Of the 4 million Jews who left Europe between 1880 and 1920, only 100,000 went to Palestine in line with Zionist expectations. As the Israeli novelist A B Yehoshua once noted: “If the Zionist party had run in an election in the early 20th century, it would have received only 6 or 7 per cent of the Jewish people’s vote.”

What Montagu feared was that the creation of a Jewish state in a far-flung territory dovetailed a little too neatly with the aspirations of Europe’s anti-Semites, then much in evidence, including in the British government.

According to the dominant assumptions of Europe’s ethnic nationalisms of the time, the region should be divided into peoples or biological “races”, and each should control a territory in which it could flourish. The Jews were viewed as a “problem” because – in addition to lingering Christian anti-Semitism – they were considered subversive of this national model.

Jews were seen as a race apart, one that could not – or should not – be allowed to assimilate. Better, on this view, to encourage their emigration from Europe. For British elites, the Balfour Declaration was a means to achieve that end.

Theodor Herzl, the father of political Zionism, understood this trenchant anti-Semitism very well. His idea for a Jewish state was inspired in part by the infamous Dreyfus affair, in which a Jewish French army officer was framed by his commanders for treason. Herzl was convinced that anti-Semitism would always exclude Jews from true acceptance in Europe.

It is for this reason that Mr Livingstone’s comments – however clumsily expressed – point to an important truth. Herzl and other early Zionists implicitly accepted the ugly framework of European bigotry.

Jews, Herzl concluded, must embrace their otherness and regard themselves as a separate race. Once they found a benefactor to give them a territory – soon Britain would oblige with Palestine – they could emulate the other European peoples from afar.

For a while, some Nazi leaders were sympathetic. Adolf Eichmann, one of the later engineers of the Holocaust, visited Palestine in 1937 to promote the “Zionist emigration” of Jews.

Hannah Arendt, the German Jewish scholar of totalitarianism, argued even in 1944 – long after the Nazis abandoned ideas of emigration and embraced genocide instead – that the ideology underpinning Zionism was “nothing else than the uncritical acceptance of German-inspired nationalism”.

Israel and its supporters would prefer we forget that, before the rise of the Nazis, most Jews deeply opposed a future in which they were consigned to Palestine.

Those who try to remind us of this forgotten history are likely to be denounced, like Livingstone, as anti-Semites. They are accused of making a simplistic comparison between Zionism and Nazism.

But there is good reason to examine this uncomfortable period.

Modern Israeli politicians, including Benjamin Netanyahu, still regularly declare that Jews have only one home – in Israel. After every terror attack in Europe, they urge Jews to hurry to Israel, telling them they can never be safe where they are.

It also alerts us to the fact that even today the Zionist movement cannot help but mirror many of the flaws of those now-discredited European ethnic nationalisms, as Gen Golan appears to appreciate.

Such characteristics – all too apparent in Israel – include: an exclusionary definition of peoplehood; a need to foment fear and hatred of the other as a way to keep the nation tightly bound; an obsession with and hunger for territory; and a highly militarised culture.

Recognising Zionism’s ideological roots, inspired by racial theories of peoplehood that in part fuelled the Second World War, might allow us to understand modern Israel a little better. And why it seems incapable of extending a hand of peace to the Palestinians.

Israel: A De Facto Member of NATO

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, May 08 2016

Does the March 2013 Israel-NATO agreement “obligate” NATO “to come to the rescue of Israel” under the doctrine of “collective security”? The agreement tightens the process of US-NATO-Israel military planning relating to any future operation in the Middle East.

US-NATO “Humanitarian Interventions” have Resulted in “Crimes against Humanity”…

By Mark Taliano, May 09 2016

The West and its allies are perpetrating unspeakable yet well-documented crimes against humanity as Washington forges ahead with its pre-planned agenda to destroy non-compliant areas in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in favour of its Wahhabi-inspired proxy armies,…

Israeli Rape of Golan Heights Is Also Netanyahu’s Settlement Plan for the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza

By Anthony Bellchambers, May 09 2016

Internationally recognized as Syrian territory, the Golan Heights has been occupied and administered by Israel since 1967. It was captured during the 1967 Six-Day War.  On 19 June 1967, the Israeli cabinet voted to return the Golan to Syria in…

The ‘Aleppo Hospital’ Smokescreen: Covering up Al Qaeda Massacres in Syria, Once Again

By Prof. Tim Anderson, May 09 2016

Over April-May dozens of people were murdered across Aleppo as civilian areas and major hospitals were bombed by the NATO-backed ‘rebel’ groups. They were even filmed firing their ‘hell cannons’ and saying “throw it on the civilians” Meanwhile, western media…

Camouflage of British War Crimes in Iraq: Chilcot Inquiry Publication Delayed: “ to Avoid Embarrassing Tony Blair.”

By Felicity Arbuthnot, May 09 2016

“Nothing justifies killing of innocent people.” (Tony Blair, CNN, 15th January 2015.) The publication of the Chilcot Inquiry which began in 2009 and concluded three years ago, investigating the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq, so far costing a reported £10,375,000,…

The Australian Election Campaign Begins

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, May 09 2016

“Big fan of LBJ, me mum,” said Chris Uhlmann, journalist for the ABC’s Twenty-Four hour television news network.  And that, perhaps, was the only thing of any interest in what must be regarded as one of the most boring exhibitions…

Aung San Suu Kyi has finally her laid her cards on the table. No more bewilderment about why the holder of the Nobel Peace Prize (a worthless honorific most often awarded war criminals), the democracy icon known as “the Mandela of Asia,” the holder of dozens of international honorifics as a champion of human rights has remained dead silent on the genocide against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

Media reports the conflict as primarily a religious one between Muslims & Buddhists but Rohingya have been subject for decades to violent state-sponsored persecution & discrimination conducted by the military, including denial of citizenship (though they have lived in the region for decades), religious persecution, forced labor, land confiscations, arbitrary taxation & various forms of extortion, forced eviction & house destruction, restrictions on travel for health & work, restrictions on marriage, education, & trade. The violence is so extreme & sustained going back decades that hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas flee for asylum to Malaysia & to squalid refugee camps in Thailand & Bangladesh. Myanmar now has forced nearly 150,000 to live in concentration camps.

For years, Suu Kyi dummied up when reporters asked her about the genocide or answered in platitudes urging people to get along with each other or evasions calling for rule of law. Her evasions were taken as diplomacy even though it’s really hard to be a champion of human rights if diplomacy is your schtick. Usually daring & fearlessness are essential qualities of such champions, not cowardice or talking with marbles in your mouth.

But now Suu Kyi is the head of state in what is called (without a hint of sarcasm) ” Myanmar’s first democratically elected government since 1962.” She won that election through a loathsome compromise with the military junta & by supporting their neoliberal policies bringing in foreign investment & mining projects at the expense of farmers & rural workers. Some of those farmers & villagers were way ahead of the rest of the world in understanding her betrayals when they booed her out of town for saying the expropriations of their lands & destruction of the environment were “for the greater good.”

Now the NY Times reports that in a recent meeting, Suu Kyi advised the US ambassador against using the term “Rohingya” to describe the Muslim people of Myanmar because her government does not recognize them as citizens. Using the same kind of marble-mouthed deceits she used to blither to reporters, her representative told the ambassador, “We won’t use the term Rohingya because Rohingya are not recognized as among the 135 official ethnic groups.” He added, “Our position is that using the controversial term does not support the national reconciliation process & solving problems.”

The US government is hardly the champion of human rights in all this. Hillary Clinton & Obama have both made high profile visits to Myanmar & paid homage to Suu Kyi as a human rights advocate. US multinationals are pouring billions of investment into Myanmar. If the US ambassador expresses any concern about genocide against Rohingya, it is only that the genocide not come back to interfere with those investments.

Solidarity with Rohingya Muslims against genocide & for justice means educating about their struggle against genocide & part of that education requires exposing the murderous duplicity & collusion of Suu Kyi.

Mary Scully has fifty years of political activism behind her in the US: antiwar, women’s rights, civil rights, Palestinian solidarity (since 1967), in particular. She is running as an independent socialist candidate for US president 2016.

Aung San Suu Kyi has finally her laid her cards on the table. No more bewilderment about why the holder of the Nobel Peace Prize (a worthless honorific most often awarded war criminals), the democracy icon known as “the Mandela of Asia,” the holder of dozens of international honorifics as a champion of human rights has remained dead silent on the genocide against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

Media reports the conflict as primarily a religious one between Muslims & Buddhists but Rohingya have been subject for decades to violent state-sponsored persecution & discrimination conducted by the military, including denial of citizenship (though they have lived in the region for decades), religious persecution, forced labor, land confiscations, arbitrary taxation & various forms of extortion, forced eviction & house destruction, restrictions on travel for health & work, restrictions on marriage, education, & trade. The violence is so extreme & sustained going back decades that hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas flee for asylum to Malaysia & to squalid refugee camps in Thailand & Bangladesh. Myanmar now has forced nearly 150,000 to live in concentration camps.

For years, Suu Kyi dummied up when reporters asked her about the genocide or answered in platitudes urging people to get along with each other or evasions calling for rule of law. Her evasions were taken as diplomacy even though it’s really hard to be a champion of human rights if diplomacy is your schtick. Usually daring & fearlessness are essential qualities of such champions, not cowardice or talking with marbles in your mouth.

But now Suu Kyi is the head of state in what is called (without a hint of sarcasm) ” Myanmar’s first democratically elected government since 1962.” She won that election through a loathsome compromise with the military junta & by supporting their neoliberal policies bringing in foreign investment & mining projects at the expense of farmers & rural workers. Some of those farmers & villagers were way ahead of the rest of the world in understanding her betrayals when they booed her out of town for saying the expropriations of their lands & destruction of the environment were “for the greater good.”

Now the NY Times reports that in a recent meeting, Suu Kyi advised the US ambassador against using the term “Rohingya” to describe the Muslim people of Myanmar because her government does not recognize them as citizens. Using the same kind of marble-mouthed deceits she used to blither to reporters, her representative told the ambassador, “We won’t use the term Rohingya because Rohingya are not recognized as among the 135 official ethnic groups.” He added, “Our position is that using the controversial term does not support the national reconciliation process & solving problems.”

The US government is hardly the champion of human rights in all this. Hillary Clinton & Obama have both made high profile visits to Myanmar & paid homage to Suu Kyi as a human rights advocate. US multinationals are pouring billions of investment into Myanmar. If the US ambassador expresses any concern about genocide against Rohingya, it is only that the genocide not come back to interfere with those investments.

Solidarity with Rohingya Muslims against genocide & for justice means educating about their struggle against genocide & part of that education requires exposing the murderous duplicity & collusion of Suu Kyi.

Mary Scully has fifty years of political activism behind her in the US: antiwar, women’s rights, civil rights, Palestinian solidarity (since 1967), in particular. She is running as an independent socialist candidate for US president 2016.

The momentous Syrian-Russian liberation of world heritage site Palmyra on March 27, 2016, came and went with zero congratulations from world leaders who are supposedly fighting terrorism. Palmyra is an area that was subject to ten months of Da’esh (ISIS) occupation, slaughters, and destruction.

When a delegation of foreign journalists went to Palmyra post-liberation, although scheduled to join the delegation, the four US media outlets are reported to have cancelled the night before. When a delegation of independent visitors went to Palmyra still not long after, the information inaccounts they shared until now remain glaringly-absent from corporate newspapers and channels.

On May 5, the ancient site was newsworthy once again. Just over a month after its liberation by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) backed by the Russian Air Force, Palmyra’s Roman Amphitheatre was host to a concert of exceptional musicality and tremendous significance for both Syria and Russia.

Sputnik News reported:

According to Syrian Culture Minister Issam Khalil, the concert of the Russian world-renowned Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra in the Syrian city of Palmyra is dedicated to the upcoming Victory Day.

Sputnik cited Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who addressed the audience and musicians by video link, saying of the concert:

I consider it as an expression of gratitude, memory and hope. The gratitude to everyone, who fights against terrorism without sparing their own lives. The memory of all the victims of terror regardless of the place and time when crimes against humanity have been committed.

An introduction by acclaimed conductor Valery Gergiev, included:

The music you will hear today, you hear our pain and our memory. But there’s also great hope in this music.  It’s very difficult to speak about emotions we feel, we musicians. We protest against barbarians who destroyed wonderful monuments of world’s culture. We protest against the executions of people, here on this great, great stage. Our concert in Palmyra is our appeal for everyone to come to peace and unity, and all people in the world to unite and work against this evil, against the terrorism

Titled “Praying for Palmyra-Music Revives Ancient Ruins”, it included the works of Russian composers Sergey Prokofiev and Rodion Shchedrin, and began with Johann Sebastian Bach’s solo violin masterpiece, “Chaconne in D minor”, played by renowned Russian violinist, Pavel Milyukov. On the Chaconne, Gergiev said: “This piece is expressing greatness of human spirit, and I think it is appropriate to play today here.” (The full concert without commentary can be watched at here )

A second concert, “Gate of the Sun,” was held in Palmyra the following day, on Martyrs’ Day. Majestic theatre columns lit in the evening darkness, the event ran for over two hours, featuring: Syria’s National Ensemble for Arabic Music, The Syrian National Symphony, The Chamber Choir of the Higher Institute for Music, The Mary Orchestra, and The Joy Choir (excerpts here).

In addition to Syrian civilians and journalists in attendance, according to SANA news, “The event was attended by families of martyrs from Palmyra and other areas in Syria,” and began “with an ode to martyrs.”

Amid a sea of fluttering Syrian flags, journalist Alaa Ebrahim—who had reported from  the frontlines when the Syrian army liberated Palmyra—reported during this concert.

Last year, ISIL executed 25 Syrian soldiers here in Palmyra, in central Syria. A year later, the Syrian government regained control of the city. Now they’re holding a concert, a performance, on the same stage where the soldiers were executed. Back then, the soldiers were executed by teenagers from the radical group. Today, the Syrian government has brought a band of children and teenagers to perform on the same stage.

Since Palmyra’s liberation, Syrian soldiers and Russian deminers have worked steadily to clear the area of the thousands of landmines and other explosives laid by Da’esh.

Russia Today reported:

In April, Russian engineers completed the clearance of Palmyra and defused nearly 3,000 explosive devices over nearly 230 hectares (2.3 sq km), thus demolishing “one of the largest jihadist arsenals” of more than 12,000 explosive devices.

Even so, it is impressive that at a time when Syria and its allies continue to fight the terrorism wreaked upon Syria by the NATO-Turkish-Gulf-Zionist alliance, such a concert, featuring world-famous musicians, could occur.

Honouring the Murdered

SANA News explained the significance of Matryrs’ Day in Syria.

More than a century has passed since the execution of Syrian nationalists and intellectuals at al-Marjeh Square in Damascus by the Ottoman’s ruler Jamal Basha, who was known as al-Saffah (the blood shedder), on May 6th, 1916.

…On this day, the Syrian people salute those who sacrificed their souls for the sake of protecting their homeland and the Syrian army soldiers who are fighting in the battlefields.

Asser Khattab , a journalist at the Middle East Channel (MEC), attended the May 6 concert and offered his view on its significance.

Yesterday’s event was held in order to honor the souls of all martyrs on the very crime scene that IS used. It carries a clear message that we will never capitulate… never give in. IS terrorists displayed their ideology on the amphitheatre and we displayed ours, as we did before. It’s now crystal-clear whose ideology is stronger.

The events also honoured the late Syrian archaeologist, Dr. Khaled al-Assad, slaughtered by Da’esh terrorists, whose murder writer Felicity Arbuthnot detailed:

In July Palmyra’s haunting amphitheater was used as a stage for the execution of twenty five Syrian soldiers by child executioners – described as no older than thirteen or fourteen – who shot each kneeling man through the back of the head (6)

On 18th August the US aid recipients beheaded the eighty one year old Dr Al Assad, for his refusal to reveal where many precious artifacts had been hidden according to his son, who was kidnapped with him but released. The body was hung from one of the great Graeco-Roman columns, his head placed between his feet.

Also honoured in the events was the 25 year old Russian Special Forces Officer, Aleksandr Prokhorenko, who prior to the liberation of Palmyra was “killed near the town of Palmyra while guiding Russian warplanes to IS targets,” Russia Today reported. “The officer died a hero, calling a strike on himself after he was compromised and surrounded by terrorists.”

CORPORATE MEDIA DISTORTIONS

The main prominent English language media covering the May 5 concert were Russia Today and Sputnik News—that is, the main media doing so fairly and paying the event, and what it signified, the respect it merited.

Most of the western corporate media heavyweights used the occasion to sling anti-Russian vitriol, as well as the expected anti-Syria accusations. Above all, they belligerently refused to acknowledge Syrians’ gratitude and joy at the liberation of Palmyra (much less join journalists who traveled to Palmyra immediately following its liberation), nor the significance of the Russian musicians’ concert.

Surprisingly, an article in the UK’s Telegraph did justice to the event, with very little of the rhetoric found in the Guardian, BBC, NY Times, Reuters and elsewhere. The Telegraph article also highlighted the significance of the event’s date for Russia, citing President Putin’s address and further adding:

The concert was carefully coordinated with Russia’s annual Victory Day celebrations, the annual holiday on May 9 that marks the end of the Second World War but has also become a celebration of modern Russian military prowess.

Yet, two days later, seemingly to make up for having covered the event decently, the Telegraph published another article. The original title, “Palmyra Concert Like Nero Fiddling as Rome Burned,” has since been changed, appropriately-so, as the article did not actually address the concert until the last 4 paragraphs. The preceding paragraphs are tastelessly filled with rhetoric and unsubstantiated accusations, including citing the foreign-created, al-Nusra supporting “White Helmets” and the discredited MSF operating in al-Nusra and related terrorists areas.

To understand more on why neither the White Helmets nor MSF claims should ever be taken seriously, see: “‘White Helmets’ Exposed and Petition to Prevent their Nomination for Nobel Peace Prize” (link) and “About Bias and Propaganda on Syria  Open Letter to MSF/Doctors without Borders” (link).

Syrian Reactions

But how did Syrians feel about the concert itself and the liberation of Palmyra weeks prior?

Syrians in Syria and abroad replied to my question. Some of their many replies follow.

The return of life and civilization to the ancient city after it had been turned into a theatre of beheadings and terrorism last year.

– Hadi Makhlouf , Social Media Manager at MEC

It’s the sign of the great victory. With this act we have shown them that they cannot take us down.

-Samer Hussein, lawyer.

 That civilization will prevail and barbarians will be defeated.

-Zeinab Salah, writer

 For me, as a Syrian, it reflects what the core conflict is really about. Seeing the contrast between the scene of ISIS thugs executing Syrians in the amphitheatre with spectators including children forced to watch, and the scene of the playing music, expressing the true tendency of the civilized Syrian people.

-Iyad Khuder, journalist at MEC, Damascus

Palmyra is finally back. No color of black anymore. I saw the angels of martyrs of Beloved Syria; beautiful faces of mothers, children and soldiers flying there protecting us. It was mixture of happiness and sadness. I was so proud that the rainbow has come back to Palmyra but I couldn’t forget our losses. I hope the rainbow will cover all of Syria.

-Emy Abbas, translator

Resilience, Victory, and Will. That Truth prevails.

-Lulwa Kasawat, architect

Yesterday’s festival was a message to whom it may concern that our struggle in Syria is not only about geopolitics and war over energy, it is also a clash of civilisation between the forces who uphold Humanitarian values and those who want to return Syria to the stone ages.

-Kevork Almassian, political analyst, researcher, and writer

Part of the war of terror on Syria has been the annihilation and theft of our heritage by Da’esh terrorists and their supporters. But after all of the slaughtering and destruction by Da’esh in Palmyra, the Syrian Arab Army and allies have destroyed the abomination that was terrorism here.

Today’s celebration was a great sense of pride and of gratitude to those who made this day possible. The victory of Palmyra increased my faith that Syria will not be defeated, and in the immortality of people defending their land, sovereignty, culture and history. We celebrated the birth of a new victory.

–Rasha Mahfoud, journalist

I am a Syrian living abroad. Keeping in mind that only few months ago western-backed terrorists were killing people on the same stage, yesterday’s concert symbolized rebirth of a country and a civilized nation. I am from Aleppo and I am looking forward to the day when similar soul-liberating concert will take place at Aleppo’s ancient Citadel.

-Mary Merdkhanian, USA

Syrian voices on the events at Palmyra speak a depth and truth that no western corporate media or leader would ever acknowledge. Perhaps fitting to conclude with is linking to this clip taken by Syrian Reme Sakr at Palmyra on May 6, honouring the martyred and showing the love and resilience of Syrians celebrating their country.

The clip is introduced with Sakr’s solemn message: “For those who were taken on this very stage. #Palmyra #Tadmur.”

Eva Bartlett is a justice activist and independent journalist, with years of on the ground experience in the Middle East.

I am not sure who has invented those rumors that Cuba is now facing a mortal danger, that it has lost its bearings, and that it could collapse at any moment, after just one lethal visit by US President Barak Obama. The rumors and speculations are snowballing, and in some circles of the North American and European Left, they are already being confused with reality.

I know, admire and love Cuba. It is an exceptionally strong, determined and resilient nation. Reading all the alarming reports, I decided to return and to speak to the Cuban people directly.

I visited Cuba again. This time in between my work in war-torn Middle East and South America, a continent suffering vicious assaults by toxic counter-revolutionary cliques loyal to Washington and Europe.

I decided to drive, to visit remote villages and historic revolutionary sites, as well as the area surrounding the territory stolen from Cuba by Western imperialism – Guantanamo Bay. I drove for over 1,000 kilometers, in the East and West of the country. I worked in Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Havana, Bay of Pigs, Playa Giron and in one of the most remote (and before the Revolution the poorest) areas of the country – Cienaga de Zapata.

I visited Prensa Latina and ICAIC in Havana, but this time my main goal was simply to listen to the Cuban people.

Were they aware of that mortal danger coming from the North? Were they ready to forge compromises? Was their revolutionary spirit getting diluted?

My conclusion is clear and decisive: “No! Cuba is not falling. Cuban people know; they are well aware of what is most likely behind the sweet talk of the US President. They will not yield, and they will not betray the Revolution.”

The danger from the West is real; it is there. It is always there, as it is real. Coercions, tricks, Machiavellian politics – all will be used in attempt to derail, even to destroy the Cuban Revolution. But do not think for one second that the Cuban people don’t see what the Empire is trying to achieve.

Cuba is standing, where it has been for decades. It is doing better than before. It is also stronger than ever. I’m convinced that it is going to prevail.

Before I continue, I have one suggestion to make to those who are thinking otherwise and who are genuinely worried: go to Cuba and help if you think that the country is now facing unprecedented danger. Travel there, talk to people, work, write, film, photograph. Support Cuba abroad. Buy its products, listen to its music, watch films, read books. Spend money there, instead of in Thailand, the Virgin Islands or Egypt, if you need some sun. Do something real, something concrete.

Cuba is the most internationalist country on Earth. It has been showing solidarity with dozens of oppressed and needy countries. It has already done so much for the others – the rest of the world. Now do something for Cuba, instead of prophesying its collapse! Do it if you worry about its future, and do it even if you don’t.

*

Santiago de Cuba is known to be a brave and strong-minded city. This is where the Cuban Revolution began on July 26, 1953. This is where a great poet, writer, and a national hero, José Martí is buried.

Mausoleum of Jose Marti in Santiago de Cuba

And this is where, on January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro proclaimed the victory of the Revolution from a balcony in Santiago’s city hall.

Like Salvador Bahia in Brazil, Santiago de Cuba gave the world some of the finest musicians. Now, in legendary Casa de la Trova and in many other clubs, cabarets and music halls of the city, mixed couples of all races are dancing to the upbeat rhythms of son and salsa. In Cuba, racism is a foreign unknown factor.

Casa de la Trova – all mixed couples

During my visit, on the second floor of Casa de la Trova, a young Chinese man was exchanging love notes with a black girl, while several local mixed couples were dancing cheek-to-cheek on an old parquet floor right in front of a brilliant, euphoric band.

Here, no ‘political correctness’ is needed. Nothing is forced. Racial and gender equality come naturally, instinctively, as a logical ‘by-product’ of the Revolution.

Countless Cuban people fought and died liberating African nations from Western imperialism. Thousands of Cuban doctors and teachers are still deployed in some of the poorest and remote parts of the world. Cuban Revolution fights for humanism. It struggles; it stands on the side of the oppressed, be they men, women or children. The color of the skin matters nothing. To all Cubans, one thing is clear: each person, each race deserves to live with dignity.

This is “my Communism”. Cuba is my “mother country”.

And that is why Western imperialism hates Cuba. That is why it is using its vitriolic propaganda to discredit the Cuban Revolution. That is why it tries to derail the country from the Communist course by all means at its disposal: through direct attacks, embargo, and now, through a new Machiavellian chapter of ‘normalization’.

Ignacio Guerra Batancour, a mathematician from Santiago de Cuba is a determined supporter of the Revolution and the Cuban Communist system:

Of course people are afraid of Obama and his motives for recently visiting Cuba. Did he come just in order to normalize relations between our two countries? I doubt it! But fortunately, Cuban people have plenty of revolutionary blood left circulating in their veins. And they are smart! Most of them don’t want to become a colony again, and they don’t want capitalism. Here we just want to improve our economic situation a little bit, but otherwise the great majority of people are happy with what they have. I am 64 years old…

He looks at most 50…

I remember how things used to be before the Revolution. It was tough, humiliating… We had to live with malnutrition, ignorance, and exploitation… Things totally changed when Communism arrived. Now I’m not rich either. Not at all! My wife and I have worked hard throughout our entire lives. She used to be a member of the international medical brigade. And all our family members got very good education. My wife is a doctor; our son is a neurosurgeon. We don’t have much but we have enough; we have what we really need. And all of us are living meaningful lives.

But now the United States will definitely try to destabilize Cuba…

Of course! We all know it. Those who say that they don’t know are actually part of the plot against Communist Cuba. We see what the West is doing all over the world. But Cuba will not be allowed to fall. North Americans will try all sorts of tricks, but they’d never dare to invade. Because they still remember the Bay of Pigs and Playa Giron. This nation has great heart but it can also be tough. It has guts. It would not allow this system to disappear.

I told him how much I love his country. He embraced me. “Welcome!” he said. “Live healthy and long life! And come back to Santiago de Cuba, soon. Real friends are always welcomed. We will be waiting for you.”

*

Playa Giron… Here, the West dared. And it lost, spectacularly. Entire nation mobilized. In just one decisive moment, this green, gentle island turned to a monolith, to concrete barrier. “They” didn’t pass! The people whom they came to ‘liberate’ stopped them.

Playa Giron – first major defeat of Yankie imperialism in Latin America

I travelled Playa Giron, driving for over 250 kilometers, from Havana; first on the impressive six-lane motorway, then on a two-lane road. I had been driven and I drove the 1952 Chevrolet, painstakingly restored, shiny and still a reliable friendly monster.

Me and my 1952 horse

Cuba was changing, impressively, and I saw it all around me. The terrible years of extreme sacrifice were over. There were now excellent roads all over the island, comfortable and clean rest stops and fuel stations.

“Look, orange farms!” Dariel, my friend and a driver kept showing me. “And here is one huge sugarcane plantation… and corn…”

Fields were well attended and villages along the road simple but clean and self sufficient, with medical posts, schools and all basic services.

Cuba did not look rich, but it didn’t look poor, either. And it looked much better than three years ago, when I last worked there.

It was definitely not “falling apart”. It was not collapsing. It was growing, improving and evolving. Not to notice, to deny the progress would certainly require great anti-revolutionary self-discipline.

At the small but very informative Museum of Giron, I saw images, maps and documents, explaining those brutal events of the US-orchestrated and sponsored invasion of April 1961, aimed at overthrowing the government of Fidel Castro. More than 1,500 Cuban exiles and mercenaries landed on two sites along the Bay of Pigs. For 72 hours, intense battles raged all over the area – Cienaga de Zapata. Gusanos, invaders, were finally defeated.

New motorways everywhere

Now the road originating from the motorway and leading all the way to Playa Giron is lined with monuments to fallen Cuban men and women who defended their motherland against the mightiest imperialist country on earth. Countless powerful posters keep reminding the travellers:

GIRON – THE FIRST GREAT DEFEAT OF YANQUI IMPERIALISM IN LATIN AMERICA

And of course: PATRIA O MUERTE! “Fatherland or Death!”

I ask the curator of the museum whether the local people see this place as merely a historical site, or whether they realize that the same acts of terror performed by the West here are still taking place all over the world?

Western terrorism

She answers clearly:

We are well aware what is happening in the world. We watch news, we watch TeleSur, and we discuss the events. What happened here is only one of the thousands of terrible crimes committed by imperialism.

I look at the photos of destroyed civilian airports, of injured and killed Cuban people. There is a pair of shoes belonging to a lady who lost her life during the bombing of a passenger airport. In Western lexicon, this is called ‘failed invasion’. I call it ‘terrorism’.

Then a mixed group of US and Canadian tourists arrived in a huge bus. Loud and disrespectful, they began taking ‘selfies’ in front of the monuments and exhibited military hardware. There were no feelings showing on their faces – no feelings and no regrets.

I approached an elderly couple from Minnesota:

“Does this evoke anything in you?” I asked.

“Well, there was a battle, right?” a man replied, a big but empty grin decorating his face.

“Yes, there was a battle”, I said and walked away.

*

While I was in Cuba, Fidel Castro addressed his people during the closing of the 7th Party Congress:

We all reach our turn, but the ideas of the Cuban communists will remain as proof that on this planet, working with fervor and dignity, can produce the material and cultural wealth that humans need, and we must fight relentlessly to obtain these. To our brothers in Latin America and the world we must convey that the Cuban people will overcome.

This may be one of the last times that I speak in this room. I voted for all the candidates submitted for election by Congress and I appreciate the invitation and the honor of your listening to me. I congratulate you all, and firstly, compañero Raúl Castro for his magnificent effort.

We will set forth on the march forward and we will perfect what we should perfect, with the utmost loyalty and united force, just as Martí, Maceo and Gómez, in an unstoppable march.

*

In Cuba, everything from defending the country to preserving the environment is considered a revolutionary act. I drove through the impressive biosphere, Cienaga de Zapata, a world heritage site. In the afternoon, a huge army of colorful crabs began crossing the road. The entire area is pristine, un-commercialized. I murmur to my driver that the crabs are definitely benefiting from socialism, and so are mangroves, swamps and beaches. He agrees.

In a deep village, Soplillar, I encounter a small museum and a beautiful library with an impressive collection of books. Tables and seats are handmade with love, and so are heartwarming toys.

Pedro Amaury Santos Llambio in Soplillar library

A man in charge of the place, Pedro Amaury Santos Llambio is a university professor, with passion for rural education. For several days a month he teaches at the university in the city, but the rest of time he takes care of the museum and the library, located some 5 kilometers from the coast of the Bay of Pigs.

You would not believe it, but this huge area of Cienaga de Zapata used to have only four schools before the Revolution. Children used to suffer from malnutrition; there was hunger and misery everywhere. All that you see here now is a direct result of the Revolution.

Comrade Pedro Amary is a self-declared bookworm. And he knows many revolutionaries from both Cuba and abroad. He has even met one of the daughters of Noam Chomsky.

He is convinced that Cuba will not fall. He believes in socialism. He educates people, informs them, and discusses the world with them.

He explains:

“Cuba is very strong. We have done everything with our own hands. I have many Europeans coming here. I don’t know why… how do they find me? This place is so far from any big city… But they come: thinkers, writers, and journalists… We talk. I am open with them. I say: ‘all that you now have in Europe is due to the massacres and theft that you have been committing all over the world.”

I tell him that I recently gave a speech at the Italian Parliament, telling there, straight to their faces, basically the same thing. I also tell him that in the future, I’d like to come back and spend some time here, talk to local people in the village, and to read from one of my books in this library.

We shake hands; we embrace. I talk to a few more people in the village. Cuba is not going to disappear. I feel it. If in danger, we will fight for it.

Observed from here, it is that simple!

*

Briefly I worked in Havana. It is more complex than the provinces. I met painters, filmmakers, journalists, and owners of private restaurants. Their language was ornamental, words selected more carefully.

Obsession with culture – Chaplin Cinema in Havana

There was more talk about “peace” and “understanding”.

Some people in Havana don’t care about politics, but most of them do.

I understand why many foreigners, after visiting only Havana and maybe one or two touristy beaches, feel that Cuba is losing its revolutionary zeal. But even in Havana, ‘service providers’ is one thing, and regular citizens quite another.

And of course, the great Cuban intellectuals and artists are almost unanimously with the Revolution.

But during this visit I decided not to spend too much time in the company of my revolutionary intellectual comrades. I wanted to hear from provincial capitals and the countryside.

*

At the other end of the country, Comunidad Glorieta is just a few kilometers from Guantanamo Bay, right next to the “border” with the United States.

I stop a young woman in the middle of the street. She is 28 years old, working in a video store. Her name is Yarai. It is a random choice.

I ask her whether she knows what is happening behind the barbed wire, on the occupied territory?

She knows.

Is she afraid?

“Afraid? Of course not! I hope there would never be a war with gringos… Of course we want that territory, that base, to be returned to Cuba. We don’t like them to have it. But am I afraid? Not at all!”

Others in the village react in a similar way.

I often use the word “fear”. I ask whether people are “afraid”. It is because many of my friends all over the world keep expressing their anxiety, saying that Cuba would not survive, that it could soon be swept away.

Back in Guantanamo City I saw huge playgrounds full of children. It was Sunday and thousands of people were out, playing, promenading, and talking. Another beautiful Cuban historic city! I witnessed a relaxed, optimistic atmosphere.

Here too, I spoke to people. Some were indignant about the base, some indifferent. But there was no fear, and absolute certainty that the Cuban political system will survive.

Guantanamo – first line of defense against imperialism

Approaching Guantanamo, a huge poster declared:

WELCOME TO GUANTANAMO! THE FIRST ANTI-IMPERIALIST LINE OF DEFENSE

My local driver was paraphrasing Che. He used to be a schoolteacher. Now he was retired, but wanted to ‘keep busy’. When I told him that I am tired, he laughed:

Che used to say that true revolutionaries have no right to get tired. ‘All those who get tired have the right to be tired. But then, they have no right to call themselves true revolutionaries.’

This was Cuba.

“In that case let’s stop for a quick coffee”, I smiled. “And let’s keep working!”

“That’s better!” he roared, hitting me on the back.

*

The base was suddenly there, in front of me, down below; huge, intrusive, disgusting, totally out of place; an illegally occupied Cuban territory; an imperialist stronghold.

I made a grimace. A couple of Venezuelan travellers caught my facial expression. A girl said: “Que mierda, no?” What a shit!

And I nodded. There was nothing else to add. She summarized it all fairly accurately.

“If Obama is truly serious about improving the relationship between the two countries, he should first return Guantanamo Base to Cuba”, I said.

All three of us just shrug our shoulders. Like: “we know better.” In Venezuela they definitely knew perfectly well what the Yankee imperialist doodle looks like.

On the way there, our car was stopped at a checkpoint. Police in Cuba hardly stop cars, but here, near the “border”, things are always a little bit tense.

The officer happened to be a young lady.

“How are you?” I asked.

“It’s like an oven here”, she replied. “So hot! Must be over 35C.”

She had ran out of cigarettes and was visibly tired.

I had bought a pack of local smokes and a can of ice-cold soda at Loma Grande. Now, driving back towards Guantanamo city and Santiago de Cuba, I extended my hand and offered her both. “For you’, I said.

“You are trying to corrupt me, gorgeous!” she was laughing her lungs out.

She was openly flirting with me, in the most innocent and natural way. I knew that I had to respond, to return her compliment, somehow; otherwise she would get offended. This is how it was in Cuba. For a while I was searching for words. Western political correctness had made me clumsy.

She had beautiful eyes, jet-black hair and a big gun hanging at her hip.

“The gringos would never manage to pass through this checkpoint”, I said. “They’d freeze when confronted by your beauty.”

It was clumsy. I was out of practice, but it worked. She smiled happily. She hugged me, pressed her fragile body against mine for just a fraction of a moment, and then kissed me on my cheek.

For a short moment both of us felt light, but all around us it was all damn serious, all real. Cuban tanks were just nearby, their cannons facing the base. There were bunkers and barbed wire clearly visible from where we stood. Yes, ‘the first anti-imperialist line of defense’.

I was well aware that I was at the front, and on the correct side of the line.

“I’ll now go”, I said to the girl. “I have to go. But I’m always with your people.”

I thought that what I had just said was somehow out of place. It wasn’t. She saluted me, her face suddenly serious. I saluted her back.

Then I asked a few last questions:

“Are you concerned?” I pointed towards the barbed wire.

“No.”

Not afraid of what may be behind Obama’s visit? Not afraid that they will now try something else? Not scared that this time they may succeed, that they could finally manage to derail Cuban socialism?

“No, not afraid”, she replied. Just that. Proud. Confident. A true Cuban!

I got back into the car and in a few moments the checkpoint disappeared behind the curve. Diligently, I began cleaning my equipment as if it was an arsenal of weapons. I was wondering why I suddenly had a lump in my throat, and why my glasses got so foggy.

“So Cuba is not going to fall?”

“No, Comrade”, the driver replied. “It cannot. It has no right to fall.”

We were speeding towards Santiago, Santiago de Cuba.

“Good. Then let’s sing”, I said in a hoarse voice. “Let’s sing now, damn it!”

*

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.

“In less than a fortnight, EU Member States will take a decision on the re-approval of glyphosate. Genius [lobby firm] is working to get this toxic herbicide re-approved by communicating the industry’s mantra that glyphosate is scientifically proven safe, sponsored by Monsanto, Dow and Syngenta. At the same time, they are being paid by German authorities and EU-funded projects to work on issues that are closely related to glyphosate, and that are key to the interests of the same corporations. Public authorities using the same lobby consultancies as the corporations they are supposed to regulate is highly problematic…” – Corporate European Observatory

This article contains edited key extracts taken from the text of the Corporate European Observatory.  

On 9 May, Corporate Europe Observatory posted an article on its website that described how Genius, a lobby consultancy firm based in Germany, has been employed to distort the debate on glyphosate in favour the biotech industry.

Research linking the use of glyphosate to various diseases is well documented, and the World Health Organisation has declared the substance as “probably causing cancer to humans.” Despite this, the European Commission is seeking to grant glyphosate re-approval for another ten years. The re-authorisation is being sought by the Glyphosate Task Force (GTF), an industry platform uniting producers of glyphosate-based herbicides, whose members include Monsanto, Dow Agrosciences, Syngenta, and Barclay Chemicals. Genius was used to run its website.

In addition to the Glyphosate Task Force (GTF), Genius has been hired by biotech lobby group EuropaBio, its German member organisation DIB and individual corporations including Bayer, BASF, and Syngenta. It also works for the Brussels-based corporate food think tank EUFIC (European Food Information Council).

Monsanto, Syngenta, and Dow (all members of the GTF), as well as BASF and Bayer coordinate a lot of their lobbying efforts via lobby associations like EuropaBio. All of them share a deep commercial interest in the re-approval of glyphosate and in the continued production of glyphosate-tolerant GM crops, also via the sales of other brands of pesticides used for the same crops.

In the case of glyphosate, Genius ‘translates’ the science on its toxicity for its clients from the pesticide industry by writing on the Glyphosate Task Force website that it does not cause cancer, and saying that the IARC “should withdraw the decision” to classify glyphosate as a Group 2A carcinogen.

However, Genius also lists public institutions as its clients, who are in charge of regulating the industry’s products, including the European Commission, the EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) and 10 German federal and regional authorities, including the German risk assessment agency Bfr. This is important because Germany is the Rapporteur Member State for the re-approval of glyphosate, and Bfr is the agency in charge of the renewal assessment report.

Genius takes part in several EU-funded research projects that generally aim to help shape EU risk assessment requirements or increase communication activities on the supposed benefits of the biotech industry’s products.

An important example is GRACE (GMO Risk Assessment and Communication of Evidence). Kristina Sinemus, Genius’ Managing Director, and its co-founder Klaus Minol take part in this project. In fact, about half of the experts participating in GRACE have close ties to industry lobby groups like ILSI (International Life Sciences Institute), PRRI (Public Research and Regulation Initiative) and/or to industry-funded organisation ISBR (International Society for Biosafety Research). Genius is not the only lobby consultancy participating in GRACE; Belgium-based Perseus also works with companies aiming to get deregulation for new techniques of genetic engineering.

The GRACE project is important, since it feeds directly into the process by which the European Commission in 2016 will decide on further standards of risk assessment for GM crops.

Testbiotech warns that “there is a substantial risk that the EU Commission will come to false conclusions, and could fail to set sufficiently robust standards to maintain the precautionary approach as required by EU regulations.”

Between 2006 and 2009, Genius worked for EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority responsible for risk assessing the products of Genius’ pesticides/biotech clients. Its role was to “support the European Food Safety Authority through editorial work and public relations tasks.” Tasks included the 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 annual reports, background texts for the website, and a newsletter, as well as doing communication work for a conference on GMO risk assessment for human and animal health and the environment that was held in Brussels in 2009.

Genius has been involved in numerous other EU funded projects in the same field, as detailed in the article by CEO. That article (containing all relevant links) should be read in full all links because it highlights how a failure and the complete lack of willingness by the EU to properly regulate lobbying in Brussels as well as conflicts of interest within public bodies have all but corrupted decision-making processes and have placed the health of 500 million Europeans at serious risk, while continuing to fuel an unsustainable model of corporate-controlled agriculture. 

If the decision-making and propaganda surrounding glyphosate were made into a Shakespearean play, it would be based on tragedy. In the absence of Shakespeare, here’s a short but excellent video by Pesticide Action Network Europe: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9Yh560PoVI

People of Hasakah, who were angry with the arrival of 250 US soldiers to the Kurdish-controlled town of Rumeilan without Syrian government’s mandate, condemned “the US imperialism” and the “illegal presence” of US troops in the Hasakah province, Iraq-based Ara News reported.

State-run SANA news agency cited Hasakah Governor Mohamad Zaal al-Ali as saying

“The stand of Hasakah people is a confirmation that the existence of such [American] troops in Rumelan means a conspiracy against Syrian people, who refuse to let those who supported terrorism against their country to have their troops on Syrian soil,” reported.

A similar rally had earlier been held on Wednesday as local residents called for American Troops expulsion from their country.

“We are categorically against the impermissible and flagrant violation of our country’s sovereignty. We will not allow American boots on our soil. We are also against any plans for a division or federalization of Syria,” Al-Hasakah Governor Mohammad Zaal told on Wednesday.

On April 28, US President Barack Obama announced that Washington would “deploy up to 250 additional US personnel in Syria including Special Forces.” They are reportedly expected to train the Syrian Democratic Forces.

Painting the US move as

“blatant act of aggression that constitutes a dangerous intervention and a gross violation of the Syrian sovereignty”, the Syrian Foreign Ministry stressed that “This intervention is rejected and illegitimate, and it happened without the Syrian government’s approval.” 

The US administration, however, argues that their move is not illegal and the US does not need the Syrian government’s approval.

Photo Caption: Syrian people took to the streets in southeastern city of Hasakah on Friday and burned the US Flag.

Repeating unconfirmed accusations against Bashar Assad’s government, the spokesperson of the US State Department said late in April “We didn’t seek the Syrian Government’s approval before making this decision, and I find it the height of irony to call this a blatant act of aggression when they continue to gas and barrel bomb their own people and are reportedly now bombing a hospital in Aleppo.”

The first time Obama broke his 2013 promise of no “American boots on the ground in Syria” was when he sent 50 US special operations forces to Syria last year, claiming the move as a “counterterrorism” measure and not a step closer to a ground invasion.

Since Obama has broken his promise involving ground troops in Syria, we can expect the same about-face in Libya.“There’s no plan for ground troops in Libya,” Obama said at a press conference in London during his European tour last week. He added: “I don’t think that’s necessary. I don’t think it would be welcomed by this new government. It would send the wrong signal.” One can imagine it’s only a matter of time before that statement is proven false.

Last week also Obama called for more troops and gunships into Iraq. The deployment was confirmed days later during a surprise visit to Iraq by US Defense Secretary Ash Carter who said 217 additional troops are set to arrive in the Arab state.

The US-led coalition has been carrying out alleged airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria since mid-2014.However, the US involvement in Syria began without the approval of the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad.

“Nothing justifies killing of innocent people.” (Tony Blair, CNN, 15th January 2015.)

The publication of the Chilcot Inquiry which began in 2009 and concluded three years ago, investigating the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq, so far costing a reported £10,375,000, is to be delayed until after the 23rd June UK European Union referendum on whether Britain stays in or leaves the EU.

According to the Daily Telegraph (1) Prime Minister David Cameron is “delaying (the) Chilcot Report to avoid embarrassing Tony Blair”, whose government’s “dodgy dossiers”, produced when he was Prime Minister, were such an integral part of America’s excuse to invade, overthrow and murder many of a sovereign government – with the UK tagging along as the fig leaf “coalition.”

One dossier of special significance was that of 24^th September 2002, published on the day Parliament was recalled to discuss its fictional “findings.” Fairy stories contained within included a government “investigation” in to weapons of mass destruction stating that Iraq possessed WMDs including chemical and biological weapons and that they had again developed a nuclear weapons programme. As was quickly established after the invasion, the all was entirely untrue..

Also included was the claim that Iraq had sought to acquire “significant quantities of uranium from Africa” (2) another claim also found to be complete nonsense.

In fact, had Iraq determined to have a nuclear programme it had no need to purchase uranium from anywhere, it has extensive deposits – which were discovered by the British in the 1950s, documentation of which must be somewhere in government records.

The forward to this piece of fiction was written by Blair and reads:

“The document discloses that his (Saddam Hussein’s) military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them.”

Major General Michael Laurie, who was involved in producing the dossier wrote to the Chilcot Inquiry in 2011 saying:

“The purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war, rather than setting out the available intelligence, and that to make the best out of sparse and inconclusive intelligence the wording was developed with care.”

Given that which has come out over the years – even in spite of the Chairman of the Inquiry, Sir John Chilcot’s close relationship with Tony Blair with whom he had worked on the Northern Ireland peace process and who was knighted by a grateful Blair – the final Report is hardly likely to show Blair’s significant part in Iraq’s destruction in anything but a very bad light. There will certainly be a resultant vociferous clamour from the public, legal experts, families of soldiers dead and maimed and Iraqi victims themselves for his appearance at a War Crimes Tribunal to explain his actions.

The reason for the delay it seems hinges on Blair’s support for Prime Minister David Cameron who heads the campaign for Britain to remain in Europe, with Blair speaking at every opportunity on the benefits of staying in (he also still has ambition, so far thwarted, to be EU President it has been reported.)

Were the Chilcot Report to be published prior to the referendum and shred any remaining claims to credibility to which he might aspire those who were persuaded to vote to remain might change their minds and vote to leave on the basis if Blair says it misleading is writ large.

As David Davis MP, the former Conservative Shadow Home Secretary put it, the delay could be to save the blushes of Tony Blair, a “cheerleader for the ‘In’ campaign”.

Further: “Now that it is clear that the Tony Blair is going to be a cheer leader for the ‘In’ campaign it is obvious that this delay on the Chilcot report is nothing more than cynical political expediency.”

Of course Cameron may have an additional reason for delaying as long as possible the judgement on his friend and admitted “mentor” Teflon Tony. Many are referring to his involvement in the shameful attack on Libya as “Cameron’s Iraq.”

Chilcot might yet lead to calls for closer scrutiny in to his actions in helping to destroy another country: “with a high standard of living and a robust per capita daily caloric intake of 3,144 …” with, according to the UN FAO: “strides in public health … since 1980, child mortality rates have dropped from seventy per thousand live births to nineteen in 2009. Life expectancy has risen from sixty one to seventy four years of age during the same span of years.” (3)

David Davis has called the delay in publication: “Incomprehensible and unacceptable.” It is certainly the latter, but on reflection, not the former.

Notes

1.    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/04/david-cameron-chilcot-report-to-be-published-after-eu-referendum/

2.    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Dossier

3.    http://www.globalresearch.ca/destroying-a-country-s-standard-of-living-what-libya-had-achieved-what-has-been-destroyed/26686

“Big fan of LBJ, me mum,” said Chris Uhlmann, journalist for the ABC’s Twenty-Four hour television news network.  And that, perhaps, was the only thing of any interest in what must be regarded as one of the most boring exhibitions of television in decades.  The topic?  Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s journey to seek the Governor General’s permission to dissolve both houses of parliament.  An election looms.

A twenty-four hour news station on a Sunday is bound to be desperate for material, and in a country where nothing much happens of global significance, apart of a desire to intervene in distant theatres at Washington’s behest, journalists tend to clutch at straws of commentary.  The camera becomes, in that sense, the accessory to the dull speech and observation, a colluding agent in a spectacle of the dreary. 

The ABC’s media chopper had been commissioned to supply dull aerial pictures of the drive in from the Canberra airport of Australia’s Governor General, representative of Australia’s de jure head, the Queen of England.  ABC journalists embroidered the pictures with the obvious. “That is the Governor General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, coming off the plane.”  Who else could it have been?  Nothing as exciting as a conspirator inspired by a coup d’état.

Why Cosgrove has been bothered on this cold, rainy Sunday is that Prime Minister Turnbull has sought to push through legislation and failed because of an obstructionist senate, notably the bill that would create the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).   By in large, the budget has also been opposed by the Australian Labor Party.

In the twenty-four live scram for information, commenting journalists struggle to find fun facts.  Uhlmann reminds Australians of the visit by President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1966, designed, he inventively interprets, solely fur the purpose of shoring up Prime Minister Harold Holt’s electoral chances.  Australians were fighting the good war against communist yellow hordes, and needed reassurance they had backed, and packed, the right horse.

The US President seemed to be relaxed enough, and got whammed during dinner at The Lodge.  The giant felt boisterously home.  Australian puritans, ever concerned about how leaders should behave, have since commented that it was troubling for the “Leader of the Free World, his finger on nuclear triggers, to be a man who has the balance of his mind disturbed by the demon drink” (Canberra Times, Jun 11, 2012).

More inconsequential commentary.  “The motorcade is turning into King’s Avenue….  You might be able to see Parliament.”  In truth, there is little to see, with heavy rain and fog enshrouding some of the journey.  The Governor General’s residence seems to hover in Gothic darkness, with various individuals visible only as silhouettes.

Desperation is palpable amongst the rambling observers, and updates showing journalists in the miserable rain suggest they would rather be somewhere else.  (The remote Australian capital can be rather miserable as the winter commences.)

Unnecessary questions, mostly of the unanswerable type, follow in what becomes an echo chamber of uncertainty.  Will the PM spend ten to fifteen minutes with the Governor General?  What will be worn?  This is democracy (to be exact, constitutional monarchy) in gradual atrophy: a discussion about the clothing attire of a de facto head-of-state, in conversation with a de jure representative of a monarch, governance by bauble.

“Sir Peter seems to travel light.” Another observation about why the GG might be carrying his own bag.  Surely such bags are heavy, and for that reason, require a retinue to assist?  And just to try to make things more interesting, the commentary team give viewers another fun fact: Sir Peter was one of the last grand experiments of ceremony by the previous, now deposed Prime Minister, Tony Abbott. Finding the knighting system irresistibly chic, Abbott decided to add the Governor General to the ranks by advising the Queen, through the GG, to accept it himself.  Sir Peter, rise!

Criminal Wrongdoing of a Presidential Candidate? What are the political implications with regard to the election campaign? Will it be revealed to the broader public? (GR Editor)

After interviewing Hillary Clinton’s top aides last week, the question now becomes whether or not the FBI will interview Clinton next as the investigation enters its final stages.

In an interview today with CBS’ “Face The Nation”, Hillary said nobody had contacted her regarding an interview.

“No one has reached out to me yet, but last summer, I think last August, I made it clear I’m more than ready to talk to anybody, anytime.”

Clinton also doubled down on her claims that she did nothing wrong.

“It’s a security inquiry, I always took classified material seriously. There was never any material marked classified that was sent or received by me.”

Of course, there’s classified and then there’s “classified”, but we’ll save that for another day.

After interviewing Hillary Clinton’s top aides last week, the question now becomes whether or not the FBI will interview Clinton next as the investigation enters its final stages

As far as whether or not the FBI will eventually interview Clinton, although the FBI hasn’t said Hillary is the target of the probe, many experts are saying that’s how they see the situation unfolding.

“This certainly sends the signal that they are nearing an end to their investigation. Typically, the way we structured investigations when I was a federal prosecutor is that we would seek to interview the target last. As you begin to interview people who are extremely close to the target of an investigation, people who are considered confidants, you typically interview those people towards the final stages of the investigation. So that way if they tell you something that is contrary to something you’ve already learned, you can immediately challenge them on that information.” said Steven Levin, a former federal prosecutor.

“It’s very high-stakes. They’re only going to ask her questions that they know the answers to already.” added former U.S. attorney Matthew Whitaker.

As far as one angle that may be played if Clinton is found to have mishandled classified information, that it was not intentional, national security lawyer Bradley Moss says that’s irrelevant.

“The extent to which the person intended to remove classified documents is irrelevant. All that matters for strict legal purposes of culpability is whether the person, by virtue of their official position, came into possession of classified information and affirmatively removed the information to an unauthorized location.”

Outside of whether or not the FBI decides to interview Clinton, there are two interesting elements to the case that we’re interested in learning more about.

The first, what comes of the capture and extradition to the United States of notorious hacker Guccifer,who claimed he gained access to Clinton’s “completely unsecured” server. Will the FBI interview him and gather information from the hacker (who since he’s already arrested for hacking other officials, doesn’t have anything to lose by disclosing evidence of the Clinton hack). And finally, what information has been provided by Bryan Pagliano, the IT specialist believed to have set up and maintained Clinton’s server. Pagliano was given full immunity in exchange for his help with the investigation, and perhaps that specific event will be enough to trip up Clinton when the FBI asks one of those questions that they already know the answer to.

Over April-May dozens of people were murdered across Aleppo as civilian areas and major hospitals were bombed by the NATO-backed ‘rebel’ groups.

They were even filmed firing their ‘hell cannons’ and saying “throw it on the civilians”

Meanwhile, western media ran fantasy stories about the besieged city.

If you believed the western corporate media you might think that the Syrian Government, for some unknown reason, has been bombing its own hospitals, and had killed Aleppo’s only paediatric surgeon. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Aleppo faces a large operation by the Syrian Army, after the liberation of Palmyra on 28 March, to reclaim those sections of the city held by Islamist fighters since 2012. Almost half Aleppo’s population has been displaced because of the fighting, but there are still about 1.8 million residents.

The withdrawal of the Saudi-backed ‘High Negotiations Committee’ from the Geneva peace talks on 21 April was followed the very next day by a pre-emptive counter-offensive. Many hundreds of rockets were fired into government-held areas by a coalition led by the internationally banned terrorist organisation Jabhat al Nusra.

These attacks came mostly from ‘hell cannons’, which shoot large gas canisters filled with explosives and at times chemicals. They caused havoc, killing and wounding many people in the streets, residential areas, schools and hospitals. The Syrian Army responded by shelling the al Nusra hideouts.

Aleppo Doctor Dr Nabil Antaki (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44597.htm) estimates that 1.5 million live in the government controlled western parts of the city, with another 300,000 in the Islamist controlled mostly eastern areas. Dr Antaki complains bitterly that the western media “only talk about loss of life in east of Aleppo which is entirely controlled by al Nusra. The three quarters of Aleppo under Syrian Government control, where numerous paediatricians are practising are of no consequence”.

He was referring to the string of NATO-Islamist bomb attacks on major state hospitals including Ibn Rushd, al Dabbit and al Razi. Many dozens of people were killed and injured. Those attacks were filmed by Syrian and Russian people on the ground, but very little of this reached the western media.

Photo caption: Aleppo Medical Association doctors stand with Syrian soldiers, demanding an end to the western mis-information about Aleppo attacks.

Dr Antaki wasn’t the only Aleppo doctor who was upset. The Aleppo Medical Association, on its Facebook page denounced the western propaganda campaign (https://www.facebook.com/Aleppodoctors.org/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1174868069211596).

Twenty doctors in front of the heavily damaged al Dabbit Hospital declared their support for the Syrian Army. Their signs – in English, Italian and German as well as Arabic – read: ‘Syrian Arab Army represents me’, ‘Long live Syria, long live Aleppo’, ‘Terrorists are killing our children’, ‘Armed opposition is destroying our civilisation’, ‘No for armed opposition’.

Yet the story of Russian or Syrian air attacks on the ‘al Quds hospital’ gained prominence in the western media. Stories were fuelled with information from the French group Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors without Borders) and the US Government funded group the ‘White Helmets’ (who you can see celebrating their ‘revolution’ with Jabhat al Nusra here:                  https://www.facebook.com/electronicresistanceteam/videos/1172411149468354/?hc_location=ufi). CCTV showed people leaving this ‘hospital’ before an explosion.

The building is in the southern al-Sukkari district, which has been a stronghold of Jabhat al Nusra for some years. Many Aleppans had never heard of ‘al Quds hospital’. Dr Antaki says: ‘This hospital did not exist before the war. It must have been installed in a building after the war began”. MSF reports seem to confirm this.

This facility was not a state run or registered facility. Nevertheless, MSF representatives Pablo Marco and Muskilda Zancada claimed: “Al Quds hospital has been functional for more than 4 years so it was basically impossible that this information was not known … the facts are pointing to this being a deliberate attack”               (http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/05/about-bias-and-propaganda-on-syria).

Photo caption: NATO-GCC backed terrorists in Aleppo load their weapon of choice, a ‘hell cannon’

Indeed, MSF-backed medical facilities in Syria have almost exclusively been in al Nusra held areas, such as Douma, north east of Damascus. Often they provide money but not doctors.

There is some debate as to whether clinics or hospitals run to service banned terrorist organisations have protection under international humanitarian law. Certainly US law does not allow it. A few years back the US jailed US doctor Rafig Sabir for 25 years after it emerged he had been ‘on call’ to treat al Qaeda fighters in Saudi Arabia (http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-2nd-circuit/1554703.html).

Registered hospitals certainly do have such protection, and it is a crime to attack them. However this protection disappears when the facility becomes militarised. ‘Civilian objects are protected against attack, unless and for such time as they are military objectives’           (https://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule10).

Nevertheless, all three air forces that claim to be bombing terrorist groups in Syria – Russia, Syria and the USA – denied involvement in the ‘al Quds hospital’ incident. The US has engaged in bombing some areas around Aleppo (https://www.rt.com/news/332109-russian-jets-isis-warlords), but is not known to have carried out attacks on Jabhat al Nusra. That group is well embedded with the proxy armies Washington likes to call ‘moderate rebels’.

Photo caption: ‘al Quds hospital’: not quite a pile of rubble, nor a designated hospital

There were other serious discrepancies in the ‘al Quds hospital’ story. Pablo Marco for MSF told CNN and PBS that “there were two barrel bombs that fell close to the hospital … then the third barrel bomb fell in the entrance”. Barrel bombs are dropped by helicopters. Yet the MSF press release spoke of an “airstrike … [which] brought down the building … leaving a pile of rubble”. Reports of the death toll ranged from 14 to 50.

However that building is not a pile of rubble. As Rick Sterling pointed out in his 7 May ‘Open letter to MSF’ (https://off-guardian.org/2016/05/07/open-letter-to-msf-about-bias-and-propaganda-on-syria/), photos show that the facility is still standing and it appears to be a heavily sand-bagged residential building, “a medical clinic in the ground floor of an unmarked and largely abandoned apartment building” ().

Even more damaging for the MSF story is the report that Russian satellite imagery shows the damaged building was in much the same state back on 15 October last year. If this is correct, the MSF-backed ‘al Quds hospital’, apparently a field clinic for al Nusra fighters and their families, suffered no attack on 27 April.

The scale of coverage of the ‘al Quds hospital’ story obscured the ugly fact that several much larger, real public hospitals in Aleppo were actually being bombed by the al Qaeda groups. The former story covered up these poorly reported massacres. It is not that there was no western coverage of the real hospital attacks, the coverage was just removed to the very margins of western headlines.

Photo: Russian satellite imagery shows ‘al Quds hospital’ in the al Sukkari district had the same damage back in October 2015

Take the devastating bombing of al Razi hospital, which Al Alam reported as killing 4 and wounding 38 (http://en.alalam.ir/news/1812988), in days of ‘rebel’ shelling which left 57 dead and 150 injured. The Wall Street Journal mentioned western Aleppo casualties and al Razi in an article which led by blaming Russia for the alleged ‘airstrike’ on ‘al Quds hospital’. The WSJ spent the next 28 paragraphs on that incident. Buried at paragraph 30 was this reference, from an anti-Syrian source: “shells had [also] hit the Al-Razi Hospital, a facility in a government-held neighbourhood where many wounded were being treated”

(http://www.wsj.com/articles/syria-hospital-hit-in-airstrike-blamed-on-russia-1461841686).

The bombing of al Dabbit hospital did make it into the UK Independent. This hospital was said to be in ‘regime controlled Aleppo’; apparently it pains them to say ‘Syrian government’. The report opened: “At least 19 civilians have been killed at a hospital and other parts of government-controlled Aleppo in shelling attributed to Islamist rebels”

(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syrian-civil-war-hospital-in-regime-controlled-aleppo-partly-destroyed-by-rebel-shelling-as-more-a7011546.html). The Syrian news agency SANA reported on 3 May that the death toll from the bombing of al Dabbit hospital had risen to 16 dead and 68 injured (http://sana.sy/en/?p=76237).

Hardly mentioned in the western media was the bombing of the large Ibn Rushd hospital, but the Russian TV channel ANNA filmed the actual bombing and Latin American media ran that video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afEd5HBb-ik).

The attacks on Aleppo were extensive, well beyond hospitals. Vicar of Aleppo Mons. Georges Abou Khazen said “we have been under continuous bombardment over the past few days in Aleppo with civilian deaths, injuries and destruction”. He pointed his finger at the front backed by the West, along with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, saying that “These bombings … are from the front of the so-called ‘moderates’ and … in reality [they] are no different from other jihadists [Islamic State (IS) and the Nusra Front]” (http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Vicar-of-Aleppo:-moderate-front-no-better-than-jihadists,-bombing-civilians-and-not-seeking-peace-36685.html).

I wrote back in January 2014 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/syrias-hospitals-targeted-by-nato-backed-armed-groups/5363563) that the al Qaeda groups’ attacks on Syria’s health system were far more systematic that any one incident could explain.

In just the first three years of this war, before ISIS came to Syria, the NATO and Gulf monarchy-backed armed groups had systematically attacked more than two thirds of Syria’s public hospitals, and had murdered, kidnapped or injured more than 300 health workers.

When an Australian delegation met Syria’s then Health Minister Dr Sa’ad al Nayef on 22 December 2013 he told us that foreign backed terrorists had just detonated two truck bombs, completely destroying Aleppo’s al Kindi hospital, one of the biggest anti-cancer centres in the Middle East. All health workers inside were killed in the blast. Dr Malek Ali, Syria’s then Minister for Higher Education added that Al-Kindi was a functioning educational hospital co-managed by his ministry. You can see one of the suicide truck bomb attacks here, proudly cheered on in the Jabhat al Nusra video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ4kPiKiQb4

In an Orwellian revision of events the BBC (21 December 2013) reported the destruction of Al-Kindi with the headline: “Syria rebels take back strategic hospital in Aleppo”. The introduction claimed the “massive suicide lorry bomb” had managed “to seize back a strategic ruined hospital occupied by Assad loyalists.” Al-Kindi was said to have been “a disused building” and “according to an unconfirmed report, 35 rebels died in the attack”.

In fact, these ‘rebels’ were a coalition of Free Syrian Army and Jabhat al Nusra, while the ‘Assad loyalists’ were the staff and security guards of a large public hospital.

Dr al Nayef told us that, since March 2011, 67 of the country’s 94 national hospitals had been attacked and damaged, with 41 out of service. 174 health workers had been killed, 127 wounded and 33 kidnapped. Further, 1921 primary health centres had been damaged, and 678 were out of service. 421 ambulances had been lost or were out of service, and 197 support vehicles had been damaged, with 169 out of service.

The scale of destruction of health facilities, combined with attacks on pharmaceutical factories, schools, universities and civilians shows the armed groups have been intent on destroying a functioning state, with no interest in trying to win public support.

The Health Minister showed us a video of the FSA (Farouk Brigade) blowing up Homs National Hospital in April 2012, another of damage to Al- Salamiyeh National Hospital (in Hama) after an attack in January 2013 and a third of the damage to Al Zahrway Hospital (in Damascus) after yet another terrorist attack in May 2013.

He also gave us details of the 26 November 2013 terrorist attack on Deir-Ateya Hospital in Rural Damascus, where 11 medical staff (2 Anesthesiologists, 3 Resident doctors, 4 Nurses and 2 Drivers) were stabbed to death.

The al Qaeda attacks are often accompanied by skilled social media campaigns, assisted by western created agencies such as the White Helmets. In her article titled ‘The storm of lies surrounding Syria’s humanitarian crisis: Aleppo Is Burning campaign calls for Syria no-fly zone’, investigative journalists Vanessa Beeley has compiled some of those campaigns in the ‘Aleppo Hospital’ smokescreen.

With the war in Syria raging in its fifth year, and the Islamic State wreaking havoc throughout the Middle East and North Africa, it’s clear that the entire region has been made into one large theater of conflict. But the battlefield must not be understood solely as a physical place located on a map; it is equally a social and cultural space where the forces of the US-UK-NATO Empire employ a variety of tactics to influence the course of events and create an outcome amenable to their agenda. And none to greater effect than propaganda.

Is there any nuclear site in the United States that is not currently collapsing, leaking or otherwise posing a major health or environmental risk? Certainly there are, but that number is becoming smaller and smaller.

In addition to three other nuclear disasters unfolding across the country, a fourth has now arisen. This new disaster is located in Washington state in a facility known as the Hanford site.

One week after 19 workers were sent for medical evaluation as the nuclear waste tank was being transferred because of a leak, 3 more workers are now being reported as injured at the site. According to RT, the workers inhaled radioactive fumes – the same issue facing the 19 previously hospitalized workers. This brings the injured number of workers up to 22.

The Hanford site has reportedly been leaking massive amounts of radiation for more than two weeks. By no means a recent facility, the Hanford nuclear site is one of the original nuclear facilities in the United States, having been part of the Manhattan Project itself. Weapons-grade plutonium was stored at this facility for use in atomic weapons, one of which was dropped on Hiroshima.

Although the facility was decommissioned at the end of the Cold War, the facility has been used to store nuclear waste. In fact, according to RT, two-thirds of America’s radioactive materials are stored at this location which makes it one of the largest facilities of its kind in the world.

The storage tanks which were built as early as 1940 and as late as 1970 contain 56 million gallons of radioactive chemicals.

According Gerry Pollet, a Washington State Representative, those tanks were never expected to last longer than 20 years.

Pollet says,

Twenty years was a dream in the first place. And, as you know, some of them didn’t last 20 years – and we had a small explosion on the 1950s. That hot waste boiled; created a steam explosion under the tank, and we were lucky that we didn’t have half of eastern Washington having to be permanently evacuated.

The company operating the facility acknowledged “higher-than-normal readings for contamination” for a certain tank, but claimed that the readings “well below the alarm level.” RT correspondent Alexey Yaroshevsky traveled to the Hanford site with a Geiger counter.

Yaroshevsky measured the radiation levels of a rock laying well outside of the containment facility and, while the readings were not considered an emergency even the reporter’s handheld device registered a higher-than-normal level of radiation.

Yaroshevsky wondered aloud whether or not the radiation levels closer to the center to the containment facility would be much higher. The reports of the Hanford site leakage now add a West Coast dimension to the nuclear crisis that has escalated in the last few weeks.

In addition to Hanford, reports West Lake Landfill in St. Louis, Missouri which houses sizable amounts of nuclear waste is facing an approaching fire from an adjacent landfill that threatens to turn West Lake into a cauldron of radioactive air pollution. In addition, a nuclear power plant in Turkey Point, Florida is reportedlyleaking polluted water into Biscayne Bay. New York’s Indian Point power plant is also threatening to become a major radioactive incident. Constant leaks, mishaps and other signs of an outright collapse have existed at Indian Point for quite some time but have increased in frequency over the last year.

Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies,Five Sense SolutionsandDispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria, andThe Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 600 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.

We are all living in Hybrid War time. From R2P (“responsibility to protect”) to color revolutions, from currency attacks to stock market manipulations.

“The biggest sporting shock of my lifetime, and it’s only my team.” Gary Lineker, May 8, 2016

Being bored witless by the spectacle of gouty monarchs doing battle is exactly what most modern football is about. (The battle, of course, is waged by physically fit titan bought by those with deep wallets.)  One is left to admire the specifics of individuals who are never able to justify just how much their actual value is worth.  Detached from reality and inflated by the market, the latter becomes the illusion by which talent is assessed, players auctioned, and success measured.

In that particular erroneous equation, one person’s celebrated Cristiano Ronaldo is as good as any other Lionel Messi, both being the grand figures in a broader game of power, capital and statistics.  They represent huge clubs that take centre stage and strangle the game as a grand corporate venture rather than an emotional team experience.

English football has been particularly susceptible to the “cash flow” injection, the flood of money and the purchase of foreign players and clubs by entrepreneurs.  It has meant a concentration of capital at the top end clubs, each season characterised by the next round of extortionate prices.

This season saw something quite different. Leicester City Football Club, which avoided relegation last season by six points, placing 14^th, bucked rule and trend.  On Monday, victory was assured after rivals Tottenham Hotspur drew with Chelsea 2-2.  Leicester itself shot three into the Everton goal at the King power stadium.  A stunning story, in any one’s book of footballing romances.  Frequently, the odds of the bookies for the club winning the English Premier League trophy were invariably fantastic.

An entire article in the Daily Mirror was dedicated to the subject of improbable victory.  Ladbrokes, it noted, were offering odds of 5000-to-1 that the club would win.  The odds for Sir Alex Ferguson to win Strictly Come Dancing?  A more credible 1000-to-1.

The absurd odds put bookmakers out of pocket by $15 million.  This prompted Cork Gaines to call the odds a sham, a sensible remark given that “no team in a 20-team professional league should ever be 5,000-to-1 to win the championship, even in the typically top-heavy Premier League.”[1]  (By way of contrast in another competition, the Cleveland Browns are currently 200-to-1 to triumph in the Super Bowl.)  Serves them right.  Their ploy to earn ruddy cash in such a measure dramatically sunk them.

Even former England footballer and Leicester-born Gary Lineker bought into the odds, suggesting that he would present Match of the Day “in just my undies” should the club win the trophy.

Riyad Mahrez, Jamie Vardy and N’Golo Kante became weekly utterances of awe.  They captured the interest of characters for the media opportunists, be they the vile Piers Morgan (“No superstars.  No money.  No fancy stadium.  No excuses.  No fear.”), or the British Prime Minister, David Cameron.

Not all of Leicester City’s triump was self-grown and self-directed.  Its professionalism, working alongside Claudio Ranieri’s tactical acumen, has been unquestioned, but it has found itself battling failing foes.  Chelsea suffered a decline; Arsenal proved erratic when it mattered most; while Manchester United remains a scarecrow.  Evidently, money cannot always buy stability.  Only the raw Tottenham seemed, right to the last match, to be a credible threat.

Leicester City, however, remains a beautiful aberration in sports.  Michael Lewis’s Moneyball (2003) took a hard look at the story of Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball club, and decided that such factors as instinct, luck and team bonding should be abandoned before the cool crispness of numbers.  This led to an obsession with money and statistical gurus, along which a good deal of passion was shed.

In the UK, this saw efforts made by such number crunchers as Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski to do the same in Soccernomics (2009).  They found an 89 percent correlation between the income of teams in the Premier League with their rankings between 1998 and 2007, a sort of money bag junta.

The authors also decided to do their own bit of statistical speculation, drawing the erroneous conclusions that experience, wealth and population would inevitably lead to domination. Forget Africa as a foot balling power continent, they suggested.  Poverty, smaller numbers, and less experience to mine there.  Focus, instead, on the US, China and India, the future football super powers.

With such thinking dominating the reading of football and its success, Leicester City’s success is even richer.  But it was not something those, from the bookies to the pundits, wanted to believe.  They always felt that the Leicester story was more fairy tale than miracle.[2]  And they got it wrong.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  Email: [email protected] 

Notes

(image) Rafael Cruz

During a Fox News telephone interview in which he criticized his fellow presidential aspirant Senator Ted Cruz, Donald Trump cut loose with potshot that Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, was involved with Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination of president John F. Kennedy.

Shortly after this incident, Ted Cruz ended his 2016 presidential bid. But the incident itself and its ramifications remain significant. The fact that Trump dared bring up the JFK assassination is remarkable. It is a further demonstration that Trump is unpredictable—and why he is feared and reviled by the Washington establishment and ruling elite.

Whether it was done thoughtlessly or with more studied intent, it does not matter. In evoking the JFK assassination, Trump yanked aside the curtain of secrecy just enough to cause a small firestorm, allowing another glimpse at the forbidden truth that the American elite has spent 53 years covering up.

Trump’s statement and the media counterattack

Here is a clip of the Trump interview:

In it, Trump says:

“His (Cruz’s) father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald’s being—you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What is this? Right prior to his being shot, and nobody even brings it up. They don’t even talk about that. That was reported, and nobody talks about it.”

Trump is referring to a report originally written by Wayne Madsen:

Was the father of presidential hopeful Ted Cruz involved with the Kennedy assassination?

This piece was later picked up by the National Enquirer. Cruz and the mainstream corporate media and its network of CIA-controlled organs swiftly and forcefully attacked Trump, dismissing him as a conspiracy, and the story as insane “tabloid” trash.

POLITIFACT, a so-called “fact checking” organ of the “Pulitzer Prize winning” Tampa Bay Times ,  leaped to Cruz’s defense, slapping down Trump as a liar. But they also ignored the Cruz-Oswald-JFK connection, ignoring more than 50 years of historical material and investigation on the CIA and the JFK murder (books by Jim Garrison, Fletcher Prouty, James diEugenio, Mark Lane, Peter Dale Scott, among many others). Amusingly, Ted Cruz himself once called POLITIFACT “noxious yellow journalism”. In this case, he should thank them for their embrace of Warren Commission “politi-fiction”.)

TIME Magazine’s counter to the Trump/Cruz/Oswald story was the most telling of all: Donald Trump, Oswald, and Cuba

In this piece, TIME simply repeated the CIA’s original Kennedy-era propaganda deception that Oswald was a Communist; that the New Orleans leafletting incident should be accepted at face value. According to TIME, “Oswald and Cruz were on different sides”, thus rendering Trump’s accusation wrong. And that only “conspiracy theorists” could think otherwise.

TIME clearly remains one of many CIA propaganda organs, content to repeat the lies of the Warren Commission. The article reads like something that could have been written in 1964.

Was Cruz there? Was he CIA?

Here is the television clip of the actual August 16, 1963 Oswald event in New Orleans, a key event in the setup of the November 22, 1963 assassination in Dallas:

Here are photographic stills of the same event:

 From http://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh21/html/WH_Vol21_0082a.htm

 As exposed by Jim Garrison and numerous JFK researchers (and fictionally depicted in Oliver Stone’s film JFK), the CIA began setting up for the JFK assassination by creating a propaganda legend for Oswald, their chosen “patsy”.  Oswald was set up to appear to be a pro-Castro Communist agent provocateur.

What you see is this CIA propaganda operation in motion. Lee Harvey Oswald is handing out pro-Castro leaflets at the International Trade Mart in New Orleans, which at the time was teeming with anti-Castro Cuban exiles, CIA assets intent on murdering JFK. The International Trade Mart was owned by the CIA and run by CIA operative Clay Shaw. Oswald was part of the CIA’s Operation Mongoose, code name for numerous covert operations aimed at toppling Fidel Castro, in the wake of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. The Mongoose team and its network of operatives and assassins also carried out the JFK hit. But Oswald, unbeknownst to him, was being set up.

The Newman Building in New Orleans housed the CIA (Guy Bannister’s office of 5312 Lafayette Street), Oswald’s Fair Play for Cuba Committee FPCC front (544 Camp Street), and numerous anti-Castro groups that it was managing. It also housed offices with Mafia connections.

At the behest of his CIA handlers, which included George DeMohrenschildt, Bannister, and Shaw, Oswald’s orders were to play a pro-Castro Communist sympathizer for the media cameras. This event also included a “fist fight”, staged purely for propaganda deception, with Cuban exile and CIA asset Carlos Bringuier, of the militantly anti-Castro/CIA/Mafia-connected Cuban Revolutionary Council, and the anti-Castro student group, the Directorio Revolucionario Estudiantil), or DRE. This was followed by a radio debate between Oswald and Bringuier, also staged in order to set up Oswald’s credentials as a Communist and oddball.

Oswald’s FPCC leaflets were stamped with the address of 544 Camp Street. Oswald’s mistake later infuriated CIA operative Guy Bannister, who found out about it shortly after JFK was killed. Bannister was frantic that his cover would be blown.

Here is where we come to the Cuban men helping Oswald hand out leaflets. They have never been identified or they were dismissed in the official assassination panels. But logic dictates that they had to have been CIA assets. The Agency would have allowed outsiders into the midst of a delicate operation.

But was one of them Rafael Cruz?

According to Wayne Madsen, the man in the photo with Oswald strongly resembles Rafael Cruz, and “there is strong reason to believe that Cruz was associated with the Central Intelligence Agency’s anti-Castro operations”.

Given that the photo and tapes are not clear,  there is no way to prove the claim. Veteran JFK assassination researcher and author Jim diEugenio concludes the same. “Because of the questionable source, and the lack of substantiation, the story should have no legs”, according to diEugenio.

Even if the man in the photo was not Cruz, this still begs the question: was Cruz a CIA asset? That also cannot be proven. But it is reasonable to speculate. The elder Cruz’s background is sketchy and full of holes. Rafael Cruz claims to have joined the Cuban revolution as a teenager, and having been tortured by Batista police, but managed to flee Cuba for the United States in 1957.

Cruz’s account is disputed by Cruz’s Cuban peers, his resume as a fighter highly dubious. The tale he has told about his immigration to the United States appears full of deceptions and lies.  He claims to have come to the US knowing no English and just $100 sewn into his underwear. Yet he was enrolled in the University of Texas and earned a mathematics degree in short order, all while learning English only by watching movies.

But Cruz does claim to have become an outspoken anti-Castro advocate following a return to Cuba in 1959 that soured him permanently on Castro. Did Rafael Cruz become radicalized enough to have joined other Cuban exiles in working for the CIA at any time?

After working in Houston consulting for (unnamed) oil companies, Rafael Cruz moved to Canada and became a Canadian citizen in 1973. He started and ran his own seismic mapping company for the oil industry. His son Ted, the eventual Senator, was born in Calgary in 1970.  After the family moved yet again back to the US, Rafael became an influential and deeply connected right-wing political player and Dominionist Christian minister in 1975, eventually becoming part of the influential Religious Round Table.

While the elder Cruz’s activities are circumspect, and he did become deeply connected to Republican inner circles, there is no way to prove that he was an intelligence asset.

The Bay of Pigs-CIA-Bush legacy

What is certain is contained in the bigger picture, and it is perhaps of greater importance: White House aspirants Ted Cruz and Senator Marco Rubio, whose presidential bid also failed, are end products of the milieu made possible by the Bay of Pigs and the JFK assassination that followed.

These politics were, and continue to be, stoked by Washington and the CIA, and the Bush power network in particular. Cruz, and especially Rubio, are direct beneficiaries.

Both Rubio and Cruz carry water for the powerful Cuba lobby opposed to the lifting of the embargo on Cuba and all measures towards the warming of relations with the United States.

The emergence of right-wing Cuban-Americans to high office, all the way to the White House, helps promote the causes dear to generations of the exile community, while (for the CIA) nurturing the highly useful intelligence/paramilitary cells  in Florida and the Gulf states, and into Latin America.

The history of right-wing Cuban networks is inextricably connected to the CIA—and the Bushes:

• 1940s-1953. Pre-revolution Cuba is a Mafia and American financial paradise, lucrative and surrounded by offshore oil.

• 1953. Then-CIA operative George Herbert Walker “Poppy” Bush founds Zapata Petroleum in Texas. Zapata and its incarnations, including Zapata Offshore (which operated offshore near Cuba under the Batista regime, but forced to leave under Castro), was a CIA front.

• 1953-1959. Cuban revolution topples the Batista regime, forcing American capital, oil, Mafia, and military-intelligence out. The massive exodus of Cuban exiles begins. From 1959 to 1980, 500,000 Cubans leave for the United States. By 2010, the Cuban-American community numbers more than 1.9 million.

• 1961. Bay of Pigs. The CIA had organizes and trains Cuban exiles for the overthrow of Fidel Castro, with assistance from CIA-connected elements of Florida- and Gulf-based Mafia. President Kennedy pulls the plug on the operation, infuriating the CIA and its functionaries, leaving a massive intelligence-crime apparatus intact across the Gulf States from Florida to Texas. Operation Mongoose anti-Castro covert operations begin, featuring CIA operatives in various roles, including James Jesus Angleton, George H.W. Bush, E. Howard Hunt, David Atlee Phillips (believed by many to be codenamed “Maurice Bishop”), Felix Rodriguez, Ted Shackley, James McCord, Barry Seal, David Ferrie, Clay Shaw, Guy Bannister, George De Mohrenschildt, and a large network of anti-Castro Cubans (that could also have included Rafael Cruz).

• 1962-1963. JFK assassination is planned and carried out by CIA, FBI, Cuban exile militants and elements of the Mafia. Sophisticated and far reaching coup d’ etat involves government agencies, politicians, elites and business figures, and anti-Cuban exiles. George H.W. Bush was deeply connected to the assassination and others who were involved, according to Russ Baker.

• 1968-1973. Richard Nixon becomes president, with Florida right-wing Cuban support, notably the wealthy and CIA-linked Bebe Rebozo.

• 1973 Watergate Break-In for Nixon is carried out by anti-Castro Cubans and CIA operatives tied to the Bay of Pigs and the JFK hit: Felix Rodriguez, Bernard Barker (former Cuban secret police), Frank Sturgis, E. Howard Hunt, and Eugenio R. Martinez. Nixon tapes later reveal that the objective was to hide evidence regarding “Dallas” and “that Bay of Pigs thing”. Bush assists the cover-up and the stonewalling of Congress.

• 1976. George H.W. Bush becomes CIA Director. Numerous CIA operations are directed against Castro. Bush stonewalls Congress regarding the aerial bombing of a Cubana airliner and a car bombing of a Chilean diplomat by anti-Castro CIA asset Luis Carriles, whose superior is Felix Rodriguez (who boasted to have killed Che Guevara). During Bush’s CIA directorship, Rodriguez and other CIA figures close to Bush carry out the infamous Phoenix Program in Southeast Asia, and the gigantic heroin smuggling operation, Air America. The CIA’s lucrative international drug trade mushrooms.

• 1982-1986. Reagan-Bush era. Vice President George H.W. Bush and CIA Director William Casey oversee Iran-Contra.

According to Al Martin, retired Naval Intelligence officer and Iran-Contra insider, “Iran-Contra” was a euphemism for a massive CIA criminal enterprise that included drug trafficking, weapons, and numerous forms of financial fraud and money laundering. This operation is detailed in Martin’s book The Conspirators, and many accounts by whistleblowers and investigative researchers. Each member of Bush family is active in all phases of the enterprise, as are CIA operatives and Cuban exiles, “the old Cuban Bay of Pigs crowd”. While George H.W. Bush described by Martin as the man at the top, Jeb Bush emerges as the operation’s key operational player.

Felix Rodriguez and other Bay of Pigs veterans coordinate the contra resupply programs in Latin America under Oliver North and cocaine shipments into the United States, with bases across the American Gulf coast. The operation based in Mena, Arkansas flourishes under then-governor Bill Clinton.

• Jeb Bush becomes head of the Florida Republican Party. Jeb, known as the “smart one” in the Bush family, is the link with the Cuban community, the contras, Nicaraguan exiles. During this period, Jeb aligns with Leonel Martinez, a Miami-based right-wing Cuban-American drug trafficker associated with contra dissident Eden Pastora. Jeb forges ties with right-wing Cuban Miguel Recarey and major contributor to PACs controlled by George H.W. Bush.

• 1988-1992. George H.W.Bush as president. Panama is invaded and toppled. Former CIA ally, contra associate and narco-trafficer Manual Noriega is captured. Cuban operatives assist. Jeb remains a tireless supporter of reactionary Cuban-American political causes, such as the freeing of terrorist Orlando Bosch, who was responsible for more than 50 anti-Castro bombings. Jeb also supports projects such as the Cuban American National Federation (CANF), and Radio and TV Marti propaganda broadcasts into Cuba, in violation of telecommunications laws.

The Bushes, especially Jeb, are deeply involved with Florida-based BCCI bank and money laundering operations.

• 1994. After benefiting financially and politically from oil and CIA ties to his father, George W. Bush becomes governor of Texas. He maintains a huge following among right-wing Latin-American and Cuban-American voters.

• Jeb becomes Florida governor in 1998 with strong backing from the right-wing Cuban community and CIA. Jorge Mas Canosa, president of the ultra-right wing CANF hails Jeb as “one of us”. Jeb proudly flaunts the fact that he speaks Spanish fluently. The entire Bush clan does—a job necessity for the Iran-Contra CIA narco-trafficking and continuous meddling in Latin American politics. Jeb becomes supreme in Florida and his influence expands throughout Latin America.

• The Elian Gonzalez affair ignites Florida, setting off partisan conflict and violence. Anti-Castro Cubans are incensed at the Clinton-Gore administration and turn to the Bushes and the Republicans.

In the 2000 presidential election, Jeb “promises to deliver” Florida to George W. Bush.  He delivers both the fraudulent vote count, securing the White House for Bush. In the Gore challenge, the recount is stopped by violence from mobs of intelligence-connected right-wing Cubans. Jeb serves as governor to 2007 but remains an important Republican player behind the scenes until 2015, when he decides to run for president.

Cruz, Rubio, Bushes

There is nothing benign about the Bush family or its power network. Any connection to this network demands scrutiny.

After graduating from Princeton in 1992, and Harvard Business School in 1995, Ted Cruz entered politics. In 1999, he was advisor to George W. Bush. As legal advisor to Bush’s election campaign, he helped the theft of the White House in the Bush v. Gore case before the Supreme Court. Cruz met his wife Heidi during the Bush campaign. After successful tenures in Texas state offices, Cruz returned to private law practice before becoming a senator in 2012.

Despite his having worked for him in the past, George W. Bush recently stated that he “didn’t like the guy (Cruz)”—a comment that Cruz did not take personally. Nevertheless, Neil Bush (Iran-Contra savings and loan bandit) became Ted Cruz’s finance director shortly before Cruz’s presidential campaign ended. Jeb Bush endorsed Cruz, also before Cruz quit the race.

Marco Rubio’s arc is similar to Cruz’s but also different. The Rubio’s story is also full of inconsistencies, half-truths and lies, many of them promoted by Marco himself. He has been accused of exaggerating his family’s flight from Cuba to resemble the stories of anti-Castro fighters  who fled persecution. It is closer to fact that the Rubios left Cuba for economic (not political) reasons.

Marco’s father, Mario, boasted that as an 18- year old, he participated in a failed plot to assassinate Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. The veracity of this story, which suggests a background as a fighter, is something else that cannot be confirmed. What is known is that the elder Rubio worked in casinos owned by mobster Meyer Lansky (coincidentally a CIA asset), in Florida and Las Vegas.

Marco Rubio’s political career began in the 1980s as an intern to Cuban-born Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, followed by a fast rise through Florida state politics. Marco Rubio became Congressman in 2000 and Senator in 2010, where he has proven himself to be an aggressive right-winger.

For the next several years, Rubio was mentored by Jeb Bush, but the relationship was testy and competitive, akin to a Mafia godfather and an ambitious, ungrateful lieutenant who wants to take over from the boss.

Bush-Cuban bid for the White House: failure or harbinger?

The 2016 presidential election should have been about the return to power of the Bush network. The deck on the Republican ticket was blatantly stacked with Jeb Bush himself, and Bush products Cruz and Rubio.

All three failed.

Rubio, considered many to be a Jeb Bush protégé, quit after rudely betraying his former mentor. The Cruz campaign seriously considered the idea of Rubio as vice president on an all-Cuban ticket, but the ambitious Rubio was not interested. Jeb Bush’s endorsement of Cruz also failed.

The Trump wrecking ball ruined all of it.

This raises fascinating questions. Why wasn’t one of these Bush cabal options successfully pushed forward? How and why has Donald Trump gotten this far? What has prevented the usual powers that be from somehow removing Trump  from contention? Will he remain a wildcard, or will he eventually be pressured (threatened) into behaving more like an establishment politician?

Where are the Bilderbergers and New World Order types, who usually choreograph “elections” well in advance? They are massing behind Hillary Clinton—who is the continuation of the line of succession going back to the murder in Dealey Plaza. The Clintons are closely associated with the Bushes. Their networks overlap, their geopolitics shared.  In the most important ways, Bill and Hillary Clinton have always been Bushes.

Meanwhile, do not expect Cruz and Rubio, or the Bushes, or the militant Cuban Lobby to disappear. Rubio, who is still young, especially seems hell-bent on another run at the White House. Jeb’s half-Mexican son George P. Bush is a rising star in Texas, and his steady rise up the Republican ranks is a calculated appeal to Latin and Cuban sympathies.

The CIA is stronger, more omnipresent, and untouchable than at any time in history. The world drug trade is flourishing. Wall Street is enjoying a new golden age. And the assassination of John F. Kennedy remains the subject of intense cover-up and a deafening silence that is breached only when someone audacious dares bring it up, for reasons both good as well as noxious.

Internationally recognized as Syrian territory, the Golan Heights has been occupied and administered by Israel since 1967. It was captured during the 1967 Six-Day War. 

On 19 June 1967, the Israeli cabinet voted to return the Golan to Syria in exchange for a peace agreement, although this was rejected after the Khartoum Resolution of September 1, 1967. In the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Syria tried but failed to recapture the Golan, Israel agreed to return about 5% of the territory to Syrian civilian control. This part was incorporated into a demilitarised zone that runs along the ceasefire line and extends eastward. This strip is under the military control of UNDOF.

Construction of Israeli settlements began in the remainder of the territory held by Israel, which was under military administration until Israel passed the Golan Heights Law extending Israeli law and administration throughout the territory in 1981. This move was condemned by the United Nations Security Council in UN Resolution 497, which said that “the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect.”Israel states it has a right to retain the Golan, citing the text of UN Resolution 242, which calls for “safe and recognised boundaries free from threats or acts of force”. However, the international community reject Israeli claims to title to the territory and regards it as sovereign Syrian territory. 

‘The United States considers the Golan Heights to be Syrian territory held under Israeli occupation subject to negotiation and Israeli withdrawal. The United States considers the application of Israeli law to the Golan Heights to be a violation of international law, both the 4th Geneva Convention’s prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force and United Nations Security Council Resolution 242’

Discovery of Oil Deposits

Security forces erected heavy concrete blast walls and strung barbed wire across two strategic bridges in the capital of Baghdad Friday as heavily armed troops deployed across the city. The security lockdown was meant to prevent a repeat of the events last Saturday, when thousands of demonstrators stormed the Green Zone, the walled-off seat of the Iraqi government.

On April 30, demonstrators denouncing the Iraqi government’s corruption, failure to provide basic services and inability to prevent terrorist bombings pulled down the massive blast walls surrounding the Green Zone, a high-security enclave created by the US occupation authorities after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. They occupied the parliament, breaking up furniture and sending lawmakers fleeing for their lives.

Friday saw no repeat of those dramatic scenes, in large measure because the populist Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who called on his supporters to join the siege of the Green Zone last weekend, this time urged them to only protest outside the city’s mosques at the end of Friday afternoon prayers.

Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia waged an insurgency against US occupation troops a decade ago, was called to Iran after the events of last weekend. He had supported the protest ostensibly to further the bid by the US-backed Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, to overhaul the current government with the aim of curbing corruption and introducing more competent governance.

It appeared, however, that Sadr was in less than full control of the protest, which followed a series of largely spontaneous actions demanding that the government provide basic services and denouncing its corruption. Last weekend’s attacks on the parliament and assaults on several legislators expressed the bitter hostility of the masses of Iraq’s impoverished population toward a regime dominated by reactionary exile politicians brought back to the country by the US war of aggression.

The storming of the Green Zone shook the Baghdad regime and has provoked serious consternation in both Washington and Tehran, which are both allied with the Abadi regime in the conflict with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Among the security forces occupying Baghdad’s bridges and major roads on Friday were reportedly three regiments of the elite US-trained counterterrorism police, which had been withdrawn from the battle against ISIS to protect the Iraqi regime from the people of Baghdad. These troops, equipped with armored Humvees armed with machine guns, also took up positions inside the Green Zone itself.

On Thursday night, Prime Minister Abadi delivered a televised speech vowing to prevent any repeat of the storming of the Green Zone. A day earlier, he sacked the officer in charge of security in the fortified enclave, Gen. Karim Abboud al-Tamini, who in an earlier protest had been filmed kissing the hand of Sadr in a sign of loyalty to the Shia cleric.

“We fear that some may take advantage of the peaceful protests to pull the country into chaos, looting and destruction,” Abadi said in his televised remarks. “This is what happened in the attack on the parliament and the MPs.”

At the center of the current crisis is the dispute over the attempt by Abadi to replace incumbent ministers drawn from the various Iraqi political parties with a cabinet of “technocrats.” The proposal is bitterly opposed by the politicians and parties that have benefited from the divide-and-rule system imposed by the US occupation, which accorded political positions and influence based on a religious- and ethnic-based quota system.

Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties all have used their control of different ministries as a means of looting public funds derived from the country’s oil exports, while infrastructure and basic services continued to deteriorate and masses of people were plunged into deepening poverty.

The parliament has blocked Abadi’s appointments, and there are growing calls for his ouster, including from within his own ruling Dawa Party. In one recent parliamentary session, 100 out of the legislature’s 328 members called for the prime minister to resign.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, in large part due to the collapse in oil revenues, which are the source of 95 percent of its budget.

Jan Kubiš, the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Representative to Iraq painted a grim picture of the political situation there in a report Friday to the UN Security Council. He said that the country was engulfed in a “profound political crisis” that will only be worsened by the ongoing escalation of the US-led war against ISIS.

Under conditions in which the government is beset by “paralysis and deadlock,” the envoy said, Iraq’s humanitarian crisis is “one of the world’s worst.”

“Nearly a third of the population—over ten million people—now require some form of humanitarian assistance,” Kubiš said. He warned that the US-led assault now being prepared against the ISIS-held city of Mosul would lead to “mass displacement in the months ahead.”

“In a worst case scenario, more than 2 million more Iraqis may be newly displaced by the end of the year,” the envoy warned.

Adding that “political crisis and chaos” would only strengthen ISIS, the special representative told the Security Council that the “demonstrations are set to continue.”

In apparent anticipation of deepening unrest, the Pentagon rushed an additional 25 US Marines to Baghdad to beef up the security force guarding the US Embassy. Located in the heart of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified embassy is the largest such facility in the world, built at a cost of over $750 million and occupying a space roughly equivalent to that of Vatican City.

The political crisis in Baghdad is unfolding even as the US steadily escalates its military intervention in Iraq. The increasingly direct involvement of US troops in the fighting was underscored by the announcement Tuesday of the death of a Navy SEAL in combat with ISIS fighters in the north of the country. And it was announced Friday that US Apache attack helicopters will be sent into combat imminently.

What the simmering protests make clear is that ISIS is merely one of the symptoms of the catastrophe created by the US war of aggression begun in 2003, which claimed the lives of over a million Iraqis and left an entire society in ruins.

The West and its allies are perpetrating unspeakable yet well-documented crimes against humanity as Washington forges ahead with its pre-planned agenda to destroy non-compliant areas in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in favour of its Wahhabi-inspired proxy armies, which include ISIS and al-Qaeda/Jabhat al-Nursra.

US led NATO and its allies, including Wahhabi Saudi Arabia and Apartheid Israel, are perpetuating these crimes beneath ridiculous banners of “humanitarian interventions” and/or the “Global War On Terror” (GWOT).

This rampaging project of deception, death, and destruction follows a predictable colonial script wherein domestic populations are deceived as target countries and their peoples are destroyed and subjugated.

Most of the colonial military strategies are on full display in the terrorist invasion of the democratic Syrian Arab Republic (SAR), led by its reformer president, Bashar al-Assad.

The coercive strategies being used include these:

• Destroying hospitals and infrastructure
• Starvation
• Disinformation campaigns/erasing “history”
• Balkanization/partitioning
• Bombing civilian populations

The end-game is to de-populate and to destroy target countries and to subjugate the remaining population.

A snap-shot of Syria prior to the invasion, helps to illuminate the imperial strategies of destruction.  An article ironically titled “Les crimes de Bashar Al-Assad depuis juin 2000” lists some of Assad’s notable accomplishments:

• Construction and restoration of 10,000 mosques and 500 churches.
• Construction and restoration of 8,000 schools, 2,000 institutes and 40 universities.
• Construction of more than 600,000 flats / housing for young people.
• Construction and modernization of more than 6,000 hospitals and clinics.
• Establishment of five international industrial areas.
• Opening of Syria in 60 international banks.
• Opening of Syria 5 telecommunications operators (Internet service providers and GSM).
• Licenses for 20 independent newspapers and magazines and 5 TV stations by satellite.
• Development of performance art, theater, comedy, tragedy. More than 20,000 Syrian actors have achieved Excellence Award.
• Construction and modernization of stadiums and sports halls. Large global reputation Syrian athletes horseback riding, swimming, wrestling, gymnastics and other …
• Salary increases of 300%
• Development and modernization of the Syrian Arab Army.
• The economic situation of Syria is healthy, while the economic crisis affected the world.
• Thousands of new operations: restaurants, hotels, tourist cities, leisure centers, shopping centers, factories …
• The fall in unemployment from 28% to 12% despite the rise in the number of people entering the labor market.
• Connections: electricity, telephone, drinking water and sanitation to more than a million homes and apartments across the country.
• Reimbursement of all debts of the country and increased agricultural and industrial capacity by 600%.
• Development of tourism. Syria was the third most visited Arab countries and the 83th most visited country in the world.
• Syria had only 1% of illiterates. The best score of Asia and Africa.
• Development of public transportation, airports, ports and bus stations and prices are kept low.
• Constitution of thousands of associations for the poor, orphans and the disabled.
• Syria is the most important country in the region, economically, politically, militarily … and Al-Assad is the most influential person.

Assad’s reforms recall those of the Gaddafi government before Libya was destroyed by NATO and its allies.

Professor Tim Anderson explains that the Western terrorists have consistently attacked Syria’s hospitals and that between 2011 and 2013 “they attacked 67 of the country’s 94 national hospitals.

Starvation is another strategy used by colonizers to destroy and subjugate populations. Mir Wood explains in “Syria Dying, UN Cyclops Lying. Still.”  that “ these degenerates are blatantly lying, blaming hunger in Syria that did not exist 5 years ago, on the Syrian government.  The P3 of the UN mafioso clique “ambassadors” (US, UK, France, a.k.a. “F*UK*US”) appear to be playing a ball game, volleying “siege and starvation,” “starve or surrender” back and forth, …”

The author noted in an earlier piece  that Western terrorists steal and horde food supplies with a view to inducing starvation and subjugating populations.  Starving populations tend to be more compliant to an occupier’s demands when the occupier controls the food.

The illegal sanctions, are also part of the siege on Syria and its peoples.  23 million Syrians are daily besieged, not only through economic sanctions, but also by terrorists crossing from Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq, reports Syria’s Ambassador to the UN, Dr. Bashar Al-al Ja’afari.

Indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations also serves to subjugate and depopulate populations, and to create internal and external refugees — another Western specialty.  Currently, terrorists are firing Hellfire cannons throughout the industrial city of Aleppo, with great effect.

All of this is happening behind a curtain of lies — another colonial strategy.  The ransacking and destruction of Palmyra, the “Bride Of The Desert” is an attempt to erase Syria’s history, presumably to be replaced by a narrative of Western Wahhabist revisionism.

The strategy of “divide and conquer” is also a staple of colonizers.  Currently, the West is supporting  the Kurdish nationalist Party (PYP) and its military wing (YPG) in their efforts to annex Syrian land and to impose federalism on Syria. If successful, such efforts would serve to weaken Syria and to engineer conflicts between competing factions — another useful colonial tool.

All of these colonial strategies are perpetuating an overseas holocaust as the West overrides international law and topples one government after another with a view to subjugating Iran, Russia, and China as well.

The NATO Axis of Evil needs to be unmasked and held to account for its crimes.  Western governments operating through stealth and deception do not represent the will of the people, nor do they have our informed consent. They have lost their legitimacy.

Note

1. http://www.syrianews.cc/syrians-dying-un-cyclopes-lying-still/

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has expressed its concerns over the death of 12 new-born babies in a Libyan hospital, and noted that an estimated 1.9 million people out of 6.3 million in the country are in need of “urgent health assistance,” Masalarabia.comreported on Friday.

The WHO’s representative in Libya, Jaffar Hussain Syed, said that the “tragic deaths occurred as a result of easily preventable causes.” He stressed the severe deterioration of the health system in the country.

The 12 babies died in Sabah Medical Centre, which is the only one of its kind providing neonatal care units in the whole of southern Libya. “If urgent action is not taken,” explained Syed, “further loss of life is feared, particularly among the most vulnerable within the population.” These deaths, he added, were due to a bacterial infection and a lack of specialist care.

Explosion in Libya [file photo]

“We have acute shortages of life-saving medicines all across Libya,” the WHO representative said earlier. “It is not one particular place, but hospitals and clinics, everywhere.” More than 40 per cent of the healthcare facilities in Libya have closed down or are dysfunctional for various reasons. “They are either in a conflict zone, or there are no human resources, or they have no electricity even to run the hospital.”

This article was first published in March 2013

Author’s Note

The establishment by Israel of a permanent mission at the headquarters of NATO in Brussels should come as no surprise. An all encompassing bilateral agreement was signed in 2005, which was followed by a 2013 agreement pertaining to enhanced military cooperation. 

Israel is a de facto member of the Atlantic alliance.

The establishment of a permanent mission at NATO headquarters is the culmination of more than ten years of Israel-NATO cooperation.

Israel’s Ambassador to the EU, David Walzer, will be heading Israel’s permanent mission to NATO headquarters, following a decision of the North Atlantic Council. 

Michel Chossudovsky, May 8, 2016

In March 2013, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen received Israel’s president Shimon Peres at NATO headquarters. The order of the day was  to enhance military cooperation between Israel and the Atlantic Alliance focusing on issues of counter-terrorism.

“Israel will be happy to share the knowledge it has gained and its technological abilities with NATO. Israel has experience in contending with complex situations, and we must strengthen the cooperation so we can fight global terror together and assist NATO with the complex threats it faces including in Afghanistan. “

Israel is already involved in covert operations and non-conventional warfare in liaison with the US and NATO.

This 2013 agreement is of particular significance because it deepens the Israel-NATO relationship beyond the so-called “Mediterranean Dialogue”.  The joint statement points to an Israel NATO partnership “in the fight against terror and the search for peace… in the Middle East and the world”.

What this suggests is the participation of Israel in active theater warfare alongside NATO –i.e. as a de facto member of the Atlantic Alliance.

In other words, Israel would be directly involved is US-NATO military operations in the Middle East. Israel offered to assist NATO in counter-terrorism operations directed against Hezbollah and Iran.

“The two agreed during their discussions that Israel and NATO are partners in the fight against terror…the statement said.

President Peres stressed the need to maintain and increase the cooperation between Israel and NATO and Israel’s ability to cooperation and provide technological assistance and knowledge from the vast experience Israel had gained in the field of counter-terrorism.

“Israel will be happy to share the knowledge it has gained and its technological abilities with NATO. Israel has experience in contending with complex situations, and we must strengthen the cooperation so we can fight global terror together and assist NATO with the complex threats it faces including in Afghanistan, ” Peres told Rasmussen.

History of Israel-NATO Military Cooperation

It is worth noting that in November 2004 in Brussels, NATO and Israel signed an important bilateral protocol which paved the way for the holding of joint NATO-Israel  military exercises. A followup agreement was signed in March 2005 in Jerusalem between NATO’s Secretary General and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The 2005 bilateral military cooperation agreement was viewed by the Israeli military as a means to “enhance Israel’s deterrence capability regarding potential enemies threatening it, mainly Iran and Syria.”

The ongoing premise underlying NATO-Israel military cooperation is that “Israel is under attack”.

There is evidence of active military and intelligence coordination between NATO and Israel including consultations pertaining to the occupied territories.

“Before Operation Cast Lead was launched in Gaza, NATO was already exchanging intelligence with Israel, sharing security expertise, and organising military drills. …. Former NATO chief Scheffer visited Israel in the midst of Israel’s offensive on Gaza. And NATO officials were at the time of the opinion that cooperation with Israel was essential for their organisation. (Al Ahram, February 10, 2010)

The March 2013 Israel-NATO Brussels bilateral agreement is the culmination of more than ten years of Israel-NATO cooperation.

Does this agreement “obligate” NATO “to come to the rescue of Israel” under the doctrine of “collective security”?

The agreement tightens the ongoing process of US-NATO-Israel military planning and logistics relating to any future operation in the Middle East including an aerial bombing of Iran’s nuclear plants.

The Israeli presidential delegation consisted of several top military and government advisers, including Brigadier General Hasson Hasson, Military Secretary to President Peres (See image below: first from left) and Nadav Tamir, policy adviser to the president of Israel (first right of president Peres).

The text of the Israel NATO agreement following discussions behind closed doors (see image below) was not made public.

(Click image to enlarge)

Following the meeting, a joint statement was released by NATO. Secretary-General Rasmussen stated in the press report:

“Israel is an important partner of the Alliance in the Mediterranean Dialogue. The security of NATO is linked to the security and stability of the Mediterranean and of the Middle East region. And our Alliance attaches great value to our political dialogue and our practical cooperation. Israel is one of our longest-standing partner countries. We are faced with the same strategic challenges in the Eastern Mediterranean.

And as we face the security threats of the 21st century, we have every reason to deepen our long-standing partnership with our Mediterranean Dialogue countries, including Israel. We all know the regional situation is complex. But the Mediterranean Dialogue remains a unique multilateral forum, where Israel and six Arab countries can discuss together with European and North American countries common security challenges. I see further opportunities for deepening our already close political dialogue and practical cooperation to our mutual benefit.”

Throughout the two and a half months that have passed since the start of the Cessation of Hostilities (CoH), the State Department has refused to acknowledge that the US backed rebel factions  are fighting in Aleppo and elsewhere alongside Jabhat al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria. There has not been a single press briefing where the spokesman has not accused Russia and Syria of targeting US backed rebel factions and civilians. Whether it’s John Kirby or Mark Toner, the spokesman keeps talking about intermingling between the “moderates” and the Al-Qaeda affiliate and that the Russians/Syrians need to be able to separate the two. At the the press briefing of April 25, 2016 Mr Kirby said:

So again, I go back to what I said before. We want to see the cessation observed by all parties. As I said to my answer to Said, we’re not blind to the fact that it’s a very dynamic situation in Aleppo and that there is intermingling. We’ve said that for a while now. And we knew weeks ago, before the regime started to move on Aleppo, that in Aleppo in particular it was going to be a challenge. And it obviously has proven to be the case. So we’re going to continue to work with those opposition groups that we can influence, and we’re going to keep working with those countries on the opposition groups that they influence to do the best we can to get everybody to observe the cessation. And to the degree that the – that separation can be had between opposition and al-Nusrah, obviously that’s beneficial to preserving the cessation of hostilities, which I know has seen many violations now in Aleppo. I’m not saying that it’s held, okay. But to the degree that that intermingling can be avoided, that obviously assists in the situation, but it’s a very difficult, very fluid situation because the regime continues to move on Aleppo. And again, what we’ve said in the past is that the extension of Assad regime control over additional territory in Syria is not a good thing for the future of Syria.

And again on April 28:

No, I think what Mark was – he was restating a simple fact, which I’ve talked to myself, which is that we know it’s a very fluid, dynamic environment, that there are – that there is intermingling between the groups. Some of that is by design because they want to be near one another and some of it is by happenstance. And it is why strikes in and around Aleppo become a more problematic issue, because it’s very difficult to separate some of these groups from one another geographically in order to – and then to be precise enough that only the group that you’re trying to go after is going to be hit.

Jaish al-Fateh (the Army of Conquest)

Jaish al-Fateh is a coalition of Jihadist groups in Syria formed in March 2015 and led by Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. It was this coalition that in the span of one month (March 24 – April 25) managed to defeat the Syrian army taking from them most of Idlib province in the northwestern part of the country. During the next few months it had several military successes against government forces such as in Al-Mastuma, Ariha and Al-Ghab. However, in October 2015, after differences between the factions over the application of Islamic Law, Jabhat al-Nusra and Jund al-Aqsa left the coalition resulting in it’s disbandment.

More recently, both the Saudis and the Americans insisted that two factions, Ahrar al-Sham and the other major indigenous Jihadist faction Jaish al-Islam be part of the cessation of hostilities. The Russians had designated both factions as terrorist and wanted them, along with Nusra to be excluded from it. During the last few weeks, Ahrar and several other rebel groups that are backed by the US, were fighting alongside Nusra against the pro-government forces and as a result were being targeted by the Russian and Syrian air forces. The Americans clearly knew about this but continued to make the “intermingling” argument. So on April 27, State Department spokesman Mark Toner called  on the Russians to refrain from targeting these two factions:

QUESTION: Russia has proposed placing Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham on the UN sanctions list for ISIL. Do you agree with them?

MR TONER: No, we think that that would have damaging consequences to the cessation, and frankly, at a moment when we’re trying to make sure that it’s – we’re trying to de-escalate the situation on the ground. This has been something they have raised before. They’ve – it’s two opposition groups – Jaysh al-Islam, as you note, and Ahrar al-Sham. And they want to try to designate these groups that, frankly, are right now party to the cessation of hostilities. So we don’t want to see that happen. We don’t believe that that’s constructive.

QUESTION: But they are targeting them in Aleppo and elsewhere.

MR TONER: I agree, and that’s why they need to refrain from targeting these groups that are parties to the cessation of hostilities, and we call on them to do so.

According to Al-Hayat newspaper on May 2, Ahrar al_Sham commander Abu Yazid Taftanaz said that the “Jaish al-Fateh operations room is coming back to life and it will include Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, Ajnad al-Sham, Failaq al-Sham, Jaish al-Sunna, Lewaa al-Haq and Hezb al-Islami al-Turkestani.” On the next day, May 3, Jaish al Fateh’s English language twitter account pinned a tweet with the following picture and the hashtags #UNITY and #JAISHALFATH:

These were two reliable sources that confirmed that the US backed Jihadist faction Ahrar al-Sham has allied itself to the Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra as part of a reformed Jaish al-Fateh. The Hollywood style poster clearly listed the names of the two factions. However, believe it or not, the State Department is still unaware of this. On the next day at the May 4 briefing, the following was said:

QUESTION: Did the rebels that the U.S. is in contact with in Aleppo agree to separate themselves from al-Nusrah there?

MR TONER: Again, that’s – this agreement or reaffirmation is predicated on the fact that – that both the regime and the opposition, who have signed up to the cessation, will act accordingly and in good faith —

QUESTION: Did they even tell you —

MR TONER: Let me finish, let me finish.

QUESTION: — that they’ll distance themselves?

MR TONER: No, no, let me finish. So in order to maintain this cessation or this renewed cessation of hostilities, it’s incumbent on them and it’s what our message is to them that they cannot interact with those parties on the ground who are not part of that cessation. Let me finish. And that’s what – that’s been a consistent message with – from us.

Early on May 5, Jaish al Fateh with Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham in the lead launched a huge offensive in South Aleppo on the town of Khan Touman which was in the government forces’ hands. By the time of that day’s press briefing, they had cut the supply routes to the soldiers defending it and had the town under siege. At the briefing later that day neither spokesman Mark Toner nor any of the journalists seemed to be aware of what was going on:

MR TONER: I understand that. Look, we’re aware that al-Nusrah is not part of the cessation of the hostilities, but we also are fully aware that the regime uses al-Nusrah as an excuse to target opposition groups. And again, we’ve talked about this at length, that they continue to hit civilian targets, opposition groups on the ground, who are party to the cessation, under the guise or veil of attacking Nusrah. If they wanted to solely go after Nusrah and Daesh, that’s another story altogether. But I talked about this yesterday. Around Aleppo, which is frankly such a hot zone in terms of conflict right now, what we want to see overall is a de-escalation.

QUESTION: About 10 days ago Steve Warren of the U.S. Military, he said that it is primarily al-Nusrah that holds Aleppo. As I understand, the U.S. has leverage with the rebels. Did you get them to separate themselves from al-Nusrah in Aleppo?

MR TONER: So what we have said is that – and I said this just yesterday – is Aleppo – there are areas controlled by the opposition and there are areas controlled by Nusrah. And we’ve —

QUESTION: And those lines are fluid, as you say.

MR TONER: And the lines are fluid and that’s our challenge, in part, to make sure that those lines are more clearly delineated and that we have – we have conveyed that to the opposition.

By 7:00 am Damascus time on the morning of May 6, Khan Touman had fallen into the hands of Jaish al-Fateh (Nusra, Ahrar & Co). They were the ones who violated the ceasefire that was instated for Aleppo the day before. Additionally, the US backed factions had helped  Al-Qaeda win this victory. Thirteen hours later at that day’s briefing, neither John Kirby nor the journalists seemed to be aware of any of this. When asked about how the cessation in Aleppo was doing, he said:

Well, what we – right. So obviously, what we want and desire is for these cessations to be enduring. And what I can tell you is (a) we continue to watch the situation in Aleppo. It does appear as if the violence has decreased since it came into effect a couple of days ago and that seems to be the case today. I can’t tell you that it’s perfect in every neighborhood of Aleppo, of course not. And obviously, the right number of violations is zero. That’s what we want. We’re still concerned about reports of violations. But in general, since the – it went into effect two days ago, we have seen a decreased level of violence in Aleppo, and we’d like to see that continue.

The US backed factions and Al-Qaeda had just violated the truce and taken two towns and Kirby was still talking about intermingling:

I’m not disputing the fact that in Aleppo these groups can be intermingled. In fact, sometimes it’s by design, especially by groups like al-Nusrah that want to help try to protect themselves by being geographically close or intermixed with groups that – either civilians or opposition groups that they know are parties to the cessation of hostilities.

The disconnection between the State Department and the events on the ground in Aleppo is yet one more episode that illustrates what has been obvious to everyone for quite a while – that the United States Syria policy is a complete shambles. God help Syria and the whole region from what the US will do next whether under Obama or the next president.

In March, the Taliban announced the start of their spring offensive. A new wave of the military escalation followed the statement. The important fact is that this summer offensive continued the full-scale winter campaign. The Taliban clearly shows that it feels a need of military actions in order to demonstrate the unity of the movement, amid the split after the confirmation of Mullah Omar’s death.

For example, a suicide attack in Kabul on April 19 killed 64 people and became the biggest terror attack in the country in last 5 years. The Taliban’s statemtnt on the topic emphasized that the attack was aimed against the corrupt state bodies. Indeed, the level of corruption in the country is very high even for a Cetnral Asian country.

In turn, President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, said on April 25 that the government ends the attempts to find a peaceful solution of the crisis and starts a full-scale military campaign against the Taliban, with support of NATO, for sure.  According to experts, this move marks the government’s will to draw the citizens’ attention from the poor social economic situation in the country.

Thus, the all recent developments show that the situation in Afghanistan has no conditions for a successful peaceful solution of the ongoing crisis. Furthermore, the military situation is going to escalate in the nearest future. This and a high level of corruption make hardly possible any major infrastructure and investment projects, including a China-Pakistan gas pipeline through the country.

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In the JFK administration I was a White House Fellow. In those days it was a much larger program than the small insider program it later became. President Kennedy’s intention was to involve many young Americans in government in order to keep idealism alive as a counter to the material interests of lobby groups. I don’t know if the program still exists. If it does, the idealism that was its purpose is long gone.

President John F. Kennedy was a classy president. In my lifetime there has not been another like him. Indeed, today he would be impossible.

Conservatives and Republicans did not like him, because he was thoughtful. Their favorite weapon against him was their account of his love life, which according to them involved Mafia molls and Marilyn Monroe. They must have worked themselves into fits of envy over Marilyn Monroe, the hottest woman of her time.

Unlike most presidents, Kennedy was able to break with the conventional thinking of the time.

From his experience with the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Joint Chiefs’ “Operaton Northwoods,” Kennedy concluded that CIA Director Allen Dulles and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Lemnitzer were both crazed by anti-communism and were a danger to Americans and the world.

Kennedy removed Dulles as CIA director, and he removed Lemnitzer as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, thus setting in motion his own assassination. The CIA, the Joint Chiefs, and the Secret Service concluded that JFK was “soft on communism.” So did the Bill Buckley conservatives.

JFK was assassinated because of anti-communist hysteria in the military and security agencies.
The Warren Commission was well aware of this. The coverup was necessary because America was locked into a Cold War with the Soviet Union. To put US military, CIA, and Secret Service personnel on trial for murdering the President of the United States would have shaken the confidence of the American people in their own government.

Oswald had nothing whatsoever to do with JFK’s assassination. That is why Oswald was himself assassinated inside the Dallas jail before he could be questioned.

For those of you too young to have experienced John Kennedy and those of you who have forgot his greatness, do yourselves a favor and listen to this 5 minute, 23 second speech. Try
to imagine anyone among the current dolts giving a speech like this. Look how much is said so well in less than 5 and one-half minutes.

Kennedy intended to pull the US out of Vietnam once he was reelected. He intended to break up the CIA “into one thousand pieces” and curtail the military-security complex that was exploiting the US budget.

And that is why he was murdered. The evil that resides in Washington does not only kill foreign leaders who try to do the right thing, but also its own.

Here is JFK’s speech:

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.

After the first ever cabinet meeting in the Golan Heights, Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech on April 17, 2016 that the territory “will remain under Israel’s sovereignty permanently.” This elicited admonitions from some of Israel’s greatest allies, the United States and Germany, and renewed attention on the issue.

The Golan Heights were opportunistically occupied by Israel after its victory in the 1967 six-day-war. A United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) has monitored the region since 1974, when Israel and Syria signed a ceasefire agreement, and it has been considered an occupied territory of the UN and the international community. In violation of this ceasefire, Israel effectively annexed the territory in 1981 by extending its laws and governmental apparatus over it. Most of the native population has been displaced and over 30 settlements have been constructed to house Jewish settlers. These settlements, like those in the West Bank, are illegal under international law.

The current escalation is really about oil. Since 2013, the Netanyahu government has granted exclusive oil and gas exploration rights to the oil company Afek Energy in a 153-square mile radius in the southern part of the Golan Heights. Afek Energy is an Israeli subsidiary of the US firm, Genie Energy. Afek’s director is former Israeli Housing Minister Effie Eitam, who is an illegal settler in the Golan Heights himself and is responsible for the fatal beatings of numerous Palestinians. Genie Energy’s strategy-advisory board includes former US Vice President Dick Cheney, media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, and former Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers. Other prominent names include Jacob Lord Rothschild, former CIA director and neocon James Woolsey, and former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.

Given the clout that these figures wield in US politics, it is unlikely that the US is serious about its admonishments to Israel. Germany’s Foreign Ministry has also criticized Israel´s move as being against international law, but both the US and Germany have declined to call for the Golan Heights to be returned to Syria, citing Syria’s internal situation as a justification. If the US is indeed frustrated with Israel’s behavior, as Vice President Biden recently said, it has a funny way of showing it: the Obama administration recently agreed to grant a $3.2 to $5 billion military-aid package to Israel, its largest ever. Germany is Israel’s next largest donor and military trading partner, which suggest that the indignation is mostly symbolic.

The ascent of Genie Energy, a small Newark-based company, to such geopolitical machinations goes back to the discovery of the Levant Basin (also known as the Leviathan Basin) off the Mediterranean coast in 2010, and the confirmation of first deposits of natural gas in the Golan Heights in 2011. The Levant Basin extends from the Northeastern coast of Egypt to the Northwestern coast of Syria and covers a vast area within the territorial waters of Egypt, Israel, Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Shortly after this discovery and the announcement that Israel intended to begin exploration and drilling, the government of Lebanon objected to the unilateral move, given the fact that the deposits extend into Lebanese territory. In an interview, Israel’s Minister of National infrastructure said that Israel would “not hesitate to use our force and strength” to protect the drilling operations. The Israeli energy giant Delek Group partnered with the US company Noble Energy to develop the exploitation of the reserves, which, according to a 2010 US Geological Survey, amounted to “approximately 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, with a current market value of $240 billion.”

Shale gas deposits were also found in Shfela valley in July 2011, and the Israeli Energy Initiative, a subsidiary of Genie Energy, was granted the drilling rights. Three months later, US Senator Mary Landrieu led the first official US Energy Mission to Israel, whose goal was to “introduce US firms to Israel’s rapidly expanding oil and gas market and to assist US companies pursuing export opportunities in this sector,” according to the US Department of Commerce. In reality, Landrieu was lobbying on behalf of Noble and Genie. But local environmental activists, and a consequent Knesset bill halted the venture in the Shfela Valley. By the time the bill passed, most of the company’s employees had moved to its sister subsidiary, Afek Energy.

US Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, and Israeli Treasury Director General, Doron Cohen, hosted the US-Israel Joint Economic Development Group (JEDG) in Washington on October 24, 2012. After the meeting, the JEDG signed an agreement to extend US loan guarantees of $3.8 billion to Israel to 2016, in order to develop its natural gas industry. In essence, the Obama administration gave $3.8 billion of taxpayers’ money to Israel, so that they could use it to benefit the investments and interests of American and Israeli oil companies. Given this financial backing and success of her first mission, Landrieu sent a second delegation of 12 energy (gas and oil) company representatives to Israel. During a roundtable discussion hosted by Landrieu and the Chair of Israel’s oil and gas association, Uri Aldubi, “the delegation received presentations from Noble Energy, Zion Oil, and Genie Energy.” They also met with Uzi Landau, Israel’s Minister of National Infrastructure.

All the while, the US ambassador to Israel lobbied Israeli Members of Knesset (MKs) to support legislation that would favor the gas and oil industry, particularly after the botched project in the Shfela Valley. These efforts were largely successful and resulted in the 2013-14 US-Israel Energy Cooperation Bill, which is intended to foster cooperation between Israeli and American energy companies in the exploitation of these “strategic” reserves.

After the passage of the US-Israel Energy Cooperation bill and grant of rights in the area, Afek Energy continued its exploratory and drilling operations. In October 2015, Israel and Afek Energy announced the discovery of oil reserves of 10 times the global average and capable of ensuring Israel’s energy sufficiency for many years. The announcement did not garner much attention outside the industry, but its connection to the recent militarization of the area by Israel was not coincidental. During a Washington visit on November 9, Benjamin Netanyahu asked President Barack Obama to back a formal Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights, citing the dysfunctional Syrian government, gripped by a foreign-backed civil war. He failed to mention that Israel was undermining the Assad regime and Hezbollah forces that were attempting to thwart ISIS in the region. Other political figures within Israel, such as Zvi Hauser, claimed that Israel should demand this annexation as a compensation for having tolerated the nuclear agreement with Iran.

In the past year Israel has intensified its military presence in the region and contributed to the armed conflict by utilizing the region as a staging and support ground for anti-Assad Islamist groups. As far back as 2012, UNDOF reported that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers were seen providing military and medical aid, on numerous occasions, to al-Nusra affiliated extremist groups engaged in hostilities against President Bashar al Assad in the South of Syria. In the week leading up to Netanyahu’s announcement of unilateral annexation, the Israeli military forces practiced a series of weeklong drills in the region, as well as along the border with Lebanon, in an apparent show of force. More recently, there have been reports of Israeli weapon shipments also being seized along Syria’s southern border, and intended for rebel groups in Syria. This suggests that the area is being used as a staging ground to destabilize the Assad regime even while this destabilization serves as a justification for the annexation.

Perhaps the IDF worries that the Syrian Arab Army, with the help of the Russian Aerospace Forces, is regaining territory formerly under rebel control and that, once this task is achieved, Assad might turn his eyes to the Golan Heights. Whatever the reason, a military escalation in the area coincides with the establishment of enormous economic interests, and these interests are linked to some of the most powerful individuals in the world. Political lobbying is taking place at the highest levels to ensure that the international community recognizes Israel’s claims of sovereignty over the region. For her services to the gas and oil industry, Ms. Landrieu has received tens of thousands of dollars of political contributions from both Genie and Noble Energy between 2010 and 2014. When this failed to get her reelected, she was quickly ensured a spot on Genie Energy’s Strategic Advisory Board, where she is still employed.

Editor’s Notes: Photographs one, seven, and nine from IDF; two from copelaes; three from US Embassy in Tel Aviv; four and ten from David Poe; five from Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs; six from DonkeyHotey; and eight from Irish Defence Forces.

A senior White House official has caused an uproar among journalists, political pundits and policy officials after he admitted to manipulating the public with “misleading or false” information to garner support for last July’s nuclear deal with Iran.

In a New York Times Magazine profile published on Thursday of President Obama’s foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes, journalist David Samuels writes, “The way in which most Americans have heard the story of the Iran deal presented — that the Obama administration began seriously engaging with Iranian officials in 2013 in order to take advantage of a new political reality in Iran, which came about because of elections that brought moderates to power in that country — was largely manufactured for the purpose for selling the deal. Even where the particulars of that story are true, the implications that readers and viewers are encouraged to take away from those particulars are often misleading or false.”

Rhodes, who heads the communications team tasked with selling the Iran nuclear deal to the public, gloats about how he was able to create an “echo chamber” where journalists and think-tankers would discuss and report on the deal based almost exclusively on information provided by the White House. “They were saying things that validated what we had given them,” Rhodes said.

Obama’s foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes.
Photo: White House.

“We had test drives to know who was going to be able to carry our message effectively, and how to use outside groups like Ploughshares, the Iran Project and whomever else. So we knew the tactics that worked,” he said.

Regarding Washington reporters, Rhodes said, “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.” Reflecting on this, Samuels writes, “In this environment, Rhodes has become adept at ventriloquizing many people at once.”

New York Post columnist John Podhoretz, writing in a Thursday oped, said the White House “played us for fools” to sell the Iran deal, adding, “Congratulations, liberals of the Washington press corps and elite organizations: You’re a bunch of suckers. We all know this because the Obama White House just told us so.”

Omri Ceren, a senior staffer at The Israel Project (TIP), a group which strongly opposed the Iran deal, took toTwitter to attack Rhodes. “When Rhodes and company brag about how they manipulated their favorite journalists, you don’t get the sense they respect those journalists,” one tweet read. In another post, Ceren poked fun at journalists and policy advisers who still fail to challenge Rhodes.

Reporters and arms control experts in Rhodes echo chamber all echoing same defensive talking points this morning, which is sort of neat.

— Omri Ceren (@cerenomri) May 6, 2016

Michael Doran — former White House senior director in the National Security Council under President George W. Bush and current Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC — also took to Twitter,writing, “Obama’s favorite aspiring novelist spun tales about Iran for the press, which repeated them uncritically.”

Thomas E. Ricks, a former Washington Post military correspondent, who says he voted twice for Obama, wrote in an oped for Foreign Policy magazine that Rhodes comes across as completely “unsympathetic” for his actions, “which makes it all the more devastating.” His article, titled “A stunning profile of Ben Rhodes, the a**hole who is the president’s foreign policy guru,” calls out Rhodes for coming off “like an overweening little schmuck” and “a real a**hole.”

Referring to the Washington propaganda machine during the Vietnam War, Ricks warns, “Fact check: Obama’s hasn’t been an original foreign policy as much as it has been a politicized foreign policy. And this Rhodes guy reminds me of the Kennedy smart guys who helped us get into the Vietnam war. Does he know how awful he sounds? Kind of like McGeorge Bundy meets Lee Atwater.”

Major Western powers and Iran are currently working to finalize the implementation of the nuclear agreement signed in July. In September, Republican-led efforts in the Senate to block the deal failed, with 58 senators voting against and 42 in favor of the agreement.

A new report on The Israel lobby and the European Union will be released on 9 May (Brussels) and 13 May (London) 2016. Researched and written by Public Interest Investigations/Spinwatch and published by EuroPal Forum. The report reveals the extent to which noted American funders and proponents of the Islamophobia industry in the United States and Israel’s illegal settlement project in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem are also financing the expanding Israel lobby in Brussels.

The report, which took more than two years to complete, uncovers the matrix of relationships within the Israel lobby – a social movement that overlaps considerably with the transatlantic Islamophobia industry. For example, key backers of the Israel lobby in Brussels include:

• Irving Moskowitz, a California-based bingo multimillionaire who openly finances the Judaisation of east Jerusalem and West Bank settlements
• Sheldon Adelson, an American casino billionaire who uses his Israeli media empire to support long-time friend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
• Nina Rosenburg, heiress to the Sears Roebuck fortune who was dubbed by journalist Max Blumenthal as ‘the sugar mama of anti-Muslim hate’
• Daniel Pipes, labeled by the Center for American Progress as part of a network of ‘misinformation experts’ that ‘peddle hate and fear of Muslims and Islam’
• Paul E. Singer, right-wing American billionaire who is the third largest donor to the 2016 Republican presidential campaign

The Israel Lobby and the European Union challenges the secrecy surrounding this transatlantic network. It identifies where pro-Israel groups receive their funding and how some of their donors have facilitated Israel’s illegal colonisation of the West Bank, including east Jerusalem; examines how the lobby has persuaded European law-makers to refrain from sanctioning Israel over its human rights abuses; and analyses how Israel’s supporters have been trying to undermine grassroots campaigning for justice in Palestine.

This seminal report raises questions about not only the influence of right-wing American activists on EU policy, but also how EU institutions have accommodated the smear campaign that the Israel lobby is conducting against the Palestine solidarity movement.

To request a copy of the report, please contact: [email protected]

– To attend the Brussels launch on 9 May, RSVP to: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-israel-lobby-and-the-european-union-report-launch-in-brussels-tickets-24894487081

– To attend the London launch on 13 May, RSVP to: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-israel-lobby-and-the-european-union-report-launch-in-london-tickets-24894778954

About the authors:

David Cronin is an Irish journalist and political activist living in Brussels. He is the author of Corporate Europe: How big business sets policies on food, climate and war (Pluto, 2013) and Europe’s alliance with Israel: Aiding the occupation (Pluto, 2011).

Sarah Marusek is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Religion Studies at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She is co-author of both The Henry Jackson Society and the degeneration of British Neoconservatism: Liberal interventionism, Islamophobia and the ‘War on Terror’ (Public Interest Investigations, 2015) and How Israel attempts to mislead the United Nations: Deconstructing Israel’s campaign against the Palestinian Return Centre. (Public Interest Investigations, 2015).

David Miller is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath. In 2004 he co-founded Public Interest Investigations, a non-profit company of which Spinwatch.org and Powerbase.info are projects. Recent publications include: The Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre. Giving peace a chance? (Public Interest Investigations, 2013, co-author), Stretching the sociological imagination: Essays in honour of John Eldridge (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, co-editor) and The new governance of addictive substances and behaviours (Oxford University Press, forthcoming, 2016, co-author).

About the publishers:

Public Interest Investigations is an independent non-profit making organisation. Founded in 2004, Public Interest Investigations promotes greater understanding of the role of PR, propaganda, lobbying and of the power networks that they support, through its website Spinwatch (www.spinwatch.org) and its investigative wiki site Powerbase (www.powerbase.info).

EuroPal Forum (www.europalforum.org.uk) is an independent organisation advocating Palestinian rights and working to build networks throughout Europe to achieve a positive and accurate public opinion on Palestine. It aims to promote dialogue and understanding between Palestinian and European decision makers. EuroPal Forum works towards a just European foreign policy upholding human rights of the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination.

If anyone wants a short course on what’s wrong with US diplomacy look no further than US Ambassador to Hungary Coleen Bell’s speech Friday to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Hungarian Parliament. In typical diplo-speak there was plenty of flowery language about shared values, fish swimming together in the same water (?), sappy poetics like “together, out of that winter, we would force the spring,” and talk of together being “part of the world’s greatest military and political alliance.”

But make no mistake: Inside Ambassador Bell’s velvet glove is an iron fist, poised to strike should Washington’s annoyingly independent-minded Fidesz-led government step out of line on the big issues. And by “big” issues it should be understood that the US means the issues it considers in the interests of its own foreign policy, not those in Hungary’s interest.

Message to Hungary: do as we say or you will be sorry.

Ambassador Bell’s previous job was as a television soap opera producer, but raising more than two million dollars for the election of Barack Obama “earned” her the position of top US diplomat in Hungary.

US Ambassador to Hungary, Coleen Bell

The former television producer does know how to deliver her lines, though. She lectured the Hungarians about Syria, explaining to them that ISIS and Assad are both equally evil and both equally to blame for the disaster that is Syria.

ISIS has flourished in Syria, she told the Hungarians, because it “exploits the chaos of civil war in Syria, a conflict that has now claimed more than 250,000 lives.” But she does not mention that it was US backing for “regime change” in Syria — beginning at least in 2006, as we learn from a critical Wikileaks-released US Embassy Damascus memo — that created that very chaos she blames for the rise of ISIS.

In fact it is propaganda to call what is happening in Syria a “civil war,” as the forces battling the Syrian government are all sponsored by foreign powers like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the US. It is a proxy war against the Syrian government, not a civil war.

She then tells the Hungarians ISIS will never be defeated in Syria until Assad is overthrown:

[W]e know we won’t be able to defeat Daesh in Syria unless we also deal with the civil war and particularly with Assad. Because as long as Assad is there, he remains the most powerful magnet for foreign fighters and recruits to Daesh.

Does she assume Hungarians are so stupid that they believe that by attacking and beating ISIS back nearly to Raqqa (with Russian assistance), the Syrian government of Assad is actually benefitting ISIS? Attacking ISIS means Assad is on the side of ISIS?

“Since February, the cessation of hostilities reduced the violence in Syria, allowing millions of Syrian civilians to take the first steps toward reclaiming a normal life,” says the Ambassador, without even mentioning what brought the ceasefire about in the first place: Russian participation along with the Syrian army in the decimation of al-Qaeda and ISIS positions in northwest and central Syria. In fact it is absolutely bizarre that in the world of Ambassador Bell (and the State Department hacks who drafted her speech), the Russian intervention against al-Qaeda and ISIS simply never took place or was too inconsequential to mention.

Is any Hungarian so ill-informed that he would believe such nonsense?

Bell used the tragedy in Syria to pressure Hungary on the (largely American-made) refugee crisis. Hungary’s firebrand prime minister, Viktor Orban, has, along with several of his central European counterparts, stood up to Brussels’ (and Washington’s) demands that Hungary take in tens of thousands of migrants who heeded German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s call to come to Europe and enjoy lots of free stuff.

Last month Orban told Hungarian Radio that if he accepts the EU migrant resettlement plan, “it would be determined not in Hungary but in Brussels who we have to live together with, and how the ethnic composition of the country will look in future.” He has rejected such a notion.

“Every sovereign nation has the right and an obligation to protect its borders,” Bell told the Hungarian Parliament, “But every nation, as a part of the international community, also has a fundamental obligation to help refugee populations seeking safety.”

Translation: your sovereignty is not determined by you, but rather by us. It is a practice articulated by Orwell in 1984 whereby a person can think two completely contradictory thoughts at the same time seemingly without any mental conflict.

But here is where the iron fist inside Bell’s velvet glove glints in the sun. She pointedly condemned the Hungarian government position by praising those in Hungary who hold the opposite view, i.e. the Hungarian opposition:

We commend the humanitarian spirit of Hungarian leaders, law enforcement and military personnel, and ordinary citizens who are responding to this crisis with generosity and compassion.

Then she gives Hungary Washington’s marching orders:

We continue to stress that any solution to these migration challenges should focus on saving and protecting lives, ensuring the human rights of all migrants are respected, and promoting orderly and humane migration policies.  That includes the support of all Member State governments for the refugee agreement forged between the EU and Turkey.

Translation: Hungary must support the EU agreement with Turkey which would see tens of thousands of migrants settled in EU member countries, including Hungary itself. The problem is that the Hungarian parliamentexplicitly rejected Brussels’ forced migrant settlement plans for Hungary and plans to hold a nationwide referendum on the subject. Bell is saying here that Hungary’s elected representatives and even the Hungarian voter must be ignored and Brussels’ dictate obeyed.

When it comes to Russia, Ambassador Bell also has some instructions for Budapest: Moscow is your enemy and don’t you forget it.

She told Hungarian parliamentarians:

As many Hungarians have reminded me, you need no introduction to the nature of Russian aggression. Your response has always been to show resolve. Our best weapons, in fact, are resolve and solidarity.

Weapons? Quite a loaded word.

Orban has been seen in Washington as insufficiently enthused about sanctions on Russia, which hurt Hungarian trade and business interests. Ambassador Bell makes it clear that Hungary must adhere to US demands of Russia, even if they are completely incoherent:

As the United States and Hungary have both stated many times, Russia has a simple choice: fully implement Minsk or continue to face sanctions.  Russia must withdraw weapons and troops from the Donbas; Russia must ensure that all Ukrainian hostages are returned; Russia must allow full humanitarian access to occupied territories; Russia must support free, fair, and internationally-monitored elections in the Donbas under Ukrainian law; and most important, Russia must restore Ukraine’s sovereignty.

That last point should be taken to mean that Russia must ignore the will of the people of Crimea who voted in overwhelming numbers to re-join Russia after just 25 years as part of independent Ukraine.

Not to worry, Ambassador Bell is confident that Budapest will do everything Washington tells it to do:

More than this, Hungary is equal to the great challenges of our times, and the United States is counting on you.

To stiffen their spine, US Ambassador Bell reminds the Hungarians that they are part of “our global order” and touts the great examples set by the US, including:

Our system of international economic, political, and social norms and institutions have kept the peace and fostered prosperity for decades.  Whether it is international law, environmental protection, trade regulations, anticorruption laws, child labor laws, human rights safeguards, the nonproliferation regime, public health systems, international financial institutions, UN peacekeeping, or a robust civil society – these norms and institutions give life and stability to our global order.

In the era of NSA spying on innocent Americans, Guantanamo, CIA torture, weapons sales to the world’s worst dictators (Saudi Arabia for one),destruction of the environment by the US war machine, “regime change” operations that violate the sovereignty of other states, and outright aggression in opposition to US and international law (Libya, etc.), Bell’s suggestion that “our global order” is the pinnacle of civilization should get a laugh out of most Hungarians. In fact, from Libya to Syria to Ukriane to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the US interventionist attempt to forge a global order with blood and bullets will go down in history along with the authoritarianisms of the 20th century as one of humanity’s darkest chapters.

Here is the short version of Ambassador Bell to Budapest: “to be our partner means you do what we say whether or not it is in your interest.”

On May 7th, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, or German Economic News, headlined, “USA planen mit TTIP Frontal-Angriff auf Gerichte in Europa” or “U.S. Plans Frontal Attack on Europe’s Courts via TTIP,” and reported that, “America’s urgency to sign TTIP with Europe has solid reason: Megabanks must protect themselves from claims by European investors who allege that they were cheated during the debt crisis. … The U.S. Ambassador to Italy has now let the cat out of the bag on this — probably unintentionally.”

In this particular case, the megabank that’s being sued isn’t American but German, Deutsche Bank, which the U.S. Ambassador to Italy has cited as his example to defend, perhaps so as to appeal to Germans to protect their megabanks against lawsuits from foreign investors (such as Italians) who complain. In that case it was investors in the Italian city of Trani, population 53,000. The smallness of the city was an issue the Ambassador raised against the suit’s having been brought there.

Reuters headlined on May 6th, “Italian prosecutor investigates Deutsche Bank over 2011 bond sale”, and reported that, “An Italian prosecutor is investigating Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) over its sale of 7 billion euros ($8 billion) of Italian government bonds five years ago, an investigative source told Reuters. A prosecutor in Trani, a town in southern Italy, is investigating because Deutsche Bank allegedly told clients in a research note in early 2011 that Italy’s public debt was no cause for concern, and then sold almost 90 percent of its own holding of the country’s bonds.” The U.S. bond-rating agencies are also subjects in this suit, because Trani had relied upon their ratings of those bonds.

The Obama Administration (through its Italian Ambassador) seems thus to be saying, in effect, that unless TTIP is passed into law, Europe’s megabanks (and the U.S. bond-rating agencies, S&P, Moody’s and Fitch) will be able successfully to be sued by cheated investors, just as has been happening with such American banks as JPMorgan/Chase and Goldman Sachs in the United States, which — since TTIP hasn’t yet been in force anywhere, including in the U.S. — were forced to pay billions to cheated investors. Apparently, Obama would be happier if those suits had been impossible in the U.S. The argument here, though only implicitly, seems to be that TTIP is the way to protect megabanks and the bond-rating firms. It concerns specifically the selling of sophisticated derivative investments.

If this is the argument behind the remarks by Obama’s Italian Ambassador, John Phillips, he’s obliquely warning Europeans that unless TTIP gets signed, their megabanks might similarly be forced to pay billions to investors who were cheated. As quoted by Reuters, he said that, in the U.S., it’s “highly unlikely that such a case would be brought outside the major financial centers, where prosecutors have both jurisdiction and expertise in securities fraud prosecutions,” and that megabanks need the protection that’s provided by such prosecutors, since they possess “expertise in securities fraud prosecutions.” Phillips was clearly implying that small-city prosecutors (such as are allowed to prosecute such cases in Europe) aren’t such “experts,” as are needed in order to protect the megabanks. Reuters characterizes Phillips’s argument as asserting, “Italy’s justice system was deterring investors.” However, no clarification of the meaning of that statement was provided by Reuters.

DWN alleges that under the TTIP such a court-issue would probably not even have been raised but would simply have ended before an arbitration panel, in which the aggrieved investors exert no influence and where it would be almost impossible for these investors’ rights to be protected.

Another example is cited, where the German city of Pforzheim successfully sued, at the Federal Court of Justice, the U.S. megabank JPMorgan/Chase, and where that court allowed Pforzheim to seek “accumulated damages of 57 million euros.”

Under TTIP, a megabank fined this way might in turn sue the nation’s taxpayers to restore the megabank’s ensuing loss of profits. If the cheated investors win, taxpayers might thus end up bearing the cheated investors’ losses. Under TTIP, the fined company would be arguing that the law under which it had been fined is in violation of TTIP and thus constitutes a violation of that treaty, so that the violating government is obliged to be paying the fine — the law against fraud would itself be violating the fined company’s rights. If the three-arbitrator TTIP panel rules in the megabank’s favor, the government would need to pay the fine it had assessed against the bank, and no appeals court exists for any of these arbitration-panels’ rulings — these rulings are final. Obama and other proponents of that system, which is calledISDS for Investor State Dispute Settlement, say that it’s a more efficient way of handling such disputes. In international commercial affairs, it not only eliminates appeals courts, it gradually eliminates democracy, by fining the government into ultimate submission to these three-person panels of international-corporate-accountable arbitrators.

On the same basic idea, Benito Mussolini was praised for “making the trains run on time.”

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Do you remember all the hopes Americans had for Obama when we elected him to his first term? Painful memories. He betrayed the voters on every one of his promises. There was no change, except for the worst as Obama went on to become one of the most vicious war criminals in world history. Despite his horrific record, we re-elected him, only to have US economic policy turn against the people in order to bail out at our expense the mega-banks and the One Percent.

Now Obama is coercing Asia and Europe to turn the governments of their countries over to rapacious American corporations empowered by TPP and TTIP to subordinate all interests to their profits.

Here is Pepe Escobar on how the great and wonderful United States treats its enserfed vassals:

“Hardball, predictably, is the name of the game. Washington no less than threatened to block EU car exports [to the US] to force the EU to buy [Monsanto’s] genetically engineered fruits and vegetables.”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44594.htm

Now we face the prospect of electing an even worse president than Obama—Killary Clinton. Killary is the bought-and-paid-for property of Wall Street, Israel, and the military-security complex. She will bring back to power the totally discredited neoconservatives, and the US will proceed with its butchery and slaughter of other countries and all reformist governments everywhere.

The question is: will enough insouciant Americans align with the One Percent, the neocons, the men-hating feminists, homosexuals, the transgendered, and other “preferred minorities” to put the US presidency in the hands of an aggressive, corrupt person with a conscience deficit? That is the goal toward which the presstitutes are driving the brainwashed.

If we end up with Killary, neither the US nor the world will survive the mistake. She will be the last American president.

Killary is compromised with secret agendas, and secret agendas lead to conflict and war. With a crazed President Killary who declared Russian Presient Vladimir Putin, the world’s leading peacemaker, to be “the new Hitler,” with crazed American generals who declare Russia to be “an existential threat to the United States,” and with the insane neoconservatives back in the saddle determined to impose American hegemony on the rest of the world, Killary’s election will terminate life on earth.

From the Archive:

September 28, 2014

Washington’s Secret Agendas

Paul Craig Roberts

One might think that by now even Americans would have caught on to the constant stream of false alarms that Washington sounds in order to deceive the people into supporting its hidden agendas.

The public fell for the lie that the Taliban in Afghanistan are terrorists allied with al Qaeda. Americans fought a war for 13 years that enriched Dick Cheney’s firm, Halliburton, and other private interests only to end in another Washington failure.

The public fell for the lie that Saddam Hussein in Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction” that were a threat to America and that if the US did not invade Iraq Americans risked a “mushroom cloud going up over an American city.” With the rise of ISIS, this long war apparently is far from over. Billions of dollars more in profits will pour into the coffers of the US military security complex as Washington fights those who are redrawing the false Middle East boundaries created by the British and French after WW I when the British and French seized territories of the former Ottoman Empire.

The American public fell for the lies told about Gaddafi in Libya. The formerly stable and prosperous country is now in chaos.

The American public fell for the lie that Iran has, or is building, nuclear weapons. Sanctioned and reviled by the West, Iran has shifted toward an Eastern orientation, thereby removing a principal oil producer from Western influence.

The public fell for the lie that Assad of Syria used “chemical weapons against his own people.” The jihadists that Washington sent to overthrow Assad have turned out to be, according to Washington’s propaganda, a threat to America.

The greatest threat to the world is Washington’s insistence on its hegemony. The ideology of a handful of neoconservatives is the basis for this insistence. We face the situation in which a handful of American neoconservative psychopaths claim to determine the fate of countries.

Many still believe Washington’s lies, but increasingly the world sees Washington as the greatest threat to peace and life on earth. The claim that America is “exceptional and indispensable” is used to justify Washington’s right to dictate to other countries.

The casualties of Washington’s bombings are invariably civilians, and the deaths will produce more recruits for ISIS. Already there are calls for Washington to reintroduce “boots on the ground” in Iraq. Otherwise, Western civilization is doomed, and our heads will be cut off. The newly created propaganda of a “Russian threat” requires more NATO spending and more military bases on Russia’s borders. A “quick reaction force” is being created to respond to a nonexistent threat of a Russian invasion of the Baltics, Poland, and Europe.

Usually it takes the American public a year, or two, three, or four to realize that it has been deceived by lies and propaganda, but by that time the public has swallowed a new set of lies and propaganda and is all concerned about the latest “threat.” The American public seems incapable of understanding that just as the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth threat was a hoax, so is the sixth threat, and so will be the seventh, eighth, and ninth.

Moreover, none of these American military attacks on other countries has resulted in a better situation, as Vladimir Putin honestly states. Yet, the public and its representatives in Congress support each new military adventure despite the record of deception and failure.

Perhaps if Americans were taught their true history in place of idealistic fairy tales, they would be less gullible and less susceptible to government propaganda. I have recommended Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick’s The Untold History of the United States, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, and now I recommend Stephen Kinzer’s The Brothers, the story of the long rule of John Foster and Allen Dulles over the State Department and CIA and their demonization of reformist governments that they often succeeded in overthrowing. Kinzer’s history of the Dulles brothers’ plots to overthrow six governments provides insight into how Washington operates today.

In 1953 the Dulles brothers overthrew Iran’s elected leader, Mossadegh and imposed the Shah, thus poisoning American-Iranian relations through the present day. Americans might yet be led into a costly and pointless war with Iran, because of the Dulles brothers poisoning of relations in 1953.

The Dulles brothers overthrew Guatemala’s popular president Arbenz, because his land reform threatened the interest of the Dulles brothers’ Sullivan & Cromwell law firm’s United Fruit Company client. The brothers launched an amazing disinformation campaign depicting Arbenz as a dangerous communist who was a threat to Western civilization. The brothers enlisted dictators such as Somoza in Nicaragua and Batista in Cuba against Arbenz. The CIA organized air strikes and an invasion force. But nothing could happen until Arbenz’s strong support among the people in Guatemala could be shattered. The brothers arranged this through Cardinal Spellman, who enlisted Archbishop Rossell y Arellano. “A pastoral letter was read on April 9, 1954 in all Guatemalan churches.”

A masterpiece of propaganda, the pastoral letter misrepresented Arbenz as a dangerous communist who was the enemy of all Guatemalans. False radio broadcasts produced a fake reality of freedom fighter victories and army defections. Arbenz asked the UN to send fact finders, but Washington prevented that from happening. American journalists, with the exception of James Reston, supported the lies. Washington threatened and bought off Guatemala’s senior military commanders, who forced Arbenz to resign. The CIA’s chosen and well paid “liberator,” Col. Castillo Armas, was installed as Arbenz’s successor.

We recently witnessed a similar operation in Honduras and Ukraine.

President Eisenhower thanked the CIA for averting “a Communist beachhead in our hemisphere,” and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles gave a national TV and radio address in which he declared that the events in Guatemala “expose the evil purpose of the Kremlin.” This despite the uncontested fact that the only outside power operating in Guatemala was the Dulles brothers.

What had really happened is that a democratic and reformist government was overthrown because it compensated United Fruit Company for the nationalization of the company’s fallow land at a value listed by the company on its tax returns. America’s leading law firm or perhaps more accurately, America’s foreign policy-maker, Sullivan & Cromwell, had no intention of permitting a democratic government to prevail over the interests of the law firm’s client, especially when senior partners of the firm controlled both overt and covert US foreign policy. The two brothers, whose family members were invested in the United Fruit Company, simply applied the resources of the CIA, State Department, and US media to the protection of their private interests.

The extraordinary gullibility of the American people, the corrupt American media, and the indoctrinated and impotent Congress allowed the Dulles brothers to succeed in overthrowing a democracy.

Keep in mind that this use of the US government in behalf of private interests occurred 60 years ago long before the corrupt Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes. And no doubt in earlier times as well, as General Smedley Butler has attested.

The Dulles brothers next intended victim was Ho Chi Minh. Ho, a nationalist leader, asked for America’s help in freeing Vietnam from French colonial rule. But John Foster Dulles, a self-righteous anti-communist, miscast Ho as a Communist Threat who was springing the domino theory on the Western innocents. Nationalism and anti-colonialism, Foster declared, were merely a cloak for communist subversion.

Paul Kattenburg, the State Department desk officer for Vietnam suggested that instead of war, the US should give Ho $500 million in reconstruction aid to rebuild the country from war and French misrule, which would free Ho from dependence on Russian and Chinese support, and, thereby, influence. Ho appealed to Washington several times, but the demonic inflexibility of the Dulles brothers prevented any sensible response. Instead, the hysteria whipped-up over the “communist threat” by the Dulles brothers landed the United States in the long, costly, fiasco known as the Vietnam War.

Kattenburg later wrote that it was suicidal for the US “to cut out its eyes and ears, to castrate its analytic capacity, to shut itself off from the truth because of blind prejudice.” Unfortunately for Americans and the world, castrated analytic capacity is Washington’s strongest suit.

The Dulles brothers’ next targets were President Sukarno of Indonesia, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of Congo, and Fidel Castro. The plot against Castro was such a disastrous failure that it cost Allen Dulles his job. President Kennedy lost confidence in the agency and told his brother Bobby that after his reelection he was going to break the CIA into a thousand pieces. When President Kennedy removed Allen Dulles, the CIA understood the threat and struck first.

Warren Nutter, my Ph.D. dissertation chairman, later Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, taught his students that for the US government to maintain the people’s trust, which democracy requires, the government’s policies must be affirmations of our principles and be openly communicated to the people. Hidden agendas, such as those of the Dulles brothers and the Clinton, Bush and Obama regimes, must rely on secrecy and manipulation and, thereby, arouse the distrust of the people. If Americans are too brainwashed to notice, many foreign nationals are not.

The US government’s secret agendas have cost Americans and many peoples in the world tremendously. Essentially, the Dulles brothers created the Cold War with their secret agendas and anti-communist hysteria. Secret agendas committed Americans to long, costly, and unnecessary wars in Vietnam and the Middle East. Secret CIA and military agendas intending regime change in Cuba were blocked by President John F. Kennedy and resulted in the assassination of a president, who, for all his faults, was likely to have ended the Cold War twenty years before Ronald Reagan seized the opportunity.

Secret agendas have prevailed for so long that the American people themselves are now corrupted. As the saying goes, “a fish rots from the head.” The rot in Washington now permeates the country.

It is a rot that threatens the entire world.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.

Trump’s appeal is reminiscent of Reagan’s back in 1980 because of their unabashed attack on what they say is a failed political establishment. 

With his win last week in Indiana’s Republican primary, it appears increasingly likely that Donald Trump will now be the Republican nominee to run for president. However, Republican party elites are coming around only slowly to that prospect and are still having a hard time accepting that reality.  They could still “shoot themselves in the foot,” as the saying goes, by engineering an 11th hour contested nominating convention.  Not likely, but still possible.

Republican Elite Still Undecided about Trump

Or they could accept Trump as the nominee, and withhold their financial support beyond just a token commitment, and instead focus on retaining control of the Senate and US House of Representatives.

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump holds a campaign event in Phoenix, Arizona July 11, 2015. | Photo: Reuters

Or, they could do what the Democratic party leadership did in 1972, when the Democrat party elite faced a grassroots populist revolution from below in the form of the George McGovern’s challenge to Democratic party leaders and McGovern’s eventual 1972 nomination. That is, they could quietly throw their support behind McGovern’s Republican opponent at the time, Richard Nixon, which ex-president Lyndon Johnson and other high level Democrat party leaders did.  They could support Hillary, in other words.

The Republican party elite is quite capable of doing that in Trump’s case. A growing number of Republican party leaders are already coming to believe that Hillary is not all that bad an option for them.  More Republican billionaires are considering the same. For example, the notorious Koch brothers, ultra-conservative multi-billionaires in the US, have already signaled publicly they could support Hillary if Trump becomes the Republican nominee. And Hillary’s husband, Bill, is reported to be aggressively courting with some success-other billionaire Republicans, seeking money and support for Hillary in exchange for what in return one can only guess.

The Trump-Ryan Exchange

That the Republican party leaders have still not decided what to do about Trump was reflected in the past week’s verbal exchanges between Trump and Republican U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan, one of the top leaders of the party. Last month Ryan was clearly being discussed by the “insiders” of the party as the Republican nominee if Trump failed to get the nomination on the first ballot at the convention, and there was a need to select a candidate other than Trump. Ryan was at the top of that list.

Ryan’s initial public statement after Trump’s opponents, John Kasich and Ted Cruz, dropped out of the race this past week was that he, Ryan, could not yet support Trump’s policies or his nomination. Nor would he meet with him. Ryan was clearly speaking on behalf of the rest of the Republican establishment. They were probably testing Trump. Would he come to them and tell them what they wanted to hear, supporting free trade, cutting social security, providing more tax cuts for big business, repeal Obamacare, etc. Refusing to be upstaged by Ryan, however, Trump quickly retorted publicly that he was not ready to support Ryan’s policies either, and was not interested in meeting with Ryan in any event.  In short, the Trump-Republican leadership relationship remains fluid, and it is not yet clear what the Republican elite has decided to do with Trump, their presumptive party nominee now that Kasich and Cruz dropped out.

Trump As ‘Outside the Outsiders’

What the Trump-Ryan exchange this past week reflects is that Trump never loses an opportunity to position himself ‘outside’ the two party system, including his own Republican party. U.S. presidential candidates typically like to run as “Washington outsiders” in U.S. presidential elections. Blame all the problems of the country on the “insiders,” i.e. the politicians in Washington. That was Cruz’s strategy, even though he himself was a Washington “insider” as a Senator.  But Trump “out-Cruzed” Cruz in the primaries and went one step further, positioning himself as outside the two party system itself, not just the Washington establishment. It’s what voters wanted to hear.

In this year’s election, that’s a theme that has great appeal whether on the left or the right: attack the party system itself as corrupt and non-responsive to average Americans’ interests, not just the Washington establishment.  The unresponsive party system has become a kind of proxy for an unresponsive political system itself, which more voters are coming to think is basically corrupt, both politically and economically, undemocratic, and increasingly disregarding of the needs of the majority of U.S. middle and working class households. The parties are only concerned about the interests of bankers, corporations, and the wealthiest 1 percent.

A majority of American voters — on both the left and the right — are increasingly fed up with both political parties. That has become a U.S. voter “hot button” that Trump discovered early in the campaign and has never lost an opportunity to push.  Ryan and the rest of the Republican party establishment haven’t quite figured that out yet. They keep playing into Trump and he wastes no opportunity to “push the button” and attack them in return as representatives and reflections of a system that is no longer responsive to average Americans.  Sometimes Trump will even bait one of them, charge them with having done great harm to U.S. national security by attacking Iraq when there was no proof of weapons of mass destruction there, as in the case of Trump’s accusation aimed at former president, George W. Bush; or draw out former Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, questioning his former Vietnam prisoner of war status; or some other party “elder” who was previously considered untouchable.

Every time Trump attacked a member of the Republican party establishment — whether Jeb Bush, Cruz, Rubio, or even party leaders not running against him like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, or others — he was de facto attacking the Republican party and its leaders who, with their Democrat counterparts, represent a failed party system in the mind of the U.S. voter.  The Republican party elites could not — and still do not — understand why Trump is doing this. But Trump and the voters understood. And every time they criticized Trump in return for his attacks, he comes back at them declaring them part of a corrupt party system. Their criticisms don’t weaken Trump; they strengthen his appeal. And the more abusive of them Trump becomes, the more it resonates with U.S. voters.

Echoes of a Past Election

There are a number of “echoes” of past U.S. elections in this year’s U.S. election.  In a number of important respects, Trump’s appeal is reminiscent of Reagan’s back in 1980. Not because their policies are similar. But because of their unabashed attack on what they proclaim is a failed political establishment.

That appeal should not be underestimated by progressives or liberals. Trump cannot be simply disregarded as “crazy” or some kind of fascist, the latter charge only revealing how little they understand fascism let alone Trump. It is true that Trump is more brash, crude, and outlandish in his public statements and his pandering to the ignorant ultra-conservative base in the US, when compared to Reagan. All that different in tone reflects, however, is the general deterioration of U.S. public and political discourse in recent decades. Progressives and liberals today, who were not around in 1980 to experience the 1980 election, should know that Reagan in 1980 was no less “shocking” for the time with some of his extreme positions and proposals.

One of the several things that are unique in this 2016 electoral cycle is that a majority, if not a big plurality, of American voters are becoming increasingly fed up with the two party system — which is perhaps better described as two wings of a single Corporate Party of America system.  Both wings, Republican and Democrat, have been flapping in unison the past 36 years, both delivering neoliberal economic policies that have been devastating average Americans’ standard of living, while enriching the wealthiest 1% households and their corporations to an obscene degree.

As a recent study by University of California, Berkeley professor, Emmanual Saez, has revealed using IRS data: no less than 97% of all the net gains in national income since 2008 have been captured by the wealthiest 1 percent households.  That compares to 65 percent captured by the same during 2000-2008, and 48 percent captured in 1992-1999.

It may be the two party (two wings-single party) system is today the target of U.S. voter wrath in this particular election. But it may also be that the party system itself is a proxy for a growing, deeper discontent with the system itself that could eventually manifest more quickly than some think. It is not coincidental that in polls nearly half of young workers in the U.S. today speak sympathetically about, or identify in some way, with Socialism. They may not have a clear or historical understanding of the term, but to them it means “anything but the present” in some fundamental way.

Jack Rasmus is author of ‘Systemic Fragility in the Global Economy’, Clarity Press, January 2016, and the forthcoming ‘Looting Greece: An Emerging New Financial Imperialism’, Clarity Press, July 2016. He blogs at jackrasmus.com.

In this essay we will examine the remarkable performance of the Mariinsky Theater orchestra in Palmyra on 5 May from three perspectives:  at face value, in terms of the objectives set out by its organizer, with mention of all key actors;  its political dimension as seen from Moscow; and its political dimension as seen by Western mainstream media

Even those with a limited knowledge of Russia may be credited with having heard of St Petersburg being called the Venice of the North. This is a title it must share with a variety of other claimants famed for their canals, such as Bruges in Belgium, although St Petersburg has more justification than competing cities given its common architectural roots with the Venice of the South, namely the leading 18th century Italian architects who contributed greatly to forming its appearance.

To cognoscenti there is also another twin city association of St Petersburg, that of the Northern Palmyra. That notion goes back to the age of Catherine the Great, who was likened to the 3rd century queen Zenobia, the powerful ruler of the Palmyran Empire who conquered Egypt and a large swathe of Anatolia. In the time of Pushkin, Russian writers further developed the allusion, drawing more generally upon the reputed beauty and cultural richness of Roman Palmyra.

Even those with a limited knowledge of Russia may be credited with having heard of St Petersburg being called the Venice of the North. This is a title it must share with a variety of other claimants famed for their canals, such as Bruges in Belgium, although St Petersburg has more justification than competing cities given its common architectural roots with the Venice of the South, namely the

The links of consciousness did not end there.  Later in the 19th century, St Petersburg based archeologists were among the Europeans taking part in digs in Palmyra and writing about their adventures.

With this twin city awareness borne by the Russian Intelligentsia to this day, it is not so surprising that precisely a St Petersburg conductor, Valeri Gergiev, thought up the grand gesture, an act of great imagination that was realized on Thursday, 5 May. He brought the Symphony Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater to Palmyra to perform a concert of Bach, Shchedrin and Prokofiev in the Roman Amphitheater and to celebrate the return of culture to a UNESCO site desecrated by its Islamic State occupiers who over the preceding year held their brutal public executions here. The concert audience consisted of Russian and Syrian troops, Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, noted Arabist and Director of the Hermitage Museum Mikhail Piotrovsky, local dignitaries, and a contingent of UNESCO representatives.

The event opened with a short speech by Vladimir Putin carried over a live satellite link from his residence in Sochi. Putin underscored the courage of those participating in the concert and the will of civilized society to triumph over terror. The entire event was broadcast live on Russian state television and has been made available on the web by RT.

As the recording makes clear, this was a world-class performance that featured eminent soloists. The unaccompanied Bach piece for violin was played by a laureate of the International Tchaikovsky Competition, Pavel Miliukov.  Quadrille, a work by the Mariinsky’s house composer Rodion Shchedrin, widower of ballet prima donna Maya Plisetskaya, was performed by cellist Sergei Roldugin.  And the choice of a Prokofiev symphony was in line with Gergiev’s long-standing efforts to make that great Soviet composer widely known and appreciated at home and abroad.

It is little more than a month since Palmyra was liberated from its ISIS occupiers by the Syrian Army with the assistance of Russian air strikes.  It is just days since the archeological sites were cleared of mines by Russian military specialists, many of whom were in the audience.  Meanwhile, the forces of the Islamic State continue to send missions against Palmyra and its surrounding countryside in attempts to recapture lost ground.

In these circumstances, the action of maestro Gergiev, his orchestra and soloists, the logistics team that moved the orchestra and some 100 tons of telecommunications gear into the war zone, and the broadcasting team who set up the live coverage must be characterized as brave, even daring.

It was also in character for Gergiev. He performed at the front before, as he famously did in 2008 when he brought the orchestra to the capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, just after its liberation from Georgian attackers. But he and his orchestra also perform at home in ways that show similar disregard for their own comfort and incur heightened risks: they regularly bring their music to hard to reach parts of the Russian Federation on grueling tours of the far north and the far east, often taking with them internationally known soloists. Those concerts do not receive the admiring attention of the outside world.

It bears mention that the concert by maestro Gergiev and the Mariinsky orchestra was not a one-off event. It was meant to be the first step in the return of culture and decency to Palmyra. Already on the next day a follow-on concert featuring a Syrian orchestra and chorus was held in the Roman amphitheater. Moreover, the Russians did not rush to evacuate their broadcasters and gear, because state television carried a live transmission of this evening concert to Russian viewers late last night.

With all due respect to maestro Gergiev’s intention to present a gift of culture to the residents of Syria’s UNESCO listed city of Palmyra and to convey the promise of return to normal civilian life in a country devastated by civil war and the intervention of foreign fighters, it would be disingenuous to ignore the way the Kremlin and its state television framed the event for consumption in Russia and the wider world. Call it an exercise in Soft Power, of which it was surely Russia’s most successful in many, many years; call it what you will, the concert in Palmyra had a clearly stated political dimension.

This ‘Pray for Palmyra’ concert was dedicated to the memory of two heroes, one Syrian, the other Russian.  Large photos of both were on either side of the stage.

The Syrian being honored was Dr. Khaled Asaad, director of the Palmyra museum complex, who in August 2015, at age 81, was brutally executed, beheaded by the Islamic State militants. The presence at the concert of Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky was a direct counterpoint to the missing Syrian scholar and administrator. Piotrovsky symbolized the ongoing and future participation of Russian art restorers in bringing Palmyra back to its pre-war status as a center of research for orientalists and a  major tourist attraction.

The Russian being honored was Lieutenant Alexander Prokhorenko, Russia’s national hero of the Syrian campaign, the special forces officer working behind enemy lines on the Palmyra front who, when surrounded by jihadists, called in Russian jet strikes on his own position and knowingly paid with his life while taking out an enemy detachment. Prokhorenko’s body was eventually recovered and returned to Russia this week where it was given the highest state honors. His funeral in his native Orenburg region was held yesterday, on 6 May.  Russian television news coverage of the Palmyra concert was back-to-back with video reportage of the honor guard receiving Prokhorenko’s coffin.  Moreover, attention was given to Western resonance of his valor.

Though some British newspapers had described Prokhorenko as a Russian “Rambo” and some Western military experts saluted the selfless heroism of this fellow professional, Russian state television chose to feature a more personal response. We were shown an elderly French couple who had sent their family medals for World War II resistance heroism to the parents of Prokhorenko via the Russian diplomatic service as their expression of solidarity. The couple was invited to Russia by President Putin and met with the grieving parents of Russia’s hero, as we saw on television.

More broadly, the date for the Mariinsky concert in Palmyra was surely chosen with an eye to the forthcoming 9 May Victory in Europe celebrations across Russia.  The concert was a gift to the Russian nation for its popular if skeptical support of the military intervention in Syria. They saw on their screens the fruits of Russian-Syrian military cooperation, and in particular images of the secular and friendly Syria that Russian diplomacy has backed with blood and national wealth.

They saw the first step in what will be a long process of reconstruction, preparing the way for the return of refugees and displaced persons. All of this is a direct reproach to the European Union’s handling of the migrant crisis, namely ransacking the first aid station for band-aids rather than identifying and addressing the root causes of the problem.  Europe, like the United States, has at best stood by and at worst aided and abetted interventions in the Syrian civil war by the Gulf States and Turkey that greatly strengthened the terrorist forces and prolonged the fighting awaiting the collapse of the Assad regime, notwithstanding all the havoc that resulted for the Syrian population.

Western mainstream media coverage of the Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra’s concert in Palmyra runs the full range from merely tendentious and sour grapes to overtly hostile and malicious commentary.

U.S. media coverage was meager.  The online edition of Time magazine was short, concentrated on the facts and avoided politically colored adjectives.  To its credit, we are told that the concert was led “by renowned Russian conductor Valery Gergiev.” The presence in the audience of UNESCO dignitaries was noted.

The New York Times was less cautious, more inflammatory. Its editors chose a headline that make clear the intention to deprive the event of any serious merit:  “Russian Orchestra Plays in Palmyra Ruins as Strikes Kill 28.” This linkage of two separate news items may be described as the “Washington narrative” because it shows up in many other derogatory press accounts of the concert.  Just how far that could be pushed we will see in a minute when we consider the BBC’s coverage.

What shred of journalistic integrity the NYT managed to produce appears at the very end of the article, when the author admits that: “it was not immediately clear who carried out the attack on the camp in Idlib province where some 2,000 internally displaced people had taken shelter from the fighting in nearby Aleppo and Hama provinces over the past year.” And the closing words are that it is ‘too early to say if Assad’s forces carried out the attack.”  But the intended damage to the credibility of the Russian cultural mission to Palmyra was already done up front.

Probably the most toxic U.S. reporting on the concert was from Radio Svoboda, the old Cold War bullhorn directed against Russia with U.S. government funding.  Here at the outset we are told about the cellist Roldugin, the “close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin” who was caught out in the Panama Papers scandal as the owner of an offshore company engaged in ‘’shady transactions.” But then the article switches over entirely to a story broadcast by Sky News two days earlier alleging that Palmyra was handed over to Syrian government troops by the Islamic State in accordance with agreements reached between IS and the Assad regime. Assad was supposedly in cahoots with the jihadists. The notion of Russian participation in the city’s liberation is off the radar screen of the Radio Svoboda propagandists.

British media were more attentive to the concert in Palmyra but, with one or two exceptions, no more friendly than their American confrères.  The Guardian, which is sometimes independent-minded on Russian affairs, this time was entirely aligned with the Washington narrative.   Valery Gergiev is presented as the “Kremlin favourite.” Moreover, we read that “Gergiev, the former principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, is a controversial and outspoken supporter of Putin.” In this light, we are reminded about Gergiev’s 2008 concert in Ossetia.  I note parenthetically what The Guardian omitted in their rush to marginalize the maestro: that Gergiev is now the principal conductor of the Munich Philharmonic as well as artistic director of the Mariinsky.

The Guardian also reminds us that featured cellist Sergei Roldugin is “Vladimir Putin’s best friend” and that “the Panama Papers revealed that Roldugin was the beneficiary of hundreds of millions of dollars in offshore deals.”

Finally, The Guardian tells its readers that among the foreigners present at the concert were representatives from Zimbabwe, China and Serbia.  They pointedly omit to say that they were present in a UNESCO delegation which also included Europeans.

The BBC online coverage carries many of the anti-Putin, anti-Russian tendentious adjectives, reminders and omissions that we have seen above.  But it goes the extra mile by quoting UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond’s extraordinary comment that the concert was “a tasteless attempt to distract attention from the continued suffering of millions of Syrians. It shows that there are no depths to which the regime will not sink.”  From the BBC quote, it is not clear whether the Minister had in mind the Putin or the Assad regime’s plumbing the depths. But, in any case, his intention to slander the Russians is obvious.

To their credit, the BBC also carried a more balanced separate report from their bureau chief in Moscow, Steve Rosenberg. He saw that the message from Moscow was that Russia is a force for good, whereas Western officials “remain suspicious of Russia’s intentions.” Otherwise, Rosenberg just repeats the same hurtful innuendos that we have seen above: the connection between Rodulgin and the Panama Papers, the Gergiev concert in Tskhinvali in 2008.

To every generalization there is always an exception, and as happens from time to time it is the British tabloids that show more common sense and decency than the high style outlets of the political class. The heading given to the article on the concert of 5 May in the online edition of The Daily Mail says it all:  “Culture and civilization return to Palmyra: Russian orchestra performs concert in the ancient Roman amphitheatre for the first time since ISIS used it to carry out public executions in Syria. The editors wisely included a click-on video recording of the concert, allowing their readers to judge for themselves.

In summary, the Information War that the West has been waging against Russia is going full tilt. It is an unpardonable error of judgment to speak of a new Cold War as something that lies ahead, just around the corner. We are in the midst of it, and it will take enormous luck or a change of leaders for the better if we are to avoid a hot war.

Gilbert Doctorow is the European Coordinator of The American Committee for East West Accord Ltd. His latest book ,  Does Russia Have a Future? was published in August 2015.

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NATO displayed its truly destructive and sadistic nature when it obliterated Libya 5 years ago. Those who expose what happened, and what is still occurring there, are ‘soft-killed‘. 

What began in 2011 with a violent assault against Libyans ended in a NATO-requested and UN-approved ‘no-fly zone’ that resulted in a massacre of unprecedented proportions. Nicholas Kristol at the New York Times had the audacity to claim that Libyans were running around shouting, as bombs fell on their heads, “Thank you, America!” The murder and mayhem was necessary, we were told, to ‘protect civilians’ from their leader. A glorious and benevolent act of kindness, the ‘humanitarian intervention’ would usher in a new ‘civilized’ regime and ‘up-lift’ ordinary Libyans.

In reality, an entire population was killed, maimed and terrorized while NATO and its ‘rebels’ displayed apparent enjoyment at tearing the country apart.

When NATO left and the bulk of ‘Islamist’ mercenaries were moved on to Syria, Libya was left mired in civil war hell. At which point the West changed its narrative – no longer was the intervention a ‘triumph of Western values’; now it was ‘a regrettable mistake’. The utility of this change in narrative lies in the fact that they’re now saying they’ll have to go back and ‘fix the mess’ (that they made). It’s like the psychopath returning to the scene of its crime.

But they have no intention of ‘fixing’ anything – rather, they want to make sure the victim has no chance of recovering and telling her side of the story.

NATO has recently been increasing its activities in the country. Beginning in January, with the ‘mapping of ISIS militants and their battle networks,’ the US and UK are now in talks to begin deploying thousands of troops for extensive military operations. Following major defeats of their terrorist groups in Syria, Libya has become their home-base (again), with ISIS commanders meeting in Sirte in December 2015 to re-group and, no doubt, pick up weapons and other war materiel from their Western handlers.

Current division of power

Council of Deputies

With the Zionist-NATO plan for the Middle East in shambles, and with a new axis of resistance emerging from Hezbollah (Lebanon) to Damascus to Baghdad to Tehran – and supported by Moscow – Libya’s future remains in the balance. Libya’s central authority is in shambles, with at least four main forces vying for control of the country. There’s the Council of Deputies, based in Tobruk, which was ‘democratically elected’ during Libya’s collapse, the General Nation Congress, which has currently lost out to the UN’s ‘unity government’, and the Tribal Council, which, from a Western perspective, might as well not exist, despite being the only body with nationwide grass-roots support.

The Council of Deputies, based in Tobruk, is ‘recognized by the international community’ (which means it’s recognized by the American Empire), and backed by the Libyan Army, which these days is commanded by CIA spook, General Khalifa Haftar.

Haftar was among those who helped Gaddafi come to power. But following a disastrous ‘Bay of Pigs’ fiasco in Chad during the Chad-Libya conflict in the 80s, he and several hundred of his soldiers wound up as prisoners of war in Chadian camps. Interestingly, the US intervened and brought Haftar, along with his troops, back to the US, where Haftar then reportedlybegan training with the CIA at Langley. Haftar returned to Libya for the first time in 2011, as a commander of the mercenaries brought in to topple Gaddafi.

General National Congress

Then there’s the ‘Islamist’ General National Congress, based in Tripoli, and backed by its own militias. Formed in 2014, it has not been granted ‘international recognition’, probably due to the fact that its last president, Khalifa al-Ghawi, requestedRussian assistance in the fight against ISIS, a request which Russia had said they’d be happy to honor. Sadly, this initiative never made it off the ground, with NATO no doubt intent on making sure it remains that way. For his ‘crimes’, Ghawi earned himself sanctions and has been ostracized by said ‘international community’.

Unity Government

The ‘new’ government, appointed by the very powers that destroyed the country, is led by Fayiz as-Sarraj, a man ‘tasked with demanding an official military intervention at the United Nations, as soon as possible, against ISIS forces in Libya.’

If his ‘government’ successfully ‘wins’ Libya, Sarraj and his people stand to inherit the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) – the largestAfrican wealth fund, worth some $65 billion, but which is mostly ‘frozen’ in Western bank accounts. This amount is probably only the tip of an iceberg; some estimates put the amount of Libyan assets frozen by the West at $1 trillion. Something tells me Libyans will be lucky to see any of it ever again.

Control over the LIA account is currently being fought in court by Hassan Bouhadi and Abdul-Magid Breish… and guess who has purposefully bungled the legal proceedings…

For now, the LIA battle is in London but in a bizarre twist the case was last week controversially stopped in mid flow on advice from Britain’s Foreign Office.

The judge making the order, which keeps both existing governments from getting their hands on this $65 billion asset, is none other than William Blair, brother of – you guessed it, Tony.

What do the Blairs have to gain from keeping $65 billion out of the hands of the sparring governments in the country? Well, for one, this is very useful leverage over the future of the country.

Libyan people

Last, and certainly not least, there are the tribal authorities, representatives of the traditions of the Libyan people. However they will never be recognized by Western powers, since they are a lasting legacy of Libya’s strong democratic and nationalist tradition. They represent the human creative principle and, as we will see, are a threat to NATO’s plans for the region. Libyans are beginning to show signs of increasingly organized resistance:

Exactly one week ago [late February 2016], NATO, after the failure of the “national consensus government” in Libya, has another problem – the daughter of the leader of Jamahiriya – Aisha Gaddafi. After four years of silence, in a letter from Eritrea, she turned to the Libyans with a call to resist the new conquest of the West and declare themselves the successor of her legendary father – “the mother of Libya.”The largest Libyan tribe “the warfalla”, in the town of Beni Walid (Misurata), has already sworn allegiance to Aisha, proclaiming their commitment to the Jamahiriya. In response, the BBC circulated new, updated footage of the lynching of Muammar Gaddafi, aware of the particularly acute nervous reaction of his daughter. Meanwhile NATO convened an emergency meeting in the Netherlands on the situation in Libya.

And what happened two weeks after NATO’s emergency meeting? The US and UK sent special forces to Misrata, just north of the town of Beni Walid, to begin training ‘rebels’. The official line is that they’re awaiting a request by their puppet government to invade (how very thoughtful!), in the interests of ‘defeating extremism’, of course. Once again the line between ‘terrorist’ and ‘freedom fighter’ is deliberately blurred to perpetuate wars of plunder and sadism, and keep Libya ‘down for the count’.

Join me for a moment in pondering the depths of psychopathic cynicism here: in 2011, they sent terrorists to Libya and called them ‘freedom fighters’; now those same terrorists are the reason they want to blow up Libya again.

Conclusion

The psychos have a CIA spook in charge of the Libyan Army, have been arming terrorist militias, and are trying to create a ‘unity government’ that will both give them access to resources and call in ‘reinforcements’ to defeat a ‘terrorist threat’. In other words, it’s more of the same for NATO: contrived chaos to ‘legitimize’ more war and more destruction. Not satisfied with stealing billions, if not trillions, of Libya’s resources, they’re back for more.

The US and UK are busy arming troops in the vicinity of Aisha Gaddafi, daughter of the leader of Jamahiriya, and the natural leader of the resistance against NATO’s psychopathic domination. But here’s the perennial problem Western leaders keep running into as they ‘recreate the world’ in their image: healthy people will always resist being turned into ‘creatures of like mind’. And, as Professor Tim Anderson pointed out on last week’s Behind the Headlines: Interview with Tim Anderson: The truth about the Dirty War on Syria, mass resistance to NATO’s (re)conquest of the Middle East is not futile. Far from it, in fact, it is showing signs of gaining traction and strength as ‘the international community’ continues to lose the plot

Corey  is a regular co-host on SOTT Radio Network’s Truth Perspective. A social worker by training, his passions include research, music, crisis management, and creating tasty dishes in the kitchen.

The actions of a desperate mother are one thing; the extraordinary lapse in judgment and ethics of a crew of seasoned journalists getting involved in an international kidnapping scheme is another entirely.  Ruby Hamad, The Age, Apr 17, 2016

Spittle-flecked journalism is something of a curse, an enterprise that muddies the fine lines between chasing a story and creating it.  And the Nine Network of Australia, with its own variant of 60 Minutes, is certainly of such inspiration, drawing its strength from the margins of investigative journalism and assuming a role in influencing events.

Ambulance chasing newscasters are the true parasites of the media scene, incapable of describing events they would rather invent, if not influence.  They feed on the flesh of vulnerable causes and bolster the confidence of those they effectively groom.  The instance of an Australian mother, Sally Faulkner, desperate to recover her children who were taken to Lebanon by their father, Ali Elamine, provided a spectacular instance of this principle at play.  It involved another travesty of the international relationship scene.  Boy meets girl; children issue; children are taken by one parent after a ruse and made inaccessible.

In this case, a virtual counter-abduction was being suggested, with the spear carrier being former Australian soldier Adam Whittington from Child Abduction Recovery International.   A desperate mother had sought other avenues to attain her goal, having made a public plea in November to the Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop to assist in recovering her children.  A media outlet volunteered the financial ammunition and some logistical backing. The result was a bag of deception, stupidity and farce.

Faulkner, in her effort to broader the appeal of the operation, suggested that it was far more than a child abduction case.  Her plight was an international one, a global problem of injustice.  “It’s not just about me and my children, there are hundreds and hundreds of families this has happened to.”  Faulkner was certainly right about one thing: states not signatory to the Hague Convention stipulating that children be returned to their “country of habitual residence” make that nigh impossible.

The hawks, in their desperation to grab the scoop, botched the operation.  Footage of the event shows a vain effort by what was subsequently reported by Lebanese media as three gunmen who snatched the two children off a Beirut street in the area of al-Hadath south of the city.  The children seem to be in the company of their paternal grandmother.  As she subsequently noted, “The man came down and hit me on the head with something and I was a little dizzy.”

Police immediately pounced.  The mother and the entire “news” crew, including Tara Brown, producer Stephen Rice and a cameraman, ended up being detained.  They spent some richly deserved time in custody, with some suggestion that they might spend an even longer time for their errors of judgment.  Unfortunately for the world of genuine and credible journalism, Brown and her crew were permitted to return to Australia.

Brown’s initial justification was that the crew had been engaged in a humanitarian mission.  Even on her return, an unrepentant Brown could insist with a deluded determination that, “We’re journalists, we’re doing our jobs.”  Both observations must be seriously contested.

Critics saw another ploy at work, one of selfishness, self-assumption and privilege.  Ruby Hamad, writing in The Age(Apr 17), summed it up best: “While it seems incredible that a major news organisation could be so irresponsible as to film a serious crime taking place, that they allegedly agreed to participate in a kidnapping to be later spun as a heroic deed simultaneously shows the heights – and limits – of white, Western privilege.”

The consequences of this failure have been incalculable, though Elamine, the Lebanese father, is certainly making a good fist of it, asking for a further $US500,000 in addition to what  already offered.  Elamine felt emboldened, making his estranged wife sign away custodial rights.  He has also taken to the propaganda front himself, posting images of his daughter, Lahela, 5, and son Noah, 3, on Facebook in response to Faulkner’s own pictorial efforts to win sympathy.

As for Whittington, abandonment has ensued.  Having portrayed himself as a dedicated saint for the cause of family, he has also found himself the refuse of a journalistic stunt gone wrong.  “I’m shocked (Nine) treated me in a selfish way, they didn’t care about me, they know I have a family to take care of.”

It would seem the producers of the program cannot help themselves, taking sides in a family dispute that has been opportunistically moralised.  On April 27, it surfaced that another “child recovery” story produced but not yet aired was in the assembly line, dealing with a mother who successfully took her child out of Turkey.  “It’s a completely different situation,” claimed a spokeswoman from the network.  “There’s nothing similar.”  As such a program shows, journalism can itself become the hideous story, inadvertently justifying the supposed monstrosities it is attempting to avert.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  Email: [email protected]

Israel’s Maariv newspaper has revealed that the government of the Zionist state is planning to drop a political bombshell in the coming weeks by presenting a bill in the Knesset (parliament) calling for the annexation of land occupied since 1967. It is likely to have the support of the majority of Knesset members. The newspaper added that the right wing has chosen this time for the move ahead of the US presidential election; America, it is believed, will be too preoccupied to care about what is happening in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Preliminary talks about a first stage have been held, claimed Maariv; Israel would annex all Area C land — which includes 60 per cent of the occupied West Bank —where more than 400,000 illegal Jewish settlers live alongside tens of thousands of Palestinians. Under the proposal, Israel will offer residents Israeli identity while imposing its curricula in schools.

According to far-right Justice Minister Ayalet Shaked, Israel must impose Israeli law in the West Bank, which means in practical terms that the occupied Palestinian territories would come under full Israeli control.

Israeli forces restrict the entrance to Muslim worshippers to Al-Aqsa Mosque during Friday prayers

Furthermore, Deputy Defence Minister Eli Ben-Dahan has demanded “the annexation of the West Bank because the Arab and regional situation is appropriate for this step.” Naftali Bennett, the leader of the extreme right-wing Jewish Home Party, which is part of the government coalition, said that, “It is better for Israel to begin annexing Area C.”

These positions and statements should not be taken lightly, because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is working on the basis that the West Bank is “liberated land” and formal annexation is only a matter of time.

It was in the historic election in 1977 that the Israeli right-wing won a majority in the Knesset for the first time. The government was led by Menachem Begin, a student of Revisionist Zionist thinker Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who authored the iron wall theory. This set out that the indigenous people of the country would not accept what the Israeli occupation authorities want, what they are exposed to or solutions imposed by the occupation; and that Israel will go through a continuous process of change towards becoming a more and more Jewish, right-wing, settler-based and racist state.

This trend has deepened dramatically since Netanyahu’s return to government in 2009 when Israel’s so-called “third phase” began. The right-wing became the mainstream, dominating power in government and society. At the same time, the influence of Knesset members, parties and groups wanting to find a solution that includes the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel faded to the point that the Labour Party abandoned this option. Instead, it adopted unanimously a plan put forward by the country’s President, Chaim Herzog. The plan was based on a unilateral solution that calls for formal separation of the areas populated by Palestinians in order to protect Israel as a Jewish state, and not to expose it to the risk of becoming a bi-national state.

There are a series of changes taking place in Israel where secular and liberal characteristics have all but disappeared, while the religious right-wing has become more prominent. These changes have been made through the adoption of laws and policies, and by imposing facts on the ground that make changing this reality very difficult. If, for example, we look at the state’s relations with the Palestinians, we find that voices calling for their deportation are increasing; these are the voices of people in senior positions in the government, army, security services and Knesset, as well as various state institutions. Also, the Israeli government moved from conflict management and the creation of facts on the ground that can help Israel to impose its unilateral solution when negotiating “final status” issues, to simply imposing that unilateral solution. Thus, the central part of the Israeli government and the opposition basically gave up any semblance of agreement on the establishment of a Palestinian state to the extent that they refuse even to countenance it.

The Israeli position became such that the government refused to talk with the Palestinians unless the latter agreed in advance to specific conditions. These included recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” for all Jewish people all over the world, and for Israel’s security to be the main, and perhaps only, frame of reference for Palestinian-Israeli relations now and in the future. Israel also insists on the presence of its occupation forces in strategic locations within the Palestinian state after its establishment, and the granting of absolute freedom of movement for them all over the “Promised Land”.

It is within this context that the number of illegal Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank has reached more than 700,000. Israel is working at an accelerated pace to increase this to one million within a few years.

We can also talk about Israel’s keenness to separate the West Bank from the Gaza Strip and doing all it can to make it a permanent political and physical separation. It is doing this by stripping the Palestinian Authority of its power, to such an extent that, as President Mahmoud Abbas has said repeatedly, the PA is an authority without authority, in spite of all the concessions that he and his ministers have made. The PA continues to be committed to the terms of the Oslo Accords; it accepts the 2003 international road map; and it has made unilateral commitments while Israel shows no commitment at all. From this position, we can understand why the Israeli government refused the offer made by the PA to stop threatening to implement decisions of the Palestinian Central Council, including an end to security coordination with the Israelis, in exchange for Israel’s commitment not to enter Area A. The authority suggested that this could begin with Ramallah and Jericho first, and if that works out, whereby Palestinian security forces would carry out their job in a manner that relieves the occupation from storming into these areas, then the experience could be spread to the rest of the occupied territories. The Netanyahu government was quick to reject any suggestion that would restrict the freedom of the occupation army to move across any area at will; this freedom is sacred for Israel, despite it paying tribute to the achievements of the Palestinian security services.

The question now is whether it would be possible to continue with the same policy that was used during negotiations, even though it was an illusion, and Israel is now becoming more vicious and refuses to partake in any negotiations whatsoever. It continues to impose its own solutions on the ground, stating clearly what it intends to do as it takes advantage of developments in the Arab region (where the Iranian threat has more priority than anything else) and around the world, which it believes have improved its strategic position.

Israel thinks that it has a great opportunity to achieve the still unfulfilled goals of the Zionist movement: the establishment of Israel on the whole of historic Palestine and beyond; in short, to revive the “Greater Israel” scheme from the Nile to the Euphrates.

The Zionist state of Israel is relying on the deteriorating Arab situation and the decline of the Palestinian national cause, which is weak, self-destructive and disoriented. The Palestinian leadership is still going round in circles reproducing the same old options without having enough courage to adopt anything new. Both of the main factions are just hanging around and waiting; the others are too small, weak and fragmented to do anything constructive.

Despite all of the above, the path to achieving “Greater Israel” is not smooth. The Palestinians, despite all that they suffer from, are still sticking to their cause, their rights and their presence on their land, and they continue to resist with all available forms of popular and armed resistance. They have also encouraged an international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel which threatens it strategically, and they have UN recognition of Palestine as a state. They have since joined a number of international institutions, notably the International Criminal Court. Most importantly, the Palestinians started a new intifada in October fuelled by individuals with no formal leadership, factions, the PLO or the PA; this is reminding the Israelis that the Palestinians are still there, that resistance continues one generation after the other, and that this racist, colonial-settler occupation cannot continue to be quiet, profitable and permanent.

Although there are elements of strength and a suitable environment for the revival of “Greater Israel” it has some weaknesses. If the Palestinians could learn how best to utilise them, they would be successful. Some of the weak points include Israel being an enemy to itself, proposing a project that has no future as it raises discontent and resentment across the globe, prompting criticism even from its trusted allies, like the United States, Britain, Germany and France.

In order to defeat hostile schemes, the Palestinians need a vision, a national institution, a leadership that is up to the challenges and risks and able to employ opportunities; they need an effective political hierarchy and a strategy for the struggle that can achieve the maximum in each stage. They can then move on to achieve more and more until they realise the humanitarian, democratic and historical solution on the ruins of the racist, colonial-settler, Zionist project.

Translated from Masarat.ps, 3 May, 2016

Senator from the US State of Virginia Richard Black claims that the US government has likely acted to prevent the Syrian government’s armed forces from recapturing the city of Aleppo from the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front.

The US government has likely acted to prevent the Syrian government’s armed forces from recapturing the city of Aleppo from the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front, Senator from the US State of Virginia Richard Black told Sputnik.”It is clear to me that what is happening is we are trying desperately to slow down the Syrian army’s advance, which is on the verge of crushing al-Nusra and liberating Aleppo once and for all,” Black said on Friday.

© AFP 2016/ KARAM AL-MASRI

Silence Regime in Syria’s North Latakia, Aleppo to Be Extended

© AFP 2016/ AMEER ALHALBI

US, Russia in Direct ‘Around the Clock’ Communication on Aleppo Truce – DoS

Black noted that he agreed with Lavrov’s assessment, but argued it is unlikely the US government is being “used” to provide cover for al-Nusra Front in Syria.”I believe that Secretary Kerry, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency are very much on the side of al-Qaeda,” he asserted.

Black further alleged that the Geneva peace talks are being carried out with the goal of “preserving” the anti-Assad terrorist organizations “so that at some point they eventually can reconstitute themselves and seize control of Syria.”

Last week, Black returned from a three-day visit to Syria where he sat down with Syrian President Assad, First Lady Asma Assad and a number of other military and political leaders. The trip was particularly significant since the United States has largely severed ties with the Assad government since the start of Syrian civil war in 2011.

Israeli airstrikes have hit a Hamas facility on the third day of violence in the Gaza Strip, as the movement warns it is not seeking war, but will fight incursions.

A Hamas facility was struck by Israeli missiles on Friday, as violence continued for the third day in the Gaza Strip.

Two sets of air raids bombarded the besieged enclave, with missiles landing in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza and the second in Khuzaa, in the south of the territory, Palestinian witnesses confirmed.

An Israeli military statement suggested the “Hamas terror infrastructure” was struck in response to “ongoing attacks” against its forces.

But Hamas claimed it was not seeking war with Israel, however it was merely defending Palestinian territory from the intrusion of Israeli troops.

“We are not calling for a new war, but we will not under any circumstance accept these incursions,” Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas Gaza leader said on Friday, adding that Israeli forces had entered “150 to 199 metres (yards)” into the Gaza Strip “under the pretext of searching for tunnels”.

“We sent multiple messages that the resistance will not allow the Israelioccupation army to impose new rules within the borders of the Gaza Strip,” he added.

No casualties were reported on Friday, however a woman was killed just a day earlier when Israeli tanks shelled her home in Gaza.

Late on Thursday afternoon, tank shelling killed Zeina al-Amour, 54. A 21-year-old was also wounded in artillery shelling in the area.

The shelling came after a night in which Israeli air raids on Gaza wounded four people, three of them children, medical and security officials said.

The violence erupted on Wednesday when Israeli forces and heavy military vehicles encroached into the Gaza Strip, prompting Palestinian factions to open fire to push them back.

Israel says its soldiers were searching for tunnels used by Hamas, while Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas figure, said the incursion is an attempt to cement a new border, more than 150 metres from the existing line.

Hamas’ armed wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, issued a statement on Wednesday condemning the military incursion inside the Gaza Strip.

“The enemy should not invoke any reason whatsoever for its actions and leave the Gaza Strip immediately,” the statement read.

The Qassam Brigades added that Israeli military action marked a breach of the 2014 ceasefire agreed after Israel’s offensive on the enclave two years ago.

Hamas sources told The New Arab that Egyptian and international mediations have led to a deal under which the Israeli army would withdraw from areas on the eastern Gaza border in exchange for a renewed ceasefire.

However, Israeli General Yoav Mordechai denied reports about a ceasefire agreement between the sides.

“The army intends to maintain its activities against Hamas as it continues to breach Israeli sovereignty and build tunnels,” he said in a statement.

Gaza has been devastated by three Israeli wars on the embattled territory since 2008, with virtually no reconstruction amid an Israeli blockade on all imports that could have a “military purposes”.

The last major Israeli onslaught on Gaza was the 51-day war in the summer of 2014, which killed more than 2,251 Palestinians and 73 Israelis, according to the United Nations.

How the United States presumes to possess the authority to determine the fate of a sovereign nation thousands of miles from its own shores in the Middle East is never explained by US Secretary of State John Kerry when he recently announced a new ultimatum leveled at Damascus. Nor is it explained why Syria should capitulate to US demands to begin a political transition that has demonstrably left other nations across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) divided, destroyed, and safe-havens for state-sponsored terrorism years after “successful” US-backed regime change has been achieved – Libya most notably.

Yet despite all of this, according to the Associate Press (AP) in their article, “Kerry warns Assad to start transition by Aug. 1  or else,” the United States fully expects Damascus to concede to a “political transition” engineered by Washington, leaving the nation in the hands of verified terrorists linked directly to the political and militant forces currently laying waste to Libya and those nations that put them into power.

The article reports:

Secretary of State John Kerry warned Syria’s government and its backers in Moscow and Tehran on Tuesday that they face an August deadline for starting a political transition to move President Bashar Assad out, or they risk the consequences of a new U.S. approach toward ending the 5-year-old civil war.   

AP would also claim:

…it’s unlikely that the Obama administration, so long opposed to an active American combat role in Syria, would significantly boost its presence beyond the 300 special forces it has authorized thus far in the heart of a U.S. presidential election season. More feasible might be U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia giving the rebels new weapons to fight Assad, such as portable surface-to-air missiles.

Again, the US is making demands of “Syria’s government and its backers in Moscow” while it is openly allied with Saudi Arabia who is admittedly backing US State Department-listed foreign terrorist organizations including the Al Nusra Front – quite literally Al Qaeda in Syria and Iraq.

This point has inconveniently surfaced even across the West’s own media, including the Independent in an article titled, “Turkey and Saudi Arabia alarm the West by backing Islamist extremists the Americans had bombed in Syria.” In it states that:

Turkey and Saudi Arabia are actively supporting a hardline coalition of Islamist rebels against Bashar al-Assad’s regime that includes al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, in a move that has alarmed Western governments. 

The two countries are focusing their backing for the Syrian rebels on the combined Jaish al-Fatah, or the Army of Conquest, a command structure for jihadist groups in Syria that includes Jabhat al-Nusra, an extremist rival to Isis which shares many of its aspirations for a fundamentalist caliphate.

Despite superficial attempts to portray Al Nusra at “arms length” from Saudi Arabia, and thus from Saudi Arabia’s closest and most valuable ally, Washington, the inseparable nature of those the US and Saudi Arabia are supporting and those they claim not to support is documented fact.

America Essentially Demands Syria’s Surrender to Al Qaeda

Considering the verified nature of the so-called “opposition” in Syria and the verifiable nature of what US foreign policy has done to Libya – leaving it to this day in the hands of state-sponsored terrorist organizations including the notorious “Islamic State” or ISIS – what the US is essentially demanding of Syria and its allies is capitulation to Al Qaeda.

It is a surreal full-circle US foreign policy has made, from first creating Al Qaeda in the late 1980’s jointly with Saudi Arabia and elements within the Pakistani government, then claiming to have been struck egregiously by the terrorist organization on September 11, 2001 triggering over a decade of very profitable war, before finally arriving in Libya and Syria beginning in 2011 where once again US politicians found themselves standing shoulder-to-shoulder with literal commanders of Al Qaeda and its affiliates, waging proxies wars against their collective enemies.

Indeed, US Senator John McCain would find himself in a Libya utterly devastated by NATO at the end of 2011, shaking hands with the commander of US State Department-listed foreign terrorist organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) – literally Al Qaeda in Libya. The LIFG commander, Abdelhakim Belhadj, had at one point been arrested by the US before being handed over to the Libyan government and imprisoned for his terrorism.

Syria’s Clear Course of Action

Syria is undoubtedly being overrun by heavily armed and extremely dangerous terrorists backed by foreign powers. These are terrorists that have proven already in Libya, that upon coming to power, they will first carry out genocide against their ethnic and political enemies, then transform Syria into a devastated wasteland and springboard for terrorism and proxy war elsewhere in the region – likely Iran and then southern Russia.Syria’s only clear course of action is to resist and defeat these terrorist factions and restore order within the nation’s boundaries. It must do this by interdicting terrorists and their supplies along the Turkish-Syrian border in the north, and the Jordanian-Syrian border in the south. It is abundantly clear that the terrorists operating within Syria cannot sustain their fighting capacity without significant and constant logistical support from their foreign sponsors beyond Syria’s borders. This fact alone, undermines the legitimacy of the so-called “uprising” and “civil war” in Syria that upon closer examination is clearly a proxy invasion.

The US’s Clear Course of Action

The US itself, in its own military manuals (MCWP 3-35.3) regarding combat operations, states in reference to defeating terrorism that:

In countering this threat, [it should be determined] whether it is internally or externally directed terrorism. Terrorism rooted externally must be severed from its roots. Against internal terrorism, [attempts should be made] to penetrate the infrastructure and destroy the leadership of the terrorist groups.

The US has already boasted of having struck hard at the leadership of various terrorist groups in Syria it claims to be at war with, yet these groups appear unfazed. This is precisely because the terrorism is being direct externally, from Turkey and Jordan where the US itself has based its forces for its ongoing Syrian operations. The clear and obvious course of action for the US is to identify the “roots” of this externally directed terrorism and “sever” them.

However, the US refuses to do this. Instead, even as it continues its feigned war against terrorism in Syria, it is doubling down on support for its proxies, including Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, who in turn, are harboring, arming, funding, training, and directly supporting the very terrorist groups the US claims to be fighting.

US Secretary of State John Kerry threatens a “new approach” by the US in Syria, if Syria does not capitulate to what is essentially the end of its existence as a functioning nation-state. The “new approach” is likely simply the continuation of existing plans to incrementally invade and occupy Syrian territory, particularly in the east through the infiltration of Iraq-based Kurds operating under US proxy Masoud Barzani, as well as to trigger a cross-border incident north of Aleppo by using their ISIS proxies to attack Turkish targets – reminisced of staged attacks Ankara had planned earlier during the war to justify the invasion and occupation of northern Syria.

Warning the world of the “success” America’s previous “political transitions” have wrought in Libya or Iraq, and raising awareness of the current nature of US-Saudi support for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Syria today, is essential in undermining the legitimacy and authority upon which the US is attempting to base its demands directed at Damascus. The demands are illegitimate and the authority they are made with constitutes not principles nor rule of law, but naked and unjust aggression that must be resisted today lest it succeed and set a precedent for further acts of injustice against other nations tomorrow.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The U.S. government defined events in Ukraine as a “pro-democracy” revolution battling “Russian aggression” — at least as far as the world’s mainstream media was concerned. But what if the script were flipped, asks Joe Lauria.

As the United States plans to move thousands of NATO troops to Russia’s borders and continues to bolster a fiercely anti-Russian regime in neighboring Ukraine, the official line in Washington and its subservient corporate media is that beneficent America is simply seeking to curtail Moscow’s “aggression.” But the U.S. government and media might look at things quite differently if the shoe were on the other foot.

What, for instance, would the U.S. reaction be if Russia instead had supported the violent overthrow of, say, Canada’s government and assisted the new Ottawa regime’s “anti-terrorist operations” against a few rebellious “pro-American” provinces, including one that voted 96 percent in a referendum to reject the new Russian-backed authorities and attach itself to the U.S.?

If the U.S. government tried to help these embattled “pro-American” Canadians – and protect the breakaway province against the Russian-installed regime – would Washington see itself as the “aggressor” or as simply helping people resist anti-democratic repression? Would it view Russian troop movements to the U.S. border as a way to stop an American “invasion” or rather an act of “aggression” and provocation by Russia against the United States?

The Ukraine Reality

Russian President Vladimir Putin laying a wreath at Russia’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on May 8, 2014, as part of the observance of the World War II Victory over Germany.

Before playing out this hypothetical scenario, let’s look at the actual scene in Ukraine today as opposed to the gross distortion of reality fed the American people by the U.S. mainstream media the past two years. The reality is not the State Department’s fable of a pro-democracy “revolution” cleaning up corruption and putting Ukrainian people first.

In the real world instead, extreme right-wing nationalists took control of a popular protest by mostly western Ukrainians to spearhead a violent coup that succeeded on Feb. 22, 2014, in overthrowing President Viktor Yanukovych, a man whom I interviewed in 2013 after he had been democratically chosen in an election certified by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Proof of the U.S. role in the coup came in a leaked telephone conversation several weeks earlier between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. In the conversation, Nuland and Pyatt discussed how the U.S. could “midwife” the unconstitutional change of government and they rated which Ukrainian politicians should be put in charge, with Nuland declaring “Yats is the guy,” a reference to Arseniy Yatsenyuk.

Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland during a press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, Ukraine, on Feb. 7, 2014. (U.S. State Department photo)

As for the European Union’s less aggressive approach to the Ukraine situation, Nuland declared: “Fuck the E.U.”

Nevertheless, after the coup, Western governments denied there ever was a coup, peddling the line that Yanukovych simply “ran away,” as though he woke up one morning and decided he didn’t want to be president anymore.

In fact, on Feb. 21, to contain the mounting violence, Yanukovych signed a European-brokered deal to reduce his powers and to hold early elections. But the next day, as right-wing street-fighters overran government buildings, Yanukovych fled for his life – and the West moved quickly to consolidate a new government under anti-Russian politicians, including Nuland’s choice—Yats as prime minister. (Yatsenyuk remained prime minister until last month when he resigned amid complaints that his stewardship had been disastrous for the Ukrainian people.)

A Resistance Emerges

Since the vast majority of Yanukovych’s support came from the ethnically Russian eastern half of the country, some Yanukovych backers rose up to challenge the legitimacy of the coup regime and to defend Ukraine’s democratic process.

Instead the West portrayed this resistance as a Russian-instigated rebellion against the newly minted and U.S.-certified “legitimate” government that then launched a violent repression of eastern Ukrainians who were deemed “terrorists.”

A Malaysia Airways’ Boeing 777 like the one that crashed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. (Photo credit: Aero Icarus from Zürich, Switzerland)

When Russia supported the resisters with weapons, money and some volunteers, the West accused Russia of an “invasion” and “aggression” in the east. But there has never been satellite imagery or other proof of this alleged full-scale Russian “invasion.”

In the midst of the Kiev “anti-terrorist” offensive in the east, on July 17, 2014, a Malaysian commercial airliner, Flight MH-17, was shot out of the sky, killing all 298 people on board. The United States, again offering no proof, immediately blamed Russia.

Over the past year, the fighting has been largely contained after Russian, Ukrainian and European leaders negotiated the Minsk Accords, though they are far from being implemented and widespread violence could break out again at any time.

Throughout the entire crisis the United States has insisted its motives are pure, including its new plans for deploying some 4,000 NATO troops, including about half American, on Russia’s Eastern European borders north of Ukraine.

President Barack Obama told the U.N. General Assembly last year that the U.S. had no economic interests in Ukraine. But former State Department official Natalie Jaresko served as Ukraine’s finance minister until recently and Vice President Joe Biden’s son sits on the board of a major Ukrainian company. U.S. investment also has increased since the coup.

Yanukovych’s overthrow occurred after he chose a Russian economic plan rather than sign an association agreement with the European Union, which Ukrainian economic analysts warned would cost the country $160 billion in lost trade with Russia.

The E.U. plan would also have opened Ukraine to Western neoliberal economic strategies designed to exploit the country for the benefit of Western capital and local oligarchs (one of whom, Petro Poroshenko, emerged as the new president).

Turning the Tables

Ex-American diplomat Natalie Jaresko, who served as Ukraine’s Finance Minister from December 2014 to April 2016.

To help American readers better understand what has transpired in Ukraine, it may be useful to see what it would be like if the tables were turned. What would the story be like if Russia played the role of the U.S. and Canada the role of Ukraine? Most Americans would not be pleased.

In this reverse scenario, the world’s mainstream media would follow Moscow’s line and present the story as a U.S. “invasion” of Canada. The media would explain the movement of Russian troops to the U.S. border as nothing more than a peaceful step to deter U.S. “aggression.”

But Americans might see matters differently, siding with the breakaway Maritime provinces resisting the Moscow-engineered violent coup d’etat in Ottawa. In this scenario, Prince Edwards Islanders would have voted by over 90 percent to secede from the pro-Russian regime in Ottawa and join the United States, as Crimea did in the case of Ukraine. People in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick – stressing their close historic ties to America – also would make clear their desire not to be violently absorbed by the Ottawa coup regime.

In this alternative scenario, Moscow would condemn Prince Edwards Island’s referendum as a “sham” and vow never to accept its “illegal” secession. The popular resistance in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick would be denounced as “terrorism” justifying a brutal military crackdown by Russian-backed Canadian federal troops dispatched to crush the dissent. In this “anti-terrorist operation” against the breakaway region, residential areas would be shelled killing thousands of civilians and devastating towns and cities.

In this endeavor, the Canadian army would be joined by Russian-supported neo-fascist battalions that had played a crucial role in the overthrow of the Canadian government. In the Maritime city of Halifax, these extremists would burn alive at least 40 pro-U.S. civilians who took refugee in a trade union building. The new government in Ottawa would make no effort to protect the victims, nor conduct a serious investigation to punish the perpetrators.

Ignoring a Leak

Meanwhile, proof that Russia was behind the overthrow of the elected Canadian prime minister would be revealed in a leaked conversation between Moscow’s foreign ministry chief of the North America department and the Russian ambassador to Canada.

According to a transcript of the leaked conversation, the Moscow-based official would discuss who the new Canadian leaders should be several weeks before the coup took place. Russia would launch the coup when Canada decided to take a loan package from the U.S.-based International Monetary Fund that had fewer strings attached than a loan from Russia.

Russia’s ally in Beijing would be reluctant to back the coup. But this would seem to be of little concern to Moscow’s man who is heard on the tape saying, “Fuck China.” Although this conversation would be posted on YouTube, its contents and import would be largely ignored by the global mainstream media, which would insist there was no coup in Ottawa.

Yet, weeks before the coup, the Russian foreign ministry official would be filmed visiting protesters camped out in Parliament Square in Ottawa demanding the ouster of the prime minister. The Russian official would give out cakes to the demonstrators.

The foreign ministers of Russian-allied Belarus and Cuba would also march with the protesters through the streets of Ottawa against the government. The world’s mainstream media would portray these demands for an unconstitutional change of government as an act of “democracy” and a desire to end “corruption.”

In a speech, the Russian foreign ministry official would remind Canadian businessmen that Russia had spent $5 billion over the past decade to “bring democracy” to Canada, much of that money spent training “civil society” activists and funding anti-government “journalists.” The use of these non-governmental organizations to overthrow foreign governments that stand in the way of Russia’s economic and geo-strategic interests would have been well documented but largely ignored by the global mainstream media.

But recognizing the danger from these “color revolution” strategies, the United States would move to ban Russian NGOs from operating in the U.S., a tactic that would be denounced by Russia as America’s rejection of “democracy.”

The Coup Succeeds

The Canadian coup would take place as protesters violently clashed with police, breaking through barricades and killing a number of police officers. Snipers would fire on the police and the crowd from a nearby Parliament Square building under the control of hardline pro-Russian extremists. But the Russian government and the mainstream media would blame the killings on the embattled Canadian prime minister.

To stem the violence, the prime minister would offer to call early elections but instead would be driven from office violently by the pro-Russian street gangs. Russia and the global mainstream news media would praise the overthrow as a great step for democracy and would hail the pro-Russian street fighters who had died in the coup as the “Heavenly Hundred.”

Following the coup, Russian lawmakers would compare President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler for allegedly sending U.S. troops into the breakaway provinces to protect the populations from violent repression, and for accepting the pleas of the people of Prince Edward Island to secede from this new Canada.

Obama would be widely accused of ordering an “American invasion” and committing an act of “American aggression” in violation of international law. But the Maritimes would note that they had long ties to the U.S. dating back to the American Revolution and didn’t want to live under a new regime imposed by a faraway foreign power.

President Barack Obama meets with President Vladimir Putin of Russia on the sidelines of the G20 Summit at Regnum Carya Resort in Antalya, Turkey, Sunday, Nov. 15, 2015. National Security Advisior Susan E. Rice listens at left. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Russia would claim intelligence proving that U.S. tanks crossed the Maine border into New Brunswick, but would fail to make the evidence public. Russia would also refuse to reveal satellite imagery supporting the charge. But the claims would still be widely accepted by the world’s mainstream news media.

For its part, Washington would deny it invaded but say some American volunteers had entered the Canadian province to join the fight, a claim met with widespread media derision. Russia’s puppet prime minister in Ottawa would offer as proof of an American invasion just six passports of U.S. soldiers found in New Brunswick.

Taking Aim at Washington
When – during one of the new regime’s “anti-terrorist” offensives – a passenger jet would be shot down over Nova Scotia killing all onboard, Russia would accuse President Obama of being behind the outrage, charging that the U.S. had provided the powerful anti-aircraft missile needed to reach a plane flying at 33,000 feet.

But Moscow would refuse to release any intelligence to support its claim, which would nevertheless be accepted by world’s mainstream media.

The plane’s shoot-down would enable Russia to rally China and other international allies into imposing a harsh economic boycott of America to punish it for its “aggression.”

To bring “good government” to Canada and to deal with its collapsing economy, a former Russian foreign ministry official would be installed as Canada’s finance minister, receiving Canadian citizenship on her first day on the job.

Of course, Russia would deny that it had economic interests in Canada, simply wanting to help the country free itself from oppressive American domination. But Russian agribusiness companies would take stakes in Albertan wheat fields and the son of Russia’s prime minister as well as other well-connected Russians would join the board of Canada’s largest oil company just weeks after the coup.

Russia’s ultimate aim, beginning with the imposition of the sanctions on the U.S. economy, would appear to be a “color revolution” in Washington, to overthrow the U.S. government and install a Russia-friendly American president.

This goal would become clear from numerous statements by Russian officials and academics. A former Russian national security adviser would say that the United States should be broken up into three countries and write that Canada would be the stepping stone to this U.S. regime change. If the U.S. loses Canada, he would declare, it would fail to control North America.

But the world’s mainstream media would continue to frame the Canadian crisis as a simple case of “American aggression.”

This fictional scenario perhaps lays bare the absurdity of the U.S. version of events in Ukraine.

Joe Lauria is a veteran foreign-affairs journalist based at the U.N. since 1990. He has written for the Boston Globe, the London Daily Telegraph, the Johannesburg Star, the Montreal Gazette, the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter at @unjoe.

Dr Christina Lin, a leading young scholar on jihadist groups, opens her April 8th commentary at Asia Times:

In a blunder reeking of the fallout caused by supplying Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to 1980s mujahideen in Afghanistan, civilian airline passengers are now under threat from Syrian jihadists armed with portable surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS).

Reports say some American-backed jihadi groups are being equipped with US-made MANPADS. Indications are they’re obtaining these advanced weapons either directly or indirectly from the US or its Mideast allies in connection with a recent escalation in the fighting in Syria.

On April 2, fighting broke out between western-backed al-Qaeda affiliates and the Syrian army, ending the Syrian ceasefire. The groups that broke the ceasefire included al-Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra), the Chinese Uyghur Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), The Levant Brigade, the Freemen of Syria (Ahrar ash-Sham), Division 13, and other jihadi groups. According to AP, the US-trained and armed Division 13 is now fighting alongside al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham. The latter two are part of the Turkey/Saudi/Qatar-backed Army of Conquest.

That report goes on to document, essentially, that US President Barack Obama is continuing his efforts to replace the the only secular, non-sectarian government in the Middle East, that of the Ba’athist Party, which has always been the only non-religious political party in the Arab world – everything else in Arabia has been fundamentalist-Sunni, to at least some extent. (Think of it: after 9/11, the US government aiding al-Qaeda! The US government is more against Russia than it’s against jihadists – though Russia never invaded the US, and communism is gone!)

Dr Lin quotes a Saudi official as saying (in Germany’s Spiegel), «We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground… just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there». He was referring there to this in 1979, where Obama’s friend Zbigniew Brzezinski explained why the Americans and the Saudis were supplying SAMs to the mujahideen who became al-Qaeda, and he was also referring to this in 1998, where Brzezinski, when asked whether he thought that arming those fundamentalist Sunnis had been a mistake, said that it certainly was not. Obama is continuing in that vein. Brzezinski still was talking there as if Russia equals the USSR, equals «the enemy». Obama acts from that same viewpoint – the viewpoint that will end either in WW III, or in Russia’s capitulation to the US aristocracy.

In their view, the end of communism, and the end of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Soviets’ Warsaw Pact (which was their counterpart to America’s NATO alliance), made and make no difference, and Syria should be ruled by jihadist groups, because its current government is allied with Russia, and Russia always tries to kill jihadists, never allies with them (as the US does).

Obama overthrew the Russia-friendly government of Ukraine and replaced it with an anti-Russian government; he also led the NATO bombing campaign that overthrew the Russia-friendly leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi; and he has since been trying to do the same thing in Syria, to Assad.

Dr Lin continues:

Now, if it turns out that al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria are indeed armed with MANPADS, it would amount to what former CIA director David Petraeus called ‘our worst nightmare’. The missile would do far more than improve terrorist groups’ military capabilities to conduct future attacks.

A 2005 RAND study also concluded that Jihadists shooting down a civilian airliner would put a temporary freeze on worldwide air travel, causing a $15 billion loss to the world economy. More than a decade after this study, the present-day economic loss would be substantially higher than $15 billion.

Dr Lin’s calling this a «blunder» from Obama is based upon an assumption that Obama isn’t aware of the harms that he’s causing by what he’s doing; but, on the same day, a report, including shocking documentation from Jane’s (the specialist site about military matters), makes clear that Obama is determined to overthrow Assad no matter what the consequences.

The anonymous «Moon of Alabama» blogger posted at Global Research on April 8th, «US Delivers 3,000 Tons Of Weapons And Ammo To Al-Qaeda and Co. in Syria». Shown there is the «Simplified packing list for December 2015 arms» that were sent. The anonymous blogger explained:

One ship with nearly one thousand tons of weapons and ammo left Constanta in Romania on December 5. The weapons are from Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania. It sailed to Agalar in Turkey which has a military pier and then to Aqaba in Jordan. Another ship with more than two-thousand tons of weapons and ammo left in late March, followed the same route and was last recorded on its way to Aqaba on April 4.

We already knew that the ‘rebels’ in Syria received plenty of weapons during the official ceasefire. We also know that these ‘rebels’ regularly deliver half of their weapon hauls from Turkey and Jordan to al-Qaeda in Syria (aka Jabhat al-Nusra):

Hard-core Islamists in the Nusra Front have long outgunned the more secular, nationalist, Western-supported rebels. According to FSA officers, Nusra routinely harvests up to half the weapons supplied by the Friends of Syria, a collection of countries opposed to Assad…

US and Turkey supported ‘rebels’ took part in the recent attack on Tal al-Eis against Syrian government forces which was launched with three suicide bombs by al-Qaeda in Syria. This was an indisputable breaking of the ceasefire agreement between Russia and the US. It is very likely that some of the weapons and ammunition the US delivered in December were used in this attack.

Consequently, Obama is clearly determined to supply weapons to the jihadists until they win. This is no «blunder». It’s a determination to beat Putin, no matter what. It has consequences not only for the US and for Russia, but for the countries that America invades or whose governments America overthrows. Here are those consequences.

The «2016 Global Emotions Report» by Gallup, surveying over a thousand people in each one of 140 different nations, found that, by far, the people in Syria had «the lowest positive experiences worldwide», the people there were far more miserable than in any other nation. The score was 36 (on a scale to 100). Second and third worst were tied at 51: Turkey because of the tightening dictatorship there as Turkey has become one of Obama’s key allies in toppling Assad; Nepal, on account of the earthquake. Then tied at 54, were three countries, the fourth, fifth, and sixth, most-miserable places to live: Georgia, which still hasn’t recovered from the US-backed wars against Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where the majority want to be part of Russia; Serbia, where the majority are opposed to the government’s move to enter NATO; and Iraq, which still hasn’t recovered from Bush’s 2003 invasion. Then tied at 55, are five countries, the seventh-through-eleventh-most-miserable nations: Yemen, where America’s ally the Sauds are dropping American bombs onto Shiite neighborhoods; Bosnia and Herzegovina, which still hasn’t recovered from the civil war and the US bombing; Lithuania, which became impoverished by IMF-imposition of economic austerity, which has prevented economic recovery; Belarus, which will probably be the last country in the world to break away from Marxism; and, finally, the 11th-worst, Ukraine, which prior to the US coup, was less miserable than 29 countries and had a score of 60, which was 5 points higher than today’s – Obama’s coup there has definitely immiserated the Ukrainian people (not to mention displaced millions and slaughtered thousands by the ethnic-cleansing campaign against residents of the former Donbass region of Ukraine).

To what extent would it be sincere, or even honest, then, for the US President to say this?:

America’s willingness to apply force around the world is the ultimate safeguard against chaos, and America’s failure to act in the face of Syrian brutality or Russian provocations not only violates our conscience, but invites escalating aggression in the future… In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe. But this isn’t the Cold War. Our ability to shape world opinion helped isolate Russia right away. Because of American leadership, the world immediately condemned Russian actions; Europe and the G7 joined us to impose sanctions; NATO reinforced our commitment to Eastern European allies; the IMF is helping to stabilize Ukraine’s economy; OSCE monitors brought the eyes of the world to unstable parts of Ukraine. And this mobilization of world opinion and international institutions served as a counterweight to Russian propaganda and Russian troops on the border and armed militias in ski masks.

Those «armed militias in ski masks», incidentally, were US-CIA-hired mercenaries. He had to know that; he simply lied.

“Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination,” reads UN General Assembly Resolution 3379. The measure was adopted 40 years ago, on Nov. 10, 1975, and the majority of the international community backed it. 72 countries voted for the resolution, with just 35 opposed (and 32 abstentions).

Although little-known in the US today (it is remarkable how effectively the US and its allies have rewritten history in their favor), UN 3379. “Elimination of all forms of racial discrimination,” made an indelible imprint on history.

The geographic distribution of the vote was telling. The countries that voted against the resolution were primarily colonial powers and/or their allies. The countries that voted for it were overwhelmingly formerly colonized and anti-imperialist nations.

• the Assembly of the Heads of State and Government of the Organization of African Unity’s resolution 77, which ruled “that the racist regime in occupied Palestine and the racist regimes in Zimbabwe and South Africa have a common imperialist origin, forming a whole and having the same racist structure”; and
• When the resolution was passed, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Chaim Herzog — who later became Israel’s sixth president, and the father of Isaac Herzog, the head of Israel’s opposition — famously tore up the text at the podium.

Herzog claimed the measure was “based on hatred, falsehood, and arrogance,” insisting it was “devoid of any moral or legal value.” Still today, supporters of Israel argue UN GA Res. 3379 was an anomalous product of anti-Semitism. In reality, however, the resolution was the result of international condemnation of the illegal military occupation to which Palestinians had been subjected since 1967 and the apartheid-like conditions the indigenous Arab population had lived under as second-class citizens of an ethnocratic state since 1948.

In 1991, resolution 3379 was repealed for two primary reasons: One, the Soviet bloc, which helped pass the resolution, had collapsed; and two, Israel and the US demanded that it be revoked or they refused to participate in the Madrid Peace Conference.

At the UN on Nov. 11, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power and Secretary of State John Kerry eulogized the late Herzog and forcefully condemned the resolution on its 40th anniversary.

John Kerry smeared Res. 3379 as “very anti-Semitic and against colonialism.”

In his 2,500-word statement, Kerry mentioned Palestinians just once, and only then as an extension of Israelis.

“BDS is very anti-Semitic and America will not stand for it.” -Sec. John Kerry

“We are trying to make peace between Israel and a bunch of terrorists.” -Sec. John Kerry

On 4 Mai 2016, AURDIP, BACBI and BRICUP have written to the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation drawing his attention to the renewed detention of Imad Barghouthi, Professor of Theoretical Space Plasma Physics at Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem, and calling upon him to request the suspension of the EU Association Agreement until Israel releases Professor Barghouthi. The letter is set out below.

If you are an active or retired academic (whether in Europe or not) you can signify your support for this letter by filling the form available here. Your signature will appear with those of other supporters, and will be sent in due course to the European Commissioner.

Sign the letter to the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation

4 Mai 2016

Carlos Moedas, Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation
European Commission
Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat 200
1049 Brussels, Belgium

Dear Sir,

On 6 December 2014 Israeli occupation forces detained Imad Barghouthi, Professor of Theoretical Space Plasma Physics at Al-Quds University, as he sought to cross into Jordan to attend a meeting of the Arab Association of Astronomy and Space Sciences in the United Arab Emirates. In common with many other Palestinians, the Israelis held Professor Barghouthi without charge and hence with no means of obtaining justice. Fortunately for him, the Association of Academics for the Respect of International Law in Palestine (AURDIP), the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) and other human rights organisations alerted the international scientific community, which raised its voice loudly enough to persuade the Israelis to release him [1]. Forty-seven days after his arrest he was permitted to return to his family and resume his academic work.

However, on Sunday 24 April this year Israeli occupation forces again arrested Professor Barghouthi, and on Monday 2 May, without charge or trial, he was sentenced to three months’ detention. This sentence, imposed under the emergency regulations introduced during the British Mandate, may be renewed indefinitely. According to Amnesty International and other human rights organisations, individuals held on this basis by the Israeli military authorities are frequently subject to violations of their fundamental rights, through torture and ill treatment during their interrogation and cruel and degrading treatment while in detention. But in any event, Israel’s use of these emergency regulations is contrary to its obligations as the occupying power since under international law individuals suspected of a criminal offence must, among other things, be informed of the reason for their arrest, charged with a specific offence and given a fair trial as quickly as possible.

We have begun to alert the international scientific community of Israel’s renewed detention of Professor Barghouthi. But we call upon you, Sir, to demonstrate your commitment to justice by insisting upon Israel’s obligations under its Association Agreement with the European Union and to use the means at your disposal to see that Israel respects these obligations.

As we wrote to you on 10 January 2015, Israel has access to the European Union’s research and innovation programmes on the same basis as member states of the European Union and has taken full advantage of this privilege. Access to these programmes is subject to certain very precise conditions concerning respect for fundamental rights. Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement stipulates that “relations between the parties must be based upon respect for human rights and democratic principles, guiding their domestic and international policies, and constitute an essential element of this Agreement.”

Israel’s latest arbitrary arrest of Professor Barghouthi is a serious violation of both the spirit and the letter of the Agreement. We therefore call upon you to use the authority of your office to see that Israel immediately releases Professor Barghouthi. We call for this as European citizens, or in some cases as academics with strong connections to Europe, who are concerned for the political and human values on which the European Union is founded. But we also do so as scholars who will do everything in our power to denounce and block EU-Israel agreements, if Israel continues to flout international law and the right of Palestinians to education.

Yours sincerely

Professor Jonathan Rosenhead, President, British Committee for Universities of Palestine (BRICUP)

Professor Ivar Ekeland, President, Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine (AURDIP)

Professor Herman De Ley, Steering Committee, Belgian Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (BACBI)

Cc. Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

[1] AURDIP and BRICUP’s letter to the European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation concerning the arrest of the astro-physicist Imad al-Barghouthi, 10 January 2015 ; Israel’s Detention of Palestinian Astronomer Traveling to Conference Violates Human Rights by the US-based Committee of Concerned Scientists, 20 January 2015 ; Scientists protest detention of Palestinian physicist, Michele Catanzaro, Nature, 21 January 2015 ; Letter from the Palestinian astrophysicist Imad al-Barghouthi after his release from detention, 27 January 2015

American academics will soon realize that their jobs are in jeopardy, if they don’t know it already. Not only their jobs, but their right to think, say, and write what they wish – and to engage in the pursuit of truth, wherever it may lead them.

A battle of epic proportions is about to begin, over the firing of Dr. James Tracy, for alleged infractions against Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Boca Raton. Tracy contends that his First Amendment right to free speech was abridged, along with his rights to due process and academic freedom.[1]

Tracy was dismissed from his tenured position as Associate Professor of Multimedia Journalism at FAU on January 6, 2016. On April 25, he filed a civil rights suit against the university, including the President, Provost, and other top officials, as well as members of the Board of Trustees and representatives of the faculty union. His complaint calls for reinstatement with back pay, compensatory and punitive damages, and a declaration that FAU’s controversial “Conflict of Interest/Outside Activities” policy is unconstitutional.[2]

Ostensibly terminated for not filing university forms regarding his “outside activities,” Tracy was actually fired for research and writing connected with his popular blog www.memoryholeblog.com, which he runs privately – and which includes the disclaimer that the views expressed “do not reflect the opinions or positions of any institution or entity…No information on this blog will be understood as official.”

The outcome of this lawsuit will affect all areas of education in the USA – not only regarding tenured professors. If Tracy does not prevail, constitutional rights will also be curtailed for non-tenured regular and adjunct professors, who have no job security and are already pressured to toe the line politically and academically. Not only will college professors be affected but also teachers in state public schools, who are under assault regarding tenure policies in California, New York, and elsewhere.[3] Florida has already eliminated tenure for K-12 instructors.

The case for academic freedom

The idea of “academic freedom” is widely embraced by American colleges and universities, which routinely assert that freedom of inquiry and expression are essential for their effective operation. The concept is outlined in the “1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure,” by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which is followed by most institutions of higher learning in the USA. Amendments of 1970 further protect the rights of professors.[4]

According to the AAUP document, “Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties.” In terms of “outside activities,” the document includes the following:

College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline…they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.

This was amended in 1970 so as to coordinate with a 1964 AAUP “Committee A Statement on Extramural Utterances,” which states as follows:

The controlling principle is that a faculty member’s expression of opinion as a citizen cannot constitute grounds for dismissal unless it clearly demonstrates the faculty member’s unfitness for his or her position. Extramural utterances rarely bear upon the faculty member’s fitness for the position.

These protections are embedded in policies on academic freedom by the University of California,[5] the University of Pennsylvania,[6] Harvard University,[7] and many other institutions. Such policies do not guarantee that the rights of professors are always respected, however, and the AAUP has carried out numerous investigations and censured institutions for infringements.

Freedom from outside influence

In 2011, the AAUP issued a report, “Ensuring Academic Freedom in Politically Controversial Academic Personnel Decisions,” regarding controversial cases relating to disputed events and policies:

…the need for faculty members to contribute their expertise to public discourse and policy debates has increased. The protection of their unfettered expression, including the ability to espouse highly controversial and unpopular views, is an essential social responsibility of universities and colleges…political restrictions on academic expression must not be countenanced…

“Political intrusion” arising out of controversies may come from inside the university community or from outside interests:

It may also come from outside the university when, for example, private corporations or public officials seek to persuade universities to terminate particular research activities, programs, or the services of the faculty members involved.[8]

Such outside intrusion precipitated the termination of James Tracy. This took the form of a media blitz by the Florida Sun Sentinel, a division of Tribune Publishing Co., which also owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Hartford Courant. The Sun Sentinel published a letter of December 10, 2015, written by Lenny and Veronique Pozner, publicized as the only Jewish family to have lost a child in the alleged Sandy Hook shooting. The letter, “Sandy Hook Massacre 3rd Anniversary: Two Parents Target FAU Conspiracy Theorist,” was reprinted in the Forward on December 14.[9] This was followed by numerous articles and editorials in the Sun Sentinel, such as “Tenure Be Damned, Professor James Tracy Embarrasses FAU” and “Tenure: A Concept Whose Time Has Passed?”

The Pozners’ accusations were false, as has been shown repeatedly, but nonetheless they were picked up by other media outlets and used to bash Dr. Tracy in the US press.[10] The content of the letter is not the issue here – it is the use of the corporate press to coerce the university to fire a tenured professor who was exercising his right to free speech as a citizen, in “extramural” work that he is entitled to pursue.

Outside influence has played a role in several high profile academic cases, notably that of Norman Finkelstein, a brilliant speaker and prolific writer known for his research on the Holocaust and support of Palestinian rights. While Jewish himself, he has been labeled an “anti-Semite” because of his criticism of Israel – and castigated for his allegations of fraud and plagiarism in the writing of others. One of those named was Alan Dershowitz, who tried, successfully, to get DePaul University to deny Finkelstein tenure, even though his faculty colleagues had voted in his favor.[11] DePaul insisted that outside pressure had played no role in the decision. Finkelstein’s university career was destroyed, while Dershowitz was given the Mortimer Zuckerman Award in 2014 for “promoting Israel’s … relentless pursuit of peace” – an honor marred only slightly by an investigation of Dershowitz over accusations of sexual misconduct with underage girls the following year.[12]

Academic freedom at FAU

FAU also has a commitment to academic freedom, as affirmed in official university documents. The Collective Bargaining Agreement between the Board of Trustees and faculty union (UFF) states as follows:

5.1 … The Board, the University, and the UFF are committed to maintaining and encouraging full academic freedom. Academic freedom and academic responsibility are twin guardians of the integrity of institutions of higher learning. This integrity is essential to the preservation of a free society and explains the willingness of society historically to accept the concept of academic freedom and, in addition, to protect it through the institution of academic tenure.

5.2 … The principal elements of academic freedom include the freedom to:

(a) Present and discuss academic subjects, frankly and forthrightly, without fear of censorship…

(b) Engage in scholarly and creative activity, and to publish results in a manner consistent with professional obligations.

(c) Speak freely on, and seek changes in, academic and institutional policies.

(d) Exercise constitutional rights without institutional censorship or discipline.[13]

Tracy was officially reprimanded for questioning a vague and restrictive policy on “Conflict of Interest/Outside Activities,” which he was fully entitled to do (5.2, above). He had declined to submit “outside activities” forms until the policy had been clarified, on the advice of the union. As of 2015, the policy required the faculty to report “any outside activity” (compensated or uncompensated) to the University. As all academics know, outside independent research and its dissemination are not only a right of faculty, but a requirement, affecting decisions on tenure and promotion. Who among us could (or would) report all “outside activities”? This policy was clearly devised as a rationale for Tracy’s termination.

FAU policy on academic freedom is also enshrined in the Board of Trustees’ Board Operations Policies and Procedures:

The Florida Atlantic University Board of Trustees supports the principle of academic freedom and is committed to the search for new knowledge… [and] will defend the right of faculty and students to pursue their academic goals free from constraints that hinder lawful intellectual inquiry and discourse, and will protect the freedom of faculty to teach and of students to learn from ideas that might be unpopular or not in the mainstream of accepted thought.[14]

However they did not defend the right of James Tracy to pursue his academic goals free from constraints – to the contrary, they fired him. This is not the first time Tracy has been harassed by FAU at the behest of the press. In 2013 he was reprimanded over his blog, whereupon he removed any mention of FAU as his employer. This was occasioned by a letter written by three of his colleagues, “Why James Tracy, FAU’s Conspiracy Theorist, Should Resign,” published on April 29, 2013, in the Palm Beach Post.[15] This constituted outside influence, from within the university community, also condemned by the AAUP.

Open season on academics

Far from being protected, American academics can now be thrown to the wolves, with unsubstantiated stories in the press leading to a ruined reputation and loss of employment – with no concern for academic freedom or due process. Tracy has been characterized as a “tenured truther” and “cruel and possibly deranged” (Chronicle of Higher Education) and a “conspiracy theorist” many times over (New York Times, New York Daily News, et al.). He has been called “a virus,” “crazed,” “twisted,” and “a never-ending embarrassment to the university and its community” (Sun Sentinel), “kooky,” “nutty,” and “sicko” (New York Daily News), and said to “spin tall tales out of nothing” (Palm Beach Post). In addition he has received obscene cards and threatening e-mails.

Noah Feldman, a professor of Constitutional and International Law at Harvard, called Tracy a “crank” and a “terrible person,” in his recent article, “Free Speech for Bad People.”[16] While ostensibly on the right side of the academic freedom debate, Feldman flogs the same old “conspiracy theory” meme, as well as the false story promoted by the Pozners. Still, he does recognize that a professor should not be fired for extramural research and writing.

Actually, Tracy is a deeply intelligent thinker, a sharp investigator, a talented writer – and an impeccably honest, ethical person. None of this gets any airplay, however, with political forces trying to silence him via the corporate media. This should bring out the academics in force. So gear up, colleagues, and support James Tracy. Stand up for your principles, and for your rights – or be prepared to lose them.

Vivian Lee is the nom de plume of a tenured professor at an east coast university.

Notes

[1] “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Article I, U. S. Bill of Rights. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html#text

[2] “Professor James Tracy Files Civil Rights Lawsuit against Florida Atlantic University and Faculty Union,” Press Release, April 25, 2016. https://memoryholeblog.com/2016/04/26/professor-james-tracy-files-civil-rights-lawsuit-against-florida-atlantic-university-faculty-union/#more-27575

[3] “Closely Watched Fight over California Teacher Tenure Moves to Appeals Court,” New York Times, February 25, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/26/us/closely-watched-fight-over-california-teacher-tenure-moves-to-appeals-court.html

[4] “1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure,” AAUP. http://www.aaup.org/report/1940-statement-principles-academic-freedom-and-tenure

[5] “Academic Freedom,” General University Policy Regarding Academic Appointees, University of California, revised September 29, 2003.  http://www.ucop.edu/academic-personnel-programs/_files/apm/apm-010.pdf

[6] “Academic Freedom and Responsibility,” Handbook for Faculty and Academic Administrators, University of Pennsylvania, revised as Article 11, Statutes of the

Trustees, November 2, 2001. http://provost.upenn.edu/policies/faculty-handbook/faculty-policies/ii-a

[7] “Free Speech Guidelines,” Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences,” adopted February 13 and May 15, 1990. http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic847338.files/FS_Guidelines_1990.pdf

[8] “Ensuring Academic Freedom in Politically Controversial Academic Personnel Decisions,” AAUP (Executive Summary, 2011). http://www.aaup.org/report/ensuring-academic-freedom-politically-controversial-academic-personnel-decisions?PF=1

[9] http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/sfl-on-sandy-hook-anniversary-two-parents-target-fau-professor-who-taunts-family-victims-20151210-story.html. And “Time to Crack Down on Newtown ‘Truthers’ Who Tarnish Memory of Noah Pozner.” http://forward.com/opinion/327111/time-to-crack-down-on-shameless-sandy-hook-rampage-truthers/  

[10] “Sandy Hook: The Hounding of Prof. James Tracy,” Fellowship of the Minds, February 17, 2016. https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2016/02/17/sandy-hook-the-hounding-of-prof-james-tracy/ 

[11] “Harvard Law Professor Works To Disrupt Tenure Bid of Longtime Nemesis at DePaul U.,” Chronicle of Higher Education, April 5, 2007. http://chronicle.com/article/Harvard-Law-Professor-Works-to/122347

[12] “Civil Rights Attorney Alan Dershowitz Hailed by Pro-Israeli Group,” New York Daily News, November 24, 2014. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/civil-rights-attorney-alan-dershowitz-hailed-pro-israel-g-article-1.2021336. “Lawyer Denies Suit’s Allegations of Sex with a Minor,” New York Times, January 7, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/07/us/alan-dershowitz-denies-allegations-of-sex-with-minor.html

[13] Florida Atlantic University Board of Trustees and the United Faculty of Florida Collective Bargaining Agreement 2012-2015 (ratified September 21, 2015). http://www.fau.edu/provost/files/CBA-2012-2015-Oct2015-edits-ab.pdf

[14] Florida Atlantic University Board of Trustees, Board Operations Policies and Procedures, updated November 19, 2013. https://www.fau.edu/bot/files/Revised%20BOT%20Policies%20and%20Procedures%2011-19-13_APPROVED.pdf

[15] http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/news/opinion/letters-why-james-tracy-faus-conspiracy-theorist-s/nXZ85/

[16] http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-04-27/bad-people-get-free-speech-protection-too

About 30 people were allegedly killed and 80 injured in the bombing of a refugee camp in Sarmada, located 30 kilometers from Aleppo. It is controlled by militants and accommodates up to 2,000 people. There are no confirmed photos or videos which depict the perpetrator of the attack. However, pro-militant sources argue that this was an airstrike.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest denied at a press briefing that US-led coalition warplanes were on a mission in the stricken area. UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond immediately rushed to blame the bombing on the Syrian government.

On May 5, a joint operations room of Islamist militants, the Army of Conquest, launched a full-scale offensive on Khan Tuman village located south of the city of Aleppo. The militants use heavy artillery and homegrown rockets Hell Cannons. The heavy clashes are ongoing. The attack breached the agreed 48-hour ceasefire in Aleppo and its outskirts that has been brokered by Russia and the US.

The Syrian Arab Army sent reinforcements to the al-Sha’er Gas Field in the Northeastern part of the Homs province. Syrian Arab Army units, including Desert Hawks and Tiger Forces, are going to drive out ISIS militants from the strategic gas field. Recently, the pro-government forces regained all of the hills surrounding it, including large hilltop of Tal SyriaTel.

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Britain’s nuclear bomb test veterans suffered severe genetic damage from radiation, writes Chris Busby, and their case for compensation is being heard in the High Court today. Key to their case is evidence of similar damage inflicted on in utero babies exposed to radiation from the Chernobyl disaster, and how the dreadful health impacts of radiation cascade down to future generations.

The world has had 30 years to assess the consequences for life on Earth of the disaster at Chernobyl. This is about the same period during which I have studied the effects of radioactive pollution on the planet.

It was the radioactive rain in the mountains of North Wales, where I lived in 1986, that brought me into this strange Alice in Wonderland area of science, where people and children die, and the global authorities, advised by physicists, deny what would be obvious to a child at school.

Chernobyl was mentioned as the star that fell to earth in the Book of Revelations. You may laugh, and it may be a coincidence, but the impact of the event has certainly been of biblical proportions.

It is a story about the imposition by reductionist science on humanity of a version of the truth constructed from mathematics, not the only one, but perhaps the most important, since it involves the systematic destruction of the genetic basis of life. It is a story of lies, secrecy, power, assassination and money: the vast amounts of money that would be lost if the truth came out.

Shortly after the murder in 1992 of the German Green Party leader and anti-nuclear activist Petra Kelly, the late Prof Ernest Sternglass (the first of the radiation scientist/ activists) told me that Kelly had just struck a deal with a German TV company to run a series demonstrating the true awfulness of the immediate effects of radiation.

A dreadful global cover up begins

He said: if the truth came out, all the Uranium and the billions of dollars in Uranium shares would turn into sand. So something like a cover-up had to happen, and it did, continuing the process of chicanery and control of information that began with the nuclear weapons tests of the 50s and 60s.

In 1959, as the genetic effects of the atmospheric tests became apparent, the control of the understanding of radiation and health was wrested from the World Health Organization (WHO) and passed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Photo caption: Explosion cloud from the UK’s Operation Hurricane atomic bomb test on Australia’s Montebello Islands, 3rd October 1952. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

Since then, no research on the health effects of radiation has been carried out by WHO, which has led to a permanent vigil outside their headquarters in Geneva by the group Independent WHO.

The arguments about the health effects of Chernobyl have mostly centered on cancer. I won’t write much about cancer here. The study of radiation and cancer has many complications, including that the data is often suspect, the time lag between the cancer diagnosis and the original radiation exposure can be 20 years, in which time a lot can happen, introducing ammunition (and opportunity) for those denying causation.

The predictions of the global cancer yield of the Chernobyl contamination has ranged from around a million (as predicted independently by the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR), Rosalie Bertell, John Gofman and me, to about 600,000 (Alexey Yablokov), to less than a few thousand (the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), whose risk model is the current basis for all legal constraints on radioactive releases in Europe.

Cancer: just one manifestation of the genetic damage caused by radiation

Cancer is caused by genetic damage but takes a while to show. More easily studied is the immediate and direct genetic damage, demonstrated in birth rates of congenital diseases, birth defects, fetal abnormalities, data which is easier to locate. The effects of a sudden increase in radioactive contamination are most easily seen in sudden increases in these indicators.

You don’t have to wait 20 years. Out they come after nine months or in aborted fetuses with their heart and central nervous system defects, their lack of hands and feet, their huge hydrocephalic heads, their inside-out organs, their cleft palates, cyclops eyes and the whole range of dreadful and usually fatal conditions. There is no argument, and the affair is in the hands of doctors, not physicists. The physicists of the ICRP base their risk of genetic effects on experiments with mice.

I was in Kiev in 2000 at the WHO conference on Chernobyl. On the podium, conducting the theatricals, were the top men in the IAEA (Abel Gonzalez) and the United National Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), represented by Canadian Norman Gentner. “No effects can be seen” – Abel Gonzalez. “Internal radiation is the same as external” – Norman Gentner. Happily you can watch this farce as it was videotaped by a Swiss team (embed below).

So: cut to the chase, to the fatal assault on the edifice of the current ICRP radiation risk model. In January 2016 Prof Inge Schmitz Feuerhake, Dr Sebastian Pflugbeil and I published a major review paper on the genetic effects of radiation in the prestigious Korean peer-reviewed Journal of Environmental Health and Toxicology.

What the research shows is that in every corner of the ex-Soviet Union and Europe and even further afield where epidemiologists and pediatricians looked, there were large and statistically significant increases in congenital diseases at birth and in babies that were aborted.

The genetic risk that cascades through the generations

The new article recalculates the genetic risk from radiation based upon reports from Germany, Turkey, Greece, Croatia, Egypt, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Hungary, Italy, the UK, Scotland, Wales, indeed everywhere where anyone looked.

There was a sudden jump in birth defects immediately following the contamination from Chernobyl and in proportion; but only up to the point where the exposure was so great the babies died in the womb or miscarried early in pregnancy. Thus, the relation between exposure level and effect was not a simple one where the birth defects increased with exposure: after a critical level of exposure they leveled off, or indeed fell.

Also since contamination is still there, women are still giving birth to genetically damaged children some 30 years later. These results, published by many doctors, epidemiologists and researchers in many different journals, show that the effects occurred at levels of contamination that provided ‘doses’, that yardstick of radiation exposure invented by the ICRP, that were very low, often below the natural background dose.

It is worse: from research on the nuclear test site veterans’ grandchildren (also reviewed in the study) it is clear that these effects continue down the generations and will only disappear when an offspring dies without issue, and leaves the genome of the human race. And many will or already have done: since what causes genetic malformation in the infant, at a larger dose causes fetal death and infertility.

These facts now form the basis of the case of Britain’s nuclear test veterans, whose case I am representing in the High Court today. The UK government recklessly exposed them to a double blast of intense radiation from the gamma ray burst of nuclear bombs, and to the subsequent fallout, and has since washed their hands of the matter.

The vetermans’ demand is that the sacrifice they and their families made should be recognised, and fair compensation paid. The MOD has resisted their claim by fair means and foul, but finally the evidence is assembled and their case is being heard. Today’s hearing is largely procedural, and the substantive hearings are scheduled to take place for some two weeks of June.

The scientific fraud explained

No one can have failed to have noticed the increase in human infertility that has occurred since the radioactive contamination of the planet began in the 1950s. As ex-US Atomic Energy Commission scientists John Gofman wrote in 1981 “the nuclear industry is waging a war on humanity.”

So how can it be possible that the legislative system has got it so wrong? The answer is also given in the paper. It is that the concept of ‘dose’ which may be convenient for the physicists as it is simple to compute, really does not address the situation where the substances that provide the dose are inside the body, often bound chemically to the DNA, which is the acknowledged target for all these genetic effects.

It shows that the human genome (and of course that of all life) is exquisitely sensitive to radiation damage from such internal exposures, to Strontium-90, Plutonium-239, Uranium and particularly to the nano-particles containing these radioactive elements which were produced when the reactor No 4 blew apart.

The paper shows the studies of the Hiroshima bomb survivors, upon which the current unsafe radiation laws are based were faulty because the true comparison group, those not in the city at the time of the bombing, was abandoned when it began to look like there was a real effect. Was this stupidity? Was it a trick? Does someone have to go to jail?

Last month, Prof. Alexey Yablokov, Dr. Alex Rosen and I wrote to the editor of The Lancet, in a recorded delivery letter posted by the Independent WHO in Geneva, requesting space in that influential journal to draw attention to these truths and overturn the false and dangerous structures created by the physicists.

Let us all hope that some good will finally come of the disaster – that the real legacy of Chernobyl will be the understanding of the true danger to health of radioactive pollution.

And that Britain’s nuclear bomb test veterans, and their families, will finally receive the justice they so richly deserve.

Chris Busby is an expert on the health effects of ionizing radiation. He qualified in Chemical Physics at the Universities of London and Kent, and worked on the molecular physical chemistry of living cells for the Wellcome Foundation. Professor Busby is the Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk based in Brussels and has edited many of its publications since its founding in 1998. He has held a number of honorary University positions, including Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Health of the University of Ulster. Busby currently lives in Riga, Latvia. See also: chrisbusbyexposed.org, greenaudit.org and llrc.org.

Study: ‘Genetic Radiation Risks – A Neglected Topic in the Low Dose Dabate‘ by Busby C, Schmitz-Feuerhake I, Pflugbeil S is published in Environmental Health and Toxicology.

This article is an edited version of one originally published on RT.

Latest book: Christopher Busby (2015) ‘What is Life? On the origin and mechanism of living systems’. QTP Publications. Illustrated by Saoirse Morgan. ISBN 978-0-9565132-1-2, 130pp. Order from Amazon UK (£10.00) or QTP publications 10 Bratwell Rd, Coleraine, BT51 4LB.

On May 4th, Russia’s Sputnik news agency headlined:

“Lavrov: US Tried to Include Al-Nusra Front Positions in ‘Silent’ Period”, and reported that Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, speaking in Moscow about the lengthy negotiations between himself and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to agree on conditions for a Syrian ceasefire and peace talks to take place between Syria’s government and Syria’s rebels, said, “During the negotiations, our US partners actually tried to draw the borders of this ‘zone of silence’ to include a significant number of positions occupied by al-Nusra [Front]. We managed to exclude this as it is absolutely unacceptable.”

Al Qaeda in Syria calls itself “Al Nusra.”

The “zone of silence” or “silent period” (and there are other phrases for it) refers to the areas in Syria that would be excluded from the ceasefire.

In other words: Lavrov was saying that whereas Russia’s President Putin refuses to stop military action in Syria to kill Syria’s Al Qaeda, America’s President Obama has been continuing, ever since the U.S.-Russian negotiations for a ceasefire in Syria started in January of this year, to insist that Russia must stop bombing those jihadists. Russia’s Foreign Minister was saying that Obama has been trying to protect Al Nusra.

Here is a chronological presentation of the reporting in the Western press, about U.S. President Obama’s efforts on behalf of Syria’s Al Qaeda (Al Nusra):

On 7 January 2016, Seymour Hersh reported in the London Review of Books,

“Barack Obama’s repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office – and that there are ‘moderate’ rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him – has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. Their criticism has focused on what they see as the administration’s fixation on Assad’s primary ally, Vladimir Putin. In their view, Obama is captive to Cold War thinking about Russia and China. …

The military’s resistance dates back to the summer of 2013, when a highly classified assessment, put together by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then led by General Martin Dempsey, forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to chaos and, potentially, to Syria’s takeover by jihadi extremists, much as was then happening in Libya. …

Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, confirmed that his agency had sent a constant stream of classified warnings to the civilian leadership about the dire consequences of toppling Assad. The jihadists, he said, were in control of the opposition. …”

On 20 January 2016, the AP headlined “Kerry, Lavrov try to settle differences over Syrian talks”, and reported,

“Differences over which Syrian opposition groups should be labeled terrorists and barred from the negotiations and the ceasefire have led to concerns that the talks may have to be postponed. Russia and Iran, which back Assad, have immense differences with Saudi Arabia, other Arab states, the United States and Europe over which opposition groups should be considered terrorists and therefore excluded.”

On 12 February 2016, the New York Times bannered, “In Syria, Skepticism That Cease-Fire Will Stop Fighting”, and reported that,

“With the proviso that the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s branch in Syria, can still be bombed, Russia puts the United States in a difficult position; the insurgent groups it [i.e., the U.S.] supports cooperate in some places with the well-armed, well-financed Nusra in what they [i.e., the U.S. government] say is a tactical alliance of necessity [with Nusra] against [Syrian] government forces. So Russia can argue that many of them [by which the NYT journalist refers to anti-Assad fighters] are, in effect, Nusra affiliates.”

On 16 February 2016, independent journalist Gareth Porter headlined “Obama’s ‘Moderate’ Syrian Deception”, and reported that,

“Information from a wide range of sources, including some of those the United States has been explicitly supporting, makes it clear that every armed anti-Assad organization unit in those provinces is engaged in a military structure controlled by Nusra militants. All of these rebel groups fight alongside the Nusra Front and coordinate their military activities with it.”

That reporter, unlike some others, assumes that Obama’s support of Syria’s Al Qaeda is due to Obama’s weakness in adhering to the desires of haters of Russia, both in the U.S. and among America’s allies abroad:

“President Obama is under pressure from these domestic critics as well as from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other GCC allies to oppose any gains by the Russians and the Assad regime as a loss for the United States.”

Mr. Porter presents no evidence backing up his assumption that President Obama is reluctant to adhere to this obsession against Russia. Seymour Hersh had reported, in his 7 January 2016 LRB report, facts that contradict Mr. Porter’s assumption:

“General Dempsey and his colleagues on the Joint Chiefs of Staff kept their dissent out of bureaucratic channels, and survived in office. General Michael Flynn did not. ‘Flynn incurred the wrath of the White House by insisting on telling the truth about Syria,’ said Patrick Lang, a retired army colonel who served for nearly a decade as the chief Middle East civilian intelligence officer for the DIA. ‘He thought truth was the best thing and they shoved him out.”

In other words: Despite the opposition by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Obama was determined to help Nusra replace the Assad government. Despite what Mr. Porter assumed, Barack Obama was not a weak President, but instead a very determined President, a President who fired people in his Administration who advised him against continuing his attempt to replace al-Assad by al-Nusra. Russia insisted on bombing them, and reluctantly — and in fits and starts — U.S. President Obama accepted Russia’s condition.

Earlier, on

On 19 February 2016, the Washington Post bannered “U.S., Russia hold Syria cease-fire talks as deadline passes without action”, and reported that,

“Russia was said to have rejected a U.S. proposal to leave Jabhat al-Nusra off-limits to bombing as part of a cease-fire.”

That report even included an indication that President Obama’s current Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter, who started his job on 17 February 2015, after the war against Syria was already well under way and Obama had replaced the people on his team who were opposed to it, is, if anything, even more obsessive against Russia than Obama himself is:

“Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter was said to have opposed the high-level contact with the Russians, at least initially”

In other words: when Obama replaced Chuck Hagel by Ashton Carter, he was replacing someone whom he held to be insufficiently anti-Russian, by a person, Carter, who is so extremely hostile toward Russians, as to have since been restrained by Obama from pursuing this hostility as forcefully as he wishes to. The only Cabinet member mentioned there as having persuaded Obama not to follow Carter’s more aggressive stance against Russia was Obama’s second-term Secretary of State, John Kerry.

On 20 February 2016, Reuters headlined “Syrian opposition says temporary truce possible, but deal seems far off”, and, under the sub-head “Nusra Front in Spotlight,” reported that,

A source close to peace talks earlier told Reuters Syria’s opposition had agreed to the idea of a two- to three-week truce.

The truce would be renewable and supported by all parties except Islamic State, the source said.

It would be conditional on the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front no longer being attacked by Syrian government forces and their allies.

Of course, “Syria’s opposition” there included the United States; and so the U.S. President was, at that time, still insisting upon rejecting the Russian President’s demand that Nusra be included in the “zone of silence,” the locations where the war would continue uninterrupted during the otherwise-ceasefire.

That report went on:

The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Peskov, said on Saturday: “Russia is sticking to its consistent policy of rendering assistance and aid to the armed forces of Syria in their offensive actions against terrorists and against terrorist organisations.”

The source close to peace talks described the opposition’s insistence on the Nusra Front no longer being targeted as “the elephant in the room”.

Obama, like King Saud, Emir Thani, Tayyip Erdogan, and the other enemies of Russia, still stood firm that Nusra not be destroyed.

Therefore, the issue of whether Putin would be allowed to continue bombing Nusra was a heavy topic of disagreement between Obama’s pro-al-Qaeda-in-Syria alliance, versus Putin’s anti-al-Qaeda-in-Syria alliance.

Seymour Hersh’s 7 January 2016 LRB article concluded:

Obama now has a more compliant Pentagon. There will be no more indirect challenges from the military leadership to his policy of disdain for Assad and support for Erdoğan. Dempsey and his associates remain mystified by Obama’s continued public defence of Erdoğan, given the American intelligence community’s strong case against him – and the evidence that Obama, in private, accepts that case.

Even though Obama accepts the case that Turkey’s leader, Erdoğan, is a dangerous man to be allied with, Obama moves forward with what is perhaps the most rabidly hostile toward Russia U.S. Administration ever. And this is after the USSR, and its NATO-mirror organization, the Warsaw Pact, were terminated by Russia in 1991, and after Al Qaeda perpetrated not only 9/11 but many other terrorist attacks, not only in the U.S., but in many of America’s allied countries — not to mention in Russia itself.

Furthermore, Seymour Hersh, in his 4 April 2014 article in LRB, “The Red Line and the Rat Line”, said that,

“The full extent of US co-operation with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in assisting the rebel opposition in Syria has yet to come to light. The Obama administration has never publicly admitted to its role in creating what the CIA calls a ‘rat line’, a back channel highway [of weapons from Gaddafi’s stockpiles in Libya] into Syria. The rat line, authorised in early 2012, was used to funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition. Many of those in Syria who ultimately received the weapons were jihadists, some of them affiliated with al-Qaida.”

And, even prior to that, on 7 October 2013, Christof Lehmann at his site nsnbc.me, headlined “Top US and Saudi Officials responsible for Chemical Weapons in Syria”, and opened by summarizing:

“Evidence leads directly to the White House, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, CIA Director John Brennan, Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Bandar, and Saudi Arabia´s Interior Ministry.”

He said that, regarding the 21 August 2013 sarin gas attack, which Obama claims crossed his “red line” to launch an invasion of Syria to overthrow Assad, and which Hersh and others report to have been based actually on Obama’s and his allies’ “Rat Line” of weapons from Libya into Syria, the initial decision was made by the Saudi agent in Syria, Zahran Alloush:

“The final decision, made by Zahran Alloush may in fact have been predetermined together with his U.S. – Saudi liaison officers.

Launching a chemical weapons attack would allow the USA, UK and France, to call for military strikes against Syria and to turn the tide.”

Zahran Alloush was killed by a Russian missile on Christmas Day 2015, and his nephew and close associate Mohammed Alloush was chosen by King Salman al-Saud (actually by his son Prince Salman al-Saud) to lead the Syrian opposition in the peace talks on the Syrian war. Zahran Alloush, like the Saud family, favored extermination of Shiites (including Assad), and so does Mohammed Alloush, which (besides the Alloushes’ support of foreign jihad generally) is perhaps the main reason why the Sauds had selected him to lead the U.S.-Saudi-Qatari-Turkish side in these peace negotiations against Syria. However, the Alloushes also greatly admire Osama bin Laden, who founded Al Qaeda; and, so, in total, there can be little if any doubt that what Lavrov was reported on May 4th to have said about Obama’s support for Syria’s Al Qaeda makes sense, even though Obama himself had arranged for bin Laden to be killed.

It seems that, at least after Obama’s success at killing off many of Al Qaeda’s leaders, he is determined to support Al Qaeda’s original jihad, which had been against the Soviet Union, and which continues now against Russia and its ally Assad. Obama therefore protects, and helps to arm, Al Qaeda in Syria, so as to eliminate, if possible, yet another ally of Russia (after Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and Viktor Yanukovych): this time Bashar al-Assad.

Whereas the U.S. and its allies will not likely affirm what Lavrov said, the facts do — even some that have been reported in the Western press — not only in non-Western media.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

The British Labour party, it is becoming clear, is now indulging in all-out McCarthyism against the most outspoken critics of Israel in its ranks. And almost no one seems to have the guts to call out this dangerous farce.

It has been widely reported that the Labour party has suspended (at the latest count) 19 activists – a tiny fraction of its more than 400,000 members. But aside from Naz Shah and Ken Livingstone (see my observations about their treatment here) there has been almost no serious coverage of who these people are and what they have supposedly done wrong.

One of the earliest casualties was Tony Greenstein, a Jewish anti-Zionist who, as well as being a fervent supporter of Palestinian rights, has been a vociferous campaigner against Holocaust denial and anti-semitism. He has not even been told the grounds for his suspension.

The latest victims include David Watson for calling Zionism a “racist ideology” – the official position of the UN General Assembly from 1975 to 1991, when the US was able to exert pressure to overturn the resolution following the fall of the Soviet Union.

Even more ludicrous is the suspension this week of Jackie Walker, who is both black and Jewish. Her offence was to talk about her own Jewish ancestors’ involvement in the slave and sugar trades, and point out that an exclusive focus on the Holocaust (of Jews) marginalised another terrible holocaust by Europe – of Africans.

It is quite astounding for those of us who have been fighting to ensure that anti-Zionism and anti-semitism are not conflated to discover that this distinction has been effectively conceded by a Labour party led by Jeremy Corbyn. Now, says Labour, criticising Israel is anti-Semitism – Netanyahu’s wet dream has come true!

We have also reached a point where the only major British political party with even a pretence of opposing imperialism and colonialism is creating taboos around the very issues needed to understand the colonial past of Britain and Europe.

This is little better than book-burning – and if it does not stop soon, Corbyn will have no more claim to leading a party of social justice than Tony Blair.

(Please reference the entire Law of Hybrid War series in order to get acquainted with the strategic themes of this article)

Reconceptualizing The Balkan Peninsula

The Balkans are the most geostrategically important region in Europe today, and truth be told, they’ve held this role for centuries before, despite whether or not various Great Powers acknowledged this at the time. The purpose of the current study isn’t to meticulously analyze the past, but to define the present and forecast the future. The cusp of their contemporary importance is in serving as a geographic facilitator for two Russian and Chinese megaprojects that aim to penetrate the ‘unipolar continent’ with unshakable multipolar influence, and herein lays the reason why they’re the second most likely to fall victim to Hybrid War. All of this will be thoroughly described in the proceeding sections and parts, but prior to that point, it’s absolutely necessary for the reader to reconceptualize their understanding of the Balkans in order to better comprehend the strategic logic behind Moscow and Beijing’s ambitious geo-economic plans.

Geo-historical Importance

The Balkans have played such a paramount role in Europe history mostly because they’re the land bridge connecting Central and Western Europe with Turkey and the Mideast. Accordingly, both forces have been able to use its territory in order to project influence in either direction, with the Romans treating Greece as a stepping stone to further eastward conquest, while the Ottomans exploited the more mainland portions of the region to climactically charge into the heart of Europe prior to their decisive defeat during the 1683 Battle of Vienna.  It’s thus indisputable that the Balkan Peninsula has historically been the geo-pivotal hinge in leveraging European and Mideast influence vis-à-vis one another, but there’s another factor that needs to be mentioned, and that’s Russia’s civilizational links to the region.

Most of the Balkans are tied to Russia through the intimate links of religious, linguistic, ethnic, and historical bonds, with the latter being most strongly epitomized through Tsar Alexander II’s liberation campaign in the region from 1877-1878. As per the latter, the geopolitical designs that Russia had at the time are exceptionally controversial and outside the focus of this analysis, but it’s relevance in being included in this section is in showing that the Eastern Balkans (Romania, Bulgaria) served as a bridge in physically connecting Russia to the Mideast (Turkey), which culminated in Russian forces briefly reaching the village of San Stefano just a few miles outside of Constantinople.

More recently than that, Russia’s Balkan diplomacy in the run-up to World War I and its alliance with Serbia was reviled by its European counterparts, since they saw it as part of a larger power play in using the Balkans to reach the Adriatic Sea, and by extension, the Mediterranean. Whether or not this was the grand intention or merely a beneficial aftereffect of the alliance is a moot point, since the purpose in bringing this up is to show that Russia, just like the Europeans and Turks, could capitalize on the Balkans’ position in order to advance its geostrategic goals and connect with each of these two competing regions. Therefore, when considering the word “Balkans”, one should immediately think of the word “bridge”, since that’s historically been the global purpose that the region has served. The most notable exception to this was when the Macedonian Alexander the Great used the region as a springboard for his legendary eastern conquests, but such a globally renowned feat would never be repeated in the region afterwards.

The Balkans before and after Russo-Turkish war 1877-1878

Geo-Economic Significance

In the contemporary era, the Balkans have less of a traditional military potential and more of an integrational economic one (although the “refugee” crisis is a separate, asymmetrical issue that will certainly be discussed later). With this in mind, one can conceptualize the region as being the relatively disconnected space between the large German, Russian, and Turkish economies. Realistically speaking, however, it’s only functionally relevant for connecting Germany and Turkey, as the bulk of Russia’s trade with both goes through Eastern Europe and the Black Sea, respectively. Considering this, the EU and NATO’s ““Drang nach Suden” (Drive to the South) makes a lot more conceptual sense, since it’s clear that the US and Germany want to consolidate this region under their full control so as to rebuild the Yugoslav-era connective infrastructure that was purposely destroyed during the 1990s wars.

The grand geo-economic importance that the Balkans have in terms of the German, and by extension, the entire EU economy is therefore obvious. The largest market and economic power in Europe wants to have full direct (EU) and indirect (US-controlled NATO) control of the mainland trade routes with its Mideast counterpart, Turkey, which is the largest market and non-resource-trading economic power in West Asia within overland proximity to the EU. If one recalls history, then this is the exact same principle that motivated the “Berlin-Baghdad Express” in the run-up to World War I and played a premier role in why Germany and its Austrian-Hungarian ally were so adamantly against the projection of Russian influence in the region.

Back then just as now, one of Germany’s (and by modern extension, also the US’) most pressing strategic imperatives was to establish full control over the Balkan Peninsula and streamline transport routes in accordance with these geo-economic determinants. If a third party (in both cases, Russia, but nowadays supported by China) were to physical insert their influence into the geographic center of this process (Serbia), then it would be seen as a critical strategic vulnerability that would have to be countered at all costs. Failure to do so would place the future lifeline of German-Turkish trade (seen more broadly in this context as EU-Mideast non-resource trade) under the influence of a non-party entity that could presumably manipulate this arrangement to their grand strategic benefit (presently seen as the advancement of multipolar influence at unipolar expense).

Sub-Regional Categorizations

It’s important at this confluence to clearly articulate what one is talking about when they speak of “the Balkans”. Geographically, this refers to the Balkan Peninsula, generally recognized as being the countries of the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and Greece. More specifically, however, there’s a certain connotation used among many commentators when referencing this term, and they oftentimes use it interchangeably with the countries of the former Yugoslavia. That’s not the case with the present author, however, since “the Balkans” is meant to refer to the entire geographic space that it’s naturally defined as. Adding context to this definition is the categorization of three sub-regional geopolitical modifications within the Balkan space, which are necessary to describe in order for the reader to have a richer understanding of how their dynamics.

The following descriptions are taken from the author’s earlier work about “A New Strategic Calculus For The Balkans”:

The Western Balkans:

This designation refers to the unipolar controlled states that are geographically part of the peninsula’s western extremities. They include Slovenia, Croatia, the Croat-Muslim portion of Bosnia, and Albania. Geographically speaking, Montenegro also falls into this category, but its population’s brave resistance to the unilateral decision of their government offers hope that it could represent a Central Balkan geopolitical breakthrough in the future.

The Central Balkans:

This part of the peninsula not under the formal control of either of the pro-American institutions represents the most fertile ground for multipolarity to take root, and it includes Republika Srpska in Bosnia, Serbia, and the Republic of Macedonia. These states cleanly overlap with their geographic designation, with the only sub-regional anomaly being the temporary occupation of Kosovo Province which thus currently falls under the geopolitical influence of the Central Balkans (and hence, the unipolar world).

The Eastern Balkans:

Romania and Bulgaria comprise this geopolitical designation, and it’s under the complete control of both unipolar organizations. Geopolitical events here are a lot less dynamic than in the other portions of the peninsula, with the only dynamic typically being the inverse relationship between a decline in the economy and increased American military buildup.

The Greek Connection:

In both the geographic and geopolitical senses, Greece is connected to each of the Balkan sub-groupings. It physically connects to the Western, Central, and Eastern Balkans when one looks at it from the perspective of geography, and in terms of New Cold War loyalties, it’s basically split between the unipolar and multipolar camps. Greece has always had a sense of “separateness” when compared to its other Balkan brethren, and this hodgepodge of uncertain categorizations only accentuates that further.

Situational Analysis of the Balkan Sub-Regions

Having described the Balkans’ sub-regional designations, it’s now appropriate to provide a short analysis of their strategic situations. This will aid the reader in understanding the present state of affairs and making sense out of Russia and China’s selection of the Central Balkans as the location for their two megaprojects.

The Western Balkans:

Categorized in order of strategic utility to the US, the two equally most important members of the Western Balkans vis-à-vis unipolar strategy are Albania and Croatia, both of which are capable of exerting influence beyond their borders. Albania can do so in the occupied Serbian Province of Kosovo and the western regions of the Republic of Macedonia,  while Croatia does something similar over the Croat-Muslim part of Bosnia (although to a lesser extent than Albania can do in its targets). In both cases, there’s an element of “greater” nationhood being expressed, and it’s specifically promoted in order to destabilize the Central Balkan states of Serbia and Macedonia. It must also be reminded that both Western Balkan leaders had their irredentist aspirations briefly actualized by the fascist occupiers in World War II, and the nightmarish memory of “Greater Albania” and “Greater Croatia” still hasn’t been forgotten by the Macedonians and Serbs that torturously suffered under it.

The next most important Western Balkan proxy is Bosnia, but it’s saliency lies not in what it can do to promote unipolarity, but in how it can be used to break multipolarity by instigating yet another Balkan War. This will be explored more in-depth at further points in the research, but for now it’s relevant for the reader to acknowledge that the country is essentially split between two unipolar and multipolar sub-national groups – the pro-Western Croat-Muslim entity, and the multipolar Republika Srpska. This arrangement is due to the Dayton Accords that ended the Bosnian Civil War and federalized the country, but the US and its allies are now alarmingly taking steps to revise this agreement and potentially make a move against Republika Srpska’s legally enshrined autonomy within the country. Therefore, in the greater scheme of things, Bosnia should be seen as one large geopolitical trigger that the US could activate against Serbia (and by indirect effect, Russia) in order to create a scorched earth-type of physical and strategic situation to sabotage Balkan multipolarity and the actualization of Russia and China’s megaprojects if it feels that all other options have been exhausted.

Moving along, Montenegro follows Bosnia in terms of importance to the Western Balkan construction. Although a tiny and demographically insignificant state when compared to the other three that have already been mentioned already, and without any “greater” nationhood ambitions or conventional proxy trigger uses that could be weaponized by the unipolar world, Montenegro still plays a very strategic role. By virtue of its geographic location, its 2006 separation from Serbia turned the latter into a landlocked state and increased the multitude of pressuring already been expressed against it. This was made possible by Milo Djukanovic’s nearly three-decades-long rule, which has been a textbook example of a proxy leader following the geopolitical biddings of his masters. Most tellingly, he and some of his governing cohorts unilaterally made the preemptive decision to accept NATO membership in September even before it was ever offered in order to publicly demonstrate his loyalty to the West. This had the predictable reaction of instigating a nationwide rebellion among the majority of the citizenry that adamantly stands against such a humiliatingly servile measure as joining the military bloc that bombed it in 1999, and the ongoing tension between the masses and the master will be expounded upon later in the analysis.

Finally, the last member of the Western Balkans in terms of importance is Slovenia, but it didn’t always used to be that way. Back in the 1990s it was the ‘shining star’ of the Balkans, having escaped the ravages of war unscathed due to its lucky location in the peninsula’s geographic extremity, and to a large extent, it still has the region’s best standard of living. Slovenia’s success can be attributed to it being a small state (both in geographic and demographic terms) with proportionately developed economic assets, and this particular combination made it the envy of many in the region. Unfortunately, quite a few people (including influential decision makers) misunderstood the secrets behind its success and felt that they could be emulated in their own countries if only they followed Slovenia’s institutional lead and moved as close to the West as possible. They mistakenly attributed its stability to its closeness with the EU and NATO, not to its unique domestic and historical conditions, and were purposely misled into thinking that joining both organizations would lead their country into a period of Slovene-like prosperity. The US manipulated this artificially engineered and widely promoted perception in order to secure Croatia’s membership into NATO and the EU in 2009 and 2013 respectively, which thenceforth largely expended Slovenia’s strategic significance to its plans.

The Central Balkans:

This newly conceptualized geopolitical region is the most important in terms of multipolar potential, but correspondingly, this also makes it the greatest target for destabilization. The socio-political vulnerabilities of its three states will be discussed in Part II, so at this point it’s relevant to only explain the general characteristics of each. Beginning with the northernmost, Republika Srpska is the proud portion of Bosnia that has remained largely free from unipolar influences. Having been the victim of Western aggression during the 1994 bombing campaign (ironically waged under “humanitarian” pretenses), its people and leadership are hostile to NATO and very suspicious of the EU. More than anything, however, they appreciate their entity’s hard-fought autonomy and will do anything to safeguard its existence.  They’re keenly aware of Sarajevo and its allies’ efforts to subtly and gradually abolish it, so they’re always on defensive alert for new provocations. Importantly, Republika Srpska is squeezed between NATO-member Croatia and the NATO protectorate being exercised over the Croat-Muslim part of Bosnia, so it remains militarily vulnerable in the event of renewed hostilities. Nevertheless, this hasn’t had the intimidating effect that the West may have anticipated, since President Milorad Dodik has confidently continued to assert his entity’s sovereignty and doesn’t seem inclined to back down.

Moving along, Serbia sits at the center of both the Central Balkans construction and the Balkan Peninsula as a whole, thus making it the pivot of the entire region, and this despite the decades-long War on Serbia that’s led to the gradual reduction of its administered territory. As a result of the American-supported “Operation Storm” in 1995, Croatia ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Serbs from the Republic of Serbian Krajina in the modern-day eastern reaches of the country, and then followed up with a devastating joint strike together with Bosnia aimed at crippling Republika Srpska. The Republic of Serbian Krajina was obliterated, while Republika Srpska was forced into a federation with the Croat-Muslim portion of Bosnia and Belgrade’s formal influence was removed from the region. Afterwards, NATO launched the War on Yugoslavia in 1999 in order to severe the Province of Kosovo from Serbia, and the 2006 independence referendum initiated by pro-Western stooge Djukanovic removed Montenegro from the mix and resulted in Serbia’s current situation. At present, its government is split between unipolar (the Prime Minister) and multipolar (the President) representatives, and it’s somewhat clumsily trying to maneuver between East and West. Despite these setbacks and the asymmetrical aggression currently being waged against it by the manufactured and purposely guided “refugee” crisis (to be analyzed in full later), Serbia still remains the strategic core for Balkan integration (be it for the Central Balkans or the entire region).

Republika Srpska Krajina map

Bringing up the southern component of the Central Balkans is the Republic of Macedonia. This country’s geopolitical and geophysical location critically enables it to function as the connecting bridge between the Greek ports and the Central Balkan inlands (and further afield to Hungary and Germany), and it’s absolutely the main chokepoint in north-south regional trade. It’s also the most popularly traversed transit state in the “refugee” crisis partly because of its convenient geography.  As it currently stands, Skopje is “officially” pro-Western and wants to join unipolar institutions, but the population is growing ever suspicious of the EU and NATO after the May 2015 Color Revolution attempt, and the government also has a pragmatic and mutually beneficial relationship with Russia. Macedonia’s pivotal position in the south-central Balkans has made it the subject of fierce competition between neighboring powers. The expansionist ideologies of Greater Albania and Greater Bulgaria still lay claim to its territory and even briefly succeeded in politically extinguishing it during their joint fascist-era occupation. Both unofficially irredentist governments still harbor hegemonic ambitions over it to this day, but according to patriotic Macedonians, the Greeks are currently the most hostile of the bunch because they refuse to recognize their country by its constitutional name and, as some assert, continue to occupy Aegean Macedonia. The relevancy of each of these claims is particularly poignant when examining the complex Hybrid War scenarios facing Macedonia, and will come to the surface later as part of the country’s diverse socio-political vulnerabilities.

The Eastern Balkans:

To begin with, Romania is geographically the largest Balkan state, but per the research’s focus on Hybrid War, it’s the least of the least of the countries affected by this. Bucharest largely abstains from Balkan affairs, and when it does interact in the region, it’s primarily only with its neighboring EU and NATO ally Bulgaria, which together form what the author has termed the “Black Sea Bloc” of Intermarum anti-Russian mobilization. Romania cares much more about Moldova and the Hungarian minority within its borders than it does about Serbia or any of the other examined Central and Western Balkan states, but its basing of American military personnel and anti-missile technology can’t be completely ignored from the regional calculation. That being said, it’s not likely that they’ll be directed westwards, but rather eastwards against Russia and its naval units in the Black Sea and Crimea. Additionally, the US’ occupation of Serbia’s Province of Kosovo through Camp Bondsteel, one of its largest bases, is sufficient enough to project destabilizing influence straight into the heart of the Central Balkans, thus allowing Romanian territory to be used for its previously mentioned strategic purpose against Russia. For the most part, then, Romania will be precluded from the rest of the analysis because its geopolitical focus is more relevant to Hungary, Moldova, the ethnic Romanian-inhabited sliver of Western Ukraine’s Bukovina Region, and Russia, but the same lack of Balkan-oriented policies can’t be said about Bulgaria.

Turkish prisoners of war, taken by the Russian Army in Bucharest, 1878

This South Slavic state had historically enjoyed very close and intimate relations with Russia, be it during the Imperial, Soviet, or present eras, and the groundswell of familial ties remains even to this day. The problem, however, is that the Bulgarian political elite don’t share their citizenry’s appeal for Russia and are firmly dedicated to Euro-Atlanticism, which dictates that they take all necessary steps to decouple all of their ties from Russia. Since Sofia obviously can’t remove the shared civilizational and historical bonds that bind it with Moscow, it must resort to the political-economic sphere instead, and the most pronounced anti-Russian moves to come out of Bulgaria lately were the implementation of sanctions, the rejection of South Stream, and the decision to base a NATO command center in the country. At the height of the Macedonian Color Revolution attempt in May 2015, it provocatively moved some of its troops to the border, ostensibly to protect against non-existent “terrorists” that might be nearby, but in reality to exert pressure on the country that many in Bulgaria claim as a subordinated extension of their own. Understanding the hegemonic ambitions that Bulgaria harbors towards its neighbor, it’s easier to forecast the role that it will have in certain Hybrid War scenarios against Macedonia, and which will certainly be investigated in the coming parts.

The Greek Connection:

The Hellenic Republic has always enjoyed a degree of “separateness” when compared to the other Balkan states, despite sharing some deep similarities with them. The Greek alphabet was the basis for the Cyrillic script crafted by Saints Cyril and Methodius from Macedonia, and Greeks share the same Orthodox faith as most of their Balkan brethren.  Nevertheless, there are still many differences between them, and Greeks are very proud of the distinctiveness that separates them from their neighbors. In modern terms, it’s notable that Greece was the first Balkan country to be accepted into NATO and the EU, and in geopolitical terms, it’s behaved as an Atlanticist bridgehead into the region since the beginning of the Old Cold War. Even so, that might be changing nowadays because the same geography that once allowed the unipolar world to penetrate the Balkans can also be harnessed by the multipolar one for disseminating influence in the dual direction of both the greater peninsula and its southern maritime reaches.

This is why Greece is so geopolitically important in the New Cold War, and Prime Minister Tsipras seemed to masterfully understand his country’s privileged position in adroitly balancing between East and West in the months preceding the dramatic run-up to the summer 2015 austerity referendum. Even though he ultimately rejected his people’s “Oxi” vote, he didn’t lose their full support, indicating that he won a critical enough mass of supporters through his loud rhetoric and visible international exploits in order to remain in power, at least for the time being (which will be expanded on later). Since reaching an agreement with its creditors, Greece has been markedly less active on the global arena, but some of this could be explained by the utterly overwhelming “refugee” crisis that has enveloped the country and necessitated a concentrated focus on domestic affairs. Be that as it may, the West learned its lesson about Tsipras and his geopolitical acumen, hence why it’s adamant in exploiting Greece’s inner political-economic contradictions so as to keep it divided and unable to actualize its full potential for as long as possible. Despite this, Tsipras’ shining example taught Greeks just how critical their country is to global affairs right now, and the ‘geopolitical genie’ of self-empowerment that released is unlikely to be forgotten by his countrymen anytime soon.

Geo-Economic Summary of the Balkans’ Connective Potential

Greece physically abuts each of the three Balkan sub-regions and could theoretically act as their logistical access points for trade to and from the Mediterranean and further abroad. This is more so the case when it comes to the Central and Eastern Balkans than the Western ones, as the latter have their own Adriatic seaports from which to directly interact with the larger world. From the EU perspective, it’s entirely possible to create a north-south trading network between Germany and Turkey that completely circumvents Greece’s geographic role, using Serbia-Bulgaria-Turkey instead of Macedonia-Greece-Turkey to facilitate it. The problem with this construction is that it limits the Balkan countries’ trade primarily to the two economic nodes that they’re between (Germany and Turkey), and the region will never reach its full potential if it’s indefinitely trapped as a transit zone and has no significant infrastructural connection to the outside world.

The Greek geography herein plays the ultimate strategically liberating goal in unshackling the Balkans from German-Turkish tutelage and opening up their most direct access to global markets. The Central Balkans are naturally amenable in facilitating connective north-south infrastructure projects such as the one being proposed because of how seamlessly the Serbian and Macedonian valleys give way to the Greek seashore, making this the most practical route for any non-European state eager to gain access to the region and the deeper European hinterland. It will be seen in a forthcoming section exactly how attractive this is to Russia and China, since such a route would not only tie the Balkans closer to the emerging multipolar order, but would use their regional geography to multiply the asymmetrical influence that each Great Power projects into the rest of the continent. Simply put, the Balkans are the backdoor to Europe, and it’s for this reason why the US is so anxious to block them off and prevent the Russia and China from gaining any type of tangible foothold there, even if it must resort to scorched-earth Hybrid Wars to do so.

To be continued…

Andrew Korybko is the American political commentator currently working for the Sputnik agency. He is the post-graduate of the MGIMO University and author of the monograph “Hybrid Wars: The Indirect Adaptive Approach To Regime Change” (2015). This text will be included into his forthcoming book on the theory of Hybrid Warfare.

PREVIOUS CHAPTERS:

Hybrid Wars 1. The Law Of Hybrid Warfare

Hybrid Wars 2. Testing the Theory – Syria & Ukraine

Hybrid Wars 3. Predicting Next Hybrid Wars

Hybrid Wars 4. In the Greater Heartland

It’s now clearer than ever: The US are leading a dirty war, under the table, in Syria. This is the true backdrop of the stage play in Geneva, where US diplomats are providing cover and buying time for CIA and Pentagon covert operations on the ground in Syria.

What the US State Department said yesterday is very telling, and should be a clear guide to anyone about what Washington DC’s actual agenda is in Syria:

“We look to Russia… to press for the Assad regime’s compliance with this effort, and the United States will do its part with the opposition,” Wednesday’s statement said. Russia and Iran are the primary backers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while the United States heads a group of regional and European countries supporting the opposition to his rule.”

Given the fact that the CIA (and the British) have both been working with these very forces – providing logistical support, weapons, and special forces training, and that it was also revealed yesterday that the US tried to include the al Nusra terrorist-held areas in its part of the “ceasefire” agreement, one can only conclude that western-backed “opposition” fighters” in Syria are comprised mostly of sectarian and Islamist militant terrorists.  So, by its own admission then yesterday, the US is managing al Nusra/al Qaeda in Syria – and thus prolonging the bloodshed.

21WIRE editor and global affairs analyst Patrick Henningsen spoke to RT International about what diplomats are doing in Geneva, but more importantly, about what western intelligence agencies and terrorist mercenaries are attempting to pull-off in Aleppo. Watch:

In the same Washington Post report, the so-called “opposition” further underlined the desperate US-led ceasefire ploy:

“The opposition said that it was “impractical to speak of only local cease-fires” and that the cessation of hostilities “must apply to all of Syria, without exception.” A statement issued by Salem al-Meslet, spokesman for the opposition High Negotiations Committee, said that they remained committed to political negotiations to end Syria’s civil war.”

Moreover, readers should also be aware by now that the multi-million dollar public relations and social media campaign entitled #AleppoIsBurning is not ‘grassroots’ at all, and is a 100% Soros-funded US digital media creation which can be classed as ‘marketing for regime change.’ This marketing campaign was triggered by what appears to be a completely fabricated story that was spoon-fed to the western media about an alleged MSF/Doctors Without Borders “hospital” in terrorist-held east Aleppo which “rebels” claimed was hit by “barrel bombs” dropped in Syrian Army “airstrikes.” According to all available evidence, this entire story appears to have been made-up for an eager western media.

Washington’s transparent agenda is now fully exposed. Will their next move be an even more desperate?

The BBC in its 2004 article, “Al-Qaeda’s origins and links,” would frankly admit that (emphasis added):

Al-Qaeda, meaning “the base”, was created in 1989 as Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden and his colleagues began looking for new jihads. 

The organization grew out of the network of Arab volunteers who had gone to Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight under the banner of Islam against Soviet Communism. 

During the anti-Soviet jihad Bin Laden and his fighters received American and Saudi funding. Some analysts believe Bin Laden himself had security training from the CIA.

The BBC’s article merely reports what is accepted as common knowledge and documented fact regarding the inception of this now enduring, notorious and shape-shifting terrorist organization… that it was the initial creation of joint US-Saudi interests.

This fact would carry with it an ironic sting in 2001 when Al Qaeda, allegedly led by Bin Laden, struck the Pentagon in Washington and the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, killing nearly 3,000 people and precipitating now over 15 years of global war.

Without doubt, the US and Saudi Arabia created Al Qaeda, and many believe still control the terrorist organization citing that the immense material support it and its subsidiaries require along with the virtual impunity they enjoy as they operate worldwide could only be due to substantial and influential state sponsorship.

Many have postulated that because the 15 years of war following September 11, 2001 have benefited only a handful of special interests both in the US and Europe, as well as in the Persian Gulf, that it cannot be ruled out that these interests were also somehow involved in the attacks that justified this enduring war to begin with.

At least one center of power involved in Al Qaeda’s creation, has been called out by members of the United States government as having continued to support the terrorist organization, including on September 11, 2001. Riyadh.

Before, After, and During 9/11… 

Recently making headlines, the US Congress is attempting to make it possible for victims of the September 11 attacks to sue Riyadh over its role in supporting the terrorists allegedly behind them.

15 of the 19 alleged hijackers were Saudis, 2 were from Saudi Arabia’s close ally, the United Arab Emirates, another from Egypt (a Muslim Brotherhood member) and the last from Lebanon. Despite the identities of the hijackers and the obvious ties to both Persian Gulf despots and terrorist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood they openly back, the United States opted to first invade Afghanistan, then inexplicably Iraq in the wake of the attacks.

The Independent’s article, “Saudi Arabia, 9/11, and what we know about the secret papers that could ignite a diplomatic war,” would elaborate, stating:

The US Congress is considering legislation which would enable the families of victims of the September 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, presented by the West as its most valuable ally in the Middle East, over alleged links with Al-Qaeda terrorists who carried out the attacks on New York and Washington.

The issue had cast a long shadow over the recent visit of President Barack Obama to Riyadh, with the Saudis threatening to sell off $750bn of American assets they hold if the bill is passed by Congress.

The classified pages are in a file titled “Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive Narrative Matters”, which have never been published from the findings of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into the attacks which killed 3,000 people and injured more than 6,000 others.

It is a fact that the US and Saudi Arabia jointly created Al Qaeda in the late 1980s.  It is also clear that something is being hidden about Saudi Arabia’s role regarding Al Qaeda during the September 11, 2001 attacks.

What is also clear is that since September 11, 2001, Saudi Arabia has continued arming and funding the terrorist group everywhere from Iraq to Libya to Yemen to Syria. In fact, a US Army report investing records related to foreign fighters battling and killing US soldiers during the US occupation of Iraq would reveal that these foreign fighters were primarily from, and backed by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and those currently labeled “rebels” backed by the US and Saudi Arabia in Syria.

Photo caption: Many of the Americans killed in Iraq were victims Saudi-backed terrorists. Despite this fact, Saudi Arabia remains one of Washington’s closest allies.

West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center (CTC)’s report, “BOMBERS, BANK ACCOUNTS AND BLEEDOUT al-Qa’ida’s Road In and Out of Iraq,” would reveal some very disturbing facts about one of America’s oldest and staunchest allies in the region, Saudi Arabia, and the role Riyadh was playing in the trafficking of arms and fighters from across the region, and into Iraq where they would inevitable clash with, and kill US service members.

The report would establish that Saudi Arabia (41%) and Libya (19% and more specifically, from those regions associated with the so-called “rebellion” in 2011) supplied the most foreign fighters to Iraq.  The report also concluded that 46% of all funding came from Saudi nationals, and noted specifically that Saudi Arabia at the very least had little to gain from stemming the flow of its nationals into the ranks of Al Qaeda in Iraq because of what the CTC report claimed was a desire to limit the “perceived influence of Iran.”

Similar arguments are made to defend Saudi funding and arming of Al Qaeda in Syria today, which is far less ambiguous in nature than the CTC report makes out its role during the US occupation of Iraq.

Saudi Arabia Supports Al Qaeda Today 

The Independent would report in a May 2015 article titled, “Turkey and Saudi Arabia alarm the West by backing Islamist extremists the Americans had bombed in Syria,”  that:

Turkey and Saudi Arabia are actively supporting a hardline coalition of Islamist rebels against Bashar al-Assad’s regime that includes al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, in a move that has alarmed Western governments.

The two countries are focusing their backing for the Syrian rebels on the combined Jaish al-Fatah, or the Army of Conquest, a command structure for jihadist groups in Syria that includes Jabhat al-Nusra, an extremist rival to Isis which shares many of its aspirations for a fundamentalist caliphate.

And as Turkey and Saudi Arabia openly arm and fund a terrorist organization listed and sanctioned by the US State Department, the United States government and its closest European allies continue to ship arms to Saudi Arabia and provide it with both political and military protection on unprecedented scales. In fact, one weapons deal struck between the US and Saudi Arabia constituted the largest ever in US history.

The Guardian reported in its article, “Barack Obama to authorize record $60bn Saudi arms sale,” that:

Barack Obama is to go ahead with plans to sell Saudi Arabia advanced aircraft and other weapons worth up to $60bn (£39bn), the biggest arms deal in US history, in a strategy of shoring up Gulf Arab allies to face any military threat from Iran.

With the US and Saudi Arabia having jointly created Al Qaeda, and with Saudi Arabia continuing to this day to openly arm and support the terrorist group worldwide with America’s enthusiastic ($60bn) approval, it is probably not just US-Saudi relations being protected by keeping the missing pages implicating Saudi Arabia in the September 11, 2001 attacks a secret, it is probably the existence of the entire Washington and Wall Street ruling class as well that is at stake.

Regardless of whether the papers are released, or what their contents may hold, that the US is still to this day involved in propping up a regime openly arming and funding an organization responsible for the worst terrorist attack in US history is an indictment not only the moral bankruptcy of the United States, but of the faltering narrative that it is a force fighting terrorism worldwide rather than one spreading it to the four corners of the globe, and one that must be exposed and stopped.

Ulson Gunnar, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The monstrous Siamese twin of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), has been in a growing puddle of dispute after 248 pages of its content were leaked.[1]

The organisation behind the measure, Greenpeace Netherlands, had done its best to shed light on a document that remains obscured, clandestine and hidden.  The TTIP leaks were initiated prior to the commencement of the 13^th round of TTIP negotiations between the EU and the US held in New York (Apr 25-29).  According to the organisation, the final document will consist of 25 to 30 chapters with extensive annexes.

The leaked and hefty portion constitutes roughly half to two-thirds of the text under negotiation, providing more than a decent snifter as to what European and US diplomats are up to.  They have met 13 times over three years in situations that were far from transparent.[2] Topics traversed are bound to worry any individuals with even the slightest leanings to democratic representativeness.  “Whether you care about environmental issues, animal welfare, labour rights or internet privacy, you should be concerned about what is in these leaked documents.”[3]

A few pointers from the leaks are worth noting.  None of the chapters in the released portions make reference to the principle of General Exceptions permitting states to regulate trade “to protect human, animal and plant life or health” for “the conservation of exhaustible natural resources”.  The omission suggests who, and what the negotiators are really barracking for.

Similarly to the TPPA, matters of climate change get short shrift, notably in the chapter covering National Treatment and Market Access for Goods.  Showing yet again that a privileged corporate interest is inherently hostile to the commonweal, trade is deemed a domain outside the impact of climate change.

Overwhelming floor room is given to corporate agents who are noted in the negotiations as important partners in the determination of foreign policy. While that position has been clearly articulated by US negotiators, the EU remains coy about industry influence.  The strongmen and women of capitalism are never far away. Little wonder, then, that popularity for such an arrangement is as low as 39 per cent in Germany and 50 per cent in France.

Those at the European Commission, a body that has been historically indifferent to concepts of sovereignty, has taken the view that they were open all along, the true doyens of transparency.  EU trade commissioner Cecelia Malmström seemed to find the fuss over the leaks amusing.  “In the past year, the European Commission has opened up the negotiations to make our positions on all matters in the negotiations public.  After each negotiation round, we publish round reports as well as our position papers and textual proposals.  So the positions of the EU are well-known and nothing new.”[4]

Malmström is certainly right in so far as the Commission has been spouting fact sheets, making assumptions that these are perfect in conveying pictures of accuracy to constituents across Europe.  As aspirational as they are, such publications only give a sense about some of the essential fault lines in the negotiations.  For one, they show that Malmström’s stance that no “EU trade agreement will ever lower our level of protection of consumers, or food safety, or of the environment” seems unduly confident.

The leaks sent ripples through various parliaments in Europe.  France’s François Hollande decided on Tuesday to make his opposition clear.  “We will never accept questioning essential principles for our agriculture, our culture and for the reciprocity of access to public [procurement] markets.”  France’s trade secretary, Matthias Fekl, even went so far as to suggest that the agreement, in its current form “would be a bad deal,” one which needed to be suspended.[5]  Even prior to the release by Greenpeace, German Deputy Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel had suggested that negotiations had moved into a glacial state.

Such sentiments do little to deflate such ideologues as US Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, who puts such suspicions down to matters of misunderstanding.  “I think,” she explained to the German magazine Der Spiegel, “we have to do a better job of educating our peoples about the importance of trade.”[6]  In this cosy universe of commercial dealing, trade is all, trade is good – why fight it?

The “TTIP,” pushes Pritzker, “is a geostrategic choice to strengthen the trans-Atlantic bonds between two regions that share the same values and standards.”  She proves deaf to questions about concerns of re-enforcing corporate market power at the expense of accountability, insisting on altering “rules and regulations that are standing in the way of doing more business together.”  US President Barack Obama similarly intoned on his recent visit to the UK that the TTIP would eliminate “regulatory and bureaucratic irritants and blockages to trade”.[7]

To that end, the Commission has attempted to give the impression that pitfalls can, in

http://www.globalresearch.ca/wp-admin/post.php?post=5523792&action=edit&message=10ime, be papered over with the good sense of compromise.

As diversely opposed as the parties are, movement, of the negative sort, is possible.  Positions can, as was all too evident in the TPPA negotiations, bend.  In some cases, they can be abandoned altogether.  That remains the greatest danger: the document continues to flicker, and it will take more than Gallic opposition, Germanic scepticism, and general European stubbornness, to sink it.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  Email: [email protected]

US Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders recently tweeted: “It is no mystery why Monsanto fights against our right to know about GMOs in food – business is booming for this huge chemical company.” 

Supporters of GMO are fond of telling everyone that this technology will ‘feed the world’ and those who oppose it are below the standards of common decency. But Sanders hits the nail on the head by implying commercial interests and huge profits take precedence over concern for the public good. Labelling would lead to consumers rejecting food containing GMOs.

Monsanto makes huge annual profits, and, as its front men, CEO Hugh Grant and VP Robb Fraley are amply rewarded. Grant brought in just under $12m in 2015. Fraley raked in just under $3.4m. In January 2015, Monsanto reported a profit of $243m (down from $368m the previous year).

In the meantime, millions of India farmers live on a knife-edge thanks to them having been encouraged to experiment with the Monsanto’s GM cotton. Read about the case of Bharat Dogra here whose shift to GM cotton as a result of heavy pressure from company sales agents proved disastrous. His case is not a one-off. A strong link has been discovered between economic distress among Indian farmers and the planting of Monsanto’s GM cotton.

With a legal obligation to maximise profits for shareholders, Monsanto seems less concerned with the impacts of its products on public health (whether in Argentina or the US) or the conditions of Indian farmers and more concerned with roll-outs of its highly profitable disease-associated weed-killer (Roundup) and its GM seeds.

The negative impacts on health or the debt that Indian farmers find themselves getting into appears to be of concern to rich transnational companies only when it becomes a public relations nightmare. If the issue can be successfully managed through slick PR and an assortment of media and scientist mouthpieces to confuse the issue or attack and smear critics, it’s business as usual.

And to ensure it remains ‘business as usual’, part of the message is that there is no alternative to the chemical-intensive, GMO model of farming. Despite talk by company bosses of GMO being just being one option from a mix of possible options that include for example organic and agroecology, the companies they head or their associates have done everything possible (including bribery and fakery) to ensure their model dominates by smearing certain scientists, capturing trade bodies and negotiations, incorporating themselves within government policy and regulatory agencies, using the concept of ‘commercial confidentiality’ to justify a lack of transparency and by funding universities, media outlets and research with the ultimate aim of privileging their model of agriculture ahead of others, which they or their supporters seek to attack, discredit and marginalise (see this).

The industry and its supporters attempt to wrap themselves in ‘free market’ ideology, while failing to acknowledge that any concept of ‘freedom’ that they attempt to associate with ‘the market’ has long been discredited. In terms of farmers ‘choosing’ to adopt GMO for instance and letting ‘the market decide’, this is little more than rhetoric. A combination of monopoly, financial incentives and coercion put paid to that notion (see this, this, this, this and this). Moreover, we don’t have markets that are ‘free’ but an economic system protected by legislation that enshrines private property as being sacrosanct and allows by various means for the flow of wealth to move from consumers and workers to owners of capital who run cartels and conspire to destroy competition and rig the system to their advantage (see this).

Unfortunately, for the environment and our health, we have ended up with a model of industrialised food and agriculture dominated by green revolution ideology and technologies (and wedded to and fuelled and driven by powerful commercial and geopolitical interests), which include hybrid corporate seeds to be doused with chemicals and an over-reliance on other external inputs from large, rich corporations, ranging from machinery and antibiotics to growth hormones and GMOs.

Rather than present a range of studies and practical examples that indicate alternative approaches are both viable and should play a leading role when it comes to feeding the world sustainably, which have been outlined many times before (for example, see this), it would be interesting to look at the experience of one farmer from India as recently reported in The Hindu.

Prem Singh runs a farm in the drought-hit Bundelkhand area of Uttar Pradesh, where many farmers have committed suicide in the past few decades. While water shortages are one of the problems faced by the people in the region, this is not the case on Singh’s farm, where farming revolves around crop rotation, agricultural biodiversity and organic agriculture. The farm also conducts research for improving soil fertility (see this on improving soil health in the US and the subsequent eradication of synthetic fertilisers, while maintaining/increasing productivity) and seed development.

Singh believes that if his formula of sustainable farming were to be implemented across India, national food security, ecological balance and the prosperity of a farmers’ families could be ensured.

The green revolution and the powers behind it played a big role in dismantling the traditional structure of farming and pushed the farmer to the mercy of unsustainable methods, which also harmed environment. In the area where Singh farms, there has been three recent consecutive droughts, with bouts of unseasonal rains and hailstorm.

The outside know-how of ‘experts’ was forced on farmers who were then forced to abort traditional and more sustainable methods, eventually leading them into debt-traps.

Singh says: “Every time a farmer commits suicide, the government says he was burdened by debt. What is the key reason for the debt? The farmers are dying because they follow the schemes of the government. This is the real injustice.”

In Bundelkhand, there were 17 major droughts during the last century, 10 of them caused by deficient rainfall. But the traditional water-recharging methods, numerous ponds and natural harvesting techniques of people then mitigated the scarcity.

With 60 years’ hands-on farming experience, Bhaskar Save was able to describe how the green revolution in India destroyed traditional farming, which, among other things, was much more drought resistant, and how water-guzzling cash crops led to water shortages and groundwater depletion. Vandana Shiva has also outlined the devastating impact of the green revolution on both food security and water resources along with the degradation of soil, including its diminished capacity for storing water.

As with Save, Singh says the steps taken by the government over a period of decades have nullified the work of his ancestors because the crops previously grown did not require much water. With the green revolution, though, underground water began to be extracted heavily to sustain the thirst of the seeds, whereas local seeds were tested and adapted to fight drought.

At the centre of it all, says Singh, was “the ruling class’s apathy towards farmers manifested in their lack of representation in policy formation.”

Singh’s philosophy and practices reflect those of the late Bhaskar Save, whose farm in Gujarat was both an inspiration and a model for sustainable, productive farming. Save argued that restoring the natural health of Indian agriculture is the path to solve the inter-related problems of poverty, unemployment and rising population. He went on to state that farming should require a minimum of financial capital and purchased inputs and minimum external technology. Agricultural production would increase, without costs increasing, poverty would decline and the rise in population would be spontaneously checked (based on the belief poverty itself leads to high birth rates).

Whereas Prem Singh and Bhaskar Save provide a glimpse into what things could be like, not only in India but elsewhere too, the transnational agribusiness companies have an investment in maintaining the status quo.

This is because their business models and practices grow out of and drive a political and economic system run by oligarchical interests. These companies are instrumental in pushing for corrupt, anti-democratic trade deals like TTIP and fuel and profit from a model of globalisation that encourages unnecessary massive environmental destruction, the production of bad food, unsustainable farming practices and the use of health-damaging inputs. The system moreover thrives on an urban-centric model of development centred on resource-depletion, over-consumption and an economic neoliberalism underpinned by imperialist wars.

It all begs the question: what future humanity?

A future based on uncontrolled urban sprawl, worklessness, massive inequalities (and subsequent political repression) and conflict over finite resources, which continues to push the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation, as well as the appropriation of all facets of life from water and land to forests, seeds and food by powerful corporations.

Or a future that adheres to a model based on certain Gandhian principles, such as indigenous capability and local self-reliance, wherein people limit their needs, live within the limits imposed by the environment and work with the natural ecology rather than by forcing it to bend to the will of profiteering industries.

“… Gandhiji called the so-called modern society a nine-day wonder. Poverty has been aggravated due to cumulative environmental degradation on account of resource depletion, increasing disparities, rural migration to urban areas resulting in deforestation, soil erosion, loss of soil fertility, desertification, biological impoverishment, pollution of air, water and land on account of lack of sanitation, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and their biomagnification, and a whole range of other problems.” T N Khoshoo: ‘Mahatma Gandhi: An Apostle of Applied Human Ecology‘

Turkey’s increasingly dictatorial president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, scored yet another domestic victory Thursday, with the resignation of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, his former ally who nominally holds the reins of the country.

Erdogan is now free to push for a change in the constitution that would transfer more power to himself. But this act also highlights his growing political isolation, which many believe will spell the end his career — an outcome of great concern to the US and its European allies.

Western leaders desperately need Turkey to remain stable. As a key NATO ally in a volatile region — NATO’s second-largest army, in fact — and the country that is supposed to protect Europe from another flood of refugees, a lot is riding on Turkey’s stability. But the oppressed half of the country does not share the same sentiments, and talk of a possible coup against Erdogan is growing louder.

Photo caption: Recep Tayyip Erdogan with John Kerry and Joe Biden.  Photo credit: U.S. Department of State / Wikimedia

Perhaps the surest sign of trouble for his political future is the sarcasm pouring in on Erdogan from all sides — from the cover of the leading German magazine Der Spiegel to an “Insult Erdogan” contest sponsored by a prominent British magazine to homegrown social media.

Put simply, Erdogan may be turning into more of a liability for the West than a solid defender of NATO’s eastern flank that he was once touted to be.

Of course, his fate will be decided not in Washington or Berlin or Brussels but in the Byzantine politics of Erdogan’s palace court. His political survival instincts have proven themselves time and again in the past. But now either a political coup or a military intervention may be in the offing because Erdogan has polarized the country to a breaking point while at the same time removing, one by one, all legal means available for people to dissent.

At home, his failed policies have resulted in a string of bloody terror attacks in Turkey’s major cities that have claimed hundreds of lives over the past few months. He has repeatedly ignored the country’s constitution, defied the top court, fired police and prosecutors investigating his allies for corruption, reignited a bloody civil war with the Kurds in the country’s southeast, and steamrolled over free speech.

Internationally, he stands accused of supporting Islamist extremists (possibly all the way up to colluding with ISIS), helping Iran avoid international sanctions, trying to maneuver NATO into a conflict with Russia, and extorting European leaders over the refugee deal. More recently, he has even tried to persecute critics in Germany and elsewhere.

Photo caption: Offensive Poetry Competition, Erdogan cartoon, Der Spiegel cover  Photo credit: The Spectator, Der Spiegel, Google User

Newsweek unleashed a political storm in Turkey when it republished the analysis of a former Pentagon official who concluded that, should elements in the Turkish military stage a coup, they would “get away with it.” The mere utterance of the word coup in a country that has a long history of them sent shockwaves through the Turkish establishment.

The country’s military, its memories fresh of the time Erdogan jailed the equivalent of an entire army college of top officers for allegedly plotting against him, issued an uncharacteristic denial. Nevertheless, just days ago, the top appeals court released all 275 suspects in that affair, possibly elevating the army’s political fortunes once again.

For the moment, though, outside experts see little chance of a military takeover.

“It seems clear that the military command is firmly in the hands of the government,” said Jenny White, a prominent Turkey analyst at Stockholm University. At the same time, she cautioned that the thinking of Turkey’s military leaders remains opaque.

Meanwhile, Erdogan seems locked in an ever-escalating cycle of paranoia and vengeance. He has had thousands of journalists, academics and even school children arrested for criticizing him. His son is under investigation for corruption in Italy as part of a scandal that Erdogan tried to sweep under the rug back in 2013 and 2014 when he fired police and prosecutors.

Another suspect in the same corruption scandal, Reza Zarrab, was arrested in Miami on charges that he helped Iran avoid US sanctions. Many analysts believe that Zarrab, shaken by the hanging of his business partner in Iran, probably struck a deal with the FBI to get a lighter sentence and US protection in exchange for information that could be greatly damaging to Erdogan.

The Turkish president himself is now the target of protests in almost every Western country he visits. Scenes of his bodyguards beating protesters, as they do at home, or making loud animal sounds to drown out the condemnations pouring in on him have made him even more toxic and embarrassing to his Western counterparts. Far from being the “valued ally” that he was back in 2013, an Op-Ed in the New York Times noted, his reception when he visited Washington DC this year was “the diplomatic equivalent of a handshake after a romantic date.”

All this is important because, having fallen out with Russia and most of its neighbors, thanks to Erdogan’s policies, Turkey is now as dependent on the West as the other way round. US support was arguably key to Erdogan’s ability to avoid another coup threat back in 2007 when he was still branding himself a moderate Islamic democrat. And the top brass of Turkey’s army, according to many Turkish analysts, is still often closer to its counterparts in the US and NATO than to the political leadership of the country.

With the political situation so polarized, even some of Erdogan’s closest former allies are grumbling.

“We are seeing opposition figures within the AKP [the ruling Justice and Development Party]… raising their voices against Erdogan,” said Ege Seckin, a Turkey expert at the London-based analysis firm IHS.

Photo caption: Protect Your Republic Protest in Izmir  Photo credit: Vikimach / Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Turkey is still officially a parliamentary republic and Erdogan was forced to formally surrender both the executive power and control over the ruling party when he was sworn in as president in 2014. Although he has installed figureheads to govern AKP, he is clearly nervous about the possibility of an internal party coup.

“People are very wary of taking on Erdogan,” said Seckin. “But then again, you have to bear in mind, these things — it would all happen at the blink of an eye. … As soon as people see, wow, he is losing power, there will be a rush of support away from Erdogan.”

And if that happens, all bets are off for the larger regional picture.