Global Research

It doesn’t get any more backward than this. Potentially, this is the dumbest move yet by bureaucrats in Brussels.

Turkey is set to pick up a few big sweeteners from Brussels if it ‘tries’ to stop refugee flow into Europe – even though it’s nearly impossible for Ankara to actually come good on its lofty promise to ‘contain’ the large refugee flow through Turkey into the European promise land.

It’s true that Turkey has accommodated roughly 2 million Syrian refugees, and is said to have spent over nearly $8 billion on the crisis thus far. 

What they are not telling us however, is that Turkey has been the primary facilitator of the Syrian conflict, mainly by hosting terrorist and ‘rebel’ training and equipping for tens of thousands of fighters since 2011, as well as providing a continuous safe haven for terrorist fighters – freely coming and going over its southern border with Syria.

The public got a shocking glimpse of the casual relationship between Turkish authorities and ISIS last year after video surfaced showing Islamic State militants having a friendly chat with a group of Turkish border guards near the besieged Syrian city of Kobane. The fact that Turkey is a NATO member makes this crime all the more egregious.

In short, Turkey is a “bad actor” in the Syria story. Now they are being rewarded with what essential has most of the features of a ‘fast-track’ provisional membership into the EU. Cries from European leaders like David Cameron to halt the flow of immigrants and to ‘not risk the security of Europe’ are sounding more hollow than ever right now.

‘Easy’ EU Entry For Turkish Terrorists?

The terms of this latest deal are almost unbelievable. Incredibly, EU official seem to be completely ignorant of the fact that most of the new ISIS recruits are now coming from Turkey. This completely insane new proposal from Europe effectively gives legal access into the entire EU for any Syria or Turkey-based ISIS and al Nusra Front terrorists who either have, or can acquire a Turkish passport.

With Russian airstrikes now crushing ISIS infrastructure in Syria, fleeing terrorist fighters are looking for an easy escape over Syria’s northern border into Turkey – and now, thanks to this deal from Brussels – they are one step closer to the streets of Europe.

Brussels appears clueless to the reality of what is happening on the ground in Turkey. This might be the stupidest move that the EU has ever made in its history.

Perhaps this is exactly what Brussels wants in order to erect the next phase of its technocratic security state?

 

Merkel’s stance on #RefugeesCrisis ‘naive, irrational’ – former Czech presidenthttp://t.co/8tMFCf8IHN pic.twitter.com/uvONW5UUIw

— RT (@RT_com) October 15, 2015

Another stitch-up from the boys in Brussels..?

Israel is more killing machine than nation – a ruthless Arab-hating monster. On Friday, it continued murdering Palestinians in cold blood, another five lethally shot, the death toll now at 38 since October 1 alone, around 2,000 others injured, 300 on Friday alone, many thousands more from toxic tear gas.

Palestinians have no heavy weapons, mostly stones, their bare hands and passion to be free from a heavily armed brutal occupier. International law affirms their right to resist – heroically struggling for decades for freedom, deserving it as much as Israelis and everyone else, getting virtually no world community support.

Friday saw clashes throughout the West Bank. Security Council members met in emergency session to discuss ongoing violence, accomplishing nothing. US veto power assures no resolution or other action condemning Israeli high crimes.

Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour called for immediate UN intervention against Israeli violence. At the same time, his PA leadership openly collaborates with its state terror.

Washington absolves Israel of blame, complicit with its viciousness, blaming Palestinians for ongoing violence. An entire population is being raped and held responsible for its own suffering.

Amnesty International’s Middle East/North Africa director Philip Luther said “(w)e are seeing a dangerous pattern of deliberate attacks on civilians and unlawful killings.”

Israeli forces have used excessive force on a large scale and intensified restriction on movement and have vowed to increase illegal punishments such as home demolitions.

Security measures must respect international law. Collective punishment of the Palestinian population can never be justified.

On Friday, Obama showed which side he’s on. During a press conference with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, his comments surprised no one, saying:

We condemn in the strongest possible terms violence directed against innocent people and believe that Israel has a right to maintain basic law and order and protect its citizens from knife attacks and violence on the streets.

No mention of premeditated, cold-blooded Israeli murders, extreme brutality against a long-oppressed people, terrorizing them ruthlessly – with full US support and encouragement.

There’s no ambiguity about what’s ongoing, a continuation of decades of occupation harshness – unaccountable because of full US support, echoed by one-sided media reports, blaming Palestinians for Israeli high crimes.

Murder is self-defense when its security forces commit it – terrorism when Palestinians defend themselves heroically. Longstanding injustice condemns them to endless misery, the cross they continue to bear.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

 

Note: This article was originally published in 2014.

A multi-spectrum war is being waged against Moscow by Washington. If there are any doubts about this, they should be put to rest. Geopolitics, science and technology, speculation, financial markets, information streams, large business conglomerates, intelligentsia, mass communication, social media, the internet, popular culture, news networks, international institutions, sanctions, audiences, public opinion, nationalism, different governmental bodies and agencies, identity politics, proxy wars, diplomacy, countervailing international alliances, major business agreements, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), human rights, prestige, military personnel, capital, and psychological tactics are all involved in this multi-spectrum war. On a daily basis this struggle can be seen playing out on the airwaves, in the war theaters in Ukraine and the Middle East, through the statements and accusations of diplomats, and in the economic sphere.

Additionally, the debates and questions on whether a new cold war—a post-Cold War cold war—has emerged or if the Cold War never ended should be put to rest too. The mentality of the Cold War never died in the Washington Beltway. From the perspective of Russian officials, it is clear that the US never put down its war mace and continued the offensive. The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, defeating the Soviets and Eastern Bloc, and seeing the Soviet Union dismantled into fifteen republics was not enough for the Cold War warriors in the US. The newly emergent Russian Federation had to be placated in their views.

Petro-politics have been a major feature of this multi-spectrum war too. [1] Not only have energy prices been a factor in this struggle, but so are financial markets and national currencies. The manipulated decline in the price of energy, which has been driven by the flooding of the global market with oil, is now being augmented by a siege on the value of the Russian ruble. This is part of what appears to be a deliberate two-pronged attack on the Russian Federation that seeks to cut Russia’s revenues through market manipulation via economic sanctions and price drops. It is what you would call a «double whammy». While sanctions have been imposed on the Russian economy by the US and its allies, including Australia, Canada, the European Union, and Japan, offensives on Russia’s main source of revenue — energy — and its national currency have taken place.

Currency Warfare and Inflation

The price of the Russian ruble begun to drop in December 2014 as a consequence of the economic siege on the Russian Federation, the drop in global energy prices, and speculation. «Judging by the situation in the country, we are in the midst of a deep currency crisis, one that even Central Bank employees say they could not have foreseen in their worst nightmares», Interfax’s Vyacheslav Terekhov commented on the currency crisis while talking to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a Kremlin press conference on December 18, 2014. [2] Putin himself admitted this too at the press conference. While answering Terekhov, Putin explained that «the situation has changed under the influence of certain foreign economic factors, primarily the price of energy resources, of oil and consequently of gas as well». [3]

Some may think that the drop in the Russian ruble’s value is a result of the market acting on its own while others who recognize that there is market manipulation involved may turn around and blame it on the Russian government and Vladimir Putin. This process, however, has been guided by US machinations. It is simply not a result of the market acting on its own or the result of Kremlin policies. It is the result of US objectives and policy that deliberately targets Russia for destabilization and devastation. This is why Putin answered Terekhov’s question by saying that the drop in the value of the Russian ruble «was obviously provoked primarily by external factors». [4]

Both US Assistant-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland — the wife of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) co-founder and neo-conservative advocate for empire Robert Kagan — and US Assistant-Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Glaser told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives in May 2014 that the objectives of the US economic sanctions strategy against the Russian Federation was not only to damage the trade ties and business between Russia and the EU, but to also bring about economic instability in Russia and to create currency instability and inflation. [5] In other words, the US government was targeting the Russian ruble for devaluation and the Russian economy for inflation since at least May 2014.

It appears that the US is trying to manipulate the Kremlin into spending Russia’s resources and fiscal reserves to fight the inflation of the Russian ruble that Washington has engineered. The Kremlin, however, will not take the bait and be goaded into depleting the approximately $419 billion (US) foreign currency reserves and gold holdings of the Russian Federation or any of Russia’s approximately 8.4 trillion ruble reserves in an effort to prop the declining value of the Russian ruble. In this regard, while holding a press conference, President Putin stated the following on December 18, 2014: «The Central Bank does not intend to ‘burn’ them all senselessly, which is right». [6] Putin emphasized this again when answering Vyacheslav Terekhov’s question by saying that the Russian government and Russian Central Bank «should not hand out our gold and foreign currency reserves or burn them on the market, but provide lending resources». [7]

The Kremlin understands what Washington is trying to do. The US is replaying old game plans against Russia. The energy price manipulation, the currency devaluation, and even US attempts to entrap Russia in a conflict with its sister-republic Ukraine are all replays of US tactics that have been used before during the Cold War and after 1991. For example, dragging Russia into Ukraine would be a replay of how the US dragged the Soviet Union into Afghanistan whereas the manipulation of energy prices and currency markets would parallel the US strategy used to weaken and destabilize Baathist Iraq, Iran, and the Soviet Union during the Afghan-Soviet War and Iran-Iran War.

Instead of trying to stop the value of the ruble from dropping, the Kremlin appears to have decided to strategically invest in Russia’s human capital. Russia’s national reserve funds will be used to diversify the national economy and strengthen the social and public sectors. Despite the economic warfare against Russia, this is exactly why the wages of teachers in schools, professors in post-secondary institutions of learning and training, employees of cultural institutions, doctors in hospitals and clinics, paramedics, and nurses — the most important sectors for developing Russia’s human capital and capacity — have all been raised.

The Russian Bear Courts the Turkish Grey Wolf

The Kremlin, however, has an entire list of options at its disposal for countering the US offensive against Russia. One of them involves the courting of Turkey. The Russian courtship of Turkey has involved the Russian move away from the construction of the South Stream natural gas pipeline from Russia across the Black Sea to Bulgaria.

Putin announced that Russia has cancelled the South Stream project on December 1, 2014. Instead the South Stream pipeline project has been replaced by a natural gas pipeline that goes across the Black Sea to Turkey from the Russian Federation’s South Federal District. This alternative pipeline has been popularly billed the «Turk Stream» and partners Russian energy giant Gazprom with Turkey’s Botas. Moreover, Gazprom will start giving Turkey discounts in the purchase of Russian natural gas that will increase with the intensification of Russo-Turkish cooperation.

The natural gas deal between Ankara and Moscow creates a win-win situation for both the Turkish and Russian sides. Not only will Ankara get a discount on energy supplies, but Turk Stream gives the Turkish government what it has wanted and desired for years. The Turk Stream pipeline will make Turkey an important energy corridor and transit point, complete with transit revenues. In this case Turkey becomes the corridor between energy supplier Russia and European Union and non-EU energy customers in southeastern Europe. Ankara will gain some leverage over the European Union and have an extra negotiating card with the EU too, because the EU will have to deal with it as an energy broker.

For its part, Russia has reduced the risks that it faced in building the South Stream by cancelling the project. Moscow could have wasted resources and time building the South Stream to see the project sanctioned or obstructed in the Balkans by Washington and Brussels. If the European Union really wants Russian natural gas then the Turk Stream pipeline can be expanded from Turkey to Greece, the former Yugoslav Republic (FYR) of Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, and other European countries that want to be integrated into the energy project.

The cancellation of South Stream also means that there will be one less alternative energy corridor from Russia to the European Union for some time. This has positive implications for a settlement in Ukraine, which is an important transit route for Russian natural gas to the European Union. As a means of securing the flow of natural gas across Ukrainian territory from Russia, the European Union will be more prone to push the authorities in Kiev to end the conflict in East Ukraine.

In more ways than one the Turk Stream pipeline can be viewed as a reconfigured of the failed Nabucco natural gas pipeline. Not only will Turk Stream court Turkey and give Moscow leverage against the European Union, instead of reducing Russian influence as Nabucco was originally intended to do, the new pipeline to Turkey also coaxes Ankara to align its economic and strategic interests with those of Russian interests. This is why, when addressing Nabucco and the rivalries for establishing alternate energy corridors, this author pointed out in 2007 that «the creation of these energy corridors and networks is like a two-edged sword. These geo-strategic fulcrums or energy pivots can also switch their directions of leverage. The integration of infrastructure also leads towards economic integration». [8]

The creation of Turk Stream and the strengthening of Russo-Turkish ties may even help placate the gory conflict in Syria. If Iranian natural gas is integrated into the mainframe of Turk Stream through another energy corridor entering Anatolia from Iranian territory, then Turkish interests would be even more tightly aligned with both Moscow and Tehran. Turkey will save itself from the defeats of its neo-Ottoman policies and be able to withdraw from the Syrian crisis. This will allow Ankara to politically realign itself with two of its most important trading partners, Iran and Russia.

It is because of the importance of Irano-Turkish and Russo-Turkish trade and energy ties that Ankara has had an understanding with both Russia and Iran not to let politics and their differences over the Syrian crisis get in the way of their economic ties and business relationships while Washington has tried to disrupt Irano-Turkish and Russo-Turkish trade and energy ties like it has disrupted trade ties between Russia and the EU. [9] Ankara, however, realizes that if it lets politics disrupt its economic ties with Iran and Russia that Turkey itself will become weakened and lose whatever independence it enjoys

Masterfully announcing the Russian move while in Ankara, Putin also took the opportunity to ensure that there would be heated conversation inside the EU. Some would call this rubbing salt on the wounds. Knowing that profit and opportunity costs would create internal debate within Bulgaria and the EU, Putin rhetorically asked if Bulgaria was going to be economically compensated by the European Commission for the loss.

The Russian Bear and the Chinese Dragon

It is clear that Russian business and trade ties have been redirected to the People’s Republic of China and East Asia. On the occasion of the Sino-Russian mega natural gas deal, this author pointed out that this was not as much a Russian countermove to US economic pressure as it was really a long-term Russian strategy that seeks an increase in trade and ties with East Asia. [10] Vladimir Putin himself also corroborated this standpoint during the December 18 press conference mentioned earlier when he dismissed — like this author — the notion that the so-called «Russian turn to the East» was mainly the result of the crisis in Ukraine.

In President Putin’s own words, the process of increasing business ties with the Chinese and East Asia «stems from the global economic processes, because the East – that is, the Asia-Pacific Region – shows faster growth than the rest of the world». [11] If this is not convincing enough that the turn towards East Asia was already in the works for Russia, then Putin makes it categorically clear as he proceeds talking at the December 18 press conference. In reference to the Sino-Russian gas deal and other Russian projects in East Asia, Putin explained the following: «The projects we are working on were planned long ago, even before the most recent problems occurred in the global or Russian economy. We are simply implementing our long-time plans». [12]

From the perspective of Russian Presidential Advisor Sergey Glazyev, the US is waging its multi-spectrum war against Russia to ultimately challenge Moscow’s Chinese partners. In an insightful interview, Glazyev explained the following points to the Ukrainian journalist Alyona Berezovskaya — working for a Rossiya Segodnya subsidiary focusing on information involving Ukraine — about the basis for US hostility towards Russia: the bankruptcy of the US, its decline in competitiveness on global markets, and Washington’s inability to ultimately save its financial system by servicing its foreign debt or getting enough investments to establish some sort of innovative economic breakthrough are the reasons why Washington has been going after the Russian Federation. [13] In Glazyev’s own words, the US wants «a new world war». [14] The US needs conflict and confrontation, in other words. This is what the crisis in Ukraine is nurturing in Europe.

Sergey Glazyev reiterates the same points months down the road on September 23, 2014 in an article he authors for the magazine Russia in Global Affairs, which is sponsored by the Russian International Affairs Council — a think-tank founded by the Russian Foreign Ministry and Russian Ministry of Education in 2010 — and the US journal Foreign Affairs — which is the magazine published by the Council on Foreign Relation in the US. In his article, Glazyev adds that the war Washington is inciting against Russia in Europe may ultimately benefit the Chinese, because the struggle being waged will weaken the US, Russia, and the European Union to the advantage of China. [15] The point of explaining all this is to explain that Russia wants a balanced strategic partnership with China. Glazyev himself even told Berezovskaya in their interview that Russia wants a mutually beneficial relationship with China that does reduce it to becoming a subordinate to Beijing. [16]

Without question, the US wants to disrupt the strategic partnership between Beijing and Moscow. Moscow’s strategic long-term planning and Sino-Russian cooperation has provided the Russia Federation with an important degree of economic and strategic insulation from the economic warfare being waged against the Russian national economy. Washington, however, may also be trying to entice the Chinese to overplay their hand as Russia is economically attacked. In this context, the price drops in the energy market may also be geared at creating friction between Beijing and Moscow. In part, the manipulation of the energy market and the price drops could seek to weaken and erode Sino-Russian relations by coaxing the Chinese into taking steps that would tarnish their excellent ties with their Russian partners. The currency war against the Russian ruble may also be geared towards this too. In other words, Washington may be hoping that China becomes greedy and shortsighted enough to make an attempt to take advantage of the price drop in energy prices in the devaluation of the Russian ruble.

Whatever Washington’s intentions are, every step that the US takes to target Russia economically will eventually hurt the US economy too. It is also highly unlikely that the policy mandarins in Beijing are unaware of what the US may try to be doing. The Chinese are aware that ultimately it is China and not Russia that is the target of the United States.

Economic Terrorism: An Argentina versus the Vulture Funds Scenario?

The United States is waging a fully fledged economic war against the Russian Federations and its national economy. Ultimately, all Russians are collectively the target. The economic sanctions are nothing more than economic warfare. If the crisis in Ukraine did not happen, another pretext would have been found for assaulting Russia.

Both US Assistant-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Assistant-Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Glaser even told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives in May 2014 that the ultimate objectives of the US economic sanctions against Russia are to make the Russian population so miserable and desperate that they would eventually demand that the Kremlin surrender to the US and bring about «political change». «Political change» can mean many things, but what it most probably implies here is regime change in Moscow. In fact, the aims of the US do not even appear to be geared at coercing the Russian government to change its foreign policy, but to incite regime change in Moscow and to cripple the Russian Federation entirely through the instigation of internal divisions. This is why maps of a divided Russia are being circulated by Radio Free Europe. [17]

According to Presidential Advisor Sergey Glazyev, Washington is «trying to destroy and weaken Russia, causing it to fragment, as they need this territory and want to establish control over this entire space». [18] «We have offered cooperation from Lisbon to Vladivostok, whereas they need control to maintain their geopolitical leadership in a competition with China,» he has explained, pointing out that the US wants lordship and is not interested in cooperation. [19] Alluding to former US top diplomat Madeline Albright’s sentiments that Russia was unfairly endowed with vast territory and resources, Putin also spoke along similar lines at his December 18 press conference, explaining how the US wanted to divide Russia and control the abundant natural resources in Russian territory.

It is of little wonder that in 2014 a record number of Russian citizens have negative attitudes about relations between their country and the United States. A survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center has shown that of 39% of Russian respondents viewed relations with the US as «mostly bad» and 27% as «very bad». [20] This means 66% of Russian respondents have negative views about relations with Washington. This is an inference of the entire Russian population’s views. Moreover, this is the highest rise in negative perceptions about the US since 2008 when the US supported Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi’s war against Russia and the breakaway republic of South Ossetia; 40% viewed them as «mostly bad» and 25% of Russians viewed relations as «very bad» and at the time. [21]

Russia can address the economic warfare being directed against its national economy and society as a form of «economic terrorism». If Russia’s banks and financial institutions are weakened with the aim of creating financial collapse in the Russian Federation, Moscow can introduce fiscal measures to help its banks and financial sector that could create economic shockwaves in the European Union and North America. Speaking in hypothetical terms, Russia has lots of options for a financial defensive or counter-offensive that can be compared to its scorched earth policies against Western European invaders during the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War, and the Second World War. If Russian banks and institutions default and do not pay or delay payment of their derivative debts and justify it on the basis of the economic warfare and economic terrorism, there would be a financial shock and tsunami that would vertebrate from the European Union to North America. This scenario has some parallels to the steps that Argentina has taken to sidestep the vulture funds.

The currency war eventually will rebound on Washington and Wall Street. The energy war will also reverse directions. Already, the Kremlin has made it clear that it and a coalition of other countries will de-claw the US in the currency market through a response that will neutralize US financial manipulation and the petro-dollar. In the words of Sergey Glazyev, Moscow is thinking of a «systemic and comprehensive» response «aimed at exposing and ending US political domination, and, most importantly, at undermining US military-political power based on the printing of dollars as a global currency». [22] His solution includes the creation of «a coalition of sound forces advocating stability — in essence, a global anti-war coalition with a positive plan for rearranging the international financial and economic architecture on the principles of mutual benefit, fairness, and respect for national sovereignty». [23]

The coming century will not be the «American Century» as the neo-conservatives in Washington think. It will be a «Eurasian Century». Washington has taken on more than it can handle, this may be why the US government has announced an end to its sanctions regime against Cuba and why the US is trying to rekindle trade ties with Iran. Despite this, the architecture of the post-Second World War or post-1945 global order is now in its death bed and finished. This is what the Kremlin and Putin’s presidential spokesman and press secretary Dmitry Peskov mean when they impart—as Peskov stated to Rossiya-24 in a December 17, 2014 interview — that the year 2014 has finally led to «a paradigm shift in the international system».

NOTES

The New York Times Plays Games with MH-17 Tragedy

By Robert Parry, October 16 2015

In its single-minded propaganda campaign against Russia, The New York Times has no interest in irony, but if it had, it might note that some of the most important advances made by the Dutch Safety Board’s report on the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 came because the Russian government declassified sensitive details about its anti-aircraft weaponry.

Could it be that premier scientific journals are finally conveying the truth about GMOs? In a relatively recent exploration of ‘ubiquitous’ GMOs that have taken over our food supply, the New England Journal of Medicine tackles 2 new concerns over genetically modified organisms and the pesticides used to grow them.

As the journal points out, the omnipresence of GMOs are taken for granted by most physicians. They aren’t high on their list of health concerns, and barely receive a mention when patients come for a visit. This might start to change though, due to 2 fresh developments concerning GM crops.

1. The EPA Approved Enlist Due – A Toxic Herbicide Concoction

The first is the fact that there have been “sharp increases in the amounts and numbers of chemical herbicides applied to GM crops,” and the numbers are expected to increase.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently approved Enlist Duo, a new combination herbicide comprising glyphosate and 2,4-D, both chemicals have been proven to be extremely dangerous to human health, and equally detrimental to the environment.

Enlist Duo was formulated to combat herbicide-resistance, a seeming paradox of poison meets poison, or a serpent eating its own tale to the most high degree. An infinite loop of disregard for nature only brought about more disregard with an ouroboros-like action.

If only biotech could actually sustain life with its destruction of it. Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, etc. certainly have no plans to plant organic seeds in the burnt carnage they’ve left behind in our fields. In fact, Enlist Duo will be marketed with new GM seeds engineered and approved to withstand the spraying of more glyphosate and 2,4-D than ever before. Even the EPA admitted that it expects a 7-fold increase in the use of these pesticides due to their own approval of the chemical concoction.

How did the EPA manage to give Enlist Duo a green light? They used toxicology studies commissioned by herbicide manufacturers in the 1980’s and 1990’s that were never published – not an uncommon practice in U.S. pesticide regulation. These studies are of toxicology alone, and do not take into consideration the more recent studies showing what these pesticides and herbicides do to our endocrine system.

They also discount all epi-genetic effects, as well as ignoring health risks to infants and small children. Finally, these commissioned studies fail to look at environmental effects, either, as we’ve recently watched our pollinators suffer profoundly. As if this isn’t enough, the studies also fail to look at the ‘inactive’ ingredients in glyphosate or 2,4-D, known to be just as toxic as the active ingredients themselves.

2. The WHO Declares Widely-Used Herbicide “Probably Carcinogenic”

© Flickr/ Mike Mozart

 

The second new development which is a cause for concern is the declaration by the IARC that glyphosate is a “probable human carcinogen” and 2,4-D is a “possible human carcinogen.”

These classifications were based on comprehensive assessments of the toxicologic and epidemiologic literature that linked both herbicides to dose-related increases in malignant tumors at multiple anatomical sites in animals and linked glyphosate to an increased incidence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in humans.

These issues were important enough that The National Academy of Sciences convened a new committee to reassess the social, economic, environmental, and human health effects of GM crops. This development is welcome, but the committee’s report is not expected until at least 2016.

Unless we tell the EPA with vehemence that they need to reverse their decision on Enlist Duo, we’re just beginning to see the damage that GMOs can do. Their decision was based on bad science, and likely influenced by the motivations of those within the regulatory body that have deep ties with the biotech industry. The revolving door (see below) is killing our pollinators, us, and our future generations.

The New England Journal of Medicine summarizes the issue:

“We believe the time has come to revisit the United States’ reluctance to label GM foods. Labeling will deliver multiple benefits. It is essential for tracking emergence of novel food allergies and assessing effects of chemical herbicides applied to GM crops. It would respect the wishes of a growing number of consumers who insist they have a right to know what foods they are buying and how they were produced.

And the argument that there is nothing new about genetic rearrangement misses the point that GM crops are now the agricultural products most heavily treated with herbicides and that two of these herbicides may pose risks of cancer. We hope, in light of this new information, that the FDA will reconsider labeling of GM foods and couple it with adequately funded, long-term postmarketing surveillance.”

The Revolving Door, Biotech, And The Government 

Revolving Door Between GMO Companies, And US Government Agencies:

• “David W. Beier . . .former head of Government Affairs for Genentech, Inc. . . . chief domestic policy advisor to Al Gore when he was Vice President.

• Linda J. Fisher . . .former Assistant Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Pollution Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances…now Vice President of Government and Public Affairs for Monsanto Corporation.

• Michael A. Friedman, M.D. . . former acting commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Department of Health and Human Services . . .now senior vice-president for clinical affairs at G. D. Searle & Co., a pharmaceutical division of Monsanto Corporation.

• Val Giddings . . . former biotechnology regulator and (biosafety) negotiator at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA/APHIS) . . .now Vice President for Food & Agriculture of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).

• Marcia Hale . . . former assistant to the President of the United States and director for intergovernmental affairs . . .now Director of International Government Affairs for Monsanto Corporation.

• Michael (Mickey) Kantor. . . former Secretary of the United States Department of Commerce and former Trade Representative of the United States . . . now member of the board of directors of Monsanto Corporation.

• Josh King . . . former director of production for White House events. . . now director of global communication in the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.

• Terry Medley . . . former administrator of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture, former chair and vice-chair of the United States Department of Agriculture Biotechnology Council, former member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) food advisory committee…and now Director of Regulatory and External Affairs of Dupont Corporation’s Agricultural Enterprise.

• Margaret Miller . . . former chemical laboratory supervisor for Monsanto, . . .now Deputy Director of Human Food Safety and Consultative Services, New Animal Drug Evaluation Office, Center for Veterinary Medicine in the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).*

• Michael Phillips . . . recently with the National Academy of Science Board on Agriculture . . . now head of regulatory affairs for the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

• William D. Ruckelshaus . . . former chief administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). . .now (and for the past 12 years) a member of the board of directors of Monsanto Corporation.

• Michael Taylor . . . former legal advisor to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s Bureau of Medical Devices and Bureau of Foods, later executive assistant to the Commissioner of the FDA… still later a partner at the law firm of King & Spaulding where he supervised a nine-lawyer group whose clients included Monsanto Agricultural Company… still later Deputy Commissioner for Policy at the United States Food and Drug Administration, . . . and later with the law firm of King & Spaulding… now head of the Washington, D.C. office of Monsanto Corporation.*

• Lidia Watrud . . . former microbial biotechnology researcher at Monsanto Corporation in St. Louis, Missouri, . . .now with the United States Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Effects Laboratory, Western Ecology Division.

• Jack Watson. . .former chief of staff to the President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, . . .now a staff lawyer with Monsanto Corporation in Washington, D.C.

• Clayton K. Yeutter . . . former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, former U.S. Trade Representative (who led the U.S. team in negotiating the U.S. Canada Free Trade Agreement and helped launch the Uruguay Round of the GATT negotiations), now a member of the board of directors of Mycogen Corporation, whose majority owner is Dow AgroSciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company.

• Larry Zeph . . . former biologist in the Office of Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, . . . now Regulatory Science Manager at Pioneer Hi-Bred International.

• *Margaret Miller, Michael Taylor, and Suzanne Sechen (an FDA “primary reviewer for all rbST and other dairy drug production applications” ) were the subjects of a U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation in 1994 for their role in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of Posilac, Monsanto Corporation’s formulation of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbST or rBGH). The GAO Office found “no conflicting financial interests with respect to the drug’s approval” and only “one minor deviation from now superseded FDA regulations”. (Quotations are from the 1994 GAO report).”

Plants in the area around Fukushima, Japan are widely contaminated with radioactive cesium, which is producing mutation and death in local butterflies, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa and published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The butterflies were found to experience severe negative effects at all detectable radiation levels, even very low ones.

“We conclude that the risk of ingesting a polluted diet is realistic, at least for this butterfly, and likely for certain other organisms living in the polluted area,” the researchers wrote.

Insects hard hit

The researchers note that although the 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant released “a massive amount of radioactive materials … into the environment,” few studies have looked at the biological effects of this disaster. Researchers have, however, measured elevated radiation levels in the polluted area, and have chronicled the accumulation of radioactive material in both wild and domestic plant and animal life in the region.

Studies have also suggested that insects may be particularly hard-hit by the increased radiation. One study found an increase in morphological abnormalities (physical deformities) in gall-forming aphids. Another found that insect abundance has decreased in the affected region, particularly butterfly abundance.

In order to test the effects of the radioactivity on local insects, researchers collected pale grass blue butterfly (Zizeeria maha) larvae from Okinawa, which is distant from Fukushimaand “likely the least polluted locality in Japan.” They then fed the larvae on plant leaves collected from one of five different regions: Hirono, Fukushima, Iitate-flatland, Iitate-montane and Ube. Because the five regions are all at different distances from Fukushima, the researchers expected that plants collected there would have differing levels ofradioactive cesium, which tests confirmed. The plants from Ube contained essentially no radioactivity, and were used as a control group.

The pale grass blue butterfly is a species commonly found in many regions of Japan, including near Fukushima.

The researchers found that caterpillars that ate radioactive leaves pupated into mutated butterflies that did not live as long, compared with caterpillars that ate non-radioactive leaves. These mutations and increased mortality were seen even in butterflies that consumed only very small doses of radioactive cesium.

“There seemed to be no threshold level below which no biological response could be detected,” the researchers wrote.

Small dose increases lead to large jump in mutation and death

The more radioactive cesium that the larvae consumed, the greater the rates of mutation and early death. Indeed, rates of both problems increased more rapidly than dosage (a non-linear relationship).

The study was not designed to test for similar effects on human beings, but the researchers warn that there is still enough evidence to be concerned. Two of the locations that radioactive leaves were collected from – Fukushima City and Hirono Town – currently have people living in them. In addition, the study findings were consistent with radioactivity levels found in plants following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

The Chernobyl meltdown led to a sharp rise in infant deaths in locations as far from the plant as Western Germany and the United States. A recent study, published in the journalRadiation Research, linked a sharp jump in thyroid cancer rates in the years following that disaster directly to the amount of radioactive iodine that children were exposed to in the months immediately after the meltdown and explosion.

The triple meltdown at Fukushima is now considered by many scientists to be the worst civilian nuclear disaster the world has ever seen, surpassing even Chernobyl.

Both sites have yet to be fully cleaned up or sealed off.

Notes:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com

http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140515/srep04946/pdf/srep04946.pdf

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://www.naturalnews.com

US Congressman Trey Gowdy recently invited the American media to ask questions about the Benghazi incident which led to the death of the United States ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens back in 2012. Gowdy is apparently Donald Trump’s choice for US Attorney General if Trump becomes the president of the United States.

That the ‘Benghazi Incident’ is the subject of a state cover up is not in doubt.

My guess is that the late ambassador Stevens was involved in liaising with the Islamist militants NATO aided in overthrowing the regime of Colonel Muamer Gaddafi.

The term “militants”, of course, refers to al-Qaeda sympathetic groups such as the now disbanded Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). The British Special Forces regiment, the SAS, were instrumental in training them and coordinated their advances when French and other NATO jets bombarded Gaddafi’s forces.

Benghazi was the route through which these fighters and weaponry were transferred to Turkey en route to the next theatre for NATO destabilisation: the Ba’athist government of Bashar al Assad in Syria.

The murky matter of “stand down” orders and the other strange events leading to the disaster may have involved competing factions within the intelligence agencies of the United States.

Some talk about a “Mormon Faction” within the US National Security apparatus springing an ‘October Surprise’ aimed at simultaneously embarrassing the incumbent Barack Obama and bolstering the electoral prospects of his rival Mitt Romney.

Whatever the truth of that, it would appear that the subsequent fall from grace of retired US Army General David Petraeus, who was then the head of the CIA, was tied into this political infighting.

But the pith of the thesis of a transaction gone wrong in regard to weapons and fighters being transported from Benghazi to Syria will likely be vindicated when the truth is finally revealed.

It is worth noting for the benefit of the “Obama-is-a-Muslim” hating crowd that the United States has had a longstanding relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood dating back to the Eisenhower years and continuing up to the support given during the tenure of Ronald Reagan to the Afghan Mujahedeen -many of them foreign Islamist mercenaries including a young Osama bin Laden- against the Soviet occupation.

The administration of George W. Bush also re-orientated its Middle East strategy in the mid-2000s to bolster support for Sunni Islamist groups (read: al Qaeda) against Shia forces in Lebanon (Hezbollah), Syria and Iran.

These groups of course metastasized into the Jamaat al Nusra brigade and the Islamic State fanatics of present day infamy.

One final point.

Speaking of suspected massive covers ups, stand downs, traitorous decision-making and so on, I wonder if Congressman Trey Gowdy would be minded to invite the press to ask what the true story was behind the destruction of the USS Liberty back in June of 1967?

After all, the pursuit of truth and justice should go beyond the narrow confines of party political point-scoring.

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

The US-led coalition requires no assistance from Russian jets in striking Islamic State (ISIL) positions in Syria, Australia’s Ambassador to Russia Paul Myler said.

“Any time bombs are used to target innocent civilians it is an act of terrorism.”- Barack Obama, 15^th February 2013.

Even to those who do not watch closely it has to be apparent that Washington’s vast disinformation machine is finally out of control, seriously awry, or desperate.

The latest foray in apparent media manipulation was the claim (1) by US “anonymous sources” that four Russian missiles targeting terrorist groups in Syria, landed in Iran.

US Administrations are serial repeaters of untruths. However talking of stray missiles after bombing a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan under a week before – when coordinates of the buildings had been confirmed to US authorities again just prior to the attack – then changing the story as to how it happened four times in less days, is skating on wafer thin ice.

As Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of MSF and former French Foreign Minister wrote:

“Targeting a red cross drawn on the roof of a hospital is … unacceptable … a line has again been crossed.” Demanding an independent investigation he stated: “It is a war crime.” (Guardian, 9^th October 2015.)

Former US Senate candidate, Mark Dankof, speaking to Iran’s Press TV regarding US claims of stray missiles in Iran believes a full-blown psychops operation towards Russia is underway. (2) President Putin’s Ministers stating that all terrorists terrorizing the people of Syria are targets – thus including the US backed ones – might be the reason.

Dankof points out:

“ … two anonymous US officials (are) a basis for this claim, who in turn are quoting unspecified, uncorroborated, and unverified ‘military and intelligence information.’ ” (3)

Moreover: “This is laughable … and underscores the blizzard of lies spun by the American government, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the (Persian) Gulf Cooperation Council, and Turkey, about what has been going on in Syria, and who is clearly responsible for the 250,000 Syrian deaths, one million wounded, and 9.5 million displaced citizens of that country”, he added.

“The blame is clearly on the aforementioned states, who have financed, supported, and introduced the … extremists and terrorists into the sovereign state of Syria in an illegitimate attempt to overthrow the legitimate and recognized government  … This is not simply evil, but illegal.

“The lies being woven by Zionist corporate media in the West about Russia are an attempt to conceal the alliance of ISIL, al-Qaeda, and affiliates with American, Israeli, British, French, and Saudi intelligence, and to conceal the obvious fact that the Russian airstrikes are hurting these terrorist groups militarily, even as they take place legally because the sovereign government … of Syria has formally requested Russian assistance.”

Dankov pointed out that on Thursday 8^th October, the “White Helmets” became CNN’s source for their reports on the stray missiles, the network citing them as “an independent medical team” in Syria. However:

“The truth is that the White Helmets are an invention of state intelligence agencies and NGOs who seek the overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. This organization has special links to the British government in particular, and (also) to the PR firm Purpose Inc., to lobby for military intervention against Assad.

“They are closely linked to the Avaaz NGO which has the same agenda, and is linked to the Open Society Foundation of George Soros …”

Australian born Jeremy Heimans, co-founder and CEO of Purpose Inc. (“We create new organizations and ventures to tackle issues where mass participation and collective action can unlock big change”; “Purpose moves people to remake the world”) is also a co-founder of Avaaz.

However, back to “stray missiles”, a story speedily silent in the Western media.  Russian General Musa Kamali told Sputnik News Agency (9^th October 2015): “We have no reports of any Russian missiles crashing in Iran … those media reports alleging that Russian missiles aiming at Syria hit Iran are blatant lies.

“If the people making those claims had any proof, they would have certainly presented it”, he said. Quite.

Of course US expertise excels not alone in stray missiles, but in planned assaults on hospitals and other buildings protected under international laws. Hospitals are specifically protected under Article 20 of the Geneva Convention, amongst other binding international laws.

Intended indiscriminate destruction was demonstrated, in 2003, when: “The scenes of downtown Baghdad in flames (made it) abundantly clear why US officials insisted on covering up a reproduction of Pablo Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ at the UN Security Council during Secretary of State Colin Powell’s February 5^th (2003) presentation of the American case for war against Iraq.” (4) Picasso’s painting commemorates a Basque town razed to the ground by a German aerial assault in April 1937 during the Spanish Civil War.

At the onset of their illegal invasion US aircraft were making bombing runs on Baghdad at the rate of 1,000 a day with many parts of the city described as “an inferno.” Holocaustal war crimes of enormity. (Holocaust: “ Great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life, especially by fire.”)

Further, the US is also no stranger to stray missiles. As Time Magazine reported in April 2003, just two weeks in to America’s bombardment:

“ … in the past week, three U.S. Tomahawks have gone missing in the rocky plains of southeastern Turkey en route to Iraq, several hundred miles from the war zone. Five more went astray in Saudi Arabia, and a handful of others have broken up in Iran and reportedly, Syria.” (5)

Bombing in Iraq, as everywhere “liberated” by America was criminally indiscriminate, Edward Herman cites Fallujah as a chilling example and of war crimes of enormity (6):

“According to Dr. Hafidd al-Dulzanni, head of the Commission for the Compensation of Fallujah Citizens, the U.S. assault (of 2004) destroyed some 7,000 houses, 840 stores, workshops and clinics, 65 mosques and religious sanctuaries, 59 schools, 13 government buildings, two electricity stations, three water purification plants, along with several railroad stations and sewage purification plants, among other things. Hospitals were an explicit target and weapons like white phosphorus and uranium-loaded projectiles were used, all adding up to massive violations of the laws of war.” (Emphasis mine.)

Fallujah’s illegal destruction both targeted and indiscriminate was, a metaphor for all Iraq.

On the day the US military entered Baghdad (8^th April 2003) they declared war on journalists, a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol 1 and a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

First US troops directed a missile at the Al Jazeera offices in Baghdad killing correspondent Tariq Ayoub and seriously wounding several others. It should be noted that: “The attacks came amid broadcasts showing some of the mounting slaughter being conducted by US troops throughout the Iraqi capital.” (7)

The surviving Al Jazeera staff sought shelter in nearby Abu Dhabi TV which then also came under US attack. Abu Dhabi TV correspondent, Shaker Hamed issued an on air call for help reporting: “Twenty-five journalists and technicians belonging to Abu Dhabi television and … Al-Jazeera are surrounded in the offices of Abu Dhabi TV in Baghdad.” Note the “surrounded”, these were seemingly no “stray” airborne missiles, the tanks were firing from near point blank range. “Kill the messenger” comes to mind.

Hamed called for relevant agencies: “to intervene quickly to pull us out of this zone where missiles and shells are striking in an unbelievable way.”

In a now chillingly familiar story, also reminiscent of the MSF hospital in Kundiz: “Al-Jazeera had written to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on February 23 giving the precise location of its office so as to avoid being targeted.” Giving co-ordinates to the US military is, it appears, literally the kiss of death.

Al Jazeera was also attacked by the US troops in Afghanistan at the time of the US invasion, as Iraq, destroying their offices.

Having targeted Al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV, the US troops turned their attention to the Palestine Hotel, where two hundred journalists and world wide media were based. They killed Reuters correspondent Taras Protsyuk and Jose Couso of Spanish Telecinco TV. Three other journalists were injured, the hotel was extensively damaged. The US military had of course, been informed that the Palestine was the media’s base.

The previous day, in Basra, Al Jazeera offices were targeted by two US missiles which failed to explode and outside Baghdad on the highway both Al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV cars, clearly marked as such on roof,     sides and hood were targeted, miraculously no one was hurt.

ITV journalist Terry Lloyd was murdered near Basra by the US within four days of the invasion – also in a clearly marked car. Cameraman Fred Nerac and their Lebanese assistant Hussein Osman in an accompanying car were also killed. French cameraman, Daniel Demoustier, injured in the attack said the US were firing on media vehicles: “to wipe out troublesome witnesses.” Given the examples above and the continuing litany of such attacks by US troops (and British) during the occupation, he seems to have hit the nail on the head.

When it comes to war crimes the US is a serial offender. In the 1991 assault on Iraq all water purification plants were deliberately destroyed on the orders of US Central Command, as were clinics, schools, separate Education Ministry stores, media centres and radio stations were obliterated across the country. (8) Over fifty percent of all livestock was destroyed, farms and herds, chicken farms a special target. Iraq was the world’s largest exporter of dates – the US clearly regarded date palms as an enemy and bombarded great ancient, majestic groves too.

The women and children who nightly went to the great, reinforced Ameriyah Shelter on the outskirts of Baghdad were also incinerated – the US had satellites over the Shelter which recorded the women and children entering as dusk fell and leaving at first light.

The factory that made baby milk powder was reduced to rubble and described as a “chemical weapons factory.” The machinery was provided, installed and maintained by a company in Birmingham, England – and could only have been used to provide baby milk.

Also destroyed were plants which produced basic medical supplies as syringes, pain killers, antibiotics, a well worn path followed in other US bombings as a civilian pharmaceutical factory, Al-Shifa (“The Cure”) Sudan in August 1998 when missiles also rained down on Afghanistan. Two US embassies in East Africa had been attacked, so as ever, proof-free Judge, jury and executioner, the US randomly bombed.

Barely noticed have been the numerous US attacks on ancient Yemen (population just 24.41 million) before their ongoing proxy attack by current Chair of the UN Human Rights Council, Saudi Arabia.

Ninety eight US missile and drone attacks struck Yemen between 2002 and 2015; forty one in 2012, twenty six in 2013 and fourteen in 2014, with other attacks in 2009, 2010 and 2011. The cost in human life is hidden and shaming. In May 2010 alone an “errant” US drone killed five people. In December 2009 a US Cruise missile killed forty one souls. (9)

In 1999 former Yugoslavia was decimated – with stray US missiles landing in Macedonia, hitting Belgrade’s media centre, the Chinese Embassy, markets, obliterating train passengers, all “liberated” from life the American way.

2011 brought involvement in Libya’s destruction – another metaphor for the monstrosity of lawless might presented as benevolent saviour.

Let us hear no more phony allegations of stray missiles before the hell of the real ones have been accounted for.

Notes

1. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/09/russia-denies-missiles-aimed-at-syria-landed-in-iran
2. http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-russian-intervention-exposes-coalition-lies-the-terrorists-r-us/5480359
3. http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/10/09/432620/US-Russia-Syria-psyop
4. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/03/bagh-m22.html
5. http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,439517,00.html
6. http://www.globalresearch.ca/after-all-we-did-for-them-in-fallujah/5480223
7. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2003/04/jaz-a09.html
8. http://www.globalresearch.ca/operation-desert-slaughter/7920
9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_Yemen

I am indebted to Nicolas J. Davies, author of the eye opening “Blood on Our Hands – The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq” for the reminder of stray US missiles.

(http://truth-out.org/archive/component/k2/item/90107:blood-on-our-hands)

In its single-minded propaganda campaign against Russia, The New York Times has no interest in irony, but if it had, it might note that some of the most important advances made by the Dutch Safety Board’s report on the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 came because the Russian government declassified sensitive details about its anti-aircraft weaponry.

The irony is that the Obama administration has steadfastly refused to declassify its intelligence information on the tragedy, which presumably could answer some of the key remaining mysteries, such as where the missile was fired and who might have fired it. While merrily bashing the Russians, the Times has failed to join in demands for the U.S. government to make public what it knows about the tragedy that killed 298 people on July 17, 2014.

In other words, through its hypocritical approach to this atrocity, the Times has been aiding and abetting a cover-up of crucial evidence, all the better to score some propaganda points against the Russ-kies, the antithesis of what an honest news organization would do.

In its editorial on Thursday, The Times also continues to play on the assumed ignorance of its readers by hyping the fact that the likely weapon, a Buk surface-to-air missile, was “Russian-made,” which while true, is not probative of which side fired it. Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, is armed with Russian-made weapons, too.

But that obvious fact is skirted by the Times highlighting in its lead paragraph that the plane was shot down “by a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile,” adding: “Even Russia, which has spent much of those [past] 15 months generating all kinds of implausible theories that put the blame … on Ukraine, and doing its best to thwart investigations, has had to acknowledge that this is what happened.”

Though some misinformed Times’ readers might be duped into finding that sentence persuasive, the reality is that Russia has long considered it likely that a Buk or other anti-aircraft missile was involved in downing MH-17. That’s why Russia declassified so many details about its Buk systems for the Dutch investigation – something governments are loath to do – and the Russian manufacturer issued a report on the likely Buk role last June.

But the Times pretends that the Russians have now been cornered with the truth, writing that Russia “now argues that the fatal missile was an older model that the Russian armed forces no longer use, and that it was fired from territory controlled by the Ukrainian government.” Yet, much of that information was provided by the Russian missile manufacturer a long time ago and was the subject of a June press conference.

Blinded by Bias

If the Times editors weren’t blinded by their anti-Russian bias, they also might have noted that the Dutch Safety Board and the Russian manufacturer of the Buk anti-missile system are in substantial agreement over the older Buk model type that apparently brought down MH-17.

Almaz-Antey, the Russian Buk manufacturer, said last June that its analysis of the plane’s wreckage revealed that MH-17 had been attacked by a “9M38M1 of the Buk M1 system.” The company’s Chief Executive Officer Yan Novikov said the missile was last produced in 1999.

The Dutch report, released Tuesday, said:

“The damage observed on the wreckage in amount of damage, type of damage, boundary and impact angles of damage, number and density of hits, size of penetrations and bowtie fragments found in the wreckage, is consistent with the damage caused by the 9N314M warhead used in the 9M38 and 9M38M1 BUK surface-to-air missile.”

Also on Tuesday, the manufacturer expanded on its findings saying that the warhead at issue had not been produced since 1982 and was long out of Russia’s military arsenal, but adding that as of 2005 there were 991 9M38M1 Buk missiles and 502 9M38 missiles in Ukraine’s inventory. Company executives said they knew this because of discussions regarding the possible life-extension of the missiles.

Based on other information regarding how the warhead apparently struck near the cockpit of MH-17, the manufacturer calculated the missile’s likely flight path and firing location, placing it in the eastern Ukrainian village of Zakharchenko, a few miles south of route H21 and about four miles southwest of the town of Shakhtars’k, a lightly populated rural part of Donetsk province that the Russians claim was then under Ukrainian government control.

The area is about three miles west of the 320-square-kilometer zone that the Dutch report established as the likely area from which the missile was fired. In July 2014, control of that area was being contested although most of the fighting was occurring about 100 kilometers to the north, meaning that the southern sector was more poorly defined and open to the possibility of a mobile system crossing from one side to the other.

Almaz-Antay CEO Novikov said the company’s calculations placed the missile site in Zakharchenko with “great accuracy,” a possible firing zone that “does not exceed three to four kilometers in length and four kilometers in width.” However, Ukrainian authorities said their calculations placed the firing location farther to the east, deeper into rebel-controlled territory.

Thus, the importance of the U.S. intelligence data that Secretary of State John Kerry claimed to possess just three days after the plane was shot down. Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on July 20, 2014, Kerry declared, “we picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar.”

But the U.S. government has released none of its evidence on the shoot-down. A U.S. intelligence source told me that CIA analysts briefed the Dutch investigators but under conditions of tight secrecy. None of the U.S. information was included in the report and Dutch officials have refused to discuss any U.S. intelligence information on the grounds of national security.

In the weeks after the shoot-down, I was told by another source briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts that they had concluded that a rogue element of the Ukrainian government – tied to one of the oligarchs – was responsible for the attack, while absolving senior Ukrainian leaders including President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. But I wasn’t able to determine whether this U.S. analysis was a consensus or a dissident opinion.

Last October, Der Spiegel reported that German intelligence, the BND, concluded that the Russian government was not the source of the missile battery – that it had been captured from a Ukrainian military base – but the BND blamed the ethnic Russian rebels for firing it. However, a European source told me that the BND’s analysis was not as conclusive as Der Spiegel had described.

Prior to the MH-17 crash, ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine were reported to have captured a Buk system after overrunning a government air base, but Ukrainian authorities said the system was not operational, as recounted in the Dutch report. The rebels also denied possessing a functioning Buk system.

Who Has These Buks?

As for whether the 9M38 Buk system is still in the Ukrainian military arsenal, government officials in Kiev claimed to have sold their stockpile of older Buks to Georgia, but Ukraine appears to still possess the 9M38 Buk system, based on photographs of Ukrainian weapons displays. In other words, Ukrainian authorities appear to be lying about this crucial point.

It should be noted, too, that just because Russia no longer deploys the outmoded Buks doesn’t mean that it might not have some mothballed in warehouses that could be pulled out and distributed in a sub rosa fashion, although both the Ukrainian rebels and Russian officials deny this possibility. According to the Ukrainian government, the rebels were only known to have shoulder-fired “manpads” in July 2014 – and that weapon lacked the range to destroy a civilian airliner flying at 33,000 feet.

Yet, rather than delve into this important mystery, The New York Times’ editorial simply repeats the Western “group think” that took shape in the days after the MH-17 tragedy, that somehow the rebels shot down the plane with a Buk missile supplied by Russia. The other possibility that the missile was fired by some element of the Ukrainian security forces was given short-shrift despite the fact that Ukraine had moved some of its Buk batteries into eastern Ukraine presumably to shoot down possible Russian aircraft incursions.

As described in the Dutch report, this Ukrainian concern was quite real in the days before the MH-17 shoot-down. On July 16 – just one day before the tragedy – a Ukrainian SU-25 jetfighter was shot down by what Ukrainian authorities concluded was an air-to-air missile presumably fired by a Russian warplane patrolling the Russia-Ukraine border.

Thus, it would make sense that the Ukrainian air-defense forces would have moved their Buk batteries close to the border and would have been on the lookout for possible Russian intruders entering or leaving Ukrainian air space. So, one possibility is that a poorly organized Ukrainian air-defense force mistook MH-17 for a hostile Russian aircraft high-tailing it back to Russia and fired.

Another theory that I’m told U.S. intelligence analysts examined was the possibility that a rogue Ukrainian element – linked to a fiercely anti-Russian oligarch – may have hoped that President Vladimir Putin’s official plane was in Ukrainian air space en route home from a state visit to South America. Putin’s jet and MH-17 had very similar markings. But Putin used a different route and had already landed in Moscow.

A third possibility, which I’m told at least some U.S. analysts think makes the most sense, was that the attack on MH-17 was a premeditated provocation by a team working for a hard-line oligarch with the goal of getting Russia blamed and heightening Western animosity toward Putin.

Obama’s Secrets

But whatever your preferred scenario – whether you think the Russians or the Ukrainians did it – the solution to the mystery could clearly benefit from President Barack Obama doing what Putin has done: declassify relevant intelligence and defense information.

One might think that the Times’ editors would be at the forefront of demanding transparency from the U.S. government, especially since senior U.S. officials rushed out of the gate in the days after the tragedy to put the blame on the Russians. Yet, since five days after the shoot-down, the Obama administration has refused to update or refine its claims.

Earlier this year, a spokesperson for Director for National Intelligence James Clapper told me that the DNI would not provide additional information out of concern that it might influence the Dutch investigation, a claim that lacked credibility because the Dutch investigation began within a day of the MH-17 crash and the DNI issued a sketchy white paper on the case four days later.

In other words, the initial U.S. rush to judgment already had prejudiced the investigation by indicating which way the United States, a NATO ally of the Netherlands, wanted the inquiry to go: blame the Russians. Later, withholding more refined intelligence data also concealed whatever contrary analyses had evolved within the U.S. intelligence community after Kerry and the DNI had jumped to their hasty conclusions.

Yet, The New York Times took note of none of that, simply piling on the Russians again and hailing a dubious online publication called Bellingcat, which has consistently taken whatever the U.S. propaganda line is on international incidents and has systematically screwed up key facts.

In 2013, Bellingcat’s founder Eliot Higgins got the firing location wrong for the sarin gas attack outside Damascus, Syria. He foisted the blame on Bashar al-Assad’s forces in line with U.S. propaganda but it turned out that the missile’s range was way too short for his analysis to be correct. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Collapsing Syria-Sarin Case.”]

Then, earlier this year, Higgins fed Australia’s “60 Minutes” program wrong coordinates for the location of the so-called “Buk-getaway video” in eastern Ukraine. Though the program treated Higgins’s analysis as gospel, the images from the video and from the supposed location clearly didn’t match, leading the program to engage in a journalistic fraud to pretend otherwise. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “A Reckless Stand-upper on MH-17.”]

But the Times’ editorial board simply gushed all over Bellingcat, promoting the Web site as if it’s a credible source, writing that the Dutch report “is consistent with theories advanced by the United States and Ukraine as well as evidence collected by the independent investigative website Bellingcat.com, which hold that the fatal missile was fired from territory controlled by Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine.”

The Times then distorted the findings of the Buk manufacturer to present them as somehow contradicted by the Dutch report, which substantially relied on the declassified information from the manufacturer to reach roughly the same conclusion, that the missile was an older-model Buk.

However, without irony, the Times writes,

“This fact is not something Russians are likely to learn; Russian television has presented only the Kremlin’s disinformation of what is going on in Ukraine and, for that matter, Syria. … Creating an alternative reality has been a big reason for President Vladimir Putin’s boundless popularity among Russians. He sees no reason to come clean for the shooting down of the Boeing 777.”

Yet, the actual reality is that Russia has provided much more information and shown much greater transparency than President Obama and the U.S. government have. The Dutch report also ignored one of the key questions asked by Russian authorities in the days after the MH-17 shoot-down: why did Ukraine’s air defense turn on the radar used to guide Buk missiles?

But the Times remains wedded to its propaganda narrative and doesn’t want inconvenient facts to get in the way. Rather than demand that Obama “come clean” about what the U.S. intelligence agencies know about the MH-17 case, the newspaper of record chooses to mislead its readers about the facts.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

Israel’s hard­line Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is now politically isolated as he brings ordinary Israelis into personal danger by having refused to negotiate a peace agreement with the Palestinians and by having incited violence by continuing illegal settlements on Palestinian land, in a policy that has been condemned internationally.

The Jewish Diaspora is today dismayed and frightened as historic holy sites in Jerusalem burn as a consequence and bloodshed increases as a result of Netanyahu’s intransigence. There is an increasing consensus that he has become a dangerous anachronist who needs to be replaced, as soon as possible, by a statesman, or woman, who will sue for peace.

The present unrest has been triggered, in part, by Palestinian anger over what is perceived as the increasingly Jewish encroachment over the al-­Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, which has disturbed the status quo ante that has existed for decades.

Whether the current phase of Israel’s intensified repression and Palestinian popular resistance will evolve into a full-fledged intifada or not, one thing is already evident – a new generation of Palestinians is marching on the footsteps of previous generations, rising up en masseagainst Israel’s brutal, decades-old regime of occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid.

World governments, especially in the west, are calling this a “cycle of violence” where both sides are to blame, ignoring the root cause of the colonial conflict and their own complicity in enabling Israel to maintain it and to violate international law with impunity. Almost all Palestinians today are calling for a full boycott of Israel and for isolating it internationally, in all fields, just as apartheid South African once was.

In this latest round, Israel has fanned the flames of Palestinian grassroots resistance by stepping up its attacks against al-Aqsa mosque compound, the Noble Sanctuary, located in the heart of the Israeli occupied Old City of Jerusalem. Fanatic, government-backed Jewish fundamentalist settler groups have persistently desecrated the compound, often verbally insulting worshippers with vile racism and openly calling for the destruction of the mosque. This has triggered widespread anger and protests in Jerusalem and among Palestinians everywhere in historic Palestine.

Ethnic Cleansing and Judaization

Typically, the Israeli army’s response was to protect the criminal settlers and punish the Palestinian victims, ultimately denying almost all Palestinians access to their holy site. These threats are taken seriously by Palestinians who suffer daily the consequences of Israel’s official policy of “Judaization” of the city, a policy of gradually colonizing the land and replacing its indigenous Christian and Muslim Palestinian population with illegal Jewish settlers. This policy, which amounts to ethnic cleansing and a war crime under international law, is implemented through incessant land confiscations, expansion of the colonial wall, house demolitions, settler take-overs of Palestinian homes, extrajudicial killings, arrests and expulsions, all supported by Israel’s “justice” system, a constantly reliable, rubber-stamp partner in crime.

The latest Israeli attack against the al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, moreover, is not an isolated incident. Hundreds of historic churches and mosques have been destroyed by Zionist militias and later the Israeli state since 1948. Last summer, during the massacre in Gaza, Israel bombed to the ground 73 mosques. Many Palestinian churches and mosques have been defaced or otherwise desecrated this year alone by Jewish extremists in so-called “price tag attacks,” including the Church of Loaves and Fishes (Multiplication), overlooking Lake Tiberias, which was set on fire last June.

These racist and criminal attacks against Palestinians and their freedom of religion come as an extension of a massive shift in Israel to the extreme right and the unprecedented prevalence in Israeli society of overt, deeply-seated colonial racism and racial hatred against the indigenous Palestinian people.

Virtually all Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza are denied access to Jerusalem, which is besieged by walls, watch towers and barbed wire, and are subject to daily assault and humiliation.

In a typical so-called “period of calm,” Israel enforces its medieval siege of Gaza, conducts incursions into Palestinians cities, confiscates Palestinian land, including in the Naqab (Negev), destroys Palestinian property, and builds illegal Jewish-only settlements. In its ongoing attempts to entrench its system of apartheid and colonial rule, Israel denies Palestinians their full spectrum of rights in the most banal of ways, from a child’s right to education to a mother’s access to health care, to a farmer’s ability to reach his/her land and to the right of a family to even live together in one home. And all this is done with the blessing of the courts.

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Now!

In light of the apathy or direct complicity of world governments and the UN, and as a result of Israel’s impunity in perpetuating this system of injustice against Palestinians, in historic Palestine as well as in exile, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has made great strides in redefining Israel’s positioning in the world stage as a pariah state.

Through boycotts of institutions that are complicit in Israeli violations of international law, through divestment from corporations supporting Israeli oppression and through a principled call for sanctions against Israel, the BDS movement has increased the isolation of Israel and started to impose costs on its regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid and occupation.

The World Bank has revealed that Palestinian imports from Israel are falling significantly. Israeli businessmen are reporting that European investors are no longer willing to invest in Israel, while a UN study confirms that foreign direct investment in Israel dropped by 46% in 2014, as compared to 2013. A Rand study predicts that BDS may cost Israel between 1 and 2 per cent of its GDP each year over the next ten years, and, most recently, credit rating agency Moody’s has reported that BDS is a potential threat to the Israeli economy.

More needs to be done, however, to hold Israel to account and shatter its still strong impunity. Complicit governments must be exposed. Corporations that are enabling and profiting from Israel’s human rights violations must pay a price in their reputation and revenues. Israel’s military machine, including its research arm, must face a comprehensive international military embargo, and all Israeli leaders, officers and soldiers who are involved in the commission of the current and past crimes must be prosecuted at the International Criminal Court as well as national courts that respect international jurisdiction.

Israel is not just oppressing Palestinians; it is exporting its ruthless model of securitization and repression to the world. Israel is deeply involved in training and arming death squads in Latin America, often as a U.S. proxy, selling weapons and military expertise to dictatorships in Asia and Africa, often to both sides of a civil war, and militarizing police forces in Ferguson, Los Angeles, London and cities around the world. Israel today is a key player in domestic repression against racial, social, economic and environmental justice movements around the world.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the Palestinian leadership of the global BDS movement, calls on people of conscience around the world to support Palestinians in their quest for freedom at this crucial moment by stepping up BDS activities against Israel’s regime of oppression. In particular, and related to the current mass revolt on the streets of Palestine, we call on supporters of the Palestinian struggle to:

• Build awareness about Palestinian rights under international law and support for BDS through media outreach, including social media;
• Pressure parliaments to impose a military embargo on Israel;
• Campaign against Israeli military companies such as Elbit Systems;
• Support boycott and divestment campaigns against complicit companies, such as G4S and HP, that are most blatantly complicit in Israel’s infrastructure of oppression;
• Pass effective and strategic, not just symbolic, BDS resolutions in unions, academic associations, student governments and social movements that can lead to concrete measures, and enhance the cultural boycott of Israel;
• Consider legal action against Israeli criminals (soldiers, settlers, officers and decision-makers) and against executives of corporations that are implicated in Israel’s crimes and violations of international law.

Like their parents’ generation, the thousands of Palestinian youth in Jerusalem, Gaza, Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem, Jaffa, Nazareth and elsewhere who have taken to the streets in large protests against Israel’s occupation and apartheid are first and foremost shaking off despair and liberating their minds of the myth of oppression as fate. They are also nourishing the entire Palestinian people’s aspiration to self-determination and living in freedom, dignity and a just peace.

It is high time to isolate Israel’s regime of militarization, securitization and racism as a danger not just to Palestinians and the Arab region, but to humanity at large. •

President Barack Obama Thursday publicly rescinded his previously declared proposal for drawing down the US military force occupying Afghanistan and adopted a plan dictated by the Pentagon to keep the remaining 10,000 troops in place, likely beyond the end of his presidency.

“As you are well aware,” Obama said in his speech Thursday, addressing himself to the American people, “I do not support the idea of endless war.”

The “idea,” i.e., the phony rhetoric of hope and change, has long since become a tired joke. As the pliant mouthpiece of the military and intelligence apparatus that dominates the American state, the US president has assured that “endless” and ever-expanding war is an undeniable reality.

Obama cynically dropped his previous argument that keeping US troops in Afghanistan indefinitely, at the current cost of roughly $35 billion a year, was neither fiscally nor politically justifiable. While his administration can find no money for jobs, education, health care or other vital social needs, unlimited resources are always on offer for America’s war machine.

The decision to upend the US timetable for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan comes little more than a year after Obama ordered thousands of US troops back into Iraq and launched an air war in both that country and neighboring Syria.

The immediate impetus for Obama’s scrapping of the planned reduction in troop strength in Afghanistan is of a piece with the motive for sending US troops back into Iraq: the spectacular collapse of puppet security forces trained and armed by the Pentagon at the cost, in the case of the Afghan forces, of $65 billion.

The Iraqi security forces fled with virtually no resistance in the face of an offensive by a much smaller force, handing over Mosul, the country’s second largest city, to ISIS. A virtual carbon copy of this episode unfolded at the end of last month in Kunduz, the strategic center of Afghanistan’s northeast, when the Afghan army and police melted away in front of a force of several hundred Taliban fighters. In both cases, the puppet security forces left behind tons of US arms and military equipment.

In both countries, well over a decade of war and the expenditure of trillions of dollars have produced only a debacle for US imperialism, together with death and destruction for millions of Iraqis and Afghans.

For Afghans, this carnage goes back more than 35 years, to the CIA-instigated war to oust a pro-Soviet government in Kabul. Then, Washington employed the mujahedeen forces that would subsequently give rise to Al Qaeda as a proxy force. During the period since, an estimated two million Afghans have lost their lives, while millions more have been turned into refugees.

The carnage has only escalated in the recent period, with the United Nations agency for Afghanistan reporting the highest casualty figures since it began counting. The number of civilians killed by the US-backed Afghan security forces in the first half of this year increased by 85 percent compared to the same period in 2014.

Atrocities by both the Afghan forces and US warplanes and special forces units continue unabated and, for the most part, unreported.

One incident that has come to world attention, the savage bombardment of the Doctors without Borders (MSF) hospital in Kunduz that killed 22 patients and medical personnel, has exposed the criminal character of the US war.

The ever-shifting explanation given by the Pentagon for this war crime has been exposed by an AP report Thursday showing that the hospital was deliberately targeted in an apparent attempt to kill one man, an alleged Pakistani intelligence operative who was supposedly coordinating actions by the Taliban. To that end, an AC-130 flying gunship was sent to carry out five separate strafing runs at the well-marked hospital in the course of an hour, incinerating patients in their beds and blowing doctors and nurses to pieces.

Obama made no mention of this atrocity in his speech Thursday, though the decision he announced will lead to many similar massacres. His only reference to Kunduz was as a supposed victory against the Taliban, where “Afghan forces backed by coalition support have been able to push them back.”

Obama’s justification for the continued US occupation of Afghanistan was riddled with outright lies and grotesque distortions.

More than 14 years after the September 11 attacks, he continued selling it primarily as part of the “global war on terrorism” inaugurated by his predecessor as the pretext for the invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan. “I will not allow Afghanistan to be used as a safe haven for terrorists to attack our nation again,” he said.

In addition to the fact that there remain many unanswered questions about what happened on 9/11, the claim that the US is engaged in some global war on Al Qaeda terrorism is ludicrous given that the American military has used Al Qaeda-connected fighters as proxy ground forces in the US-backed wars for regime change in both Libya and Syria.

The US president praised the Afghan government as a “stable and committed ally,” the product of “the first democratic transfer of power” in the country’s history. The reality is that the two-headed puppet regime of Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah was imposed on the instructions of the White House and consists of a gang of war criminals and kleptocrats with no popular base and virtually no remit outside of the capital of Kabul.

Obama asserted that “the majority of the Afghan people share our goals.” Where is the evidence? That a movement like the Taliban could grow as it has can only mean that there is no popular support for the US occupation. Meanwhile, millions are fleeing the country, with Afghans last year making up fully 44 percent of recorded undocumented migrants and refugees the world over.

Fourteen years after the US invasion and a trillion dollars later, the living conditions of Afghans remain abysmal, with an estimated 60 percent of the active population unemployed and over 40 percent living in abject poverty.

The closest Obama came to the truth was when he described US plans to maintain four US military bases in Afghanistan in the capital of Kabul, Bagram air base, Jalalabad in the east and Kandahar in the south. These bases, he said, would constitute “a key piece of the network of counterterrorism partnerships that we need, from South Asia to Africa…”

US imperialism’s predatory aims in Afghanistan remain today what they were 14 years ago: advancing the interests of the American ruling class by projecting US military power into the energy-rich Caspian Basin as well as against its principal global and regional rivals: Iran to the west, China to the east and Russia to the north.

The reversal of the Afghanistan withdrawal plans coincides with an increasingly dangerous eruption of American militarism, with Washington mounting provocative threats against Russia and China, both of them nuclear-armed powers. Not only are the wars of American imperialism “endless,” they are expanding in scope, bringing the world to the brink of another global cataclysm.

One of the most lamentable features of international relations courses remains the continued, and looming presence, not merely of Henry Kissinger the statesman but Henry Kissinger the theorist.  Whatever one may think of old Heinz, he shaped geopolitics and counselled the movements of US hegemony with ruthless, even cynical fashion.  In engaging the politics of the pirate, and the practices of plunder, he gave such practices the deceptively neat term “realism”.

This did not shore up well with a certain strand of US political tradition which sentimentalises liberty even as it ravishes it. The realist cannot purport to be an exceptionalist, precisely because such a statement is absurd.  There are powers and non-powers, brutes and the brutalised.

Even if we accept the heavily battered realist credentials, restoring, let alone lifting Kissinger, from the darkness of his record is a tall order.  Nefarious, calculating, war-mongering, and expansively self-delusional, it is hard to go past such works as Christopher  Hitchens’ The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001) without feeling that the fellow did not cut the mustard in a range of areas.  Even weightier accounts such as Seymour Hersh’s The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (1983), and Walter Isaacson’s Kissinger: A Biographer (1992) prove muddying and gory.

Niall Ferguson, himself an apologist of imperial projects past and current, has decided to come to the already crowded party of Kissinger biographies with his first volume of his Life. Ferguson tends to be allergic to modesty, and duly claims that Kissinger begged him to engage the project.  This should immediately trouble the reader: reading the copy of “embedded” journalists is to be regarded with as much suspicion as the biographer with an exclusive dinner invitation.  Such proximity, notably to an individual so prone to flattery and flattering, exerts its corrupting pull.

Ferguson’s point, rather, is do ditch the view that Kissinger was the realist history accords him, and attempt to dislodge him from the reliquary of a certain political tradition. Flipping the ideological cards, he suggests a dominant streak of idealism, one fed by European precedent.   But what, exactly, does this act of flipping actually accomplish?

Certainly, Ferguson wishes to show a Kissinger more attuned, more sceptical about American engagements, despite being himself instrumental in them. American adventurism in Vietnam, for instance, was questionable, though such views were not to be expressed too loudly – Kissinger always prized the career path and hedged his bets.

Privately, he would take the Kennedy administration to task for its role behind the assassination of South Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem.  “The honour and moral standing of the United States require that a relationship exists between ends and means….  Our historical role has been to identify ourselves with the ideals and deepest hopes of mankind.” He would also object to making use of small states as “pawns”.

Such views tend to be meaningless, largely because they never factored in Kissinger’s own actions. Whether such behaviour can be put down to an overwhelming sense of moral cowardice, or calculation, vanishes before the bloody details. When it mattered, Kissinger supported the most ruthless regimes in the broader cause against Communism, with an enormous cost to human life. Democratic causes were enfeebled; elected governments, such as that of Allende in Chile, were overthrown with his blessing.

Ferguson the biographer duly becomes Ferguson the apologist, taking his own dump on smaller states and reducing them to geopolitical excreta that have little to do with the idealist he so desperately wishes to find:  “[A]rguments that focus on loss of life in strategically marginal countries – and there is no other way of describing Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Chile, Cyprus, and East Timor – must be tested against the question: how, in each case, would an alternative decision have affected US relations with strategically important countries like the Soviet Union, China, and the major Western European powers?”

Then there is the fallback every admiring biographer tends to find about a subject he wishes to lionise. Ferguson needs to put his finger on the reason why his subject was so detested. No, not because of his role behind the surveillance state, failed wars, deadly policies in Latin America, pro-White government policies in Africa, and a general destabilising disposition to states, but because people were envious.  He had a way with women; he charmed in the manner of an experienced courtesan. And he was, well, a Jew, which grated with establishment anti-Semitism.

Yet for all that, Kissinger’s official biographer cannot get away from a cluttered mind that legitimised such doctrines as “limited” nuclear war, tantamount to suggesting that a state can engage in “mild” exterminatory practices.  The “balance of power” as Greg Grandin explained in his own biography Kissinger’s Shadow, is something “constantly tested through gesture and deed.”  To be relevant, the grand state must perform with vicious virility.  Stillness is death.

Hegemons can lay waste to the earth, but eventually, some restoring balance can be attained – there will be survivors; every cast of power needs a maniacal Dr. Strangelove.  Now, if that is a form of mad idealism, then so be it.  It does not detract, nor revise, Kissinger’s role in history.

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

EU heads of state comprise the European Council (EC), Donald Tusk its current president since December 2014.

Political and military developments in Syria were discussed at the EC’s October 15 meeting, among other pressing issues, EU leaders ignoring Obama’s war, saying in a statement issued:

“The Assad regime bears the greatest responsibility for the 250,000 deaths of the conflict and the millions of displaced people.”

“The EU is fully engaged in finding a political solution to the conflict in close cooperation with the UN and the countries of the region and calls on all parties involved to work to that effect.”

“There cannot be a lasting peace in Syria under the present leadership and until the legitimate grievances and aspirations of all components of Syrian society are addressed. The European Council expressed its concern about the Russian attacks on the Syrian opposition and civilians and the risk of further military escalation.”

EU leaders gave short shrift to fighting ISIS and likeminded terrorists. They irresponsibly blamed Assad for Obama’s high crimes, failed to praise Russia’s important intervention, lied claiming it’s killing civilians and not targeting ISIS.

Putin’s righteous mission is  extremely effective against a terrorist scourge vital to eliminate. He deserves support from all world leaders.

Ahead of Thursday’s EC meeting, Syria condemned its support for Obama’s imperial war. A Foreign Ministry source rejected EU-supported naked aggression against the Syrian people, its blatant interference in the internal affairs of the country, partnering with Washington’s hegemonic agenda, adding:

EU leaders aim to undermine Moscow’s vital mission, fronting for US policy. Earlier reports about France allying with Russia may have been premature.

President Francois Hollande expressed support for EU anti-Assad policy, at the same time urging a political solution involving Western and regional states along with Russia.

At a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) meeting in Kazakhstan, leaders of former Soviet Republics Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan formed a joint task force to defend their borders from potential terrorist threats during a time of Western-instigated crisis.

Putin explained his involvement in Syria, saying an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 Russians and other Central Asians are now ISIS terrorists. “We certainly cannot allow them to use the experience they are getting in Syria on home soil,” he stressed.

“By carrying out airstrikes on targets chosen in coordination with the Syrians, our troops have produced significant results. Dozens of command points and depots, hundreds of terrorists and a large number of military hardware have been destroyed.”

Russia supports “as big a coalition to fight the extremists and terrorists as possible and is working with major regional and international partners” – in full compliance with international law, following Syria’s request for help.

CIS member states need to prepare for possible terrorist attacks, Putin stressed, expressing concern for deteriorating Afghan security conditions.

“The situation is becoming critical,” he said. “Terrorists of all flavors are gaining influence there and don’t hide their plans to expand. One of their targets is Central Asia. We have to be prepared to respond to this contingency.”

Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said Russian warplanes on Thursday flew 33 sorties against ISIS targets in Aleppo, the Damascus countryside, Deir as-Zor, Hama and Idlib, explaining:

“The militants are retreating, trying to establish new positions, and changing underway the course of their existing logistics system for the supply of ammunition, weaponry and equipment.”

Fewer combat missions were flown because “the Syrian army’s offensive is transforming the contact line with Islamic State terrorist formations.”

Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mikdad said effective Russian intervention is polar opposite US policy to continue endless war and human suffering – together with its rogue EU and regional allies.

“Syria will not sacrifice its sovereignty and independence under any condition,” he stressed. “We will not accept any solution where any of these fundamental elements are not safeguarded.”

Washington intends to keep resupplying ISIS and other takfiri terrorists, part of its unrelenting campaign to replace Assad with pro-Western puppet governance it controls, no matter the cost in human lives and suffering.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html . Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.  Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

“He brought to Ottowa an oilman’s attitude to climate change and a sheriff’s approach to law and order.” – The Economist on Stephen Harper, Oct 17, 2015

Everything about Canada’s long time serving Prime Minister is supposedly counterintuitive to the country’s spirit. This, at least, is the casual response from those who have a very specific view of Canada, one infuriatingly courteous, and soporifically relaxed.  But the very fact that Stephen Harper has stayed in power for this length of time, including three election victories, suggests a refutation of that view. 

Harper’s playbook is one that sees politics as an endeavour for its own sake.  The currency of fear sluices the system. Manipulation, and targeted demagoguery, is fundamental.  And there is that matter of foreign interventions and local corruption.  A Harper government is not viable without corrosive corruption; a Harper government is not feasible without its staccato-like emphasis on a vision of “Great” Canada.

Harper’s project on Canada was his project of Canadian conservatism writ large.  The Progressive Conservative Party seemed to him spineless, lacking necessary grit to win office.  His populist Reform Party became a platform to then merge with the PCP and create the current, more abrasive style we have come to expect from Team Harper.  Under him, federal expenditure has fallen, while big trade deals have flourished.

There is little doubt that Harper is of that tried school that lies have vast wings and take flight with repeated articulation.  Having shown himself to be a friend of coal-driven electricity, he proceeded to celebrate in the September 28 leaders’ debate that, “We will be the first country in the world to effectively shut down coal-fired electricity, the biggest single source of emission on the planet.”  This, from the same figure who took Canada out of the Tokyo Protocol in 2011 while waging guerrilla warfare against alarmed scientists.

On refugee and immigration policy, Harper can only beam, with Canada supposedly having “the most generous immigration and refugee system in the world.”  On Harper’s watch, however, citizenship was delayed, fees were raised, and immigrant selection slanted in favour of temporary foreign workers.[1]

As for the Syrian refugee crisis, Harper has done much wriggling on the subject, giving the impression that it was a recent phenomenon entirely attributable to Islamic State.  Four years of history have been conveniently wiped off the slate.

Refugee processing was also secretly halted this month under the auspices of vetting the list provided by the UNHCR – you could not be too careful about them for reasons of “security”. But Harper’s approach, in the manner of a political animal, was far more calculating.  According to CTV news, the staff at the prime minister’s office were busily scouring files for persecuted religious groups who might be sympathetic to the conservative cause while also discouraging the acceptance of “applications from Shia and Sunni Muslims.”[2]  Refugees in the network of camps from Jordan, Turkey, and Lebanon were also avoided.

For all its misdemeanours, the frittering away of Canadian democracy has been the most fundamental feature of his rule. Parliament has been misled and badgered into docility, the supreme court has been harassed and hectored, diplomats have been silenced, espionage on opponents has been confirmed.  John Ibbitson of the Globe and Mail hardly gives a ringing endorsement for Harper and the political machine behind him.  “No prime minister in history and no political party have been loathed as intensely as Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party.”[3]

This might well be, but it hardly explains the durability of Harper.  On its basic, if not base level, Harper’s tactical outlook treats democratic parliamentary process as plutocratic and mischievous.  There is always room to move and manipulate, for hard politicians to stomp on opponents while sailing close against the constraints of legality.  His theft of the 2006 election, for it was regarded as something pilfered by the usually tight-lipped body of Elections Canada, took place because electoral rules were significantly bent.

It was subsequently found in March 2012, a distant six years later, that the Conservatives had engaged in an illegal campaign with the use of funds and were made to pay $282,000 in fines and restitution.  By then, Harper’s Teflon brand had been successfully sold for two more elections (November 2008 and May 2011).

Nick Davies in The Guardian has pointed out a salient feature of the Harper book of tactics. Like his nefarious mentor of political survival, Richard Nixon, tactical sabotage known as “ratfucking” has its revered place.  Interns are deployed to heckle opposing candidates; voters are harassed by impersonating campaigners calling them late at night; and false information disseminated via “robocalls” deceive electors into thinking that their polling booths have moved.

The latter point received judicial recognition in the words of Justice Mosley, who would have invalidated the election but for the fact the calls may not have swung the result significantly.  Leading up to the final days of this election, we can expect more of the same, those acts of desperation that have taken Harper’s opponents off guard through his rule.  The only question to ask here will be whether his appeal to the darker sentiments of the civitas pulls him across the line.

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

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“This is the highly sought after secret ‘final’ agreed version of the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Chapter on Intellectual Property Rights. There is still a finishing ‘legal scrub’ of the document meant to occur, but there are to be no more negotiations between the Parties. The TPP Parties are the United States, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, New Zealand and Brunei Darussalam.

 

 

TO ACCESS THE COMPLETE DOCUMENT LEAKED BY WIKILEAKS CLICK BELOW

TPP-Intellectual Property Chapter

Source: Wikileaks, 2015.

Note: Copyright of this text belongs to the TPP Negotiations, 2015

[ignore default copyright below]

Thousands of Iranian soldiers have arrived in Syria to join a major offensive against Sunni militants located in the northwest section of the country. The Iranian ground forces will be part of a joint operation that will include the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), Russia and fighters from Lebanese militia, Hezbollah. The assault comes on the heels of a withering two week aerial bombardment of enemy positions by the Russian Air Force which has wreaked havoc on US-backed jihadis along the western corridor. The mobilization of Iranian troops indicates that the 4 year-long conflict is entering its final phase where the Russian-led coalition will attempt to crush the predominantly-Sunni militias and restore security across the country.

Currently, the fiercest fighting is taking place in three areas that are critical for Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s survival: The Rastan enclave, the North Hama salient, and the Ghab plain. While Assad’s forces are expected to overpower the jihadis at all three sites, the militants are dug in and have destroyed a number of armored vehicles and tanks. The regime must seize this area in order to control the M5 highway which runs north to south and connects the cities that create an integrated state. Once these enemy strongholds are broken into smaller pockets of resistance, coalition forces will move further north to close the borders with Turkey while attempting to recapture the strategic city of Aleppo. (See: Sic Semper Tyrannis for an excellent breakdown of the ground offensive with maps.)

According to military analyst Patrick Bahzad: “Overall, the outcome of the current operations in the three areas mentioned above is clear. Whether the various rebels groups have thrown everything they got into these battles is hard to say, therefore no assessment can be made as to how their fighting capabilities will be affected by the coming defeat.

It is also worth mentioning that once SAA units have managed to break through rebel defences…. this might cause a disorganised retreat of the trapped rebel units. That moment of the battle could be crucial, as it might be the starting point to a massive artillery barrage (MRLs) and large RuAF airstrikes, resulting in crippling casualties among rebel ranks.” (Sic Semper Tyrannis)

In other words, there’s a good chance that the jihadis will realize that they have no chance of winning and will head for the exits, but it’s still too early to say when that will be.

According to a report in Reuters,  “…a large mobilization of the Syrian army … elite Hezbollah fighters, and thousands of Iranians” are moving northwards to retake Aleppo. However,  ISIS militants are also headed towards the city from the east which means that a major clash could take place at anytime. In response, the Russian air force has increased its bombing raids to more than 100 sorties per day. That number is expected to double in the days ahead as the fighting intensifies.

According to early reports from Syria Direct, the Syrian army has enclosed Aleppo in an open fist configuration that cuts off the main artery of vital supplies to the north from Turkey. As the fist tightens around the city, US-backed rebel units have fled to the west which is now the only possible escape route. The panicky retreat has precipitated protests against rebel leaders who are blamed for losses on the battlefield and for allowing   “the regime’s disastrous completion of the Aleppo siege.” One of the militia’s commanders summarized his frustration saying:

The myriad brigades under al-Jabha a-Shamiya’s umbrella in northeast Aleppo are bleeding men and hardware across multiple fronts…They’re caught between regime forces to the south, and IS to the north….(Due to) the complete lack of coordination between each brigade, and not nearly enough guns and cash from the Americans to compete with the much-better equipped Islamic State, and they had no choice but to retreat.  (“Jabha Shamiya commander blames ‘complete lack of coordination’ for Aleppo losses“, Syria Direct)

Aleppo is a key node in Moscow’s strategy to defeat terrorism and reestablish order across Syria. The battle is bound to be hard-fought, possibly involving close-range, house-to-house urban warfare. This is why it is imperative that coalition forces seal the border from Turkey and stop the flow of arms and supplies as soon as possible. There are rumors that Putin will use Russia’s elite paratroopers north of Aleppo for that very mission, but so far, they are just rumors. Putin has repeatedly said that he will not allow Russian ground troops to fight in Syria.

There’s no way to overstate the Obama administration’s destructive and nihilistic role in Syria. Along with its Gulf allies, the US has funded, armed and trained the bulk of the jihadi hoodlums that have ripped the state apart and killed nearly one quarter of a million people. Now that Putin has decided to put an end to Washington’s savage proxy war, the administration is planning to add more fuel to the fire by air-dropping pallets of ammunition and weapons to their fighters in central and eastern Syria.  The editors of the New York Times derided the program as “hallucinatory.” Here’s an excerpt from the article:

 …the White House on Friday unveiled a plan  that is even more incoherent and fraught with risk.

The Pentagon will stop putting rebel fighters through training in neighboring countries, a program that was designed to ensure that fighters were properly vetted before they could get their hands on American weapons and ammunition. The new plan will simply funnel weapons through rebel leaders who are already in the fight and appear to be making some headway…..

Washington’s experience in Syria and other recent wars shows that proxy fighters are usually fickle and that weapons thrust into a war with no real oversight often end up having disastrous effects……..The initial plan was dubious. The new one is hallucinatory.  (“An Incoherent Syria War Strategy“, New York Times editorial Board)

The administration has also delivered “27 container loads of weaponry to the (Syrian) Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD)”  and its military wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). The weapons are supposed to be used against ISIS, but the move has infuriated Turkish president Erdogan who regards the group as terrorists. While it appears that the Obama team is merely looking for ways to show its critics that it is being proactive in its fight against terrorism, it may have created the perfect pretext for a Turkish invasion into N Syria which would greatly complicate the situation on the ground. Here’s a clip from the Turkish Daily Hurriyet:

Findings in the aftermath of deadly explosions in Ankara on Oct. 10 targeting pro-Kurdish and leftist activists indicate the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), as well as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), may be involved, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said on Wednesday.

“As we deepen the investigation, based on the [information obtained about] Twitter accounts and IP addresses, there is a high possibility that Daesh [Arabic name for ISIL] and the PKK have played an effective role in the bombing,” he said while speaking at a press conference with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov in İstanbul.  (“Turkish PM says both ISIL and PKK may have role in Ankara bombing“, Hurriyet)

There is, in fact, no evidence of PKK (Kurdish militia) involvement at all. DNA samples from the two suicide bombers indicate they were both members of ISIS. The only reason Erdogan would want to implicate the PKK would be to either discredit his (Kurdish) political rivals or to create a pretext for invading Syria.   (Note: A Turkish court has imposed a confidentiality order on the bombing investigation that strongly hints at a government cover up. According to Altan Tan, a deputy of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), “Bombs explode all over Turkey. Two conclusions can be made on this — either the government is behind those attacks or it failed to prevent those attacks.” Either way, the government is responsible.)

While Turkey’s future role in the Syrian conflict remains uncertain, US support for the Kurds greatly increases the chances of a Turkish invasion and a broader, regional war. Is this the administration’s real objective, to draw Turkish troops across the border into Syria so that Russia gets bogged down in a costly and protracted  quagmire?

It sounds far fetched, but there are points worth considering. For example, on CBS news program 60 Minutes, Obama said this:

I’ve been skeptical from the get go about the notion that we were going to effectively create this proxy army inside of Syria. My goal has been to try to test the proposition, can we be able to train and equip a moderate opposition that’s willing to fight ISIL? And what we’ve learned is that as long as Assad remains in power, it is very difficult to get those folks to focus their attention on ISIL. (60 Minutes)

Naturally, Obama wants everyone to believe that “it’s all Assad’s fault”, after all, he’s not going to blame himself.  But he is being honest about one thing: He never really thought arming Sunni extremists was a good idea. In other words, he supported the objective (regime change) just not the methods. (arming jihadis) And he probably felt vindicated when–after 4 years of fighting–the conflict deteriorated into a stalemate.

So if he was convinced that arming jihadis wasn’t going to work, then what was his backup plan, his Plan B?

We’ve suggested in earlier columns that Obama might have struck a deal with Erdogan to launch a Turkish invasion of Syria as long as the US provided air cover for Turkish ground forces. We think this was part of a quid pro quo that Obama agreed to for the use of the strategic airbase at Incirlik.  Keep in mind, Erdogan withheld US access to Incirlik for more than a year until the US met his demand to help him topple Assad. Naturally, this is not something that Obama could acknowledge publicly, but it would have been an essential part of any agreement. An interview on PBS News Hour last week with David Kramer, the former assistant secretary of state during the George W. Bush administration, provides some support for this theory. Here’s an excerpt from the transcript:

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, David Kramer, what about that? There is the real worry if the U.S. gets involved, it gets sucked in, dragged in, and can’t get out.

DAVID KRAMER: The Turks had indicated a long time ago that they were prepared to send forces in if the United States provided cover and support. So, we should create safe zones. We should create no-fly zones. We should enforce those for any planes that would threaten people in those areas, whether they’re Syrian planes or Russian planes. We should give the Russians full notice that any violations or attacks on those zones would constitute an attack that we would have to respond to.

Nobody wants this. There are bad decisions that have to be made here, but that’s where we are right now. And I think unless we do that, we will continue to see people get killed, we will continue to see people flee Syria, so there aren’t any good solutions. We have to find the least worst options.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But my question is, isn’t that an entire new level of risk, U.S. planes get shot down, U.S. troops get potentially captured, not to mention a conflict, potential conflict with Russia, unintentional?

DAVID KRAMER: We have the Turks that have indicated a willingness to go ahead. We may have other countries, including from the Gulf, although they’re not great contributors to this kind of operation.  The United States could provide the air support, to provide the cover that way. I think there is a way of doing this without putting U.S. forces on the ground, but there aren’t any good options here.” (“Pulling the plug on rebel training, what’s next for U.S. in Syria?“, PBS News Hour)

Kramer not only sounds extremely confident that “The Turks… were prepared to send forces in if the United States provided cover and support.”  He also seems to imply that a great many Washington elites were aware of the deal but kept it under their hats.

Fortunately, Putin’s military intervention sabotaged any prospect of implementing Plan B, so we’ll never know whether Turkey would have invaded or not.

What matters now is that the Russian-led coalition move fast to solidify their gains, disrupt enemy supply lines, block the exits, seal the borders and discourage Turkey from taking any action that would expand the war. Erdogan will surely listen to reason if it is backed by force.

The jihadi mercenaries must either surrender or be wiped out as quickly as possible so that 11 million Syrians can return safely to their homes and begin the arduous task of starting over.

Iran and Russia indagate their cooperation over the Middle East regional stability and security as a strategic goal. The countries have been conducting mutual consultations over the topic since 2011. Both Iran and Russia support the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad because beleive that he can prevent the country’s dissolution.

Since the start of the Syrian war, Iran has been directly involved in it. It provides financial, media and humanitarian support to the Assad government, supplies arms and equipment. It’s widely known that special teams of the Iranian Armys Revolutionary Guard Command (IRGC) have been fighting against terrorists in Syria.

On October 10, Iranian Armys Revolutionary Guard Command Brigadier General Hossein Hamadani was killed along the Khanasser Highway in Southern Aleppo. Hamadani was reportedly responsible for recruiting and organizing for the governments offensive to lift the ISIS siege of the Kuweires Military Airport. Another Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (IRGC) commander, colonel Farshad Hasounizadeh, providing military counseling services to the Syrian governments forces was killed in Syria on October 13. Iranian media stated that Farshad Hasounizadeh was a former collonel of IRGC, but we really doubt that somebody could be a former member of IRGC.

According to the SouthFront: Analysis & Intelligence’s information, over 3000 servicemen of IRGC are taking part in the Syrian offensive in the Hama-Homs axis. Also, at least 1500-strong grouping of Hezbollah is there. These forces include modern artillery and military rocket launcher systems. Moreover, an Iranian air base has been~set in the area around the city of Hama. It has been working as an air lift transporting troops and military equipment. In future, the air base could be used by the Iranian Air Forces to conduct air strikes against terrorists in Syria.

Last Tuesday fighters of the Lebanese Hezbollah arrived in Aleppo to join the Syrian army to take part in a full-scale military operation there. The pro-government forces will start offensive there in the coming days. The Russian Air force will provide air support for the operation. We remember, Hezbollah has a longs-tanding relations with Iran, recieves funding and support from it.

Teheran denies the fact of direct military involvement, but it confirms that IRGC members fulfil at least the role of military advicers in the Syrian forces.

As Russia, Iran has advanced many initiatives to solve the Syrian conflict by the joint political decision of the main participants of the conflict including Bashar al-Assad. The main goals of them are to start joint operation against ISIS and to maintain the Syrian territorial integrity. The US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other members of the US-led coalition stand against this. Indeed, Russian and Iranian appraoches are very similar.

The very same time, Iranian elites don’t have a joint attitude over the Russian role in the Syrian crisis. Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is ctiricizing the Russian military actions as the US-led coalition’s approach. He believes there is only political decision over the conflict. IRGC-linked media are actively opposing his attitude. In general, Iran supports the Russian activity in the region, but it’s ready to protect own interests in case if they will be negatively impacted by Russia.

At the moment Iran’s assistance has a character of the diplomatic assistance and consultancy support. There are no confirmed reports that mechanisms for military collaboration between Russia and Iran at the Syrian battlespace are agreed.

Terrorists of Jabhat al-Nusra perpetrated a massacre in Teirmaal village in Homs northern countryside on Thursday.

A military source told SANA that terrorists committed their crime at 7:00 am in synchronization of the army operations in the area, adding that the act aimed at accusing the Syrian Army and the Russian air force of targeting civilians.

“The Syrian Ministry of Defense stresses that the Syrian Army and the Russian air force do not target civilian-populated areas and holds Jabhat al-Nusra and its associates full responsibility for such crimes,” the source said.

The armed terrorist groups had perpetrated a number of crimes against civilians in several areas, the purpose of many of these acts were to accuse the Syrian Army of targeting civilians. Photos and videos footages of such acts have been used repeatedly to mislead local and international public opinions.

In November 2012, terrorists committed a massacre against two families in al-Marjeh in Aleppo city, misleading media outlets distributed the footages and photos and alleged the Syrian Army was the perpetrator.

A terrorist rocket attack in Homs city leaves 3 civilians injured

In a relevant context, three civilians were injured due to a terrorist rocket attack in al-Arman neighborhood in Homs city.

Two rocket shells fired by terrorist organizations positioned in the northern countryside of Homs hit al-Arman neighborhood, a source at Homs governorate told SANA.

The attack, the source said, left 3 civilians injured and caused material damage to the citizens’ properties and the infrastructure in the site.

Victims in a terrorist explosion of a car bomb in al-Tal, Damascus countryside

Terrorists detonated a car bomb in al-Tal city in Damascus countryside on Thursday, leaving a number of victims among the civilians.

Civil sources told SANA that terrorists blew up a car bomb behind the municipality building in al-Tal city, causing several victims and injuries among the civilians.

Meanwhile, a medical source at al-Mowasa hospital told SANA that two children and a man were received in the hospital, having different injuries due to the explosion.

Mazen Eyon

Material damages in a mortar shell that fell near TV& Radio building

Terrorists fired a mortar shell that fell in the surrounding of Umayyad main square in Damascus.

A police source told SANA that a mortar shell hit the fence of the Radio and TV building without leaving any causality.

If your bubble has burst, you can hardly listen to him through to the end. And if you somehow succeed you will develop an increased awareness of his deception. And of your own disgust.

Over 4,700 words that perfectly fit the narrative that the mainstream media daily foist off on the public. Indeed MSM has failed us all countless times, and though deception was revealed, no retraction followed. Yet this man persists. Dour mug, focused eye, a measured declaring, as of one who bears upon his shoulders fathomless commitments – we had gotten used to it. Patently, there’s an impressive number of people who actually believe he does.

If the U.S. weren’t sick with Corporatism, this man wouldn’t be on that podium lying to us all. Advanced symptoms of the disease are apparent, as corporations dominate nearly every aspect of society, and government serves them as a tool to consolidate their power ever further. A Corporate State has a Corporate Government, which enacts Corporate Laws, pushes for a Corporate Economy, and then provides Corporate Jobs (aka McJobs), Corporate Education, and Corporate Healthcare to a Corporate Citizenry.

A Corporate State is a Corporation-ruled state.

In a Corporate State no one but a stooge will stand as President. No matter whether in charge is a bubba from Arkansas, a sham cowboy, a sissy black, or a warmongering harebrained bitch: a stooge bears no responsibility. However indecent or heinous he might be, as long as he’s doing his Corporate Bidding, he’ll brazenly beat the rap. The rise of dissenting voices will remain offstage; unheard, ineffective. A Corporate State holds power over the citizens through the Corporate Media apparatus, which spreads scourge by shaping opinion.

Mesmerized by News channels and distracted by status quo-supporting Hollywood paradigm, Corporate Citizenry firmly believes itself to be free and safe, while shamelessly parroting events and statements it was indoctrinated to, proudly saluting its flag, listening to and thanking the Stooge-in-Chief.

At the UN General Assembly on September 28, U.S. President Barack Obama praised the founding, 70 years ago, of the institution and its achievements, acknowledging unparalleled advances in human liberty and prosperity, diplomatic cooperation, a buttress to global economy, and the lift of a billion people from poverty. Despite many notches scored by the UN, his administration bypassed it entirely when it was time to invade Libya, and is currently doing the same in Syria, where it is bombing with no UN Security Council mandate or invitation by the duly-elected government.

In his speech, Obama called Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a tyrant who dropped barrel bombs on children, but the attacks in East Ghouta on August 2013 shortly afterwards turned out to be a false flag operation, with no shred of evidence against Syrian government forces. Indeed, it was to serve as pretext for another U.S. humanitarian invasion, but Russian warships were promptly deployed off the Syrian coast. Obama said that a terrorist group beheads captives, slaughters the innocent, and enslaves women. Those are the moderate rebels that his administration funded, the CIA trained, and its counterparts in the Mideast facilitated the rise, in order to create a strategic asset to use for regime change in Syria. Assad is fighting against them.

Obama purported to remind us how the Syrian mess began: “Assad reacted to peaceful protests by escalating repression and killing that, in turn, created the environment for the current strife.” Before 2011, Syria was the only country in the Mideast with no domestic conflicts. Assad had, and still has, the support of the overwhelming majority of the population. The Syrian fake revolution began with attacks during pro-government rallies perpetrated by armed groups against demonstrators and police – the same plot as in Libya and Ukraine. Operations were masterminded by Western Intelligence services and triggered a civil war waged by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, and Israel. The truth is Syria is the only Mediterranean country with a state oil company and the only Arab country not indebted to IMF. Here’s what created the environment for a strife.

A truly frightening thing Obama said was, “We know that ISIL depends on perpetual war to survive.” Truly scary for those whose bubble has burst indeed, since they know that after WW2 in the U.S. even Defense Industry merged with Corporatism – a Corporate Defense to profit from war.

Likewise he referred to Gaddafi, without naming him, as a tyrant. Gaddafi’s 40-year long rule turned Libya into the richest African country, which provided its citizens free healthcare, free education including University, free electricity, no interest loans, exceptional welfare state, and much more. In addition to this, Gaddafi was engaged in a project of de-dollarization in African natural resources trade, and the creation of an African bank system to free the continent from the clutches of Western corporations. A good reason to make a tyrant out of him.

Amazingly, Obama claimed the military intervention prevented a slaughter. Actually, it’s estimated that 30,000 Libyans were killed by NATO and its rebels.

Then he recalled Russia’s annexation of Crimea, pointing out Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine. Even Commander-in-Chief of theArmed Forces of Ukraine General Viktor Muzhenko stated they have no evidence of Russian troops on Ukrainian soil. French Intelligence and the OSCE observers claimed the same. German Authorities revealed that the ‘Russian invasion’ issue was an invention of U.S. mainstream media. Yet still some idiots yack about it – the Stooge-in-Chief along with them. Why does a referendum stir up plenty of bile to Obama? Were the Crimeans to use firebombs and batons, like the neo-Nazis in Kiev, to please him?

He went on to state that the U.S. has few economic interests in Ukraine. Possibly it’s unknown to him that Hunter Biden, the cocaine addict son of U.S. VP Joe Biden, is on the board of directors of a company engaged in partnership with Shell in fracking (Hydraulic Fracturing) in East Ukraine, aka Donbass? A 50-year production sharing deal between Shell and Ukraine was signed on January 2013. It’s worth $10 billion and is the largest foreign direct investment ever for Ukraine. Then, why did Senator Insane McCain and other U.S. and EU officials cheer up anti-government protesters in Kiev? By the way, none of them appealed to the mob to eschew violence. And why did Deputy Secretary of State V. Nuland discuss with U.S. Ambassador G. Pyatt who should or shouldn’t be in the next Ukrainian government? And most of all, why did puppet-president Poroshenko – a CIA insider in Ukraine since 2006 – sign the law on Ukraine’s abandonment of its non-aligned policy?

The Stooge said, “Imagine if Russia had engaged in true diplomacy.” Let’s say, ‘Imagine if Russia had deployed some hundreds bases in Mexico, Canada, and all over the Caribbean.’

He praised the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement that will open markets, while protecting the rights of workers. Of course, a deal comparable to a gift to workers is way better to be negotiated in secrecy.

He blathered on about a nation of immigrants, international law, Ebola, future generations, free media. Free media in a country where six corporations control 90% of the media – is a Corporate State! His administration has been brutal in targeting whistleblowers, guilty of leaking real information to the press. A Pentagon document, the Law of War Manual, states that journalists may be treated like ‘unprivileged belligerents’, and allows the military to detain and question them. World Press Freedom Index ranked the U.S. at 49th place, lower than several African and South American countries. Obama said, “You can jail your opponents, but you can’t imprison ideas.” He should have said, “I can detain indefinitely without trial, as well as torture, and kill whomever I please within the U.S. and abroad.”

And again, “You can try to control access to information, but you cannot turn a lie into truth.” Meanwhile his administration paid for CNN content to run propaganda. Trumped-up stories were to look like news and adverse ones were to be deleted – it was the Amber Lyon Show!

He mentioned social media, but not to say that Facebook and Google, along with U.S. spy agencies, are part of Big Brother, which intercepts all data communication of Americans and the colonized Europeans – including Merkel and Hollande.

Then, he rejected the wall to keep out migrants in Hungary – but the one built by Israelis is cool, right? According to him, for 50 years the U.S. pursued a Cuba policy that failed to improve the lives of the Cubans. Improving lives by imposing an embargo, I wonder? What an idea! Let’s say the U.S. are increasingly isolated in Latin America, losing ground in favor of Russia, and this compelled him to end hostile policies.

And again he said, “We can be patriotic without demonizing someone else.” So, were those compliments, when addressing Assad, Putin, Gaddafi? Lately, wasn’t he saying even Venezuela has turned into a threat to American security? Wasn’t a Chinese aggression undergoing in the South China Sea? After having violated the Constitution in any possible way, he dared to cite George Washington! And more minor gibberish, unsubstantiated claims likely ridiculous even to the debt-bloated penpusher who wrote that filth on his behalf.

Obama’s speech included just a couple of sentences not to be labeled as pitiful lies. It was about Iran: “The Iranian people have a proud history, and are filled with extraordinary potential. But chanting Death to America does not create jobs, or make Iran more secure.”

True. Neither do sanctions create jobs. Nor does surrounding Iran with U.S. military bases make it secure. By the way, how many jobs were created by chanting Death to Gaddafi? And has that made Libya more secure?

Iran has never owned nukes. Sanctions were imposed against them to harm a competitor rich in resources and noncompliant with a U.S.-vetted government in office, and they were lifted because circumstances were changing to its benefit: with or without their removal, Russia, China, and even the EU were to re-engage Iran.

Drawing to a close, Obama found a way to insert a veiled threat: “Catastrophes, like what we are seeing in Syria, do not take place in countries where there is genuine democracy and respect for the universal values this institution is supposed to defend.”

It means any country whose government from the Western point of view is not deemed democratic, aka neoliberal/pro-U.S., runs the risk of facing violent uprisings and a raise of terrorist formations aiming at overthrowing the government in office. It’s the export of colored revolutions, a destabilize/invade/plunder program sponsored by the U.S. State Department.

By the end of a self-complacent, damning, lengthy performance, the message handed over was: all in all, the Good Guys have done a good job, and American exceptionalism is here to stay.

‘We can no longer tolerate the current state of affairs in the world.’

About half an hour had passed when these words bashed that very audience in a fraught silence. Russian President Vladimir Putin put matters straight in 23 minutes and nailed whomever it may concern to their responsibilities without having to mention them once.

Policies perpetrated by a sole center of dominance, based on conviction in its exceptionalism and impunity, may lead to the collapse of international relations, and give rise to a world ruled by selfishness rather than collective effort, by dictate rather than equality and liberty, with protectorates controlled from outside rather than independent states.

No nation should be forced to conform to a single development model that somebody has declared the right one. Still, some prefer to export so-called “democratic” revolutions. In the Mideast and North Africa, the unleashed violence has destroyed government institutions and local lifestyle, bringing about poverty, social disaster, and total disregard for human rights, including the right to life.

‘I’m urged to ask those who created this situation: do you at least realize now what you’ve done?’

Vacuums of power resulted in the emergence of areas of anarchy, quickly filled with extremists and terrorists. Members of the so-called ‘moderate’ Syrian opposition get arms and training by the West, then defect to the Islamic State, which does not come from nowhere, for it was initially developed as a weapon against undesirable secular regimes. It’s hypocritical and irresponsible to warn against the threat of terrorism and then turn a blind eye to its funding channels.

Stop playing games with terrorists to achieve political goals. Create a broad anti-terrorism coalition based on UN Charter. Fix the Mideast to fix the refugee crisis. Restore statehood in Libya, strengthen government institutions in Iraq, provide comprehensive assistance to the legitimate government of Syria – President Assad’s troops along with Kurdish militia are the only forces truly fighting terrorists in Syria. Any assistance to sovereign nations is to be offered rather than imposed, in strict compliance with the UN Charter.

It’s been NATO expansionism to Post-Soviet countries to spark off a major geo-political crisis in Ukraine. Sole way out of the dead end is full implementation of the Minsk agreement. No integrity can be ensured by threats or military force, and the rights and choices of Donbass citizens must be respected.

Unilaterally imposed sanctions circumventing the UN Charter serve political objectives and aim to eliminate market competition.

Trade rules are to be discussed within the framework of the United Nations, the WTO, and the G20, not rewritten behind closed doors to accommodate the interests of a privileged few.

Once the speech was over, it was clear who was in charge.

While Obama delivered the crude, deceptive propaganda to the assembly, Putin presented a stark foreign policy agenda, and eventually stood up as the man to take over and put an end to chaos. Putin has faced terrorism all his political career long. He fixed Dagestan. He fixed Chechnya. He fixed South-Ossetia. He’s got skills to fix Syria and Iraq as well.

When he rose to power, Russia was falling apart after the disastrous policies of the soaked-puppet Yeltsin, with no real budget, rampant inflation, low foreign exchange reserve, high crime rate and unemployment, public asset looted by foreign companies and crook oligarchs, and deeply indebted. Fifteen years after, Putin has re-built the country into a superpower reasserting its stance on the global political chessboard, leading major trade partnerships and an impressive military. This makes him a true Statesman.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/28/remarks-president-obama-united-nations-general-assembly

http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/50385

Israel may always be seen as a ruthless pariah state after over 15 years of Sharon, Olmert, Netanyahu rule, each responsible for mass-murdering Palestinians unaccountably.

Their resistance against injustice is heroic – challenging nearly 7 decades of vicious persecution, victimized by endless Nakba, Israeli state terror against their right to exist.

Netanyahu ordered the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem militarized, Abbas-deployed Palestinian security forces complicit with his ongoing reign of terror.

His pathetic Wednesday night address the latest example of his longstanding duplicity – saying one thing, doing something entirely different, showing again he’s a stooge for Israeli ruthlessness, a shameless illegitimate leader with no credibility whatever.

Most Palestinians despise him for good reason – a deplorable Judas, serving solely as Israel’s enforcer against his own people, complicit with their ruthless persecution, including ongoing Netanyahu-ordered state terror.

Fascist Israeli officials want Jews arming themselves with guns. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon lied saying “(w)e are in the midst of a wave of terrorism in which civilians have become the front, and there is supreme importance for the public to be ready and aware.”

When an incident takes place, the terrorists are shot dead, and our people aren’t. That’s what’s important.

Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan said “(c)ivilians who shoot terrorists are heroes.” Education Minister Naftali Bennett calls courageous Palestinian resistance “cowardly Arab terrorism.” He urged Jews with guns to “eliminate the enemy.”

Zionist Union MK/former foreign minister Tzipi Livni called radicalized settlers brutalizing Palestinians unaccountably and security forces murdering them “the real heroes of the last few days…”

MK Yinon Magal twittered “it is important to make an effort so that terrorists who carry out attacks are not left alive…Whoever is trying to kill us should be taken out.”

Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog sounds like Netanyahu on steroids, calling him a “weak leader,” urging escalated state terror, wanting the entire West Bank placed on lockdown, saying “(w)e are facing a surge of dangerous terrorism, and we…know how to overcome it” – code language for encouraging mass murder and extreme brutality, targeting an entire population.

Netanyahu, Herzog and most Knesset members advocate no-holds-barred ruthlessness against defenseless Palestinians, blaming them for Israeli high crimes – the last refuge for fascist thugs running Israel.

Palestinians are being murdered in cold blood, extrajudicially executed. An eyewitness saw nonthreatening Ahmad Abu-Shaaban lethally shot 10 times by Israeli police after radicalized settlers called him “a terrorist,” shouting “shoot him.”

He was falsely accused of a stabbing attempt. He did absolutely nothing, murdered by Israeli racism, numerous other Palestinians victimized the same way, most accused of crimes they didn’t commit.

Eyewitness testimonies and video evidence reveal Israeli criminality – out-of-control viciousness. Riyyad Dar Youssef suffered a fatal heart attack after soldiers brutally assaulted him. He threatened no one.

Since October 1, Israel murdered 33 Palestinians, including 8 children and a pregnant woman. On October 14, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) headlined “Videos and Photos Showing Israeli Violations Against Palestinian Civilians,” saying:

Social media publishes videos and photos about the atrocities and crimes committed by Israeli forces, police officers and settlers against the Palestinian civilians. These incidents have increased lately following the ongoing escalation in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) along with shooting incidents and employment of excessive lethal force in confronting protests.

In some cases, Israeli forces claim that shootings or other practices were carried out in response to the Palestinians’ attempts to stab Israelis. However, the videos and photos showing the employment of excessive force reflect shooting-to-kill policy in violation of the international standards.

Adding insult to ongoing state terror, Israel’s security cabinet approved a measure to withhold bodies of assassinated Palestinians.

They won’t be returned to family members, instead buried in undisclosed locations. Numbers of extrajudicially executed Palestinians increase daily. Ongoing Nakba continues.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at[email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

 

Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin, a little more than a year ago, in July 2014 were the focus of attention in Europe and North America, accused, without a shred of forensic evidence, of shooting down an unarmed civilian Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine. The Russians were deemed out to restore the Soviet Union with their agreement to the popular referendum of Crimean citizens to annex into the Russian Federation and not Ukraine.

Western sanctions were being thrown at Russia by both Washington and the EU. People spoke of a new Cold War. Today the picture is changing, and profoundly. It is Washington that is on the defensive, exposed for the criminal actions it has been doing in Syria and across the Middle East, including creating the recent asylum crisis in Germany and large parts of the EU.

As a student of international politics and economics for most of my adult life, I must say the emotional restraint that Vladimir Putin and the Russian government have shown against tasteless ad hominem attacks, from people such as Hillary Clinton who likened Putin to Adolf Hitler, is remarkable. But more than restraint is required to bring our world from the brink or some might say, the onset of a World War III. Brilliant and directed action is essential. Here something extraordinary has taken place in the very few days since President Vladimir Putin’s September 28, UNGA speech in New York.

What he said…

What Putin said to the UN General Assembly must be noted to put what he and Russia did in the days immediately following into clear focus. First of all he made clear what the international law behind the UN Charter means and that Russia is scrupulously abiding by the Charter in actions in Syria. Russia, unlike the US, has been formally asked by the legitimate Syrian government to aid its war against terror.

To the UN delegates and heads of state Putin stated,

The decisions debated within the UN are either taken in the form of resolutions or not. As diplomats say, they either pass or they don’t. Any action taken by circumventing this procedure is illegitimate and constitutes a violation of the UN Charter and contemporary international law.

He continued,

We all know that after the end of the Cold War the world was left with one center of dominance, and those who found themselves at the top of the pyramid were tempted to think that, since they are so powerful and exceptional, they know best what needs to be done and thus they don’t need to reckon with the UN, which, instead of rubber-stamping the decisions they need, often stands in their way.”

Putin followed this with a clear message to Washington and NATO governments on the subject of national sovereignty, something anathema to many who embrace the Nirvana supposed to come from globalization, homogenization of all to one level: “What is the meaning of state sovereignty, the term which has been mentioned by our colleagues here?” Putin rhetorically asked. “It basically means freedom, every person and every state being free to choose their future. By the way, this brings us to the issue of the so-called legitimacy of state authorities. You shouldn’t play with words and manipulate them. In international law, international affairs, every term has to be clearly defined, transparent and interpreted the same way by one and all.

Putin added,

We are all different, and we should respect that. Nations shouldn’t be forced to all conform to the same development model that somebody has declared the only appropriate one. We should all remember the lessons of the past. For example, we remember examples from our Soviet past, when the Soviet Union exported social experiments, pushing for changes in other countries for ideological reasons, and this often led to tragic consequences and caused degradation instead of progress. 

Those few words succinctly point to what is fundamentally wrong in the international order today. Nations, above all the one proclaiming herself Sole Superpower, Infallible Hegemon, the USA, have arrogantly moved after the collapse of the main adversary, the Soviet Union in 1990, to create what can only be called a global totalitarian empire, what G.H.W. Bush in his September 11, 1991 address to Congress called a New World Order. I believe with conviction that borders do matter, that respect for different cultures, different historical experiences is essential in a world of peace. That is as much true with nations as with individual human beings. We seem to have forgotten that simple notion amid all the wars of the past decades. Vladimir Putin reminds us.

Then the Russian president goes to the heart of the matter. He lays bare the true activities of the Obama Administration in Syria and the Middle East in arming and training “moderate” Islamist terrorists to attack Washington’s bête noire, Syria’s duly-elected and recently re-elected President, Bashar al Assad.

Putin states, “instead of learning from other people’s mistakes, some prefer to repeat them and continue to export revolutions, only now these are “democratic” revolutions. Just look at the situation in the Middle East and Northern Africa…problems have been piling up for a long time in this region, and people there wanted change. But what was the actual outcome? Instead of bringing about reforms, aggressive intervention rashly destroyed government institutions and the local way of life. Instead of democracy and progress, there is now violence, poverty, social disasters and total disregard for human rights, including even the right to life.”

Then in a remark addressed to Washington and their NGO Color Revolutions known as the Arab Spring, Putin pointedly asks,“I’m urged to ask those who created this situation: do you at least realize now what you’ve done?“

Putin, without naming it, addresses the US and NATO role in creating ISIS, noting with precision the curious anomaly that the sophisticated new US Treasury unit to conduct financial sanctions against terrorist organizations, has utterly ignored the funding sources of ISIS, their oil sales facilitated by the Turkish President’s own family to name just one. The Russian President stated, “…the Islamic State itself did not come out of nowhere. It was initially developed as a weapon against undesirable secular regimes. Having established control over parts of Syria and Iraq, Islamic State now aggressively expands into other regions. It seeks dominance in the Muslim world and beyond…The situation is extremely dangerous. In these circumstances, it is hypocritical and irresponsible to make declarations about the threat of terrorism and at the same time turn a blind eye to the channels used to finance and support terrorists, including revenues from drug trafficking, the illegal oil trade and the arms trade.

And what Putin is doing…

Russia in the last weeks has completely out-maneuvered the diabolical, and they are diabolical, agenda of the Obama Administration not only in Syria but also in the entire Middle East and now in the EU with unleashing the flood of refugees. He openly reached out to invite Obama in their New York September 30 meeting to cooperate together in defeating ISIS. Obama stubbornly insisted that first Assad must go, despite the fact that Christine Wormuth, the Pentagon Undersecretary responsible for the Syrian war, confirmed Russian statements about Assad’s essential role today in any defeat of ISIS. She told the US Senate that Assad’s military “still has considerable strength,” adding, “it’s still the most powerful military force on the ground. The assessment right now is the regime is not in imminent danger of falling.”

Now come the howls of protest from neo-con warhawks, like the ever-ready-for-war Senator John McCain, chairman of the NGO International Republican Institute of the democratic revolution exporting US-backed NGO, National Endowment for Democracy. Or we hear flaccid protests from President Obama. This is because Washington finds itself deeply exposed to the light of world scrutiny for backing terrorists in Syria against a duly-elected state leader and government. The US warhawks accuse Russia of hitting “the moderate opposition” or civilians.

Emperor’s New Clothes

Russia’s Putin is playing the role ever so elegantly, even gracefully, of the small boy in the Hans Christian Anderson classic fairy tale from 1837, The Emperor’s New Clothes. The boy stands with his mother amid thousands of other villagers in the crowd outside the vain Emperor’s palace balcony, where the disassociated king struts around the balcony naked, thinking he is wearing a magnificent new suit of clothes. The boy shouts, to the embarrassment of all servile citizens who pretend his clothes are magnificent, “Mother, look the Emperor has no clothes!”

What do I mean? In the first four days of precision bombing of select sites in Syria Russian advanced fighter jets firing Kh-29L air-to-surface laser-guided missiles that strike targets with a precision less than two meters, managed to destroy key ISIS command centers, munitions depots and vital infrastructure. According to the Russian Defense Ministry official reports, with photos, Su-34 bombers attacked an ISIS special training camp and munition depot near Al-Tabqa, Ar-Raqqah province,” a critical ISIS outpost captured in August, 2014 after bitter battles. “As a result of explosion of the munition depot, the terrorist training camp was completely destroyed,” the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman stated. Russian Su-25 jets have also attacked training camp of the Islamic State in the Syrian Idlib, destroying a workshop for explosive belt production.

Moscow states its air force has “engaged 3 munition, fuel and armament depots of the illegal armed groups. KAB-500 aviation bombs detonated the munition and armament,” and they used BETAB-500 concrete-piercing bombs to destroy four command posts of the ISIS armed groups. The facilities with terrorists are completely destroyed,” the Moscow spokesman added. Russia’s aviation conducted 20 flights and carried out 10 airstrikes against facilities of the Islamic State (ISIL) terrorist group in the past 24 hours. Then Moscow announced they had also hit key outposts of other terror groups such as the Al Qaeda-franchise, Al Nusra Front.

These are the so-called “moderates” that McCain and the Washington warhawks are weeping over. Washington has been creating what it calls the “New” Syrian Forces (NSF), which they claim is composed of “moderate” terrorists, euphemistically referred to as “rebels.” Imagine how recruitment talks go: CIA recruiter, “Mohammed, are you a moderate Islamist? Why yes, my dear CIA trainer. Please take me, train me and arm me in the fight against the ruthless dictator Assad and against ISIS. I’m on your side. You can trust me…”

In late September it was reported that Major Anas Obaid a.k.a. Abu Zayd, on completing his CIA training in Turkey, defected from the train-and-equip program to join Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Qaeda in Syria) immediately on entering Syria. Incredibly, US officials admit that Washington does not track or exercise command-and-control of its Jihadist proxies once they enter Syria. Abu Zayd’s defection after being trained in advanced warfare techniques by the US, is typical. Other elements of the New Syrian Forces directly handed all their weapons to Nusra upon entering Syrian territory at the town of Atareb at the end of September.

These latest “moderate” defections to join Al Qaeda’s Al-Nusra Front affiliate in Syria come less than two weeks after Gen. Lloyd Austin III, head of the US “war against ISIS,” during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Syria, admitted that the US military program that intended produce 5,400 trained fighters a year has so far only resulted in “four or five” who still remain on the ground and active in combat. The rest have all joined ISIS or Al Nusra Front of Al Qaeda, the US-backed “moderate opposition” to ISIL.

What the successful Russian precision airstrikes have done is expose in all its ugly nakedness the Emperor’s New Clothes. For more than one year, the Obama Administration claims it has committed the most awesome airpower on the planet allegedly to destroy ISIS, which has been described as a “ragtag band of militants running around the desert in basketball shoes.”

Curiously, until last week, ISIS has only expanded its web of power in Syria and Iraq under US bombings. Now, within 72 hours, the Russian military, launching only 60 bombing runs in 72 hours, hitting more than 50 ISIS targets, has brought the ISIS combatants into what the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman described as a state of “panic” where more than 600 have deserted. And, according to Moscow, the fight is only beginning, expected, they say to last three to four months.

The Obama Administration has been training terrorists of Al Qaeda/Al Nusra, allegedly to fight ISIS, much like the disgraced General David Petraeus did in Iraq and Afghanistan along with Obama’s special ISIS coordinator, the just-resigned General John Allen. The US-trained “moderate” terrorists were being readied, it’s now clear to all the world, in reality, to battle Assad and open the way for a Muslim Brotherhood takeover of Syria and a real plunge into darkness for the world if that were to succeed.

Now, with the truth in the open, exposed by the remarkable successes of a handful of Russian fighter jets in four days against ISIS, accomplishing more than the US “anti-ISIS coalition” in more than one year, it is clear to the world Washington has been playing a dirty double game.

Now that the hypocritical Obama Administration mask has been blown off with the precision hit of a Russian laser-guided Kh-29L missile. As German and other EU governments have admitted, much to the strong objection of Washington, Putin has demonstrated that Russia is the essential part of any peaceful resolution of the Syria war. That in turn has a huge bearing on the current asylum-seeker crisis in Germany and other parts of the EU. It also has a huge bearing on prospects for world peace. The Norwegian Parliament’s Nobel Peace Prize Committee, rather than consider John Kerry, might consider Vladimir Putin and Russian Defense Minister, Sergey Shoygu, for the prize.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

This article was first published in 2012

Back in 1992 the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff held a “Strategy Essay Competition.”

The winner was a National War College student paper entitled, “The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012.” Authored by Colonel Charles J. Dunlap, Jr. the paper is a well documented, “darkly imagined excursion into the future.”

The ostensibly fictional work is written from the perspective of an imprisoned senior military officer about to be executed for opposing the military takeover of America, a coup accomplished through “legal” means. The essay makes the point that the coup was “the outgrowth of trends visible as far back as 1992,” including “the massive diversion of military forces to civilian uses,” particularly law enforcement.

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/Parameters/Articles/1992/1992%20dunlap.pdf

Dunlap cites what he considered a dangerous precedent, the 1981 Military Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies Act, an act that sanctioned US military engagement with law enforcement in domestic “support operations,” including “civil disturbance” operations. The act codified the lawful status and use of military “assets” in domestic police work. 

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/subtitle-A/part-I/chapter-18

Encroachment upon Basic Freedoms

Since that time the American people have been subject to a series of deeper and deeper encroachments upon our basic freedoms, increasingly extensive deployment of military operations on the home front, perpetrated by a corporate driven military mission creep that now claims the right and duty to arrest and detain us on the word of a Pentagon or White House operative. President Obama’s signing of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) whose Section 1021 sanctions the military detention of American citizens without charge, essentially aims to put the last nail in the coffin of our Constitution, our teetering Republic and our most basic democratic traditions.

The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration (“you can trust me”) would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations. The White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA, but reversed course (of course) shortly before Congress voted on the final bill, which the President signed on the 31st of December 2011, a day that will go down in infamy.

“President Obama’s action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.” According to Senator Dianne Feinstein. “Congress is essentially authorizing the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge,” she said. “We are not a nation that locks up its citizens without charge.” Think again. (Guardian, 12/14/11)

Under the legislation, suspects can be held without trial  “until the end of hostilities.” They will have the right to appear once a year before a committee that will decide if the detention will continue. A spokesperson for Human Rights Watch implied that the signing of such a bill by a President would have once been unthinkable, noting that “the paradigm of the war on terror has advanced so far in people’s minds that this has to appear more normal than it actually is.” Further, “it wasn’t asked for by any of the agencies on the frontlines in the fight against terrorism in the United States. It breaks with over 200 years of tradition in America against using the military in domestic affairs.”

In fact, the heads of several “security agencies,” including the FBI, CIA, the director of national intelligence and the attorney general objected to the legislation. Even some within the Pentagon itself said they were against the bill. No matter, and no matter the intention inherent in lip service opposition, the corporate elite who drive the disastrous and inhumane polices of this country see it otherwise, and they, not the generals or anyone else, call the shots!

And they’ve been at this for some time. A persistent and on-gong counter-insurgency directed against the American people, the detention provisions embedded in the NDAA are about more than “social control.” It amounts to a direct attack on the person, an “unreasonable search and seizure” in the cause of maintaining the shaky capitalist ship of state; suppressing popular resistance, dissent and protest, movements of peace and justice, recast as “civil disorder,” “civil disturbance” and “domestic terror.”

Current U.S. military preparations for suppressing “civil disturbance” and “domestic terrorism” including the training of National Guard troops, local police and the authorization of massive surveillance, are part of a long history of American “internal security” measures dating back to the first American Revolution. Generally, these measures have sought to thwart the aims of social justice movements, embodying the concept, promulgated by elite sectors intent on maintaining their grip on the levers of state; that within the civilian body politic lurks an enemy that one day the military might have to fight; or at least be ordered to fight. (See: Army Surveillance in America, 1775-1980, Joan M. Jensen, Yale University Press, 1991)

Thus, in reaction to a period of social upsurge flush with movements of liberation, justice and peace, and the mounting of powerful campaigns which threatened the status quo and elite control, the US military’s stand alone apparatus for conducting “civil disturbance suppression” operations, including detention, was born, immediately on the heels of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968.

The Garden Plot Operation

US Military Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, code-named Operation Garden Plot, follows, as was mentioned, in the footsteps of a long tradition of US military involvement in the suppression of dissent. Intriguingly, the Garden Plot operation is cited in documents related to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. (See: Orders to Kill: The Truth Behind the Murder of Martin Luther King, William Pepper, Carroll and Graf, 1995)

http://www.dod.gov/pubs/foi/operation_and_plans/Other/GARDEN_PLOT_DoD_Civil_DisturbancePlan.pdf

http://www.911truth.org/osamas/morales.html

Currently, the Garden Plot operation is centered at the Pentagon’s Northern Command (USNORTHCOM). “Stood up” in 2002, (though In the works prior to 9/11), NORTHCOM, America’s “domestic military command,” is tasked with various “counter-terror,” “homeland defense” and “homeland security” activities, including “civil disturbance suppression” operations, and “assisting law enforcement” within Canada, the United States and Mexico. http://www.northcom.mil/

Under NORTHCOM, Operation Garden Plot functions, with the US Army as “executive agent,” as “ConPlan 2502.” In two parts, the “con plan” is officially listed as: United States Northern Command, Concept Plan (CONPLAN) 3501 (formerly 2501), Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA), dated 11 April 2006; and the United States Northern Command, Concept Plan 3502 (formerly 2502), Defense Support of Civil Authorities for Civil Disturbance Operations (CDO), 23 January 2007.

As noted above, the latest development in the Pentagon’s evolving mission of suppressing, at the behest of it’s corporate “civilian” overseers, a detention provision, is buried within the massive National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012 signed by President Obama in the fog (grog) of this past New Years Eve.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1540enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr1540enr.pdf

NDAA 2012

Section 1021 of the NDAA 2012 seemingly allows (the language is evasive) for the detention (without trial or charges) of American citizens redefined by the “executive” elite as “enemy combatants” in the so-called “war on terror, ” a “war” which has become in the eyes of many, a war against the Constitution and civil liberties, a war against the disenchanted, fed-up and dissenting American public, spearheaded by a militarized police state allied to imperial military courts and “tribunals,” buttressed and rationalized with mind-bending mil-speak of “enemy combatants,” “unlawful combatants,” “enemy belligerents,” “homeland battlefield” “domestic extremists” “domestic terrorists” and the like.

And yet, behind all the sophistry, lies and manipulation, the brutal truth is obvious: The corporate elite that directs things has seen fit to unleash it’s military on it’s own people in a desperate attempt to suppress the democratic (read: protest) rights of it’s citizenry, us! Why? Simple: the paranoia of the thief, the well founded fear that knows that forced deprivation and scarcities, violence at home and abroad, rooted in greed, has run it’s course in America. And they are right! And so, it makes ominous sense that we are confronted with the horrific machinations of forced detention for those who resist a “new world order” come home in a “homeland” which opportunistically collapses all distinction between dissent and terrorism, police and military, right and wrong, obfuscating the truth of who the real terrorists are!

When Congress passed the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), it included provisions that authorized U.S. armed forces to detain persons who are captured in the conflict with al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or “associated forces.”

Section 1021 entitled “AFFIRMATION OF AUTHORITY OF THE ARMED FORCES OF THE UNITED STATES TO DETAIN COVERED PERSONS PURSUANT TO THE AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF MILITARY FORCE” allows for the President (whoever that may be) “to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force … to detain covered persons …pending disposition under the law of war.”

“A covered person,” according to the edict’s malleable lingo, is “any person … who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks …” or, who “was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban,” or “associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.”

Accordingly, “the disposition of a person under the law of war” will include “detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities …” Now, by stating that “nothing in this section is intended to limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force,” and that “nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States,” it would appear that the law exempts American citizens from the threat of detention. Correct?

Detention is a Booming Industry

Don’t be too confident. Detention is a booming industry. In 2006 the Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International reported that Halliburton off-spring, “global engineering and technical services powerhouse KBR [Kellogg, Brown & Root] announced in January 2006 that its Government and Infrastructure division was awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in the event of an emergency.” The $385 million dollars over 5 year contract “is to be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers” building “temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.” Could the 2012 NDAA / Section 1021 be such a “new program?”

There has been some confusion over what Section 1021 actually means, and that in and of itself is cause for concern. Congressional spokespeople have stated that the provisions of NDAA 2012 / Sec 1021 do not provide any “new authority” to detain U.S. citizens or others who may be captured in the United States. Obama waffled likewise in the lead up to his signing the provision. Sen. Carl Levin, chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, ho-hummed and said that, “we are simply codifying existing law.” But that was an evasion, since existing law, like it or not, regarding the detention of U.S. persons in the “war on terror” is indeterminate in important respects. And “indeterminate” is not good enough!

A recent report from the Congressional Research Service fleshes out the law of detention as set forth in Section 1021, identifying what is known to be true as well as what is unsettled and unresolved. It is perfectly clear, for example, that a U.S. citizen who fights alongside “enemy forces” against the United States on a foreign battlefield could be lawfully detained. This was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Hamdi v. Rumsfeld.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42337.pdf

On the other hand, the CRS report explains, “the President’s legal authority to militarily detain terrorist suspects apprehended in the United States has not been definitively settled.” Nor has Congress helped to settle it. “This bill does not endorse either side’s interpretation,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, “but leaves it to the courts to decide.”

So, if a detention of a U.S. person does occur, the CRS said, “it will be up to a court to determine Congress’s intent when it enacted the AUMF [the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force], or alternatively, to decide whether the law as it was subsequently developed by the courts and executive branch sufficiently established that authority for such detention already exists.”

Up to now, “lower courts that have addressed questions the Supreme Court left unanswered have not achieved a consensus on the extent to which Congress has authorized the detention without trial of U.S. persons as ‘enemy combatants,’ and Congress has not so far clarified its intent.”

Well, it is certainly reassuring that a New York court has sought to clarify it’s intent on the matter. On May 16, 2012 a newly appointed federal district judge, Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York, issued a ruling, hailed by many, which preliminarily enjoins (prohibits) enforcement of the indefinite detention provisions (Sec 1021) of the NDAA 2012.

http://sdnyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/12-Civ.-00331-2012.05.16-Opinion-Granting-PI.pdf

The “temporary restraining order” came as a result of a lawsuit brought by seven dissident plaintiffs — including Chris Hedges, Dan Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, and Birgitta Jonsdottir — alleging that the NDAA violated both their free speech and associational rights guaranteed by the First Amendment as well as due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution. “The government was unwilling or unable to state that these plaintiffs would not be subject to indefinite detention under [Section] 1021,” Judge Forrest said in her ruling. “Plaintiffs are therefore at risk of detention, of losing their liberty, potentially for many years.”

Where it will go from here is anybodies guess. Judge Forrest’s ruling was not permanent. A day after the ruling, the Wall Street Journal, for it’s part, offered it’s sour grapes, pontificating that the ruling “will be overturned on appeal,” while “its reasoning needs to be deconstructed so it doesn’t do more harm in the meantime.” A week later, on the 25th, federal prosecutors from Obama’s Department of Justice, calling Judge Forrest’s ruling “extraordinary,” suggested that she lift the injunction, claiming further that her ruling only effects those plaintiffs named and not other potential or future targets of the draconian legislation.

http://sdnyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/12-Civ.-00331-2012.05.25-Govt-Motion-for-Reconsideration.pdf

Well, a few days ago on June 6th the upright Judge Forrest responded with an 8 page, “memorandum and opinion” in which she sought to “eliminate any doubt as to the May 16 order’s scope.” (New York Times, “Detention Provision is Blocked” 6/7/12). And as to whom and for whom her original order was intended: “The May 16th order enjoined enforcement of Section 1021(b)(2) against anyone until further action by this, or a higher, court – or by Congress.” That’s clear enough!

So, as it stands now now, although Judge Forrest’s decision may temporarily protect Americans from provision 1021, it remains to be seen what the higher courts do should Obama’s people appeal. And unfortunately, Judge Forrest’s ruling, as praiseworthy as it is, does nothing to spare both foreign reporters and civilians from a life of imprisonment, let alone the more than 6 billion citizens of foreign nations who can still be handcuffed and hauled away to a US military prison without ever being brought to trial.

So, bottom line, given the indeterminate nature of a law that would snatch us up off the streets, throw away the key, and grant us little or no access to a trial let alone legal counsel of choice not vetted by the Pentagon, we should have no illusions that we are well along the slippery indeterminate slope to a full blown militarized police state; the complete identification, coordination and consolidation of the police and military function in America in the interests of an elite who regard us as the enemy, maybe even their property! Maybe even as targets for assassination!

Naked violation of the 4th and 5th Amendments to the US Constitution

We should recall, that the current attempt by the executive to designate American citizens for detention without trial; a naked violation of the 4th and 5th Amendments to the US Constitution against unreasonable search and seizure and the guarantee of a trial, was preceded by the administration’s “resolve” to assassinate at will Americans abroad, place them on a “kill list,” and eliminate them. According to the New York Times “Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will,” (5/29/12) the President and his advisors have made it clear that they have the authority “to order the targeted killing of an American citizen, in a country with which the United States was not at war, in secret and without the benefit of a trial.”

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel rationalized such a move in “a lengthy memo justifying that extraordinary step, asserting that while the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process applied, it could be satisfied by internal deliberations in the executive branch.” (New York Times, “Secret U.S. Memo Made Legal Case to Kill a Citizen,” 10/8/11) Accordingly, after a dubious period of “internal deliberations,” Mr. Obama gave his approval, and the cleric Anwar al-Awlak was assassinated in September 2011, along with an associate Samir Khan, an American citizen who was not on the target list but happened to be traveling with Mr. al-Awlak. Apparently, campaign rhetoric and public demeanor to the contrary, when asked what surprised him most about Mr. Obama, Mr. Donilon, the national security adviser, answered immediately: “He’s a president who is quite comfortable with the use of force on behalf of the United States.”

The Posse Comitatus Act

How did we get here? We need to recognize that the “massive diversion of military resources” into domestic law enforcement for the purposes of suppressing dissent and worse has a long history, a history that has witnessed the steady evisceration of the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, the sole federal statute that criminalizes military incursions into the domain of domestic law enforcement. The Act is the backbone of our democratic republican tradition of separating the military and police function in this country and represents the ultimate bulwark against military dictatorship in the interests of the rich. That is the reason it is and continues to be attacked, ridiculed and ignored by elements in both the corporate and military spheres. For example, “Current Obstacles to Fully Preparing Title 10 Forces for Homeland Defense and Civil Support” by Commander James S. Campbell, United States Navy, May 2008 and, “The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Law Enforcement Title” by COL (Ret) John R. Brinkerhoff, December 2004, both seek to delegitimize and undercut the status and importance of the Act, a law so critical to the maintenance of our freedoms, and yet, a law about which most Americans remain unaware.

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA487235

http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/call/docs/10-16/ch_11.asp

The 1878 Act, 18 USC § 1385 – USE OF ARMY AND AIR FORCE AS POSSE COMITATUS, more popularly known as The Posse Comitatus Act, reads as follows:

“Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, wilfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a Posse Comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”

As noted, the 1981 Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement law would seemingly violate the spirit if not the letter of this Act. Nonetheless, like a slowly boiling pot relentlessly eating away at our freedom of movement, assembly, association and expression, the utilization of military assets, under cover of law enforcement to suppress our democratic rights has proceeded steadily by design, virtually un-noticed.

Historical milestones: eating away at our freedom of movement, assembly, association and expression

A very limited listing of some historical milestones:

* In 1968, as mentioned above, concurrent with the creation of the Federal Commission on Civil Disorder, better known as the Kerner Commission, the Pentagon hatched it’s very own “civil disorder” operation. “US Military Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2,” code named “Garden Plot,” coordinates, until this day, all aspects of “civil disturbance suppression” in America, including the use of so-called “non-lethal weapons” during conveniently designated domestic “operations other than war” (OOTW), and “military operations in urban terrain” (MOUT), a “war” which pits “non-combatant” citizens and protesters (overwhelmingly non-violent) against militarized police on the streets of America.

* Only a few months after the round up and detention of 7,000 anti-war protesters in Washington DC, imprisoned in RFK stadium, an early Garden Plot operation, the 1971 Non-Detention Act was passed, specifically to repeal portions of the 1950 “anti-communist” “Emergency Detention Act” which had allowed for detention of suspected subversives without the normal Constitutional checks required for imprisonment. The Non-Detention Act required specific Congressional authorization for such detention. It reads that, “no citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an Act of Congress.” In recent years, the statute has been used to challenge military detainment of U.S. citizens accused of terrorist activity, as in the case of Jose Padilla.

http://www.jenner.com/system/assets/assets/5417/original/18.pdf?1321652398

A Congressional Research Service report on the history of the Non-Detention Act noted that, “legislative debate, committee reports, and the political context of 1971 indicate that when Congress enacted Section 4001(a) it intended the statutory language to restrict all detentions by the executive branch, not merely those by the Attorney General.” Further, “lawmakers, both supporters and opponents of Section 4001(a), recognized that it would restrict the President and military authorities.”

As for the Padilla case, the Supreme Court of the United States originally took the 2004 case of Rumsfeld v. Padilla to decide the question of whether Congress’s Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) authorized the President to detain a U.S. citizen, which would run afoul of the Non Detention Act. But it did not give an answer, instead ruling that the case had been “improperly filed.” And so the issue, as to whether and under what circumstances the military can pick you up, detain and imprison you, without charging you, from the point of view the Supreme Court, remains “unsettled.”

* Also in 1971, the California Specialized Training Institute (CSTI) was created. Headed up by Louis Giuffrida, formerly of Army Combat Command, the first director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), CSTI introduced the Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) concept, offering courses on “civil disorder management” for select “militarized” police and National Guard units armed and trained for domestic operations in the urban centers of America. During this period the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) facilitated federal funding and other military largess to the burgeoning militarized sectors of the domestic police forces along with training of selected National Guard units. Still in operation, CSTI is currently headed up by William J. Hatch Colonel, USA (RET), while funding for militarizing local police departments these days is facilitated by the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA, funding which has increased drastically since 9/11.

http://americaswarwithin.org/articles/2011/12/21/local-police-stockpile-high-tech-combat-ready-gear

* In 1975 the Trilateral Commission, a Western European, Japanese, US corporate think-tank convened by David Rockefeller, issued a report entitled, “The Crisis of Democracy.” (NYU Press, 1975) Authored by none other than Samuel  Huntington. (“Clash of Civilizations”). Huntington’s book is a blueprint for the on-going counter-revolution in America, emphasizing the elite requirement of suppressing democratic “insurgency,” the “distemper” of the 60s, a “distemper” that according to Huntington, stemmed from an “excess of democracy.” The only and final solution therefore is to “moderate” and “shrink democracy,” concluding that, “there are potentially desirable limits to the indefinite extension of political democracy.”

http://www.wrijneveld.nl/Boekenplank/BoekenVanAanhangersVanDeNieuweWereldOrde/1975-TC-The-Crisis-of-Democracy.pdf

* In 1983, the US Army published Field Manual 3-19-15, Civil Disturbance Operations (since updated in 2005). The manual addresses civil disturbance operations in both continental United States (CONUS) and outside continental United States (OCONUS). It states that, “today, United States (US) forces are deployed on peacekeeping, peace enforcement, and humanitarian assistance operations worldwide. During these operations, US forces are often faced with unruly and violent crowds intent on disrupting peace and the ability of US forces to maintain peace. Worldwide instability coupled with increasing US military participation in peacekeeping and related operations requires that US forces have access to the most current doctrine and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) necessary to quell riots and restore public order.”

“In addition to covering civil unrest doctrine for CONUS operations, FM 3-19.15 addresses domestic unrest and the military role in providing assistance to civil authorities requesting it for civil disturbance operations …The principles of civil disturbance operations, planning and training for such operations, and the TTP [“tactics, techniques and procedures”] employed to control civil disturbances and neutralize special threats are discussed in this manual. It also addresses special planning and preparation that are needed to quell riots in confinement facilities are also discussed. In the past, commanders were limited to the type of force they could apply to quell a riot. Riot batons, riot control agents, or lethal force were often used. Today, there is a wide array of nonlethal weapons (NLW) available to the commander that extends his use of force along the force continuum. This manual addresses the use of nonlethal (NL) and lethal forces when quelling a riot.” And as noted, the training is meant to be operative in both foreign and domestic contexts, the war abroad, the war at home.

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-19-15.pdf

* In 1986, the Pentagon issues Department of Defense Directive 5525.5, or DoD Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement Officials. US military involvement in domestic law enforcement is subsumed and rationalized under “doctrines” entitled Operations Other Than War (OOTW) and Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT), along with divisions known as Military Support to Law Enforcement Agencies (MSLEA) and Military Support to Civil Authorities (MSCA)

http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/552505p.pdf

* In 1992 President Clinton’s Justice Department consolidated a partnership with the Pentagon in the area of “technology transfer.” The so-called “technology transfer agreements” allowed for the military to weaponize domestic police forces, further enhancing the growth of para-military “special forces” like “special units” in local police departments across the country, including “civil disturbance” units and training. The Clinton administration extended the police/military connection by mandating that the Department of Defense and its associated private industries form a partnership with the Department of Justice to “engage the crime war with the same resolve they fought the Cold War.” The program, entitled, “Technology Transfer From Defense: Concealed Weapons Detection,” (“Technology Transfer from Defense: Concealed Weapons Detection,” National Institute of Justice Journal, No 229, August, 1995), calls for the transfer of military technology to domestic police organizations to better fight “crime.” Previously, direct “transfers” of this sort were made only to friendly foreign governments. The Clinton directive enhanced and formalized direct militarization of domestic police forces.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/39680373/The-Militarization-of-the-Police-by-Frank-Morales

Currently, Title XIV of an earlier NDAA in 2007 entitled, “Homeland Defense Technology Transfer Legislative Provisions,” authorizes “the Secretary of Defense to create a Homeland Defense Technology Transfer Consortium to improve the effectiveness of the Department of Defense (DOD) processes for identifying and deploying relevant DOD technology to federal, State, and local first responders.” In other words, the law facilitates the “transfer” of the newest in so-called “crowd control” and surveillance technology to local militarized (politicized) police units.

* In 1993, the US Army and Marine Corps publish Domestic Support Operations Field Manual 100-19.

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/service_pubs/fm100_19.pdf

* In 1994, the Department of Defense issued Directive 3025.12, Military Assistance for Civil Disturbances (MACDIS) that details the rationale and means (“tactics, techniques and procedures”) for suppressing dissent. It states that, “the President is authorized by the Constitution and laws of the United States to suppress insurrections, rebellions, and domestic violence under various conditions and circumstances. Planning and preparedness by the Federal Government and the Department of Defense for civil disturbances are important, do to the potential severity of the consequences of such events for the Nation and the population.”

http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/302512p.pdf

* In 1995, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an key elite “policymaker” headquartered in New York City, set up an “Independent Task Force on Nonlethal Weapons (NLW)” in order “to assess the current status of non-lethal weapons development and availability within the Department of Defense, in light of their potential to support U.S. military operations and foreign policy,” not to mention the suppression of dissent at home. The 16 member Task Force, which published its’ findings in 1999, was chaired by IBM executive Richard L. Garwin, CFR “Senior Fellow for Science and Technology.” Other members of the Task Force included CFR “military fellow” David Jones, United States Navy, Commander, Edward N. Luttwak, member, “National Security Study Group administered by the Department of Defense,” Edward C. Meyer, USA (Ret.), Chair of Mitretek Systems, formerly Chief of Staff, US Army, and a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Janet and Christopher Morris, President/Vice President, M2 Technologies, Inc, members US Global Strategy Council.

The Director of the CFR task force on non-lethal “technologies” was W. Montaque Winfield, former Executive Officer to the Commander of the “Stabilization Force” stationed in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. Also a 1998-9 CFR “military fellow,” Brigadier General Winfield, some of you might recall, was the deputy director for operations (DDO) in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon on the morning of 9/11, who according to the 9/11 Commission, left his post that very morning to attend a “pre-scheduled meeting” and allowed a colleague who had only recently qualified to take over his position, to stand in for him. He didn’t return to his post until after the terrorist attacks had ended. http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=montague_winfield

The CFR had issued an earlier report on the subject of “non-lethal” weapons in 1995, and stated in the 1999 report that they had regrettably “found that the DoD has made only limited progress developing and deploying nonlethal weapons since 1995.” The CFR, offering a bit of a tongue lashing to it’s hired generals, considered the “shortfall” the result of a “continued lack of appreciation for NLW among civilian and military policymakers.” Taking a firm line, the CFR report recommends that, “senior civilian and military leaders should make NLW development a priority.” After all, “nonlethal weapons could give policymakers a more potent weapon than economic sanctions.” In fact, “used alone”, the report notes, “NLW could penalize civilian economies without high civilian casualties.” Looking for something between “diplomatic table thumping and outright annihilation,” the armchair corporate warriors at the CRR continued to pound away at the need for accelerated “non-lethal” R and D.

http://revoltrevolt.org/demilitarizethepolice/nonlethal.html

* Subsequently, on July 9, 1996, the Department of Defense complied, issuing Directive 3000.3, Policy for Non-Lethal Weapons. The Directive established Department of Defense policies and responsibilities for the development and employment of so-called “non-lethal weapons,” designating the Commandant of the Marine Corps as Executive Agent for the Department of Defense Non-Lethal Weapons Program. On July 1, 1997, the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate was established to support the Executive Agent for Non-Lethal Weapons in the day-to-day management of the Department of Defense Non-Lethal Weapons Program putting the “best and the brightest” at work in designing soft-kill means (including neuro-weapons) of “crowd dispersal” and “social control” set within a strategy of so-called “low-intensity warfare” and “counter-insurgency.”

http://jnlwp.defense.gov/pdf/2011%20Public%20%20Release%20%20NLW%20Reference%20Book%20V1.pdf

http://www.zcommunications.org/electromagnetic-weapons-by-frank-morales

http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/hugh-gusterson/the-militarization-neuroscience

Recently, this past May 17, 2012 the DoD issued Instruction 3200.19. Entitled “Non-Lethal Weapons (NLW) Human Effects Characterization,” the “instruction” “establishes policy, assigns responsibilities, and provides procedures for a human effects characterization process in support of the development of NLW, non lethal technology and NLW systems.” It also establishes a “Human Effects Review Board,” which “scientifically” evaluates and quantifies levels of pain, calculating the most desirable “effects” in regard to the use of non-lethal force against non-combatants and protesters. In this regard, they receive a lot of assistance from their friends and associates in academia.

http://cryptome.org/dodi/dodi-3200-19.pdf

In 1997 Penn State University established the Institute for Non-Lethal Defense Technologies. The Institute is “dedicated to providing a base of multidisciplinary knowledge and technology that supports development and responsible application of non-lethal options for both military and civilian law enforcement. “ The Institute is administered by Penn State’s Applied Research Laboratory (ARL), under the direction and support of the University’s Office of the Vice President for Research. http://nldt2.arl.psu.edu/

Its Human Effects Advisory Panel sponsored a conference in September 2000, whose purpose was “to assess crowd behavior and the potential for crowd control … a leading core capability sought by the Joint Non-lethal Weapons Program.” Their 2001 report was entitled, “Crowd Behavior, Crowd Control, and the Use of Non-Lethal Weapons.”

http://nldt2.arl.psu.edu/documents/crowd_control_report.pdf

Meanwhile, the University of New Hampshire’s Non-Lethal Technology Innovation Center (NTIC) was created by a grant from the DoD’s Joint Non-lethal Weapons Directorate about the same time “to effect the next generation of NL capabilities by identifying and promoting the development of innovative concepts, materials and technologies within the academic community.” Its “Society of Force Effectiveness, Analysis and Techniques” (FEAT) was “established to engage primary source scientists to share results and analyses from studies of applied force, whether physical, psychological, or emotional. The Society’s scope of interests includes the impact of non-lethal or less lethal force intervention on sustained attention; performance degradation due to fatigue or intentional distraction; compliance; vigilance; and stress resilience.” The Society, given its specific intent on affecting “motivational behavior,” is keen on identifying “disciplines that support the development of tools of behavioral modification through force (e.g., kinetic and electromagnetic energies, psychological operations).”

http://www.unh.edu/ntic/

* In August of 2001, the Pentagon issued Field Manual 3-19.40, Internment and Resettlement Operations. Explicating the role of military police engaged in law enforcement, including at the point of domestic detention activities set within the context of “emergency” support, the extensive manual covers detention policies and methodologies and the use of non-lethal weapons. Chapter 10, Sections 49-66 detail the nature of “emergency services” within the “continental United States,” explaining that “MP (military police) units assisting ES (emergency service) operations in CONUS involve DoD-sponsored military programs that support the people and the government at all levels within the US and its territories.” Classified as “domestic support,” the manual states that, “federal armed forces can be employed when …” in the face of a declared “emergency,” “state and local authorities do not take appropriate action.”

In that instance, FEMA would serve as “the single POC within the government.” With a nod to the Posse Comitatus Act the document goes on to state that, “the MP support to ES in CONUS varies significantly from other I/R (internment/resettlement) operations. The basic difference is that local and state governments and the federal government and its agencies have a greater impact and role in supporting and meeting the needs in an affected community.” “If tasked to set up and operate an I/R facility, the MP commander retains control of military forces under his command,” and can operate “in conjunction with local, state and federal law enforcement officials.”

http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/a22.pdf

* September 11 provided the elite Project for a New American Century and their associates with the “new Pearl Harbor” they sought, as set forth in Rebuilding America’s Defenses (pg.51), a major consequence of which was the September 18, 2001 passage of the Authorization for Use of Military Force or AUMF.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/sjres23.es.html

The Pentagon can invade, occupy and destroy at will, pre-emptively (with little or no reason), anyone, anywhere in the world

This singular, presumably legal rationale for much of what we now endure, the AUMF substantiates the notion that the Pentagon can invade, occupy and destroy at will, pre-emptively (with little or no reason), anyone, anywhere in the world, any time it chooses. In addition, apparently as we now see, the AUMF gives the Pentagon and it’s covetous corporate directors justification for the military takeover of America itself and the detention of its people. Thus, the AUMF is cited by the peddlers of Section 1021 of the NDAA 2012.

The modern “military tribunal” structure, which is a major piece of the detention/repression apparatus, came into formal existence as a consequence of the 2002 Department of Defense Military Commission Order No.1, issued on March 21, 2002 by former president (war criminal) George W. Bush.

http://www.defense.gov/news/Mar2002/d20020321ord.pdf

The entire military commission/tribunal structure is a work in progress, or more precisely, a dynamic and strategic power play on the part of the rulers set in motion following 9/11; a “might makes right” gambit undertaken by the militarist directors in the smoke of 9/11. Like the so-called Patriot Act, it was forced down the throats of a submissive, clueless public, sufficiently softened by means of prime time terror, fear and panic. Taking two steps forward and one step back, the militarists act first and then rationalize (or more precisely have their employees in the Congress) baptize the move after the fact. Where do presidents like Dubya, and now Obama get the authority to issue such blanket, unilateral decrees, totalitarian “executive orders,” such as Obama’s “National Defense Preparedness Order” of this year, which would force us to work for the Pentagon? The answer: No where! They have no authority! Particularly to set up parallel systems of jurisprudence as a means of by-passing Constitutional protections. In historical fact, this approach has a parallel in earlier maneuvers of another former “executive,” Adolph Hitler. (see Hitler’s Justice: The Courts of the Third Reich, Ingo Muller, Harvard, 1991)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/16/executive-order-national-defense-resources-preparedness

Concurrent with the round-up of over a thousand people following the September 11 attack, many of whom are still being held, many in solitary confinement, with no charges being filed, President Bush signed in November 2001 an order, establishing military “tribunals” for those non-citizens, accused, anywhere, of “terrorist related crimes.” And now, with the NDAA, citizens might soon face the same fate. Just imagine some smug and starchy government lawyer arguing that “the right to equal protection,” a fundamental principle of both U.S. and international law, demands that Americans be detained too!

At the time (2001), the National Legal Aid & Defender Association stated that the Bush promulgated “military order” violated the constitutional separation of powers:

“It has not been authorized by the Congress and is outside the President’s constitutional powers … the order strips away a variety of checks and balances on governmental power and the reliability and integrity of criminal judgments… undermines the rule of law worldwide, and invites reciprocal treatment of US nationals by hostile nations utilizing secret trials, a single entity as prosecutor, judge and jury, no judicial review and summary executions.”

More recently, in October 2009, the U.S. Congress passed and Obama dutifully signed the Military Commissions Act of 2009 (2009 MCA), which remains in effect today, legalizing further, if you will, the naked power grab by the executive in behalf of the elite. Since then the “Office of Military Commissions” has been set up as a public relations/propaganda front for the dictatorship. It promises to “provide fair and transparent trials of those persons subject to trial by Military Commissions while protecting national security interests.” Kind of like Fox’s “fair and balanced” news reporting. http://www.mc.mil/

Finally, we should recall that the NDAA of past years, aside from providing the funding of vast sums for illegal and immoral wars, torture and assassination, has been the site of various embedded measures designed to further limit our democratic rights of free expression and assembly, which is the foundation of effective and meaningful dissent. One such measure dates back to 2007, to the then so-called John Warner NDAA, named after militarism’s best friend and sponsor of the iconic AUMF.

Public Law 109-364, or the “John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007” (H.R.5122), was signed by George Bush on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony. It allowed the President to declare a “public emergency” and subsequently station troops anywhere in America, seizing control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to “suppress public disorder.” Well, fortunately, a massive protest ensued and the sections of the law that allowed for such were eventually repealed in the midst of which Senator Pat Leahy commented that, “we certainly do not need to make it easier for Presidents to declare martial law.” Preparing to order the military onto the streets of America, the presumption is that some form of martial law would be in evidence. Note that the term for putting an area under military law enforcement control is precise; the term is “martial law.”

http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/911/

The concept of martial rule, as distinct from martial law, is not written, and therefore is an eminently more workable arrangement for “law enforcement forces.” That’s because, as US Army Field Manual 19-15 points out, “martial rule is based on public necessity. Public necessity in this sense means public safety.” According to the manual (cited above), updated in 2005, U.S. state authorities “may take such action within their own jurisdictions.” And yet, “whether or not martial rule has been proclaimed, commanders must weigh each proposed action against the threat to public order and safety. If the need for martial rule arises, the military commander at the scene must so inform the Army Chief of Staff and await instructions. If martial rule is imposed, the civilian population must be informed of the restrictions and rules of conduct that the military can enforce.”

Now, respecting the power of free speech, the manual suggests that, “during a civil disturbance, it may be advisable to prevent people from assembling. Civil law can make it unlawful for people to meet to plan an act of violence, rioting, or civil disturbance. Prohibitions on assembly may forbid gatherings at any place and time.” And don’t forget, “making hostile or inflammatory speeches advocating the overthrow of the lawful government and threats against public officials, if it endangered public safety, could violate such law.”

Further, during civil disturbance operations, “authorities must be prepared to detain large numbers of people,” forcing them into existing, though expanded “detention facilities.” Cautioning that, “if there are more detainees than civil detention facilities can handle, civil authorities may ask the control forces to set up and operate temporary facilities.” Pending the approval of the Army Chief of Staff, the military can detain and jail citizens en masse. “The temporary facilities are set up on the nearest military installation or on suitable property under federal control.” These “temporary facilities” are “supervised and controlled by MP officers and NCOs trained and experienced in Army correctional operations. Guards and support personnel under direct supervision and control of MP officers and NCOs need not be trained or experienced in Army correctional operations. But they must be specifically instructed and closely supervised in the proper use of force.”

According to the Army, the detention facilities are situated near to the “disturbance area,” but far enough away “not to be endangered by riotous acts.” Given the large numbers of potential detainees, the logistics (holding, searching, processing areas) of such an undertaking, new construction of such facilities “may be needed to provide the segregation for ensuring effective control and administration.” It must be designed and “organized for a smooth flow of traffic,” while a medical “treatment area” would be utilized as a “separate holding area for injured detainees.” After a “detainee is logged in and searched,” “a file is initiated,” and a “case number” identifies the prisoner. In addition, “facility personnel also may use hospital ID tags. Using indelible ink, they write the case number and attach the tag to the detainees wrist. Different colors may be used to identify different offender classifications ”

Finally, if and when it should occur, “release procedures must be coordinated with civil authorities and appropriate legal counsel.” If the “detainee” should produce a writ of habeas corpus issued by a state court, thereby demanding ones day in court, the Army will “respectfully reply that the prisoner is being held by authority of the United States.”

In conclusion:

There is no question that the militarized police state, in all its myriad permutations has arrived. In fact, the militarizing of American cities and society as a whole proceeds apace in lock step (Cities Under Seige: The New Military Urbanism, Stephen Graham, 2010) with the racist, anti-immigrant “defense” of the borders, a veritable cash cow for military contractors, booming. The cities, the borders, so how bout the skies? Well, as this is being written, the latest 2013 NDAA discussions include a Senate Armed Services Committee call to allow drones to operate “freely and routinely” in America!

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2012_cr/sasc-uas.html

http://nacla.org/blog/2012/6/7/bringing-battlefield-border-wild-world-border-security-and-boundary-building-arizona

Meanwhile, the GAO has just issued a report to Congress entitled “DOD Should Reevaluate Requirements for the Selective Service System” which calls for an evaluation of Pentagon “manpower needs for the Selective Service System in light of current national security plans.” Such an evaluation would, the report notes, “better position Congress to make an informed decision about the necessity of the Selective Service System or any other alternatives that might substitute for it.”

http://cryptome.org/2012/06/gao-12-623.pdf

Yes indeed, the water is boiling. Not to mix metaphors, but it’s time to jump out of the frying pan and hopefully not into the fire, which I take to mean that we must confront and deconstruct, in a non-violent way, the increasing potential for far more violence and suppression of our basic freedoms. The handing over of our resources, lives, fortune and reputation to a clique of thieves and murderers dressed up as presidents, congress people and corporate military executives and underlings is to foster our continued enslavement to the perpetrators of injustice and genocide, here and broad, inequality and greed, here and abroad, and signals the political suicide for our republic. We have got to act to stop the police state and reassert the values of community, justice and equality in the councils of governance. And to do so we must dis-empower the militarists.

One thing we can do right now is to initiate organizing campaigns in neighborhoods and communities across the country aimed at the passing of Posse Comitatus-like legislation on the local and state level, encouraging dialogue on the de-militarization of our communities, and raising the human right to be free of the violation inherent in all forms of militarism. By removing all aspects of militarism from domestic policing, lock, stock and barrel, we can expand the terrain of dissent and begin to reclaim our country back from the economic vultures and parasites and their violent mercenaries who are killing this country and the world. But first we must criminalize, like the Posse Comitatus Act does, all military involvement in law enforcement.

Communities must organize to de-militarize their police

Communities must organize to de-militarize their police. By analyzing police budgets, cutting the “special ops” training and funding and weapons transfers that fuel the militarization of law enforcement, we will most certainly decrease the level of police violence directed against the citizenry, and bridge issues and communities concerned with the epidemic of racist “police brutality” and the burgeoning of militarized police forces, veritable occupation armies in communities of color across America.

Along with criminalizing the militarization of local police we must work to criminalize racial profiling on the part of the police, a practice (indoctrinated in soldiers) that provides naked justification for “stop and frisk” harassment and the murdering of young black men.

Make killer cops liable for these murders, stripped of the “sovereign immunity” that is their 007 license to kill. Ditto for “stand your ground” or more-arms-for-the-white-right laws, which along with the high rates of gun ownership in certain demographic regions of the country, create the ominous potential for “deputized” armed posses, who along with state sponsored “defense forces” on a mission to presumably protect the “homeland” promise only more violence and repression. Disarm and expose them, expose the fraud of a hyped-up “law enforcement” establishment willing to break any laws to please the master, the financiers, the power brokers who manipulate them for gain, who are really only pawns in their game.

It is irrational and a violation of the civil and human rights of the citizenry to perpetuate the arming of militarized police trained to suppress constitutionally insured rights to free speech and assembly. They are supposed to defend the Constitution, not “detain” those who do! They are supposed to defend the civil rights of the people, not “partner” with the CIA and FBI and spy on activists and Muslim communities, entrapping their youth, victims of the racist charade called “the war on terror.” (Associated Press, “Post-9/11, NYPD targets ethnic communities, partners with CIA,” 8/24/11)

http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s1009r.pdf

They are supposed to defend the right to protest, not brutalize those who do, peacefully, as in the most recent police crack-down on the Occupy movement. (New York Times, “When the Police Go Military” 12/3/11). They are supposed to be sensitive to the civil and human rights of all the people, respect the cultural diversity of their environment, “serve and protect,” not to be trained in “quick shoot reflex” by outfits such as the Firearms Training Systems which trains both the NYPD and the US marines!

Police departments are public institutions subject to the will of local governments, to the will of the public, the people. But only if we act! Where and under what circumstances the police receive their training, are granted “immunity” and what armaments they possess, (paid for by public funds) and what sort of institutional relationships with US military and intelligence agencies (which public documents would make evident) are they engaged in …

These are the kinds of questions and avenues of approach common throughout history in the struggle of citizens against police/military dictatorships. And despite the recent May 17, 2012 issuance of the “DoD Civil Liberties Program,” which defines civil liberties as “fundamental rights and freedoms protected by the Constitution of the United States,” except when “operational requirements” of “an authorized law enforcement, intelligence collection, or counterintelligence activity” dictate otherwise; despite the tightening noose, in the end we must rely on the law, on “the rule of law,” specifically, on the ability (necessity) of reasonable people of good will acquiring sufficient power to draft new and enforceable laws, laws which promote justice, healing, growth, life and peace. And to make them stick!

We claim and hope to be a society of laws, by the people, for all the people. But we are not. Never have been. Nonetheless, we are capable of evolving, of igniting a revolution of values in this country and becoming the land we all aspire to “with justice and freedom for all.” But in order to get there, we will have to overcome the coup of 2012.

Frank Morales / Memorial Day / 2012

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Note: This article, originally published on May 27, 2003, takes us back to a turbulent period in American history. That year, the US was fighting a bogus “war on terror” in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The ensuing chaos and brutality in the Middle East led Ron Paul to introduce the 2003 American Sovereignty Restoration Act in the House of Representatives. Over the last decade, Ron Paul’s numerous failed attempts at introducing this bill (his latest attempt was in 2013) show that the American Sovereignty Restoration Act might never be passed into law. Yet, regardless of the current status of the bill, we need to take this document into serious consideration and ask ourselves whether or not Paul’s idea poses a credible threat to the UN’s current role as an agent of American imperial domination.

 

[DOCID: f:h1146ih.txt]

108th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 1146

To end membership of the United States in the United Nations.

_______________________________________________________________________

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

March 6, 2003

Mr. Paul introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on International Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

A BILL

To end membership of the United States in the United Nations.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003”.

SEC. 2. REPEAL OF UNITED NATIONS PARTICIPATION ACT.

(a) Repeal.–The United Nations Participation Act of 1945 (Public Law 79-264, 22 U.S.C. 287-287e) is repealed. (b) Termination of Participation in United Nations.–The President shall terminate all participation by the United States in the United Nations, and any organ, specialized agency, commission, or other formally affiliated body of the United Nations. (c) Closure of United States Mission to United Nations.–The United States Mission to the United Nations is closed. Any remaining functions of such office shall not be carried out.

SEC. 3. REPEAL OF UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS AGREEMENT ACT.

(a) Repeal.–The United Nations Headquarters Agreement Act (Public Law 80-357) is repealed. (b) Withdrawal.–The United States withdraws from the agreement between the United States and the United Nations regarding the headquarters of the United Nations (signed at Lake Success, New York, on June 26, 1947, which was brought into effect by the United Nations Headquarters Agreement Act).

SEC. 4. UNITED STATES ASSESSED AND VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE UNITED NATIONS.

(a) Termination.–No funds are authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available for assessed or voluntary contributions of the United States to the United Nations or any organ, specialized agency, commission or other formally affiliated body thereof, except that funds may be appropriated to facilitate withdrawal of United States personnel and equipment. Upon termination of United States membership, no payments shall be made to the United Nations or any organ, specialized agency, commission or other formally affiliated body thereof, out of any funds appropriated prior to such termination or out of any other funds available for such purposes. (b) Application.–The provisions of this section shall apply to all agencies of the United Nations, including independent or voluntary agencies.

SEC. 5. UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS.

(a) Termination.–No funds are authorized to be appropriated or otherwise made available for any United States contribution to any United Nations military operation. (b) Terminations of United States Participation in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations.–No funds may be obligated or expended to support the participation of any member of the Armed Forces of the United States as part of any United Nations military or peacekeeping operation or force. No member of the Armed Forces of the United States may serve under the command of the United Nations.

SEC. 6. WITHDRAWAL OF UNITED NATIONS PRESENCE IN FACILITIES OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND REPEAL OF DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY.

(a) Withdrawal From United States Government Property.–The United Nations (including any affiliated agency of the United Nations) shall not occupy or use any property or facility of the United States Government. (b) Diplomatic Immunity.–No officer or employee of the United Nations or any representative, officer, or employee of any mission to the United Nations of any foreign government shall be entitled to enjoy the privileges and immunities of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of April 18, 1961, nor may any such privileges and immunities be extended to any such individual. The privileges, exemptions and immunities provided for in the International Organizations Immunities Act of December 29, 1945 (59 Stat. 669; 22 U.S.C. 288, 288a-f), or in any agreement or treaty to which the United States is a party, including the agreement entitled “Agreement Between the United Nations and the United States of America Regarding the Headquarters of the United Nations”, signed June 26, 1947 (22 U.S.C. 287), and the Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, entered into force with respect to the United States on April 29, 1970, (21 UST 1418; TIAS 6900; UNTS 16), shall not apply to the United Nations or any organ, specialized agency, commission or other formally affiliated body thereof, to the officers and employees of the United Nations, or any organ, specialized agency, commission or other formally affiliated body thereof, or to the families, suites or servants of such officers or employees.

SEC. 7. REPEAL OF UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC, AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION ACT.

The joint resolution entitled “A joint resolution providing for membership and participation by the United States in the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, and authorizing an appropriation therefor” approved July 30, 1946 (Public Law 79-565, 22 U.S.C. 287m-287t), is repealed.

SEC. 8. REPEAL OF UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAM PARTICIPATION ACT OF 1973.

The United Nations Environment Program Participation Act of 1973 (22 U.S.C. 287 note) is repealed.

SEC. 9. REPEAL OF UNITED STATES PARTICIPATION IN THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION.

The joint resolution entitled “Joint Resolution providing for membership and participation by the United States in the World Health Organization and authorizing an appropriation therefor,” approved July 14, 1948 (22 U.S.C. 290, 290a-e-1) is repealed.

SEC. 10. REPEAL OF INVOLVEMENT IN UNITED NATIONS CONVENTIONS AND AGREEMENTS.

As of the date of the enactment of this Act, the United States will end any and all participation in any and all conventions and/or agreements with the United Nations and any organ, specialized agency, commission, or other formally affiliated body of the United Nations. Any remaining functions of such conventions and/or agreements shall not be carried out.

SEC. 11. REEMPLOYMENT WITH UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT AFTER SERVICE WITH AN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION.

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to affect the rights of employees under subchapter IV of chapter 35 of title 5, United States Code, relating to reemployment after service with an international organization.

SEC. 12. NOTIFICATION.

Effective on the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of State shall notify the United Nations and any organ, specialized agency, commission, or other formally affiliated body of the United Nations of the provisions of this Act.

SEC. 13. EFFECTIVE DATE.

Except as otherwise provided, this Act and the amendments made by this Act shall take effect 2 years after the date of the enactment of this Act. <all>

Source and Copyright US Congress, 2003

Washington has ‘adjusted’ its controversial program of aiding the Syrian rebels to vet commanders rather than individual fighters, and provide supplies instead of training. A new rebel group in northeastern Syria has emerged as a recipient of US aid.

“The train-and-equip program has changed, but it has not gone away. We’re still equipping moderate Syrian opposition fighters,” Colonel Steve Warren, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, told the press on Tuesday.

As an example, he cited the airdrop of 50 tons of ammunition to the “Syrian Arab Coalition” (SAC), a 5,000-strong force of Arab insurgents in the east of Syria, which he said was fighting against Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS and ISIL) militants. The shipment consisted of small-arms ammunition, hand grenades, and rounds for mortars and rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launchers, he said.

Warren said the group’s leader has been vetted by the US and given “specific training” on some specialized equipment. In his view, the airdrop was “not a major shift” in US operations in Syria, since there have been other supply drops in the past, notably to Kurdish forces in Kobani.

The original program, funded by Congress to the tune of $500 million, envisioned creating a 15,000-strong force of individually vetted US-backed ‘moderates’ that would focus on battling Islamic State forces. After most of the US-trained fighters were captured, or defected to Islamist groups with all their weapons and equipment, the White House announced it would cut the effort short.

“That program didn’t work,” Warren admitted to reporters. “Being an adaptive and agile organization, we’ve made an adjustment. We’ve adjusted our approach,” he added.

@AFP @TheStudyofWar Term “Syrian Arab Coalition” introduced less than 48hrs ago. Already in use. pic.twitter.com/miuMCxodjw

— Ludwig W (@LudWitt) October 13, 2015

Though Warren said the SAC has been fighting IS militants in the region of Raqqa “for months,” and described the US contacts with the group as a result of a “yearlong process of building ties,” the first mention of the group’s name appears to be a New York Times article on October 9.

The group is reportedly part of an even broader coalition: Reuters reported on October 12 that the SAC had teamed up with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in what they called the “Syrian Democratic Forces.” However, when asked about the SDF, Warren said he did not know who they were.

Moscow has expressed skepticism about the ongoing US efforts to back the elusive ‘moderate’ rebels in Syria, as well as the effectiveness of the US-led air campaign which began in October 2014.

“We barely have any doubt that at least a considerable part of these weapons will fall into the terrorists’ hands,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Russia’s NTV, describing the results of the US-led air campaign against IS as “insignificant.”

Reports that ”Syrian Democratic Forces” been established by YPG and ”Syrian Arab Coalition”. #TwitterKurds #Syria https://t.co/Do5BTwcjkZ

— A Dunon (@4rj1n) October 11, 2015

“Syrian Arab Coalition” was basically local Arab groups in Burkan al-Firat + local tribes. http://t.co/9SKA40jXg0 pic.twitter.com/w3brlrsNKW

— A Dunon (@4rj1n) October 11, 2015

US officials have insisted the aid would not be used against the Syrian government troops. Washington remains adamant that the only acceptable end to the Syrian civil war would be regime change in Damascus.

Asked what would happen if the SAC requested US air support against the Syrian government forces, Warren maintained that they were only fighting IS at the moment. However, he admitted that US planes have struck groups other than IS – such as Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra – and that the Pentagon’s policy on air strikes in Syria “still needs a little bit of development.”

LISTEN MORE:

He fully understands they have pure evil intent in their hearts and minds. Rogue hegemons think and act this way – tolerating no one challenging their ruthless policies.

The New York Times and other Western media quoted Putin blasting US policy responsibly. He diplomatically uses the phrase “American partners” knowing no partnership exists.

US/Russian relations are adversarial because Washington wants them this way. Putin is polar opposite, urging mutual cooperation among all nations – the way all responsible world leaders think and act.

Rogue ones like America demand obedience and subservience, independent governments going their own way not tolerated, endless wars of aggression waged to replace them with US-controlled puppet regimes.

Putin slammed Obama for refusing to receive a high-level Russian delegation led by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev – to discuss differences between both countries on Syria and other vital issues.

“I don’t really understand how our American partners can criticize Russia’s counterterrorism effort in Syria while refusing direct dialogue on the all-important issue of political settlement,” Putin explained.

“I believe this position to be unconstructive. The weakness of this position is apparently based on a lack of agenda. It seems they have nothing to discuss.”

They continue pursuing their ruthless hegemonic agenda, waging endless direct and proxy wars of aggression, seeking world conquest and domination they won’t achieve.

Putin accused US officials of muddled thinking. “I believe (they) have mush for brains,” he stressed.

They claim “our pilots are striking the wrong targets, not IS.” Russia asked Washington to provide a list of these targets.

Obama officials declined. “ ‘No, we are not ready for this’ was the answer,” Putin quoted them saying.

“Then we thought again and asked another question: then tell us where we should not strike. No answer (again),” he said. “That is not a joke. I did not make this up. How is it possible to work together?”

He blasted the Obama administration for air-dropping weapons, obviously intended for terrorists. No so-called “moderates” exist, nor a Free Syrian Army.

Virtually all anti-Assad elements in Syria are terrorists, imported from scores of countries. Meanwhile, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported “stepped up operations against terrorist organizations, advancing in various areas across the country and making more gains, the latest was establishing control over the strategic Tal Ahmar (hill) in Quneitra.”

On Thursday pre-dawn, a large-scale operation began to liberate areas north of Homs, a Syrian military source saying:

“At 05:30 (AM), our army began a large-scale operation in the north of the Homs Governorate. The village of Haldiye and another neighboring village were freed. The situation on the front line at the moment is excellent.

Syrian television reported ground forces advancing after “concentrated air strikes and heavy preparatory artillery shelling on the terrorist groupings and their bases.”

Other ground and air operations are continuing in and around Aleppo, the Eastern Ghouta, Damascus countryside, Hama, Idleb, Daraa, Deir Ezzor, and Hasaka.

Since October 1, Syrian forces liberated numerous villages. At a Wednesday press briefing, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said US-led demands for Assad to resign are wrongheaded.

“They try to persuade us that, if (he) resigns, the terrorist activity will decline, as the Islamic State is waging a war because of Assad. This is the direct implementation of terrorists’ logic. One cannot interpret these statements otherwise.”

“It’s very odd to hear the civilized world suggesting meeting terrorists’ requirements. In the past, when international terrorism and terrorist attacks were discussed, the world spoke with one voice and acted very resolutely.”

“Nobody said, ‘Let’s meet terrorists’ demands to reduce their influence and minimize the impact.’ “

Separately, The New York Times reported Pentagon and other US officials virtually awestruck over impressive Russian weapons, technology, and ability to wage effective military operations, matching anything America can do.

“The Russian advancements go beyond new weaponry, reflecting an increase in professionalism and readiness,” said The Times.

Military analyst Michael Kofman was cited, saying Russian operations in Syria show it caught up with US military capabilities, including conducting very effective “night strikes, with damage assessments by drones (and) “amazingly capable” cruise missiles.

So far, Russian air power has only “been used to a fraction of its potential.” It represents a formidable challenge to Washington’s regional hegemonic aims and perhaps beyond.

A Final Comment

Lunatic fascists Washington installed in Kiev demand Moscow pay Ukraine $1 trillion dollars “as compensation for the loss of Crimea and its (nonexistent military operations) in Donbass,” RT International reported.

Illegitimate prime minister Arseny Yatsenyuk blustered: “We are ready for judicial proceedings.”

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html . Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs. 

Last night’s coverage and panel analysis of last night’s Democratic Debate on the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) was proven correct once again.

Despite the Democratic Debate host CNN and other mainstream media outlets claiming the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had ‘won the debate’, the polls numbers told another story – of an absolute rout by Vermont’s US Senator Bernie Sanders over the embattled former Secretary of State.

The CNN Facebook post-debate poll Tuesday evening at one point showed 80% of voters choosing Bernie Sanders as the winner, with the final figure settling in around 75%. Hillary Clinton came in with a poorly 18%. Embarrassed by its own futile attempt to inflate Clinton’s poor showing last night in Las Vegas, CNN only flashed its Facebook poll result up on screen once, and only for 3-4 seconds, before flushing it down the memory hole.

Other major polls reflected this same result. At the end of the debate last night, Time Magazine showed 64% favored Sanders, and the leftist outlet MSNBC showed Sanders blowing out Clinton, taking 84% of the winning endorsements, while liberal outlet The Slate gave Sanders 75% of winning votes. Hillary registered only slightly higher than unknown Maryland governor Martin O’Malley.

INFLATED: The media are trying to prop-up Hillary’s falling popularity, but according to the polls, Bernie had the last laugh.

Clinton poor polling numbers are validated by a nonpartisan poll conducted by Reuters in the week prior to this debate, which shows Clinton on a downward slope. From October 4 to October 9, Clinton’s support dropped ten whole points – from 51 to 41%.

CNN: Manufacturing ‘Consensus Reality’

Even after its own polls showed Sanders crushing Clinton, CNN still sticks to its PR directive from the DNC, running with the inflated headline, “Hillary Clinton’s big night on the debate stage.”

CNN were not alone in the effort to pump-up a phantom victory for Hillary Clinton…

The Huffington Post’s morning email blast read, “Hillary Clinton Dominates at First Democratic Debate”. An incredible headline, considering what really happened.

In addition, the Guardian also got it wrong, leading this morning with skewed headline, “Hillary Clinton rises above controversy – and a Sanders revolution.” Hardly.

Again, another example of the establishment media propping-up the Clinton regime – just as the very same media cartel has been working overtime to sabotage GOP outsider Donald Trump’s presidential run by instead propping-up failing GOP runners like Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorini and Marco Rubio.

Back in 2008, and in 2012, the establishment media, in collusion with the RNC, intentionally omitted polling and voting results, before eventually sidelining popular GOP candidate Ron Paul, whose campaign eventually ended by supporters and delegates being physically locked-out of caucus meetings and party conventions, again, showing the depths of corruption that is systemic in the American two party system.

Readers should know by now after watching how the establishment media goes out its way to distort reality and public opinion – in effect, using their weight to fully interfere with and distort the ‘democratic’ process in the West – that the West has a very long way to go before it can claim that it’s above Third World countries when it comes to lessons modernity and eliminating corruption in its own oligarchical ranks.

CNN: The Election Fixer

To anyone who has been paying attention over the last 12 months, it should come as no surprise that CNN is actively trying to twist reality in the 2016 US Presidential Election, as its been campaigning for Hillary 2016 right in the face of its audience..

In a shameless exhibition of media electioneering and poor journalism, CNN has been regularly hosting one its shows, ‘Erin Burnett: Out Front’, from the event headquarters of the Clinton Global Initiative foundation (pictured above). It’s hard not to notice that CNN is deliberately co-branding these TV shows with the Clintons. This should show even the most ardent skeptic just how in bed the network is with the Clinton campaign.

Here, viewers can see CNN’s Erin Burnett engaging in gushing sycophantic ‘interview’ sessions with Hillary’s husband and former president Bill Clinton – all part of a wider effort to try and rehabilitate sex scandal-ridden Bill’s poor public image and lack of trust worthiness.

Among other high-flying political money laundering activities, the Clinton Global Initiative has also been caught accepting “donations for access.” It was revealed earlier this year how Clinton Foundation donors like Saudi Arabia received weapons deals – while Hillary Clinton was head of the US State Department.

Considering Saudi Arabia’s horrific human rights and women’s rights (non-existent) record, it’s a wonder how so many American Democratic Party women are willing to turn a blind eye to the Clinton’s under the table dealings with a regime that sits at the very bottom of global morality league table. Based on its obvious alignment with the dubious foundation, to call CNN a partner in that corrupt enterprise would be 100% accurate, and to call Clinton a hypocrite on this issue would be a gross understatement.

How long will the media try to inflate the Clinton brand? If they succeed, how much money will have been spent to engineer her into power?

Why can’t election regulators step-in to resolve conflicts of interest, like we see between CNN and the Clinton campaign?

If Big Media is allowed to continue operating like CNN is, then Democracy in America is in big trouble.

A Syrian archbishop warned British politicians of the folly of supporting Islamic militants in the war in his country.

Greek Melkite Catholic Archbishop Jean-Clement Jeanbart of Aleppo said that for the past 60 years, Syria has strived to become a modern secular state. Western support for militants against Syrian President Bashar Assad would destroy all such progress, he said at Tuesday’s meeting in the House of Lords organised by Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic charity helping persecuted Christians.

Christians in his country were instead supportive of Russian military intervention because it gave them fresh hope that the four-year war would end in a solution favorable to them, he told British politicians and Christian leaders at the meeting.

British Foreign Office Minister Tobias Ellwood disagreed with the archbishop’s analysis, telling the meeting that the conflict would continue until Assad stepped down.

During his speech, Archbishop Jeanbart said militants were “killing anyone who is saying anything about freedom, about citizenship, about religious liberty, about democracy.”

“Please, I ask you, I beseech you to have another look at our situation to see what is underneath, what is happening,” the archbishop said.

“It is terrible for us to see all the marvelous things we had destroyed for pretend democracy and freedom. Our country was fighting for 50-60 years to become a secularist regime, a pluralistic country, to give citizens their rights of religion and freedom of choice … and you are destroying this work and pushing on us fundamental jihadis who want to kill everyone who is not similar to them.

“They don’t accept anyone who is different,” Archbishop Jeanbart added. “Anyone who is not a fundamentalist Muslim has no rights — no right to live, no right to be in society, no right to be a citizen.”

The archbishop told the meeting that Syrian Christians are suffering because rebels “have destroyed everything — our economy, our industry, our churches, everything.”

“The most important thing we are suffering from is that they are destroying man. They are taking away our right to choose what we want to be,” he said.

Archbishop Jeanbart said he was pleased to have the chance to speak directly to British politicians because Syria was being isolated and that news from the country was being “manipulated in an unacceptable way.”

The perception that moderate rebel forces were fighting the government to win freedom and democracy was a “big lie,” the archbishop told the meeting, adding that the war was waged between a modern secular state tolerant of religious minorities and jihadi groups who were massacring them.

He said Islamist rebel groups, who go under a variety of names, had slaughtered more than 50 Christians within the last month alone, most recently shooting dead three Assyrian Christians after a ransom for their lives was not paid.

“My colleagues — bishops, priests and faithful — in Syria now feel they have hope that the problems will be sorted and the war will finish since Russia intervened and struck Daesh (Islamic State) seriously,” he added. “That is what they think.”

The conflict in Syria has claimed about a quarter of a million lives and displaced some six million people, most of whom are living in camps along the country’s borders, while thousands of others have entered Europe through Turkey.

In 2013, British Prime Minister David Cameron failed to persuade Parliament to support the bombing of the Syrian regime by the United Kingdom in support of moderate rebel groups. He is expected to try again for permission to intervene militarily within the next few weeks.

Critics of his policy, including Peter Ford, a former British ambassador to Syria, say such moderates scarcely exist, arguing that the forces arrayed against Assad are invariably extremists. They also claim that interventions in Iraq and Libya have proved disastrous.

But Ellwood told the meeting that Assad was an obstacle to peace because no “inclusive government” could ever be formed under his rule.

“The recent Russia action is a clear demonstration of the Assad regime’s weakness,” he said.

“Assad cannot survive without Russian or Iranian support, and Assad cannot win the war in Syria. We don’t buy for one moment his spurious argument that he can protect religious minorities. His actions in effect have fueled sectarian violence, and his regime is ultimately responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and as long as Assad is in power the conflict will go on.”

He said that Britain was presently “supporting nongovernmental efforts to promote dialogue between different ethnic and religious groups in Syria” in preparation for the reconstruction of the country after the fall of Assad.

It was also attempting to promote interfaith dialogue in Iraq, where Christians are suffering acute persecution, he said.

The meeting was also addressed by human rights activist Lord Alton of Liverpool; Timothy Cho, an exile from North Korea who has witnessed the public execution of Christians there; and Victoria Youhanna, a Nigerian woman who escaped from Boko Haram.

Youhanna told participants how she had personally witnessed the beheadings of Christian men after they refused to join Boko Haram.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See’s permanent observer to the United Nations in Geneva, detailed the efforts of the Vatican to end the global persecution of Christians.

“Freedom of conscience and religion is a fundamental human right violated with impunity with regard to Christians in the Middle East and regions of Africa, where Christians are made the target of unspeakable violence,” he said. “Christians are decapitated, crucified and forced into exile and enslavement.”

Such violence, largely at the hands of militant Muslim groups, was “emptying the Middle East” of the Christian presence, Archbishop Tomasi said.

Mass protests, boycotts and strikes sparked by the October 10 double suicide bombing targeting a peace march in Ankara have spread across Turkey. Burial ceremonies of the victims of the Ankara bombings have become anti-government rallies, with thousands of mourners chanting “Murderer Erdoğan” and “The murderous state will he held to account.”

On October 12 and 13, an alliance of labor unions affiliated to the main opposition parties and professional organisations held a two-day nationwide strike. Tens of thousands of medical staff, teachers, municipal employees and lawyers struck, while university students boycotted their lessons in some faculties.

The Confederation of Progressive Workers’ Unions (DİSK), the Confederation of Public Laborers’ Unions (KESK), the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB), and the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) took part in the action.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has intensified its pressure on the media and mobilised the police to suppress the rising tide of opposition. The government used the police to impose bans on protest rallies.

On Tuesday, the Istanbul Governor’s Office refused to grant permission for the proposed march from Sirkeci and Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty to Beyazıt Square, saying, “The governorate does not find the planned march and rally appropriate, regarding the sensitivity of the present period.” In other parts of Istanbul, riot police brutally attacked those who defied the ban.

Also on Wednesday, an Ankara court issued a broad media ban on reporting on the Ankara suicide bomber investigation. According to Hürriyet Daily News, the ban includes “all kinds of news, interviews, criticism and similar publications in print, visual, social media and all kinds of media on the Internet.”

The general strike, called by unions and associations affiliated with the pro-Kemalist Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the mainly Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), mobilised only a minority of the working class. DISK limited its action to walkouts in municipalities under the CHP or HDP control, with the support of the mayors. It did not organise any strike in the factories, while KESK generally let its members stay at home.

The larger trade unions openly support the government. The main Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (Türk-İş), for example, contented itself with expressing its “sorrow” for the bombings and laying red carnations at the main train station in Ankara, while another pro-government confederation, Hak-İş, issued a statement to condemn terror and offer condolences to “the nation.”

Almost a month ago, these trade union confederations, along with business and industrialist organisations had participated in a rally “against terror”—i.e., against the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK)—organised by the government.

There are widespread accusations of state involvement in the Ankara bombings, with claims that the government knew the attacks would take place or directly staged them.

The government has carried out showpiece arrests of suspected members of the Islamic State (IS) in a number of provinces across Turkey. On Tuesday, the police claimed to have identified one of the suicide bomber suspects as Yunus Emre Alagoz, the brother of a bomber who killed 33 people in a separate suicide blast in Suruc in July, also said to be linked to IS. The other bomber was identified as Omer Deniz Dundar, using DNA from the blast. The two were reportedly on a list of 21 potential suicide bombers.

The government declared late on Tuesday that it had removed the police, intelligence and security chiefs of Ankara from their posts in an effort “to conduct an effective investigation into Saturday’s bombings.”

This came after a meeting between Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and the leader of main opposition CHP, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who asked for the resignation or removal of Interior Minister Selami Altınok and Justice Minister Kenan İpek.

After initially declaring that the attack on a pro-peace rally, with a heavy presence of the HDP, was most likely the work of IS—which is at war with the Kurds in Syria and Turkey—the AKP government is now floating an amalgam between the IS and PKK.

Davutoğlu said that the government and police had “made progress on the planning phase of this attack. All the evidence indicates the existence of two different terror organisations. We are trying to find out whether there was collaboration between these two gangs [i.e., IS and the PKK].”

Indicating that more repression is planned, he added that he had “instructed the cabinet to review our entire legal framework on the conduct of public demonstrations,” saying, “There is work for a new security concept.”

The AKP, unable to form a coalition government after elections in June, has called fresh elections for November 1. However, with opposition to its rule increasing, it is relying on whipping up anti-terror and anti-Kurd, pro-war sentiment to mobilise its own base and legitimise the suppression of its political opponents and the media.

“As we go to the November 1 elections, there are those now trying to block the establishment of long-term stability in the country,” Davutoğlu said.

“The main question of the June 7 elections was whether the HDP would pass the 10 percent threshold. The question before this election is whether the AKP will form a one-party government. The objective of this attack is to threaten democracy in Turkey. That’s why the AKP is under attack even before the incident in a bid to influence election results.”

There is rising concern within ruling circles over the stability of the country and the survival of the government. Powerful sections of the Turkish bourgeoisie have withdrawn their support, either from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or from the AKP itself. Some analysts in the media are speculating on the possibility of a broad-based coalition between the AKP and CHP, which would “re-establish stability and revitalise the peace process with the Kurds.”

But the AKP is also threatened by a growing rift with Turkey’s Western allies, above all the United States, over its well-established relations with IS and other Islamist groups and its ongoing war against the PKK. This is cutting across Washington’s alliance with the Kurds in Syria, a key element in US efforts to curb IS and pave the way for a long-desired regime change removing Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

Even while pledging support for Turkey, and ignoring appeals from Ankara, which has been involved in conflicts with Russia over intrusions into its airspace, the US last Friday went ahead with plans to remove its Patriot air defence missiles from the Kurdish southeast. Germany said it would do the same.

Yesterday, Turkey summoned the US ambassador in Ankara to express concerns at a reported transfer of 120 tons of weapons and ammunition to the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is an ally of the PKK.

“Turkey cannot accept cooperation with terrorist organisations that waged a war against us,” Davutoğlu said at a press conference with Bulgaria’s prime minister, Boyko Borisov, in İstanbul. “Turkey is determined to fight against all organisations linked to the PKK, in the same way the US and other allies fought against al-Qaeda affiliates while fighting al-Qaeda itself.”

With an eye to reports that Moscow has also sent arms to the Kurds, he stressed, “This stance has been conveyed to the US and Russia.”

The YPG has declared the formation of a new military alliance with a number of Arab groups, calling itself the Democratic Forces of Syria. A YPG statement, sent to Reuters on Monday, says, “The sensitive stage our country Syria is going through and rapid developments on the military and political front…require that there be a united national military force for all Syrians, joining Kurds, Arabs, Syrians and other groups.”

A stunning new exposé by The Intercept, which includes the publication of classified documents leaked by an intelligence source, provides an unprecedented look at the U.S. military’s secretive global assassination program.

The series of articles, titled The Drone Papers, follows months of investigation and uses rare primary source documents and slides to reveal to the public, for the first time, the flaws and consequences of the U.S. military’s 14-year aerial campaign being conducted in Yemen, Somalia, and Afghanistan—one that has consistently used faulty information, killed an untold number of civilians, and stymied intelligence-gathering through its “kill/capture” program that too often relies on killing rather than capturing.

“The series is intended to serve as a long-overdue public examination of the methods and outcomes of America’s assassination program,” writes the investigation’s lead reporter, Jeremy Scahill.

“This campaign, carried out by two presidents through four presidential terms, has been shrouded in excessive secrecy. The public has a right to see these documents not only to engage in an informed debate about the future of U.S. wars, both overt and covert, but also to understand the circumstances under which the U.S. government arrogates to itself the right to sentence individuals to death without the established checks and balances of arrest, trial, and appeal.”

The source of the documents, who asked to remain anonymous due to the U.S. government’s aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers, said the public has a right to know about a program that is so “fundamentally” and  “morally” flawed.

“It’s stunning the number of instances when I’ve come across intelligence that was faulty, when sources of information used to finish targets were misattributed to people,” he told The Intercept. “And it isn’t until several months or years later that you realize that the entire time you thought you were going after this target, it was his mother’s phone the whole time. Anyone caught in the vicinity is guilty by association – it’s a phenomenal gamble.”

As outlined by The Intercept, the key revelations of the reporting are:

• Assassinations have depended on unreliable intelligence. More than half the intelligence used to track potential kills in Yemen and Somalia was based on electronic communications data from phones, computers, and targeted intercepts (know as signals intelligence) which, the government admits, it has “poor” and “limited” capability to collect. By the military’s own admission, it was lacking in reliable information from human sources.

• The documents contradict Administration claims that its operations against high-value terrorists are limited and precise. Contrary to claims that these campaigns narrowly target specific individuals, the documents show that air strikes under the Obama administration have killed significant numbers of unnamed bystanders. Documents detailing a 14-month kill/capture campaign in Afghanistan, for example, show that while the U.S. military killed 35 of its direct targets with air strikes, 219 other individuals also died in the attacks.

• In Afghanistan, the military has designated unknown men it kills as “Enemies Killed in Action.” According to The Intercept’s source, the military has a practice of labeling individuals killed in air strikes this way unless evidence emerges to prove otherwise.

• Assassinations hurt intelligence gathering. The Pentagon study finds that killing suspected terrorists, even if they are legitimate targets, “significantly reduce[s]” the information available and further hampers intelligence gathering.

• New details about the ‘kill chain’ reveal a bureaucratic structure headed by President Obama, by which U.S. government officials select and authorize targets for assassination outside traditional legal and justice systems, and with little transparency. The system included creating a portrait of a potential target in a condensed format known as a ‘Baseball Card,’ which was passed to the White House for approval, while individual drone strikes were often authorized by other officials.

•  Inconsistencies with publicly available White House statements about targeted killings. Administration policy standards issued in 2013 state that lethal force will be launched only against targets that pose a “continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons,” however documents from the same time reveal much more vague criteria, including that a person only need present “a threat to U.S. interest or personnel.”

• New details of high-profile drone kills, including the 2012 killing in Somalia of Bilal al-Berjawi, which raise questions about whether the British government revoked his citizenship to facilitate the strike.

• Information about a largely covert effort to extend the U.S. military’s footprint across the African continent, including through a network of mostly small and low-profile airfields in Djibouti and other African countries.

The investigation comes as the Obama administration announced plans on Thursday to delay withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Administration officials told CNN that troops may conduct “counterterrorism operations” against Islamic State (ISIS) militants there.

But as the documents reveal, assurances from the Obama administration that drone strikes are precise and used only in cases of “imminent” threats are themselves based on intentionally vague definitions of “imminence.”

“Privately, the architects of the U.S. drone program have acknowledged its shortcomings,” said Betsy Reed, editor-in-chief of The Intercept. “But they have made sure that this campaign, launched by Bush and vastly expanded under Obama, has been shrouded in secrecy. The public has a right to know how the US government has decided who to kill.”

As the source himself said, “We’re allowing this to happen. And by ‘we,’ I mean every American citizen who has access to this information now, but continues to do nothing about it.”

Moscow’s success in Syria defines a serous problem for the White House. The idea to blame Russia for bombing moderate rebels doesn’t work. If moderate rebels were in Syria, why did the US need to launch an expensive campaign to train moderate rebels? Moreover, the most part of the US-trained “moderate rebels” with full equipment joined “Jabhat al-Nusra”, declared a terrorist group even by the US.

Despite the fact that the Pentagon’s program aimed to train moderate rebels was a total failure and, indeed, supported terrorism in Syria, the Pentagon officials didn’t pay the penalty. Thus, we could suggest that it was a cover for the real aim to support terrorist groups as “Jabhat al-Nusra” and “Ahrar ash-Sham”. They are the only power that is ready help the US to achieve its main goal, to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. The Kurds’ activity is concentrated in northern Syria. They could advance on Al-Raqqa but they won’t fight against the Syrian government.

If the White House decided to support terrorists, it had to conform its policy with Saudi Arabia, founder and supporter of Jabhat al-Nusra and a number of small terrorist groups in Syria. The fact that US-led coalition Air Force didn’t bomb “Jabhat al-Nusra” last months proves this assumption. Moreover, both Washington and Riyadh are interested in the chaos in Syria to weaken Iran in this region. Thus, they hope to restore the regional balance of powers strongly affected by the Russian military operation.

On October 12, a group of US cargo aircraft already airdropped some 50 tons of small fire ammunition and explosives to terrorists in northern Syria’s Hasakah Governatore. Also, there are numerous reports that Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are ready to strengthen their support to terrorist groups with arms, ammunition and even man-portable air defense systems.

At the very same time, US Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Syria (CJSOTF-S) moved to the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. According to reports, CJSOTF-S will coordinate weapon supplies to Syrian groups fighting the Assad government and air-ground cooperation between terrorists and the US Air Force located at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. Furthermore, CJSOTF-S is under the command of US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) which has coordinated the $500 million program to train so-called “moderate rebels”. Thus, the US and its allies took a hard line to inspire terrorist activity in Syria.

El triunfo de la Revolución Cubana ha engendrado el más notable cambio político, económico y social de la historia de América Latina.

Desde 1959 las nuevas autoridades lideradas por Fidel Castro han ubicado a los desheredados, particularmente a las mujeres y a las personas de color, principales víctimas de las discriminaciones inherentes a una sociedad patriarcal y segregacionista, en el centro del proyecto reformador. La Revolución “de los humildes, por los humildes y para los humildes”[1] debía echar las bases de una nueva era igualitaria, libre de las angustias de las injusticias ligadas a la historia y a las estructuras sociales del país.

Stating a concern that the proposed law would lead to the reintroduction of border controls between GM and non-GMO-growing countries, the European Parliament news service reported that Members of the Environment Committee shot down a draft EU law that would allow member states to restrict or prohibit sales of genetically modified crops.

This vote goes against numerous EU states that have made it clear in recent months that they plan to instate total bans on GM crops. A total of 19 EU countries have sent letters to the EP saying that they plan GM bans, citing concern over spoiling agricultural markets, and also the desire to provide their citizens with organic food.

Environment Committee chair Giovanni La Via (EPP, IT) said:

“A clear majority in the committee does not want to jeopardize the internal market. For us, the existing legislation should remain in place, and member states should shoulder their responsibilities and take a decision together at EU level, instead of introducing national bans. This proposal conflicts with the principles of “better regulation” and transparency which the new European Commission has taken on board. After we spent so many years getting rid of internal barriers, this proposal could fragment the internal market and lead to a return to border inspections, which we all worked hard to get rid of at the time.”

The recommendation was approved by 47 votes to 3, with 5 abstentions. It should be noted that this is an amendment to existing legislation that allows member EU states to ban at will.

In its proposal, the Commission suggests that it should mirror, as regards genetically modified food and feed, the recent legislation in respect of GMOs intended for cultivation, which entered into force in early April 2015. It therefore proposes to allow member states to restrict or prohibit – under certain conditions – the use of genetically modified food and feed on their territory after these products have been authorized at EU level.

Washington supports ongoing Israeli violence against defenseless Palestinians. It wouldn’t be happening otherwise.

One phone call from Obama to Netanyahu demanding an immediate halt to Israeli lawlessness, making it clear Washington won’t tolerate it, would change everything now ongoing.

It continues because of full US support. Don’t let duplicitous comments from John Kerry’s State Department spokesman, Admiral John Kirby, fool you – claiming Kerry “remain(s) deeply concerned by the continued escalated violence.”

At the same time, revealing Washington’s official policy by “condemning the (Palestinian) terrorists attacks against Israelis.”

White House press secretary Josh Earnest echoed the same sentiment – blaming Palestinians for Israeli high crimes, saying:

“(T)he United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the terrorist attacks – the recent terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, which resulted in the murder of three Israelis and left numerous others wounded.”

No condemnation of vicious, premeditated Israeli state terror – murdering 33 Palestinians through Wednesday, injuring well over 1,600 others, another 4,000 harmed by indiscriminate use of toxic tear gas.

Neurotoxins in tear gas are potentially lethal. They can cause severe side effects, including extreme pain, intense tightening in the chest, a burning and stinging sensation in the nose, eyes and throat.

Tear gas canister impacts can cause severe bleeding, fractures, at times requiring amputations. Israel uses extremely toxic agents in canisters marked “Made in USA.”

Tear gas is a terror weapon. Doctors treating its victims have no antidote for the toxins used. All they can do is get them to a safe place, wash the gas from their eyes and other affected areas, using sterile saline.

Children, the elderly, pregnant women, as well as anyone with respiratory or heart problems are especially vulnerable to potentially serious harm from tear gas exposure. Longterm effects are unknown.

Its use is banned in warfare under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Palestine is a war theater, its residents guaranteed Fourth Geneva protections.

Israel spurns all international laws, especially humanitarian ones. Palestinian victimization is longstanding, no end to their suffering in sight, no outside help afforded them, their own Ramallah government against them, acting solely as Israel’s enforcer.

On October 10, BDS activists called for “(s)olidarity with the Palestinian popular resistance! Boycott Israel now!”

Saying “a new generation of Palestinians is marching (in) the footsteps of previous (ones), rising up en masse against Israel’s brutal, decades-old regime of occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid.”

“World governments” shamelessly ignore Israel’s full responsibility for ongoing violence.

Calling on both sides to show restraint insults millions of suffering Palestinians, the tens of thousands murdered by Israel over nearly 7 decades, the brutality of endless daily persecution, a vicious Arab-hating state run by fascist extremists no different from Nazis – a racist, tyrannical criminal regime by any standard.

“The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the Palestinian leadership of the global BDS movement, calls on people of conscience around the world to support Palestinians in their quest for freedom at this crucial moment by stepping up BDS activities against Israel’s regime of oppression.”

“It is high time to isolate Israel’s regime of militarization, securitization and racism as a danger not just to Palestinians and the Arab region, but to humanity at large.”

 We’re all Palestinians now! Support the struggle of courageous people for the fundamental rights they’ve been long denied!

Join in solidarity with their resistance against a ruthless oppressor! Speak out in their behalf! Help them in their time of need!

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III. http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html. Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

“When more than 95 percent of our potential customers live outside our borders, we can’t let countries like China write the rules of the global economy” – U.S. President Barack H. Obama

The secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is an agreement that serves numerous purposes; one of them is to contain China’s rising economic power in the Asia-Pacific region. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) who normally advises Washington’s insiders on foreign policy matters produced a report titled ‘Revising U.S. Grand Strategy Toward China’ written by Robert D. Blackwill and Ashley J. Tellis which clearly states that

“China represents and will remain the most significant competitor to the United States for decades to come” and that “the likelihood of a long-term strategic rivalry between Beijing and Washington is high.”

Blackwill and Tellis recommend that the U.S. Congress “Deliver on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, … as a geoeconomic answer to growing Chinese economic power and geopolitical coercion in Asia.”

It is a clear message to China. The main-stream media is also on board with the TPP agreement, for example The Washington Post published an article titled ‘The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a trade deal worth celebrating’, and why is the TPP worth celebrating?

“By knitting the U.S. and Japanese economies together in their first free-trade deal — and binding both of them closer to rising Asian nations — the TPP would create a counterweight to China in East Asia”.

Time magazine also had a headline that said it all ‘Pacific Trade Deal Is Good for the U.S. and Obama’s Legacy’ which makes its case that a “U.S. presence” will protect its partners from any perceived threats from China:

But Asia is an exception, because deeper involvement there can create economic opportunities (like TPP), and because China’s neighbors are eager for a lasting U.S. presence to protect them from over-dependence for growth and security on China

China was left out of the deal intentionally (not to say that China would benefit from the deal in any way), the reason is that the U.S. wants an alliance of nations than can counter China’s rise to an economic powerhouse.  The TPP is meant to isolate China while the U.S. expands its presence in the Pacific (Part of the Pentagon’s ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’) turning its partners in the TPP trade deal into cheap labor colonies without rights that will serve U.S. interests.

Can China counter the TPP?

RT news reported that China can unite to counter the TPP with Europe which accounts for “€1 billion in trade daily, while bilateral trade in goods reached €428.1 billion in 2013.” According to the RT news report:

This raises questions, whether China and other countries are ready to unite to counter-balance the Pacific Rim pact. “China and Europe may finally look at each other and find some commonalities that they were unaware of before,” said Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Natixis, in a report quoted by CNBC. “China expressed interest to the EU commencing negotiations on a bilateral FTA [free trade agreement] when President Xi Jinping visited the EU in March 2014. At the time, the EU recognized this to be a desirable long-term objective rather than something that would be negotiated in the near future,” CNBC quotes Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at HIS as saying

RT news also reported that “another way for China to oppose TPP is boosting its BRICS participation. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa comprise about 30 percent of world’s GDP at the moment in PPP terms and are projected to increase to as much as 45 percent by 2030.” Which rightly so, allows China to bypass the TPP trade zone.

Malaysia’s Internal Opposition to the TPP

There are already disagreements within countries such as Malaysia where former Prime Minister; Dr. Mahathir Mohamad had recently said that the TPP is a “very bad” agreement. According to The Malaysian Insider (www.themalaysianinsider.com) “Anti-TPP lobbyists said the agreement has removed the country’s control over policymaking and put the government at risk of being sued if it favoured public interests over foreign investors.” This means that if an environmental accident occurred and people were injured or killed, the Malaysian government cannot sue the corporations or governments involved. Dr. Mohamad explains “Let’s say a few countries are into mining and it pollutes the environment and we stop it, they (the companies) can sue governments for loss of future profits” the report said.

The TPP is a corporate takeover that will ease rules that normally protects working-class people and labor unions. The TPP will offshore jobs from the U.S. and Canada to low-wage nations like Malaysia, Mexico, Peru and Vietnam.

The agreement also eliminates health, safety and environmental regulations and favors corporations such as Monsanto over food safety issues. The TPP will empower pharmaceutical corporations that will expand its monopolistic control over its manufacturing practices which will eventually increase the price of medicine. The TPP also threatens internet privacy and the list goes on. However, as bad as the TPP is, China is the big enchilada. It is important to remember that the U.S. holds the largest debt in world history while China is the creditor nation that buys U.S. debt (although it has been dumping U.S. dollars at unprecedented levels) regardless, Washington still pushes this ludicrous deal that only makes matters worse in terms of diplomacy. The TPP serves multiple purposes; one of them is to expand an economic war that will repel China’s influence in the region. All countries that signed on to the TPP should keep in mind what Russian President Vladimir Putin once said “Washington doesn’t want partners. Washington wants vassals.”

More information on the TPP will surface in the months to come, but so far the available information we do have has one specific goal, and that is to contain China at the expense of less developed nations. The TPP is about the U.S. dominating the Asia-Pacific through trade agreements accompanied by its political and military presence to ensure that the multi-national corporations continue to make profits while pushing the Chinese dragon into the corner. My opinion is that the TPP will fail. The Malaysian people are one of the first to oppose this agreement. My prediction is that all of the governments that signed on to the agreement will face mass protests within their own borders, and that will be a positive step towards defeating the TPP once and for all.

US and Russian military officials held a third round of video conferences Wednesday in a bid to hammer out an agreement on procedures aimed at preventing accidental confrontations between their respective warplanes operating over Syria.

The meeting was held in the wake of a reported incident last Saturday in which US and Russian jets came within miles of each other in Syrian airspace, according to the Pentagon.

“Visual contact took place,” said Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman for the US military in Baghdad. “All pilots conducted themselves appropriately and everyone went about their business. But this is dangerous, right?…There’s always going to be some risk if there are uncoordinated actors in the battle space.”

A statement from the Russian defense ministry said that “positions became closer on key provisions” of a joint agreement on operations, but indicated that a deal has yet to be reached.

The videoconferences on “deconflicting” the Syrian airspace are being held in lieu of more expansive and higher-level talks proposed by Moscow, but rejected by Washington.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that he had proposed sending a delegation led by Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev and including high-ranking Russian military and civilian officials to Washington to discuss a closer coordination of US and Russian operations in Syria, but that US officials rejected any such talks.

“It seems to me that some of our partners have mush for brains,” commented Putin. He added that in the wake of US claims that Russia was bombing “moderate” Syrian militias instead of the supposed common enemy, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Moscow had requested that the Pentagon provide coordinates of areas that “we shouldn’t target,” but had received no response.

A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, recounted Washington’s warnings against Russian airstrikes hitting positions of the “Free Syrian Army,” a supposedly “moderate” opposition force. The refusal of the US to provide any information as to the location of these forces, she said, led to the inescapable conclusion that it is “a fake organization which is much talked about without being seen.”

The source of these tensions lies in the diametrically opposed aims being pursued by US imperialism and the Russian regime under the common pretext of battling ISIS and “terrorism.” Washington’s fundamental objective remains the same as when it first joined Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey in instigating the Syrian civil war: regime change. It wants to oust the government of President Bashar al-Assad and impose a puppet government as part of its drive to impose US hegemony over the oil-rich Middle East.

Russia, on the other hand, has intervened with its two-week-old bombing campaign in a bid to prop up Assad and prevent the loss of its sole ally in the Middle East and its one military base outside the former Soviet Union, the naval station at the Syrian Mediterranean port of Tartus.

Underlying the dispute over Russia’s targeting and the refusal of the Pentagon to indicate what targets it does not want hit is the dirty secret that Washington is relying on the al-Nusra Front, Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate, and similar sectarian militias armed and funded by the CIA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, as the main proxy forces in the war for regime change.

Russia has repeatedly bombed these forces, providing air support for a broad counter-offensive by Syrian government troops aimed at driving back the Islamist militias from the northern city of Hama, as well as the Damascus countryside and in areas of the provinces of Idlib and Latakia.

Concerns that the antagonistic aims of Moscow and Washington and the close proximity between US and Russian military operations could trigger an armed clash between the world’s two largest nuclear powers found fresh expression Wednesday in a warning made by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in advance of a four-day trip that is to take him to Iran, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Steinmeier said he wanted to “urgently caution the US and Russia not to militarily engage in a way that in the end could lead to a conflict.” He added that the aim of his trip was to “build bridges between Iran and Saudi Arabia so that it becomes conceivable that in the end we can get all the regional partners we need at one table.” Saudi Arabia has been a principal backer of the war for regime change in Syria, while Iran is Syria’s closest ally.

The German foreign minister’s comments reflected the growing divisions between Berlin and Washington over the Syrian war. The US has repeatedly sought to exclude Iran from any talks on Syria. The crisis gripping US policy in the region has opened up increasing rifts within the members of the NATO alliance.

Most dramatic have been those involving Turkey, which ostensibly joined the war on ISIS, offering the US use of Turkish airbases for strikes on Syria, while sending its own warplanes to bomb primarily Kurdish targets in both Iraq and Syria. Washington initially signaled its support for these actions, claiming that Turkey was responding to “terrorist” attacks by the PKK (Kurdish Workers Party).

At the same time, however, the US has sought to utilize the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria as ground forces to attack ISIS, including in a planned offensive to overrun Raqqa, the northern Syrian city that serves as the de facto capital of the Islamist militia.

The 50 tons of arms and ammunition that the Pentagon airdropped into Syria earlier this week were reportedly intended for the YPG and smaller Arab forces with which it is aligned.

The YPG and its political arm, the Democratic Unity Party (PYD), are aligned with the PKK in Turkey. They have also declared their support for the Russian bombing campaign.

Further complicating the already volatile situation in Syria, the Turkish government Wednesday called in both the US and Russian ambassadors to warn them against providing any support to the Syrian Kurdish forces against ISIS.

“We have a clear position. That position has been conveyed to the United States and the Russian Federation,” Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in a televised statement. “Turkey cannot accept any cooperation with terrorist organizations which have waged war against it.”

“Just as the United States and other friendly allies fight against al-Qaeda linked groups, Turkey is determined to fight against the PKK and its affiliates,” Davutoglu added.

Turkey, which has been a principal backer of the Islamist militias in Syria, has repeatedly pressed for the imposition of a “no-fly zone” over a swath of Syrian territory along the Turkish border with the aim of using it as a cover for attacking the Kurdish forces and driving them away from the frontier.

The clash over this issue places Ankara and Washington on a potential collision course, with the prospect of Turkish jets being sent to bomb Kurdish forces in Syria even as American warplanes are providing them with air support.

While things tend to get murky, sometimes by design, regarding the police presence outside the Ecuadorean embassy in London, the announcement that the city’s Metropolitan Police would be lifting their twenty-four hour surveillance did surprise some.

This was hardly to suggest that the police forces had lost interest in capturing Julian Assange.  What mattered here was that the costs in guarding Assange from a literal flight of fancy had simply become disproportionate, requiring a change of tact.  Over £12m in costs had been incurred since he skipped bail to avoid his Swedish sojourn, and irrespective of which side of the Assange side one was on, anger was mounting at a very conspicuously bloated project.

The statement from the Metropolitan Police was cool in its language.  “Like all public services, MPS resources are finite.  With so many different criminal, and other, threats to the city it protects, the current deployment of officers is no longer believed proportionate” (The Guardian, Oct 12).

The siege, according to WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson, had not been lifted so much as reconstituted.  “My interpretation is that it has not been lifted. They are calling off the uniformed presence but escalating the covert operation and will arrest him if he steps outside off the embassy.”  Costs, in other words, were going to be moved off the books to un-uniformed personnel.

Indeed, the MPS was even good enough to concede that it had used a range of measures against Assange during its extensive vigil, and would continue to do so.  “The MPS will not discuss what form its continuing operation will take or the resourcing implications surrounding it.  Whilst no tactics guarantee success in the event of Julian Assange leaving the embassy, the MPS will deploy a number of overt and covert tactics to arrest him.”

Having been granted political asylum for fears that he might be carted off to the US via Sweden to face the findings of an empanelled grand jury, he remains confined to the cramped quarters of the embassy.  Nor can he rely on new laws in the form of the Anti Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 that make an “accusation” – in this case, claims of sexual assault on two Swedish nationals in Sweden – insufficient to require extradition.  As the laws were passed after the fact, precisely motivated by the Assange imbroglio, the foreign and commonwealth office has deemed it inapplicable retrospectively.  Assange, as ever, continues to be the legal exception, a singular target of juridical manipulation.

In the meantime, the UN working group on arbitrary detention (WGAD) has been considering Assange’s case, and it likely to find in his favour given its previous rulings of a deprivation of liberty when a person is forced to choose between confinement or the forfeiture of a fundamental right such as asylum.[1]

It is also a principle that holds for the European Court of Human Rights and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).  The latter defines detention as confinement “within a narrowly bounded or restricted location, including prisons, closed camps, detention facilities or airport transit zones, where freedom of movement is substantially curtailed, and where the only opportunity to leave this limited area is to leave the territory.”

Assange’s written submission to the WGAD outlined the various grievances he has had with his period of confinement.  “For the last 816 days, he has been confined to the Embassy of Ecuador in London, in an area of 30m2, he has no access to fresh air or sunlight, his communications are restricted and often interfered with, he does not have access to adequate medical facilities, he is subjected to continuous and pervasive form of round the clock surveillance, and he resides in a constant state of legal and procedural insecurity.”[2]

Such insecurity was again compounded by the FCO response to a request made by Assange on September 30 to be allowed safe passage from the embassy to a nearby hospital to examine his shoulder.  Ecuador’s foreign ministry also got on the case.  Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño had told state TV that Britain should allow Assange to “benefit from the right of asylum that we have granted him, as should be done in a respectful international relationship” (Andes, Oct 14).

The response hedged more than clarified: by all means Assange was free to leave the premises, but no guarantees about safe passage would be offered.  “There is no question that the British authorities would in any way seek to impede Mr Assange receiving medical advice or care.  We have this clear to the govt of Ecuador.”  What the police did, however, was another matter.

Little wonder, then, that embassy officials have considered various ways of breaking the impasse, considering everything from concealing him in fancy dress, enabling him to move across Kensington rooftops to a helipad, or getting lost in the shopping crowds of Harrods.[3]  These, at the very least, provide some mirth in the otherwise serious efforts to nab this bushranger of the information age.

Universal jurisdiction is one of those legal beasts that frightens as much as it excites.  The debate about such jurisdiction, which enables prosecutors from one state to effectively prosecute war crimes or crimes against humanity committed in another state is a highly contentious one.

The International Criminal Court is meant to provide a platform that has looked, largely because of circumstance and procedure, all too much like a body with an African bias.  Regarding the Syrian conflict, there have been calls to bring its operations within the purview of ICC jurisdiction, one made difficult by Syria being a non-signatory to the Rome Statute.  On May 19, 2014, 58 countries issued a statement and letter calling on the UN Security Council to adopt a French sponsored resolution doing just that.

The move was welcomed by Human Rights Watch, including its international justice counsel Balkees Jarrah.  “The movement for justice for victims in Syria is gaining unprecedented momentum. By officially co-sponsoring the resolution for an ICC referral, countries will be taking a critically important stand for accountability for serious crimes by all sides.”[1]  Wheels, however, tend to turn slowly in the UN.

Retaining the colouring of an equally balanced prosecution, with an effort to evenly account for crimes created by all sides, is where such efforts tend to break down.  But the ICC, in that sense, still retains some link to an internationalised procedure that can account for atrocities.  Critics of the various sides in the conflict will, however, be impatient, and France, having taken the lead to bring the ICC into play, is charging out with its own suggestions.

Needless to say, these efforts haven proven to be more selective. To that end, it is hard to envisage a situation of objectively contrived justice for Assad’s “victims” and his prosecution without also placing French objectives for the region into perspective.  The Hollande government wishes Assad out; its prosecutors wish to see him in the dock.  Syria’s victims provide the handy, if cynically manipulated alibis, to justify the action.

On September 30, the prosecutor’s office in Paris announced that it will be opening an investigation into torture carried out by the Assad regime. It does not even purport to target other sides in the conflict, including Islamic State.  In a conflict of competing cruelties, even this action seems calculating.

French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, made it clear who he had in his legal sights.  “Faced with these crimes that offend the human conscience, this bureaucracy of horror, faced with this denial of values of humanity, it is our responsibility to act against the impunity of the killers.”  The move was billed as “the world’s first criminal inquiry into torture under President Bashar al-Assad of Syria”.[2]

This enterprise is already filled with a range of calculations, much of them based upon the assumption that this legal case will rile Assad and form the basis of negotiations for a future “settlement” of the conflict. For one, it involves the French foreign ministry, ever that intrusive figure of imperial valour in the Middle East, pushing upon prosecutors a dossier stacked with pictures of torture victims.

The pictures first made their appearance on CNN in January last year, suggesting that eleven thousand individuals had been systematically murdered in the Syrian prison system, mostly through a gruesome regime of torture.  The graphic imagery had been the work of a photographer for the military police code-named Caesar, one tasked with taking pictures of bodies brought from prison detention.[3] In escaping Syria, his stash of images numbered some 55 thousand.  Denials about their authenticity followed.

Even legal outlets keeping an eye on the proceedings conceded that the moves had a stark political flavour.  Russia’s efforts to “rehabilitate” Assad had to be countered by such measures, even if they needed Paris to identify a French victim or arrest a Syrian official.[4]

Such zealous efforts are not necessarily going to ring sweetly in the corridors of power in the US and Israel. Both sides have made their opposition to universal jurisdiction, or at least instances of its use, before.  Political expedience is cited as a prevailing poison in such affairs.

One of its strongest critics remains a figure who himself would look fitting in a criminal court – former US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.  “The danger lies [in submitting international politics to judicial procedures] in pushing the effort to extremes that risk substituting the tyranny of judges for that of governments; historically the dictatorship of the virtuous has often led to inquisitions and even witch-hunts” (Foreign Affairs, Jul/Aug 2011).

One country that has shown a particular interest in universal jurisdiction is Spain.  On October 31, 2010, Spanish Judge Ferdinand Andreu refused to grant former Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter immunity from prosecution for a trip to Spain where he was intent on participating in a peace summit.[5]

Dichter was facing charges for war crimes and crimes against humanity for his involvement in the assassination of former senior Hamas member Salah Shedade.  The operation, supervised by Dichter, saw the deployment of a one-ton bomb in Al-Daraj, a residential neighbourhood in Gaza that killed fourteen civilians, including eight children, and injured 150 others.

While it is tempting to see international law as a manifestation of higher workings, wise judges and legal briefings without political manipulation, the view is but an illusion. The French effort here to forge a prosecution through domestic mechanisms looks more political than substantial, even if there has been, over the last 25 years, an understanding that “enemies of the human race” – hostes humani generis – need to face some judicial procedure.  But international law, for all its contentions, remains a product of the law of nations and national interest.  Human rights protocols remain weapons used by governments against others.

While there is much to merit investigations and prosecutions of a range of horrendous crimes committed against civilians in Syria by a complex range of sides and powers, the specificity of these claims against Assad for torture, tend to dispel notions of a virtuous tyranny in action.

This is a warring environment that permits barrel bombs, chemical weapons, beheadings and torture.  It is a hothouse of cruelties, and pulling the rabbit out of the hat specifically for Assad’s criminality, in the absence of considering those he is battling against, will be a tall order.  The only truly appropriate forum, should it ever come, will have to be a Syrian court, but do not expect that to be particularly balanced, either by local or international design, either.

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

 

(Please read Part I, Part IIA and Part IIB before this article)

Barely anything is certain in life, but if there’s one thing that geopolitical observers can most surely expect, it’s that the US will fiendishly find a way to pay Russia back for the sudden reversal that Moscow’s inflicted upon its strategic fortunes in the Mideast. Although by no means a conclusive listing, the following scenarios are by far the most realistic. In no particular order, they are:

Kurdish Turncoats

The Kurds have courageously sided with the Coalition of the Righteous (COR) and vastly increased the organization’s viability, but the speed with which they did so makes one wonder whether they could just as quickly be ‘convinced’ (read: bought off) to return to their unipolar allegiance. So far there’s nothing tangible that points in this direction and all reasoning is conjectural (although rooted in experience), but the situation might predictably arise where the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad return to loggerheads over Kirkuk and the KRG-central government oil-revenue sharing deal in the aftermath of the anti-ISIL war. In such an event, the KRG could once more resort toindependence rhetoric as a method of extracting political gains from Baghdad, but this time (with American and Israeli backing) it might take conclusive steps to achieve this, such as a snap referendum that’s immediately recognized by Washington and Tel Aviv, et al., no matter how negatively this affects each of their bilateral relationships with Turkey (which they might be eager to provoke if a pro-Eurasian military coup there does in fact occur).

The consequences of this scenario would be extremely destabilizing for the COR, as it would result in the creation of a ‘geopolitical Israel’ that could exert influence on the Syrian and Iranian regions where its ethnic kin reside. Moreover, it could also lead to the trilateral fragmentation of Iraq proper, as it’s unlikely that the rump Sunni-Shia portion could remain intact with its heated domestic differences, especially if a Kurdish-Iraq War suddenly broke out soon afterwards (maybe over Kirkuk). Per that possibility, it’s not foreseeable that the rump country would be able to muster enough unity to fight back against the ‘Mideast Prussia’, and the resultant strain could easily divide the remaining population to the point where further separation is seen as not only inevitable, but actually something welcomed by both sides. Considering this, it becomes very important that Russia and Iran influence the Iraqi central government to accommodate a fair share of the KRG’s reasonable post-war demands, and importantly, that the Kurdish leaders feel confident enough in the trust they’ve given their Moscow- and Tehran-based counterparts so as not to enter into any backstabbing side deals with the US at the same time.

Refugee Games

The stabilization of Syria will unavoidably result in the EU trying to deport most of the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers back to the country sooner or later. Every Syrian citizen has the legal right to return to their homeland, but the situation in practice is a bit more complex than that. Just as outgoing refugees were used as a weapon against Syria, so too could returning ones be as well. For example, many of the Syrians that fled their country for Turkey or the EU don’t support their democratically elected and legitimate government (which isn’t necessarily the same for those went to Lebanon), and forcing them to return there against their will could create tension with the patriotic Syrians who remained. Not only that, but simply in terms of the numbers involved (over 4 millionabroad at last count), it could be overwhelming for the authorities of any country if so many people (were forcibly) returned in a short period of time. Therefore, Syria needs to be alert to the possible weaponization of returning refugees, and should thus prepare an organized system for handling them so as to avoid any destabilization that could occur.

It should once more be emphasized that any large-scale refugee return happening within a short period of time wouldn’t be voluntarily occurring, but unnaturally forced by the EU, many members of which have grown tired of hosting the refugees and simply want them gone. Interestingly enough, prior to the Russian anti-terrorist intervention, UK Prime Minister David Cameron spoke of launching a military campaign against Syria in order to create a situation supposedly amenable to the refugees’ return (in the Western understanding, after regime change). So, with this in mind, now that Russia’s military campaign against ISIL is literally making the country more livable by eliminating the murderous terrorists that plague it, it’s possible that the UK, and for that matter, perhaps even most of the EU, could resort back to the rhetoric of sending refugees back if they acknowledge that the domestic conditions provide ‘plausibly justifiable’ enough reasons that. This might entail the refugee-returning countries de-facto recognizing Syria’s legitimate government, but even if they do, it would only be a temporary tactic to allow them the chance to flood the country with some of its hundreds of thousands of citizens that have already made it to Europe by that time.

Divide And Conquer: Iran vs Russia

While physically powerless to do anything to stop the Russian-Iranian strategic convergence against ISIL, the US and its information organs (both those explicitly recognized and such and more covertly acting sympathetic outlets) can play up false stories of a competition between the two in Syria and/or Iraq with the ultimate hopes of maximizing any suspicions one may have of the other, to the point of creating a ‘security dilemma’ that engenders an actual fallout. It doesn’t seem at all probable that this would happen anytime soon, but if ISIL turns out to be harder to dislodge than previously thought, and the COR campaign stretches on longer than expected, then the contextual backdrop could be created where such vicious rumors might find some adherents in Moscow and Tehran.

Russia and Iran are closer than they’ve ever been at the moment as a result of their military collaboration against ISIL, but there’s still the possibility that the differences between them (which the author comprehensively listed out in afour-part series on the issue) could once more return to the surface with time. This becomes even more foreseeable if the US and its German, French, and UK allies find some way in which to falsely accuse Iran of violating the nuclear accord as a twisted form of geo-economic vengeance for militarily siding with Russia in the New Cold War. When one recalls how these leading EU economies abandoned the money they were already making in Russia out of loyalty to the US’ political considerations, it’s not hard to think that they’d do the same for profits they have yet to even receive in Iran. The mere threat of doing so and possibly returning to the sanctions regime (and the Color Revolution tripwire this could activate) might be enough to coax the pro-Western “moderates” into a major behind-the-scenes power play to wrest control of the Islamic Republic from the geopolitical pragmatics (the Western so-called “hard-liners”), or in a less dramatic fashion, ‘nudge’ Iran away from its military closeness with Russia and into a more passive COR role.

The West’s goal has and always will be to enact some form of hard (Color Revolution) or soft (“moderate”) regime change in Tehran that disarms the country’s military-strategic establishment and opens the door for the return of pre-1979 foreign exploitation. Now that Iran has conclusively sided with the Russian-led anti-ISIL coalition, it’s exposed itself once more as an urgent target for Western intelligence agencies, who will stop at nothing to get the country to reverse or lessen its commitment and enter into odds with Russia. This is definitely easier said than done, especially now that Moscow and Tehran have demonstrated such trust between one another through their work in the COR’sBaghdad information center, but this sly tactic of dividing Iran from Russia can’t ever be discounted or taken off of the table of tricks that the US and its allies will employ. As it’s dictated by one of the primary geopolitical imperatives of Western policy towards Eurasia, it can be taken to be a perpetual threat, even if it (hopefully) mitigates in intensity with time.

Balkan Blowout

Russia’s increased military presence in Syria makes it not only a Mideast power, but also an Eastern Mediterranean one as well (with A2/AD capabilities). Expanding on the latter, this ups the country’s presence near the southern shores of the Balkan region, which correlates with Moscow’s intentions to perform a Balkan Pivot and increase its influence in this Western-neglected area of Europe. Thus far, ‘Round Three’ of the New Cold War saw Macedonian patriots defeating the Color Revolution andAlbanian-affiliated Hybrid War attempts that were externally designed to sabotage the country’s stability and prevent it from ever being used as a multipolar-oriented transit state for Russian energy and Chinese high-speed rail. The first battle for the Balkans was won, but the war is far from being over, since there are three principle unresolved destabilizations that can blow up at any time: (1) asecond Color Revolution/Hybrid War venture in Macedonia before or right after the early elections in spring; (2) the geopolitical problems of ‘Greater Albania’ and Dayton-revisionist Bosnia; and (3) theregion-breaking refugee crisis. Victoria Nuland also has her own pet projects for how to throw the Balkans into bedlam, but they can all reasonably fail with good measure.

What should be understood by the reader after this citation-heavy above paragraph is that Russia has concrete geopolitical considerations behind its urge to civilizationally relink itself with the Balkans, while the US is exerting just as much effort to prevent this from happening and frantically finding ways to institutionally (such as Montenegrin and maybe even Macedonian NATO membership) and physically (Hybrid War in Macedonia or a ‘refugee revolt’ in Serbia) split the region off from Russia. Make no mistake – Washington has already planted multiple ‘ticking time bombs’ in the Balkans that it’s planning to remotely set off in the near future, the question is just whether or not the region can withstand such destabilizing blows and how (if in any way) Russia can assist it throughout the oncoming geopolitical ordeal.

With the Balkans being the ‘soft underbelly’ of the EU, which itself is the US’ largest Eurasian colony, Washington will fight back as viciously as it can to prevent Russia from establishing a strategic foothold so close to its ‘prized harlot’. It was already ‘overdefensive’ of its ‘catch’ even before, going as far as to engineer EuroMaidan to keep the two away from one another (moved forward because of the 2013 New Cold War loss the US received in Syria), but faced with an embarrassing, unprecedented, and surprising strategic withdrawal from the Mideast, it’ll probably spare no strategic or physical expense in making sure that Russian influence doesn’t move an inch closer to the Balkans during these tense geopolitical times. It doesn’t mean that this will stop Russia from endeavoring to do so, or that Moscow won’t ultimately succeed, but that it’s very probable that the New Cold War battlefield will once more cycle back to the Balkans after the Mideast (Syria) and Eastern Europe (Ukraine).

Central Asian Chaos

The last forecasted way in which the US could significantly take revenge on Russia for its grand Mideast power reversal is to indirectly strike at its interests in Central Asia, specifically along the Afghan border. It has just been revealed by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu that last month’s ultra-large-scale Center-2015 strategic exercise was aimed at both combating ISIL in the Mideast and the Taliban in Central Asia. As written about in Part I, if Russia continues to make proper use of coalition tactics in fighting against regional threats, it can wisely avoid the pitfalls of the Reverse Brzezinski stratagem, but it remains to be seen if Moscow could simultaneously handle two or more separate campaigns in two different regions (the Mideast and Central Asia).

If, for example, the Taliban, ISIL, and/or a hybrid combination of Islamic terrorists succeeds in capturing territory along most of the former Soviet-Afghan border and recruiting many Central Asians to join its ranks, how exactly would Russia respond? Looking at this scenario, it could quickly become a logistical-diplomatic nightmare, precisely because of the three separate military commands that could potentially (and maybe even concurrently) be involved. Tajikistan is part of the CSTO, which of course would be under Russian leadership, but Uzbekistan removed itself from the bloc in 2012precisely so it could be less tied to Moscow. Turkmenistan, which has seen the Taliban steadily gathering ever more frequently along its newly fortified border, isn’t in any military bloc and officially pursues a policy of neutrality. If there was a coordinated jihadist offensive northwards from Afghanistan against all three countries (which at least doesn’t seem likely from the Taliban right now unless ISIL gains influence over it), then Russia could foreseeably encounter difficulty in multi-managing three possible air interventions a la the Syrian template, with the possibility of a limited ground component being deployed in Tajikistan.

Furthermore, all three of Russia’s potential state brothers-in-arms are susceptible to certain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by a jihadist offensive against them. Tajikistan just had to hunt down and kill a rogue Deputy Defense Minister who suddenly assembled a terrorist gang that tried to overthrow the government, indicating the possible presence of more high-level anti-government figures; Uzbekistan is a bubbling pot of destabilization that might boil over in a hot successionist crisis after the passing of Islam Karimov and enter into all-out Somali/Libyan-style tribal warfare; and isolated and militarily inexperienced Turkmenistan is geographically positioned in such a manner as to make it a very easy target for any rapid ISIL-like offensive across its accommodating landscape, and one which would automatically destabilize Russian, Iranian, and Chinese strategic interests. Complicating matters even further, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have been in a heated rivalry ever since independence, and it’s questionable to what degree they’d be willing to trust one another to the point of militarily cooperating under the same command, meaning that Russia would most likely have to have at least two separate ones for Tajikistan and Uzbekistan & Turkmenistan.

Taking stock of the previous and looking at the worst-case scenario of a coordinated jihadist offensive against each of the three Afghan-bordering Central Asian states, specifically during the time of Russia’s active anti-terrorist involvement in Syria, then it would present a major predicament for Moscow’s military-strategic planners. They would of course have to respond to the deteriorating developments in the region, but as explained above, it could be exceptionally difficult from a logistical-diplomatic perspective to do so, despite having more than sufficient military capability in carrying out the task. This isn’t necessarily a Reverse Brzezinski (which would be an entangling on-the-ground commitment by Russia) so much as it is a systems overload and possible organizational breakdown. This extreme tri-scenario manifestation remains the least likely of the examined anti-Russian revenge responses that the US will take (although it might deploy one of them separately, perhaps as a ‘test’), but given the magnitude of damage that it can cause to Russia’s grand strategic interests, it certainly deserves to be at least considered by all.

Concluding Thoughts

The COR that Russia has created in the Mideast has the strong potential to revolutionarily transform global politics by dealing a hard blow in the gut of unipolarity’s formerly privileged ‘sphere of interest’. The defeat of ISIL and other terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq would represent a major victory for multipolarity, since it would exterminate the US’ strongest asymmetrical army and lessen the likelihood that it could ever be successfully used in destabilizing the Resistant & Defiant states of Russia, China, and Iran. It can be said that Russia surprisingly ‘changed the rules of the game’ by intervening in Syria at Damascus’ request, since it seems that this totally caught the US and its regional allies off guard. Now that this action has created established facts on the ground, it’s clear to see just how weak the US’ position really is in the Mideast, especially since its two previous pillars of regional power, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, are in real danger of internally crumbling before the eyes of the world. The extraordinarily short time that Russia was able to reverse the status of power in the Mideast through a relatively small bombing campaign testifies to the paper tiger-like nature of unipolar control in the Mideast.

If the COR’s momentum keeps up and the terrorists are all soundly defeated, then it’s very likely that the crossroads of Afro-Eurasia will become the most crucial strategic bridgehead in pushing back against unipolar world. But, be that as it may, the US most certainly will not take such an astounding loss lightly, and it’s absolutely guaranteed to push back in seemingly unexpected ways. Whether through Kurdish Turncoats, Refugee Games, or Divide and Conquer between Iran and Russia, the US will not let its grip on the region go peacefully, and it may even resort to indirectly attacking Russian strategic interests in the Balkan and/or Central Asian theaters to distract Moscow from the Mideast and create a exploitable opening in which to stage a counter-offensive. If, however, Russia and its Coalition of the Righteous are successful in securing the Mideast and stymieing the forecasted American destruction of the Balkans and Central Asia, then a new multipolar world order can incontrovertibly replace the unipolar one of old.

Andrew Korybko is the American political commentaror currently working for the Sputnik agency.

An acclaimed philosopher and journalist who has recently visited Iran tells Fars News Agency that the reality of Iran is absolutely different from the way it’s being illustrated in the mainstream media.

Andre Vltchek says “Iran that you see when visiting the country has nothing in common with that imaginary, terrible and cruel Iran that the West’s mass media has created.”

Commenting on Iran’s nuclear program and the international responses to it, Andre Vltchek says the majority of the Middle East nations and the global public don’t have any objections to Iran developing nuclear technology, considering Iran’s peaceful nature and its long history of non-violence.

“I am actually horrified that such countries, such colonial powers like the United States, France and the UK have their nuclear arsenal and that the world is tolerating it. These countries are responsible for loss of hundreds of millions of human lives, all over the world. But Iran! Why should anyone fear Iran? Yes, Iran is transparent and accountable over its nuclear program,” he asserted.

Vltchek who has traveled to tens of countries in five continents talks of his experience in Iran with delight, noting that without visiting Iran, “one’s knowledge of the world could never be complete.”

Andre Vltchek was a keynote speaker at the International Congress on 17,000 Iranian Terror Victims held in Tehran last month.

FNA spoke to Mr. Vltchek about Iran’s relations with the West, the portrayal of Iran in the Western media and the international perceptions of the country’s nuclear program.

Q: You recently attended the International Congress on 17,000 Iranian Terror Victims, which commemorated the Iranian citizens and officials murdered by the terrorist groups following the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Isn’t it ironic that while Iran says it’s been a victim of global terrorism itself, it’s being accused by some of the major powers and their allies of sponsoring terrorism?

A: Yes it is ironic, but the entire arrangement of the world is more than ironic; it is grotesque. We have a group of several, mainly Western countries, ruling the world, brutalizing all continents, reigning over entire planet using dictatorial and often criminal means, but these countries are accusing others, mainly their victims, of being undemocratic [and] even of sponsoring terrorism.

Their propaganda is extremely advanced. It was being perfected throughout the centuries. I suggest one thing: keep telling the truth and continue presenting facts. But the countries like Iran should not engage in direct debate with the West over these issues. It is because the West and its propaganda are too advanced in their ways and in the methods to manipulate public opinion through distorting the facts. Their outright lies are now more convincing than the truth.

Q: The Iranian officials and ordinary citizens have complained in the recent years that the international community didn’t adopt a firm stance in protest against the assassination of the nation’s nuclear scientists between 2010 and 2012. In March 2014, a CBS national correspondent Dan Raviv suggested that Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad was behind the killing of five Iranian civilian scientists, and that the Obama administration had asked Benjamin Netanyahu to stop the assassination campaign. Why wasn’t there any official, public condemnation by the world leaders and international organizations on those killings?

A: First of all, because in the West, the majority of people has absolutely no idea that Iran’s nuclear scientists were actually assassinated. Only a very small percentage of the citizens of Europe and North America are well informed and capable of thinking independently. I estimate that between 1 to 2 percent of their population has any idea about the reality. And these people are not holding the power.

As you are well aware, Iran had been defined – by the West – as a pariah state. It had been accused of so many horrible things. These accusations are stereotypical. Actually, each country that does not kneel in front of the West’s colonialist ambitions is accused of these same “crimes”. This way, the West’s public is systematically de-sensitized. After smearing a country like Iran, people in the West think, well, whatever is done to change their “regime” is actually quite legitimate. If it is done through the killing, fine; if using embargos, ok; overthrowing the government – why not? It is extremely brutal game, and there is no compassion there, no feelings; as there is no justice.

Q: The Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), is an armed group responsible for the killing of hundreds of Iranian government officials and ordinary citizens in the years following the 1979 revolution. The group was on the US Department of State’s list of foreign terrorist organizations for 15 years, and also considered a terrorist group by the Council of the European Union and the Canadian government. However, the designation was surprisingly lifted in 2012, and the sect is now simply considered a political opposition party. What’s the main reason behind the decision to de-list MKO? Won’t their decision give the MKO greater leeway to carry out terrorist operations inside Iran more conveniently and destabilize the country?

A: Exactly. But that is really their goal, to use MKO as destabilizing factor against Iran, as ISIL is used to destroy Syria and Iraq, [and] as some of the most ruthless and brutal right-wing groups are used to destroy Latin American revolutions. The West is using exactly the same methods against China and Russia and against so many other independent-minded countries. Please do not search for logic behind these acts committed by the West. Their goals are strictly destructive.

Q: One of the questions you raised during your keynote speech during the opening session of the International Congress on 17,000 Iranian Terror Victims in Tehran was that, “why is Iran a target of terrorists supported by the West?” What’s your response to your own question? As you mentioned, Iran has been a harmless country that never attacked any of its neighbors, nor did it overthrow any government. So, why should it be on the receiving end of so much aggression?

A: As I mentioned during my speech in Tehran: it is because “Iran is doing many things right”. It is because Iran’s government wants to improve the standard of living of its people, instead of feeding foreign corporations, and instead of taking orders from the foreign regimes. It is because of Iran’s great friendship with other independent-minded countries and movements in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, as well as China and Russia – two powers that are now standing firmly against the Western imperialism. Presidents Ahmadinejad and Chavez of Venezuela were very close friends. Iran is seen with sympathy by tens of millions of people in this region. And as I was told by great North American thinker, Noam Chomsky, while we were making a film and writing a book entitled “On Western Terrorism – From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare”, most of the countries of the Middle East are seeing real danger in the US and in Israel, while only a tiny fraction sees Iran as a menace. All that I just mentioned above makes the Western empire absolutely furious.

The only way to make a “peace” with the West would be to kneel down and to sacrifice Iranian people to the foreign interests. There is no compromise, no other way; the West always demands nothing less than everything. And Iran’s government would never commit such treason; it would not betray or sacrifice its people.

Q: In one of your reports from Iran, you noted that there are powers which continually demand Iranians to show transparency and build confidence, while staying in “murkiness” themselves. You said they challenge, scrutinize, corner, bully and humiliate the people of Iran systemically. I suppose you were referring to Iran’s nuclear program, for which it has been under pressure for over a decade. What do you think are the reasons for these pressures? Hasn’t Iran been adequately transparent and accountable over its nuclear program?

A: Yes it has been. But again, it is not what Iran actually does. It is what the Western propaganda wants Iran to be perceived as, by the rest of the world. Iran that you see when visiting the country has nothing in common with that imaginary, terrible and cruel Iran that the West’s mass media has created.

Again, referring to the public opinion in the Middle East, most of people there would absolutely not mind if Iran would have its own military nuclear program. I would definitely not mind! Why should anyone mind, given extremely peaceful history of Iran? I am actually horrified that such countries, such colonial powers like the United States, France and the UK have their nuclear arsenal and that the world is tolerating it. These countries are responsible for loss of hundreds of millions of human lives, all over the world. But Iran! Why should anyone fear Iran? Yes, Iran is transparent and accountable over its nuclear program.

But the way the West had been operating on the global stage is like this; a gang of bandits which just robbed a village corners some poor victim, then points fingers at him and shouts: “Thief!” and they run after him, beat him up.

I described this, in detail, in my 840-page book “Exposing Lies of The Empire”. There, I am offering dozens of concrete examples, from all over the world, how the Empire is demonizing and destroying its “enemies”.

This is how it is; this is arrangement of the world in which we are living and that is why this global dictatorship of the West has to end, as soon as possible.

Q: In the reports you filed from Iran, you described the country’s public sphere as peaceful, tranquil and its people as cordial and hospitable. While many US and European citizens are afraid of traveling to Iran as visitors and tourists since they say it’s an unsafe and dangerous place, what would you tell them about your experience? Why is there so much misconception about Iran and its people in the minds of the Western public? Is it necessary that they change the way they look at and think about Iran

A: We are talking about one of the oldest and one of the deepest cultures on earth! Without visiting Iran, one’s knowledge of the world could never be complete. From ancient-days science, architecture and poetry, to modern cinema – arguably the greatest on earth, Iran managed to influence the world, greatly and positively.

To visit Iran, to mingle with its people – that is absolutely the minimum that any thinking human being could and should do.

Why is there so much misconception? It is very simple question to answer: Western propaganda knows that the easiest way to gain support at home and abroad for its hostile, or call it terrorist, actions against those proud and independent nations that are opposing the Empire, is to smear them, demonize them. Hollywood and mainstream media play submissive, servile role, spreading false information and perceptions. And Hollywood as well as the Western mainstream media, have been pushed down the throat of the people all over the world. They are part of that grand disinformation and brainwashing apparatus. Once the country is defamed, it is much simpler to justify sanctions, even direct or indirect invasion.

I therefore encourage people from all corners of the world to visit Iran and to see the reality with their own eyes. I tell them: stop trusting Western propaganda, and stop acting like sheep! Go and see, and judge by yourself!

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.

Kourosh Ziabari is an award-winning Iranian journalist and media correspondent. He has won three awards in Iran’s National Press Festival and is the recipient of the National Medal of Superior Iranian Youth in a festival that recognized the elite Iranian youth in sciences, arts, sports, entrepreneurship, environmental activism, literature and media. Kourosh has been a member of the student assembly at the International Student Energy Summit 2009 in Calgary, Canada. His articles and interviews with prominent world leaders, politicians, diplomats and academicians have appeared on many leading sites. A collection of his articles and interviews can be found on his website at: www.KouroshZiabari.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Kourosh.Ziabari
Twitter: www.twitter.com/KZiabari

Why has Barack Obama airdropped 50 tons of ammunition into areas that “moderate rebels” in Syria supposedly control?  This is essentially the equivalent of poking the Russians directly in the eyes.  Much of this ammunition will end up in the hands of those that the Russians are attempting to bomb into oblivion, and so to Russia it appears that we are attempting to make their job much harder. 

And of course the truth is that there aren’t really any “moderate rebels” in Syria at all.  Nearly all of the groups that are fighting are made up primarily of radical jihadists and/or hired mercenaries.  Personally, I don’t see anyone over there that you could call “the good guys”.  At the end of the day, the U.S. supports just about anyone that wants to get rid of the Assad regime, and the Russians are working very hard to keep Assad in power.  Just like the civil war in Ukraine, the conflict in Syria is in great danger of being transformed into a proxy war between the United States and Russia, and many fear that these conflicts could eventually be setting the stage for World War III.

The ferocity of Russian airstrikes in Syria has surprised observers all over the planet, and over the past couple of days these airstrikes have been extended to include some new areas…

Russian Air Forces have extended the range of their airstrikes on Islamic State positions in Syria to four provinces, focusing primarily on demolishing fortified installations and eliminating supply bases and the terrorists’ infrastructure.

Over the last 24 hours Russian aircraft have attacked terrorist positions in the Hama, Idlib, Latakia and Raqqa provinces of Syria. In total, 64 sorties targeted 63 Islamic State installations, among them 53 fortified zones, 7 arms depots, 4 training camps and a command post.

When I read reports like this, I am deeply troubled.  The Obama administration claims that it has been bombing ISIS positions in Syria for over a year.  So why in the world do these targets still exist?

Was the U.S. military incapable of finding these installations?

That doesn’t seem likely.

So why weren’t they destroyed long ago?

Did the Obama administration not want them destroyed for some reason?

What seems abundantly clear is that the Russians are doing what the Obama administration was either unwilling or unable to do.  There is now mass panic among ISIS fighters, and thousands of them are fleeing the country…

An estimated 3,000 Islamic State fighters as well as militants from other extremist groups have fled Syria for Jordan fearing a renewed offensive by the Syrian army in addition to Russian airstrikes, a military official has told RIA news agency.

“At least 3,000 militants from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), al-Nusra and Jaish al-Yarmouk have fled to Jordan. They are afraid of the Syrian army having stepped up activities on all fronts and of Russian airstrikes,” the RIA source said.

The mainstream media in the United States is not talking much about this, are they?

But the U.S. media is reporting on this latest airdrop of ammunition to rebel groups in Syria.  For example, the following comes from CNN…

U.S. military cargo planes gave 50 tons of ammunition to rebel groups overnight in northern Syria, using an air drop of 112 pallets as the first step in the Obama Administration’s urgent effort to find new ways to support those groups.

Details of the air mission over Syria were confirmed by a U.S. official not authorized to speak publicly because the details have not yet been formally announced.

C-17s, accompanied by fighter escort aircraft, dropped small arms ammunition and other items like hand grenades in Hasakah province in northern Syria to a coalition of rebels groups vetted by the US, known as the Syrian Arab Coalition.

If you were the Russians, how would you feel about this?

I know how I would feel.

And just as Joe Biden has previously admitted, the “moderate middle” in Syria simply does not exist.  The following is an extended excerpt from a piece that was originally written by investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed…

The first Russian airstrikes hit the rebel-held town of Talbisah north of Homs City, home to al-Qaeda’s official Syrian arm, Jabhat al-Nusra, and the pro-al-Qaeda Ahrar al-Sham, among other local rebel groups. Both al-Nusra and the Islamic State have claimed responsibility for vehicle-borne IEDs (VBIEDs) in Homs City, which is 12 kilometers south of Talbisah.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports that as part of “US and Turkish efforts to establish an ISIS ‘free zone’ in the northern Aleppo countryside,” al-Nusra “withdrew from the border and reportedly reinforced positions in this rebel-held pocket north of Homs city”.

In other words, the US and Turkey are actively sponsoring “moderate” Syrian rebels in the form of al-Qaeda, which Washington DC-based risk analysis firm Valen Globals forecasts will be “a bigger threat to global security” than IS in coming years.

Last October, Vice President Joe Biden conceded that there is “no moderate middle” among the Syrian opposition. Turkey and the Gulf powers armed and funded “anyone who would fight against Assad,” including “al-Nusra,” “al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI),” and the “extremist elements of jihadis who were coming from other parts of the world”.

In other words, the CIA-backed rebels targeted by Russia are not moderates. They represent the same melting pot of al-Qaeda affiliated networks that spawned the Islamic State in the first place.

It has been well documented that many of these so-called “moderate rebel groups” in Syria have fought alongside ISIS and have sold weapons to them.  So this false dichotomy that Barack Obama keeps trying to sell us on is just a giant fraud.  The following comes from a recent Infowars report…

In September, 2014 a commander with the FSA admitted cooperating with ISIS and the al-Nusra Front.

“We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings in … Qalamoun,” Bassel Idriss said. “Let’s face it: The Nusra Front is the biggest power present right now in Qalamoun and we as FSA would collaborate on any mission they launch as long as it coincides with our values.”

In July of 2014 a report in Stars and Stripes documented how the 1,000 strong Dawud Brigade, which had previously fought alongside the FSA against al-Assad, had defected in its entirety to join ISIS.

The same month factions within the FSA — including Ahl Al Athar and Ibin al-Qa’im — pledged services to the Islamic State.

Members of the Islamic State claim to cooperate with the FSA and buy weapons provided by the U.S.

“We are buying weapons from the FSA. We bought 200 anti-aircraft missiles and Koncourse anti tank weapons,” ISIS member Abu Atheer told al-Jazeera. “We have good relations with our brothers in the FSA. For us, the infidels are those who cooperate with the West to fight Islam.”

U.S. anti-tank weapons are playing a critical role in the Syrian conflict.  As reported by the Washington Post, U.S.-made anti-tank missiles are being used by the rebels to destroy lots of Russian-made tanks that are being used by the Syrian army…

So successful have they been in driving rebel gains in northwestern Syria that rebels call the missile the “Assad Tamer,” a play on the word Assad, which means lion. And in recent days they have been used with great success to slow the Russian-backed offensive aimed at recapturing ground from the rebels.

Since Wednesday, when Syrian troops launched their first offensive backed by the might of Russia’s military, dozens of videos have been posted on YouTube showing rebels firing the U.S.-made missiles at Russian-made tanks and armored vehicles belonging to the Syrian army. Appearing as twirling balls of light, they zigzag across the Syrian countryside until they find and blast their target in a ball of flame.

Like I said earlier, this is looking more and more like a proxy war between the United States and Russia.

Could that be what Obama actually wants?

Obama is poking China in the eyes lately too.  CNN is reporting that U.S. warships may soon be sailing into territorial waters around the Spratly Islands.  These are islands that the Chinese government claims ownership over, but the U.S. government disputes that claim, and Obama seems determined to flex his muscles in the area…

The United States (US) may soon deploy war ships near China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea.

It wants to send a message that it does not recognize China’s territorial claims over the area.

This is according to a Financial Times report quoting a senior U.S. official who said its ships will sail within 12-nautical-mile zones that China claims as its territory around the Spratly Islands within the next two weeks.

If Obama sends warships into that area, there is a very real chance that they could get shot at.  According to  Newsweek, the Chinese are saying that they will not permit U.S. ships to violate those territorial waters under any circumstances…

“We will never allow any country to violate China’s territorial waters and airspace in the Spratly Islands, in the name of protecting freedom of navigation and overflight,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said in response to a question about possible U.S. patrols. “We urge the related parties not to take any provocative actions, and genuinely take a responsible stance on regional peace and stability.”

Such exchanges appear to be moving China and the U.S. toward a much feared, yet long expected, military confrontation. Just as unsettling, both sides seem confident they can prevail.

Over the past couple of years our relations with China have really gone downhill very rapidly, and if the trading relationship between the two largest economies on the planet breaks down, that would have massive implications for the entire global economy.

In addition to everything above, the civil war in Ukraine continues to rage on.  The United States funded, equipped, trained and organized the forces that violently overthrew the democratically-elected government in Ukraine, and then once those thugs (which actually included some neo-Nazis) took power, the Obama administration immediately recognized them as the legitimate government of Ukraine.

The Russians were absolutely infuriated by this, and they have been providing soldiers, equipment and supplies to the rebel groups that are fighting back against this new government.  Of course the Russians deny that they are doing this, but it is exceedingly obvious that they are.

The rebel groups that the Russians have been backing have been doing very well and have been steadily taking ground, and this is not how the power brokers in D.C. envisioned things playing out in Ukraine.  So in a desperate attempt to shift the momentum of the conflict, a bill is going through Congress that would provide “lethal military aid” to the government in Kiev.  Initially the bill would have provided 200 million dollars in lethal aid, but now it has been upped to 300 million dollars.  There are some that believe that the final figure will be significantly higher.

Once this bill gets passed, it will be an extremely important event.  For the Russians, it will mean crossing a red line that never should have been crossed.  You see, the truth is that Ukraine is Russia’s most important neighbor.  Just imagine how we would feel if the Russians helped overthrow Canada’s government and then start feeding weapons to the new pro-Russian government that they helped install.  That is exactly how the Russians view our meddling in Ukraine.

Earlier this year, I wrote an article in which I discussed an opinion poll that showed that 81 percent of all Russians now view the United States negatively, and only 13 percent of Russians have a positive view of this nation.  Not even during the height of the Cold War were the numbers that bad.

The stage is being set for World War III, but most Americans are completely and totally oblivious to all of this because they are so wrapped up in their own little worlds.

Most Americans still seem to assume that the Russians and the Chinese are our “friends” and that any type of conflict between major global powers is impossible.

Well, the truth is that conflict has already begun in Ukraine and Syria, and tensions are rising with each passing day.

It won’t happen next week or next month, but we are on the road to World War III.

So what will the end result be?  Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…

Who exactly is going to get their hands on those 50 tons of munitions?

Watch a video of this report here:

The Russian Defence Ministry has reported that “Russian airstrikes resulted in the elimination of the majority of ISIS ammunition, heavy vehicles and equipment.“

This joins numerous other positive reports on the Russian intervention, where we hear 40% of the terrorists’ infrastructure has been eliminated and the launch of cruise missiles caused an exodus among the ranks of ISIS.

Despite cancelling their ‘rebel’ training program, the US has now airdropped 50 tons of ammunition for smalls arms, along with grenades, into the ISIS hotbed of Northern Syria.

Note: This article was originally published on our website in September 2003, shortly after the Canal Hotel bombing in Iraq. It deals with US empire building in the Middle East via UN-sponsored operations and addresses the colonial mindset/gross double standards of some UN officials charged with carrying out this aim. The article remains relevant today, for it accurately points to the UN as a “bogus body of vassal agencies run by hand picked functionaries” that has “lost its independence and utility as a force for peace”. Indeed, not much has changed over the past twelve years; like Iraq 10 years ago, the UN’s recent destruction of Libya and Syria are testimony to the fact that this international organization carries on betraying the very principles it is intended to embody .

*

The bombing of the United Nations compound in Iraq has provoked anger, sorrow, bombastic bluster from the Bush Administration and unreflective promises to “carry on the humanitarian mission” from the Secretary General Kofi Annan. Debate and discussion, to the degree that it has appeared in the mass media focuses on who was responsible for the “security lapses”, the UN and its supporters pointing to the incompetence of the US occupation army, the US officials blaming the UN officials for negligence. These discussions are secondary, technical matters and fail to deal with the deeper political reasons behind the attack of the UN.

The pro-Israeli neo-conservatives in Washington predictably attribute the UN bombing to Arab-Islamic-terrorism and lump together the bombing of an Israeli bus and the UN as justification for greater US and Israeli violence. The center-left praise the diplomatic and humanistic virtues of the UN’s special representative in Iraq, Sergio Viera de Mello and with unblinking incomprehension claim that the bombing harmed the cause of the Iraqi people and set back the process of national reconstruction.

Both UN and US officials, neo-conservatives and center-left intellectuals fail to analyze the actual political role of the United Nations in Iraq and particularly the partisan political role of Sergio Viera de Mello which might have provoked the attack.

The United Nations led by Kofi Annan has not played an impartial role in the US- Iraq conflict. For over a decade the UN supported economic sanctions against Iraq, causing over 1 million Iraqi deaths, mostly children and the resignation of two top UN officials in protest. UN inspectors oversaw the disarming of Iraqi defenses and ignored or approved the US-British bombing of Iraq for over 12 years. Up to the final hour of the US invasion of Iraq, the entire attention of the UN was directed toward pressuring the Iraqi government to accept US demands, not condemning US war preparations, even as the Security Council did ultimately refuse to give approval to the unilateral US invasion. The historical record of the decade preceding the invasion clearly puts the UN on the side of the US, to the point that several of the UN inspectors were identified as working with the CIA and conducting searches and providing strategic information to US military intelligence.

To this some writer may object and argue that UN-US collaboration was a thing of the past, after the US military conquest the UN has not supported the colonial occupation and promoted a transition to democratic self-rule. Published documents, official interviews and UN resolutions present a far different picture. One in which the UN accepted and worked with US colonial ruler, Paul Bremer in an attempt to consolidate US control of the occupied country.

After the disastrous month in office of the first US colonial governor Garner, and his replacement by Paul Bremer, it became clear even to the most tenacious and bloody militarist in the Pentagon that imperial rulership was resulting in a powerful resistance movement of all sectors of Iraqi society and the total isolation of the US colonial regime from every Arab, Muslim or European regime (except England and of course Israel). The Bush Administration was adamant in its demand for total power in Iraq, but was willing to allow the UN to operate under US rule. Annam dispatched Viera de Mello to work with the US colonial governor Bremer and he was a brilliant political success in terms that were advantageous to US colonial power. Viera de Mello’s UN mission was to collaborate with Bremer and directed toward creating an advisory junta (Interim Iraqi National Council) that would provide a figleaf for US colonial control. Operating under Resolution 1483 passed by the Security Council on May 22, 2003, de Mello was assigned eight areas of activity, all of which had to do with the “reconstruction” of the country especially in the political sphere. De Mello was active in enticing tribal leaders, conservative clerics as well as exile prodigies of the Pentagon to form the junta, with the proviso that the US colonial governor approved all of its members, and that all approved the US invasion and occupation. In effect de Mello organized a powerless collection of self-appointed elites who had no credibility in Iraq or legitimacy among the Iraqi populace, to serve as window dressing for US colonial rule. Once the US approved junta was in place, de Mello traveled throughout the Middle East trying to convince neighboring countries that the US “creation”, opposed by the majority of Iraqis was a legitimate and representative “transitional regime”. De Mello’s main argument was that the US appointed junta was a “governing” and not merely “advisory” body, an argument that convinced nobody, least of all the US officials handing out contracts to Halliburton Corporation and organizing the privatization of Iraqi oil and certainly not the US military terrorizing and shooting innocent Iraqi civilians.

Both UN resolution 1483 in pursuit of “reconstruction” under US colonial rule and de Mello’s active role in promoting and defending the US puppet interim regime were not disinterested humanitarian activities. These were political positions – commitments that involved acceptance of US colonial rule, and a clear and deliberate decision to use the United Nations as a vehicle for legitimating imperial rulership via an impotent and corrupt junta rejected by the Iraqi people. De Mello was certainly aware of the concentration of power in the hands of Bremer, he was certainly aware that the Iraqi people – who were never given a voice or vote in its selection, rejected the junta; he actively participated in excluding any anti-colonial critics from the council. His close working relationship with Paul Bermer, the US ruler of Iraq certainly undermined any pretense that the United Nations was an independent force in Iraq. In the eyes of the Iraqis and two former top UN officials (Boutros Gali and Denis Halliday) the UN and in particular Kofi Annan and de Mello were appendages of US colonial power.

Denis Halliday, the former UN Assistant Secretary General and UN H umanitarian Coordinator in Iraq recently stated that the bombing of the UN in Iraq was payback for collusion with the US. On August 24, 2003 in an interview with The Sunday Herald (Scotland) he noted that “further collaboration” between the UN and the US and Britain “would be a disaster for the United Nations as it would be sucked into supporting the illegal occupation of Iraq. The UN has been drawn into being an arm of the US – a division of the State Department. Kofi Annan was appointed and supported by the US and that has corrupted the independence of the UN”.

In an interview with the BBC, Boutros Boutros Ghali, former Secretary General of the UN, speaking in the aftermath of the bombing, stated “the perception in a great part of the Third World is that the United Nations, because of the American (sic) influenceŠ is a system which discriminated (against) many countries of the Third World.” George Monbiot of the British newspaper The Guardian (August 25, 2003) observes: “The US government has made it perfectly clear that the UN may operate in Iraq only as a subcontractor. Foreign troops will take their orders from Washington.” None of these remarks appeared in any form in any of the US mass media.

The UN has moved very far from its original founding principles. As one time the UN stood for peace, social justice and self-determination and opposed colonial wars, pillage of national wealth and colonial rule. Given the active partisan role of the UN in Iraq, in creating a political framework compatible with prolonged US colonial rulership, it is not at all a mystery why the Iraqi resistance targeted the UN building just as it targets the imperial army and the oil pipelines up for sale to US and European multinational corporations. Having taken sides with the US, it is the height of hypocrisy for top UN officials to claim to be innocent victims. Just as it is deceptive for US and UN officials to claim that the anti-colonial resistance is made up of “foreigners”, Saddam Hussein “remnants”, Al Queda terrorists, Sunni extremists or Iranian Shiites. The resistance is not confined to areas where Saddam Hussein was popular, nor is it limited to areas of Sunni believers; it is in the north and south, east and west, covering all ethnic and religious regions and enclaves. The resistance is national, indigenous and based on opposition to US colonial occupation, destruction of infrastructure and the physical and psychological degradation of 23 million Iraqis. While the Iraqis suffer from 80% unemployment and go without clean water, food and electricity, high UN officials draw salaries between $80,000 to $150,000 a year, are chauffeured in luxury cars and SUV’s, work in air conditioned offices and dine on fresh imported food in comfortable apartments or villas – enjoying the best of colonial life. One does not need to introduce the Al Queda hypothesis to understand how political and personal resentment against these self- important imperial collaborators could boil over into a violent attack.

It is clear to many in the Middle East that the UN has become a bogus body of vassal agencies run by hand picked functionaries like de Mello, whose charm and cleverness does not compensate for their collaboration in US empire building. For a growing number of professionals, journalists and particularly ordinary people it is becoming clear that the United Nations has lost its independence and utility as a force for peace. Increasingly social movements and Third World nations are looking to new international organizations and forums to pursue the principles, which the UN has betrayed. The new body will have to renounce the elitist character of the current UN with its two tiered system of voting and power; it will have to reject membership to countries which embrace “preventive” wars of conquest and colonial rule and pillage of national resources. In a word the new international organization and its secretary-general must not be an appendage of Washington – if it wishes to avoid the tragedy of the UN – a body which started with great ideals and ended as a cynical manipulator of ideals in the services of imperial power.

«Nella East Cera­sia (Cera­sia dell’Est), un paese ha invaso un paese vicino più pic­colo e minac­cia di inva­derne un altro. Le impli­ca­zioni della crisi sono glo­bali. La Nato lan­cia una mis­sione inter­na­zio­nale di assi­stenza e appog­gio per pro­teg­gere gli Stati minac­ciati»: que­sto è lo sce­na­rio che viene «simu­lato» dall’esercitazione Tri­dent Junc­ture 2015 (TJ15). I nomi, spiega la Nato, sono «fittizi».

Non ci vuole però molta imma­gi­na­zione per capire che la «Cera­sia dell’Est» è l’Europa dell’Est e «il paese inva­sore» è la Rus­sia, accu­sata dalla Nato di aver invaso l’Ucraina e di minac­ciare altri Stati dell’Est. Quella in corso in Ita­lia, Spa­gna e Por­to­gallo è dun­que una prova reale di guerra sul fronte orientale.

Nella fase ini­ziale (3–16 otto­bre), nel cen­tro di Pog­gio Rena­tico (Fer­rara), il primo ope­ra­tivo del nuovo Sistema di comando e con­trollo aereo Nato, 400 mili­tari di 15 paesi «simu­lano gli eventi da affron­tare». Quindi, dal 21 otto­bre al 6 novem­bre, si svolge la Livex, l’esercitazione «dal vivo» con oltre 230 unità ter­re­stri, aeree e navali e forze spe­ciali di 28 paesi alleati e 7 part­ner (tra cui l’Ucraina), com­pren­denti 36 mila uomini, oltre 60 navi e 200 aerei da guerra. Nella TJ15, le ope­ra­zioni ter­re­stri sono con­trol­late dal Lan­d­com, il Comando delle forze ter­re­stri Nato con quar­tier gene­rale a Izmir (Tur­chia), agli ordini del gene­rale Usa Nichol­son, che ha inviato sul campo oltre 250 mem­bri del suo staff. Quelle marit­time, dal Mar­com, il Comando delle forze navali Nato con quar­tier gene­rale a Nor­th­wood (Gran Bre­ta­gna), agli ordini dell’ammiraglio bri­tan­nico Hud­son. Quelle aeree, dallo Air­com, il Comando delle forze aeree Nato con quar­tier gene­rale a Ram­stein (Ger­ma­nia), agli ordini del gene­rale Usa Gorenc che è anche coman­dante delle forze aeree Usa in Europa e di quelle per l’Africa.

La TJ15 serve a testare la capa­cità della «Forza di rispo­sta» (40mila uomini), in par­ti­co­lare della sua «Forza di punta ad altis­sima pron­tezza ope­ra­tiva» pro­iet­ta­bile in 48 ore fuori dall’area Nato sia verso Est che verso Sud, il cui comando ope­ra­tivo viene eser­ci­tato nel 2015 dal Joint Force Com­mand di Lago Patria (Napoli), agli ordini dell’ammiraglio Usa Fer­gu­son che è anche coman­dante delle Forze navali Usa in Europa e di quelle per l’Africa.

L’Italia, comu­nica il governo, ha for­nito per l’esercitazione «assetti, basi e poli­goni». Par­ti­co­lar­mente impor­tanti le basi e i poli­goni per le forze aeree, che la Nato così elenca: Pisa e Gros­seto in Toscana, Pra­tica di Mare nel Lazio, Amen­dola in Puglia, Deci­mo­mannu e Teu­lada in Sar­de­gna, Sigo­nella e Tra­pani in Sici­lia, cui si aggiunge la por­tae­rei Cavour come base galleggiante.

Alla vigi­lia della Livex, il 19 otto­bre, si svol­gerà all’aeroporto di Tra­pani Birgi la ceri­mo­nia di aper­tura, con la par­te­ci­pa­zione di alcuni dei mas­simi rap­pre­sen­tanti mili­tari ita­liani e Nato, seguita da una con­fe­renza stampa e dal sor­volo degli aerei da guerra (Euro­fighter 2000, F-16, Amx e altri), ita­liani, polac­chi, greci e cana­desi, più un aereo radar Awacs rischie­rato a Tra­pani dalla base Nato di Gei­len­kir­chen (Germania).

Niente ceri­mo­nie, invece, alla base di Deci­mo­mannu, usata anche da aerei slo­veni, e al poli­gono di Teu­lada dove si eser­ci­te­ranno anche forze ter­re­stri. L’esercitazione Livex «dal vivo», con bombe e mis­sili che esplo­dendo spar­ge­ranno nell’ambiente ura­nio impo­ve­rito, altri metalli pesanti e sostanze chi­mi­che tos­si­che, semi­nerà altra morte pro­vo­cando tumori e mal­for­ma­zioni gene­ti­che. Pagando con denaro pub­blico, rica­vato dai tagli alle spese sociali, le spese vive della Livex.

Manlio Dinucci

74-year-old Palestinian woman Ghalya Abu-Rida being given water by Israeli troops, minutes before she was executed.

First published on January 21, 2015

During the Israeli bombardment and shelling of the Gaza Strip last summer, an Israeli soldier approached a 74-year-old Palestinian woman Ghalya Abu-Rida to give her a sip of water. He gave her the water, took a photo with her and then he shot her in the head from a distance of one metre. He then watched as she bled to death, the Palestine Information Centre reported.

This is how Ahmad Qdeh, a journalist in Al-Aqsa TV, described the scene that he witnessed during the latest Israeli aggression. The spokesman of the Israeli army, Avichay Adraee, shared the photo of an Israeli soldier holding the water bottle and helping the old woman drink as an example of the “humanity” of the Israeli army towards the civilians in the Gaza Strip.

The field executions were among the stories Qdeh reported during the Israeli aggression on Gaza Strip. He said: “Ghalya Ahmad Abu-Rida lived in the Khuza’a area in the east of Khan Younis city. I live in that area too and I made a television report on her story after the Israeli soldiers executed her during the aggression.”

“During the aggression, an Israeli soldier approached the old woman and took a photo for another soldier while giving her water. They then executed her by shooting her in the head from a distance of one metre and let her bleed until she died,” he added.

Ghalya was born in 1941. She lived by herself in a room near her brothers’ house in the Abu-Rida neighbourhood of Khuza’a. She had no children. Her neighbourhood was one of the first places invaded by the Israeli army during the aggression.

Field Execution

Majed Abu-Rida, Ghalya’s nephew, confirmed to the media that his aunt was visually impaired and could hardly see. He said that the Israeli army had falsely claimed humanity while executing his aunt in cold blood.

Ghalya, with her weak body and white hair, refused to leave her house after the Israeli army ordered the residents of Khuza’a to evacuate. She thought her old age would protect her from being a target so she stayed in her home and refused to join the majority of the residents who left the area as the invasion began.

On 3 August, the Israeli forces announced a truce and allowed medical staff to reach the Khuza’a area. Ghalya was found dead after she bled to death as she was shot in the head near her house, Al-Aqsa TV confirmed to MEMO. Her brother confirmed that the photo shared by the Israeli army supported the family’s belief that Ghalya was in the hands of the Israeli army. The family also believed that the area in which Ghalya appeared in the photo and in which she was found asserted that the Israeli forces killed her after taking the photo for the media.

Misinformation

Professor of media at the universities of Gaza, Ahmad Al-Farra, said: “The photo the Israeli army spokesman shared is misleading propaganda by the Israeli army to present a humane portrait of its soldiers. It can enhance the opportunity to pursue the Israeli army’s soldiers as war criminals before the International Criminal Court.”

“This photo proves the confusion of the Israeli army spokesman in defending his army. It proves that they killed civilians,” he added.

He continued: “The Israeli occupation lies and misinforms in an attempt to affect international public opinion. It exploits the Arab media and Palestinian diplomacy in exposing the Israeli occupation’s crimes.” He demanded launching a large campaign to expose the Israeli lies and falsifications.

Al-Farra stressed the need for a media enlightenment campaign to go side by side with the field battles to correct the false image that Israel presents about its army and the resistance.

Israel carried out a 51-day war that claimed the lives of around 2,200 Palestinians and wounded around 11,000 others.

El pasado 8 de octubre del 2015 en forma unánime fue dictaminado el Acuerdo Marco de Cooperación entre la República de Costa Rica y Palestina (ver  nota  de prensa del Semanario Universidad del 8/10/2015): se trata del primer paso, dado en el seno de la Comisión de Relaciones Internacionales de la Asamblea Legislativa de Costa Rica, de cara a la aprobación por parte del Congreso en pleno de este acuerdo marco suscrito el 23 de septiembre del 2013 en Nueva York por los cancilleres de ambos Estados (ver  nota  de CRHoy del 23/09/2015).

El acuerdo (ver  texto completo ) prevé diversas formas de cooperación y la implementación de programas  conjuntos en materia de pasantías, de investigación y de desarrollo de interés mutuo para ambos Estados. En su artículo I, se lee que: “EI objetivo fundamental del presente Acuerdo, en adelante referido como “el Acuerdo”, es la promoción de la cooperación técnica, económica, científica y cultural entre las Partes, a través del desarrollo y ejecución de programas y proyectos específicos en áreas de interés común. Las Partes prestarán facilidades a entidades del sector público y privado, cuando se requiera, para el desarrollo y la ejecución correcta de programas y proyectos de cooperación. Asimismo otorgarán importancia a la ejecución de proyectos conjuntos de desarrollo tecnológico que vinculen centros de investigación de ambos países. Con base en el presente Acuerdo las Partes podrán celebrar acuerdos complementarios de cooperación, en áreas específicas de interés común“. Este acuerdo entre Costa Rica y Palestina deberá ahora ser sometido a la consideración del pleno del Poder Legislativo para su definitiva aprobación, según la normativa vigente en Costa Rica.

Pese a tratarse de un primer paso en el trámite de aprobación de este texto, constituye un nuevo acercamiento hacia Palestina por parte de Costa Rica que merece ser saludado, tratándose de un Estado que, hace menos de 10 años, mantenía una línea bastante peculiar con relación al conflicto palestino-israelí (Nota 1): recordemos que Costa Rica fue el penúltimo Estado en trasladar a su Embajada de Jerusalén Oriental a Tel Aviv, en agosto del 2006, seguido semanas después por El Salvador (ver nota de prensa de La Nación del 26/08/2006 en la que el canciller de la época, Bruno Stagno, explica el significado de este traslado).

El pasado 30 de septiembre, mientras se izaba por vez primera en la historia la bandera de Palestina en la sede de las Naciones Unidas en Nueva York, se anunció también, dentro del mismo Poder Legislativo de Costa Rica, la creación de un Grupo de Amistad con Palestina (ver nota publicada en estas mismas páginas de CRHoy del 1/10/2015). Un Grupo de Amistad parlamentario similar existe en la mayoría de los Estados de América Latina: por ejemplo, fue creado el 11/08/2014 en el Congreso de Argentina (ver  nota), el 11/12/2012 en el Congreso de Venezuela (ver  nota), así como en el Congreso de Perú (ver  nota), el 27/12/2011. Un interés similar se ha dejado entrever en El Salvador en septiembre del 2015 (ver  nota) por esta útil herramienta de la denominada “diplomacia parlamentaria”, cuya variedad de actividades e iniciativas se puede apreciar revisando, por ejemplo, un reciente informe de labores de los Grupos Parlamentarios de Amistad de la Asamblea Nacional de Nicaragua (ver informe).

En el caso de América Latina, cabe recordar que el planteamiento hecho por Costa Rica al decidir establecer relaciones oficiales de Estado a Estado con Palestina en febrero del 2008 fue tal que, pese a las ya habituales gesticulaciones de Israel (Nota 2), procedieron a similar gesto hacia Palestina los siguientes Estados: Venezuela (abril del 2009), República Dominicana (julio del 2009), Bolivia, Brasil, Ecuador y Paraguay (diciembre del 2010), Perú y Chile (enero del 2011), Argentina (febrero del 2011), Uruguay (marzo del 2011), El Salvador y Honduras (agosto del 2011), Guatemala (abril del 2013) y Haití (septiembre del 2013).  Lejos de tratarse de un acto meramente simbólico – tal y como externado por los analistas de la Embajada de Estados Unidos en San José indicando a sus superiores que “The move thus remains mostly symbolic”  (ver cable confidencial del 19/02/2008 dado a conocer por Wikileaks) – América Latina y Estados de otras regiones del mundo respondieron al llamado de Costa Rica a la comunidad internacional que podemos leer en el comunicado de prensa de febrero del 2008: “Costa Rica reconoció al Estado de Palestina el 5 de febrero del 2008, honrando una deuda histórica, especialmente por haber sido uno de los 33 países que votaron a favor de la resolución que aprobó el Plan de Partición. En este sentido, Costa Rica es del criterio de que la Comunidad Internacional debe contribuir activamente a la solución del conflicto palestino- israelí, generalizando ese reconocimiento”.

En agosto del 2014, en plena ofensiva militar israelí en Gaza, Ecuador anunció la apertura de una embajada en Palestina (ver  nota de prensa de El Universo, del 4/08/2015). De la misma forma, en forma simultánea, Uruguay anunció también la apertura de una sede diplomática en tierra palestina (ver nota de prensa del 4/08/2014). El nuevo embajador de Ecuador presentó sus credenciales ante las autoridades palestinas en marzo del 2015 (ver nota de prensa Andes.info del 19/03/2015).  Por su parte, el pasado 30 de septiembre, Palestina inauguró su embajada en Montevideo (ver nota de prensa de El Observador del 30/09/2015), sumando una nueva representación diplomática a las que ya  posee en Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, México, Perú, Nicaragua y Venezuela.

A la fecha únicamente Colombia, México y Panamá se mantienen en la región latinoamericana sin reconocer formalmente al Estado de Palestina. Desde 1996, Colombia alberga una Misión “Especial” de la Autoridad Palestina en Bogotá, y México desde 1988, sin que se haya dado reconocimiento formal del Estado palestino por parte de ambos Estados. En diciembre del 2014, Colombia procedió a cambiar el estatuto de “Misión Especial” por el de “Misión Diplomática” de la Autoridad Palestina en Bogotá (ver  nota  de prensa de El Tiempo del 4/12/2014). La ausencia de dicho reconocimiento formal no ha impedido que desde muchos años funcione dentro del Congreso Mexicano un Grupo de Amistad con Palestina, y que, recientemente, la ciudad de Bogotá decidiera concluir un acuerdo de hermandad con la capital administrativa de Palestina, Ramallah (ver  nota de prensa  de Minuto 30 del 1/10/205). En el caso de Colombia, una misiva dirigida al Presidente de Colombia fue enviada por los Presidentes de ambas cámaras del Poder Legislativo en diciembre del 2014, posiblemente inspirados en la intensa labor desplegada por círculos parlamentarios en Europa a finales del 2014, y en llamados hechos desde la misma sociedad civil israelí (Nota 3): la carta enviada por las máximas autoridades del Poder Legislativo colombiano indicaba (ver texto completo al final de esta nota) que “A nivel global, cerca de 130 naciones ya han reconocido a Palestina como un Estado independiente y soberano. América Latina y el Caribe muestran una ruta enfática a la aceptación y reconocimiento del Estado palestino /…/. Por lo tanto, encarecida y respetuosamente pedimos al excelentísimo señor Presidente de la República, doctor Juan Manuel Santos, cuyo gobierno ha desarrollado una política internacional en muchos aspectos, valerosa y progresista, que en un acto de justicia, soberanía y autonomía reconozca al Estado palestino como soberano e independiente”. Pese a la amplia difusión de esta excitativa suscrita por los Presidentes de ambas cámaras (ver por ejemplo nota de Nuevo Siglo), esta no pareciera haber dado lugar a manifestación alguna por parte del Ejecutivo colombiano. En el caso de Panamá, en agosto del 2014, se leyó que sus autoridades estaban considerando esta posibilidad (ver  nota  de La Estrella): en julio del 2015, las autoridades de Panamá externaron que el proceso se mantenía en consulta internas (ver  nota  de La Prensa).

Con relación a las sedes diplomáticas de América Latina en Palestina, en mayo del 2015, Venezuela procedió a elevar el estatuto de su Misión en Ramallah al de embajada (ver  nota  de TelesurTV del 21/05/2015). En días recientes, Argentina también decidió elevar a rango de embajada su representación en Ramallah, provocando las habituales reacciones del aparato estatal israelí (ver  nota  de prensa de El Clarín del 9/10/2015): se trata del mismo tipo de argumentos oídos en San José el 5 de febrero del 2008 y en el Vaticano el 13 de mayo del 2015 (Nota 4), así como en un sinnúmero de capitales latinoamericanas entre esas fechas (Nota 5).

Nicolas Boeglin

 

Notas:

Nota 1: En un libro editado en el 2013, Bruno Stagno, canciller de Costa Rica en el período 2006-2010,  escribe: “Recordé dos casos que de una u otra manera reflejaban el intricado, pero aún velado conjunto de intereses que entraban en juego al tratarse el tema de Israel. Como Embajador, Representante Permanente ante las Naciones Unidas, lo había vivido y sufrido. Recordaba como para marcarme en las votaciones sobre la situación en Medio Oriente, el entonces embajador de Costa Rica en Washington DC, Jaime Daremblum, alienaba a algunos miembros del Congreso de Estados Unidos, para que me enviaran cartas instándome o instruyéndome a votar a favor de Israel. El congresista Tom Lantos sería el más insistente, dirigiéndose incluso directamente al Presidente Pacheco de la Espriella.  También, recordé la indignación con que la Embajadora Emérita, Emilia Castro de Barish, comentaba cómo en el pasado se había aceptado que un funcionario de la Misión Permanente de Israel  se sentara en la segunda fila de asientos, reservados para Costa Rica, con el fin de  velar por el voto “correcto” de Costa Rica “. Véase STAGNO UGARTE B., Los caminos menos transitados. La administración Arias Sánchez y la redefinición de la política exterior de Costa Rica, 2006-2010, Heredia, Editorial UNA (EUNA), 2013, pp.70-71.

Nota 2: La reacción israelí al reconocimiento del Estado palestino por parte de Costa Rica de febrero del 2008 se lee así: “Establecer relaciones con Estado que no existe compromete el desarrollo de los acuerdos definidos entre israelitas y palestinos, va en contra de la Hoja de Ruta, actividades del Cuarteto y otros esfuerzos para la paz. Estos acontecimientos van en contra de los acuerdos, incluso, de la comunidad internacional y, podrían dañar los esfuerzos para alcanzar la paz entre ambas partes” » (La Prensa Libre -Costa Rica- del 28/02/2008, entrevista a Ehud Eitam, embajador de Israel en Costa Rica).

Nota 3: En Israel, más de 800 firmas de renombrados intelectuales israelíes, incluyendo a científicos, ex embajadores y militares, artistas y a varios premios Nobel, solicitaron dicho reconocimiento a la Unión Europea en diciembre del 2014 (ver   nota   de Haaretz): su misiva indicaba, entre otros (extracto de esta  nota  de 972Mag) que: “We the undersigned, Citizens of Israel who wish it to be a safe and thriving country, are worried by the continued political stalemate and by the occupation and settlements activities which lead to further confrontations with the Palestinians and torpedo the chances for a compromise. It is clear that the prospects for Israel’s security and existence depend on the existence of a Palestinian state side by side with Israel. Israel should recognize the state of Palestine and Palestine should recognize the state of Israel, based on the June 4 1967 borders. Your initiative for recognizing the state of Palestine will advance the prospects of peace and will encourage Israelis and Palestinians to bring an end to their conflict”.

Nota 4: a raíz de la suscripción de un acuerdo en el que El Vaticano reconoce a Palestina como Estado en mayo del 2015, se leyó de parte de un portavoz de Israel que. “This move does not advance the peace process and further distances the Palestinian leadership from returning to direct and bilateral negotiations. Israel will examine the agreement and weigh its actions accordingly” (ver  nota  de Haaretz del 13/05/2015).

Nota 5: La reacción de Israel al reconocimiento de Palestina por parte de Guatemala en abril del 2013 se lee como sigue (ver nota de La Estrella del 10/04/2013): “Esta declaración fue sorpresiva y decepcionante porque no es compatible con el nivel de relaciones que han existido entre Israel y Guatemala y no contribuye al proceso de diálogo que se está realizando para llegar a un acuerdo de paz entre Israel y los palestinos”.

 

Nicolas Boeglin, Profesor de Derecho Internacional Público, Facultad de Derecho, Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR)

 

Image: Suleiman Abdullah Salim, who survived the CIA’s brutal torture regime, was released after five years of being held without charge. (Photo via ACLU)

The two psychologists credited with creating the brutal, post-9/11 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) torture regime are being sued by three victims of their program on charges that include “human experimentation” and “war crimes.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on Tuesday filed the suit against CIA contractors James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, on behalf of torture survivors Suleiman Abdullah Salim and Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, as well as the family of Gul Rahman, who died of hypothermia in his cell as result of the torture he endured.

The suit, which is the first to rely on the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, charges Mitchell and Jessen under the Alien Tort Statute for “their commission of torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment; non-consensual human experimentation; and war crimes,” all of which violate international law.

The pair, both former U.S. military psychologists, earned more than $80 million for “designing, implementing, and personally administering” the program, which employed “a pseudo-scientific theory of countering resistance that justified the use of torture,” that was based on studies in which researchers “taught dogs ‘helplessness’ by subjecting them to uncontrollable pain,” according to the suit.

“These psychologists devised and supervised an experiment to degrade human beings and break their bodies and minds,” said Dror Ladin, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. “It was cruel and unethical, and it violated a prohibition against human experimentation that has been in place since World War II.”

In a lengthy report, the ACLU describes each plaintiff’s journey.

After being abducted by CIA and Kenyan agents in Somalia, Suleiman Abdullah, a newly wed fisherman from Tanzania, was subjected to “an incessant barrage of torture techniques,” including being forced to listen to pounding music, doused with ice-cold water, beaten, hung from a metal rod, chained into stress positions “for days at a time,” starved, and sleep deprived. This went on for over a month, and was continually interspersed with “terrifying interrogation sessions in which he was grilled about what he was doing in Somalia and the names of people, all but one of whom he’d never heard of.”

Held for over five years without charge and moved numerous times, Abdullah was eventually sent home to Zanzibar “‘with a document confirming he posed no threat to the United States.” He continues to suffer from flashbacks, physical pain, and has “become a shell of himself.”

Mohamed Ben Soud was captured in April 2003 during a joint U.S.-Pakistani raid on his home in Pakistan, where he and his wife moved after fleeing the Gaddafi regime in Libya. Ben Soud said that Mitchell even “supervised the proceedings” at one of his water torture sessions.

Describing Ben Soud’s ordeal, the ACLU writes:

The course of Mohamed’s torture adhered closely to the “procedures” the CIA laid out in a 2004 memo to the Justice Department. Even before arriving at COBALT, [a CIA prison in Afghanistan] Mohamed was subjected to “conditioning” procedures designed to cause terror and vulnerability. He was rendered to COBALT hooded, handcuffed, and shackled. When he arrived, an American woman told him he was a prisoner of the CIA, that human rights ended on September 11, and that no laws applied in the prison.

Quickly, his torture escalated. For much of the next year, CIA personnel kept Mohamed naked and chained to the wall in one of three painful stress positions designed to keep him awake. He was held in complete isolation in a dungeon-like cell, starved, with no bed, blanket, or light. A bucket served as his toilet. Ear-splitting music pounded constantly. The stench was unbearable. He was kept naked for weeks. He wasn’t permitted to wash for five months.

According to the report, the torture regime designed and implemented by Mitchell and Jessen “ensnared at least 119 men, and killed at least one—a man named Gul Rahman who died in November 2002 of hypothermia after being tortured and left half naked, chained to the wall of a freezing-cold cell.”

Gul’s family has never been formally notified of his death, nor has his body been returned to them for a dignified burial, the ACLU states. Further, no one has been held accountable for his murder. But the report notes, “An unnamed CIA officer who was trained by Jessen and who tortured Rahman up until the day before he was found dead, however, later received a $2,500 bonus for ‘consistently superior work.'”

The ACLU charges that the theories devised by Mitchell and Jessen and employed by the CIA, “had never been scientifically tested because such trials would violate human experimentation bans established after Nazi experiments and atrocities during World War II.” Yet, they were the basis of “some of the worst systematic brutality ever inflicted on detainees in modern American history.”

Despite last year’s release of the Senate Torture Report, the government has prosecuted only a handful of low-level soldiers and one CIA contractor for prisoner abuse. Meanwhile, the architects of the CIA’s torture program, which include Mitchell and Jessen, have escaped any form of accountability.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) issued a statement saying they welcomed the federal lawsuit as “a landmark step toward accountability,” and urged the U.S. Department to follow suit and criminally “investigate and prosecute all those responsible for torture, including health professionals.”

In the wake of the Senate report, the group strongly criticized Mitchell and Jessen for betraying “the most fundamental duty of the healing professions.”

In Tuesday’s statement, Donna McKay, PHR’s executive director, said: “Psychologists have an ethical responsibility to ‘do no harm,’ but Mitchell and Jessen’s actions rank among the worst medical crimes in U.S. history.”

A new report issued by the Swiss bank Credit Suisse finds that global wealth inequality continues to worsen and has reached a new milestone, with the top 1 percent owning more of the world’s assets than the bottom 99 percent combined.

Of the estimated $250 trillion in global assets, the top 1 percent owned almost exactly 50 percent, while the bottom 50 percent of humanity owned collectively less than 1 percent. The richest 10 percent owned 87.7 percent of the world’s wealth, leaving 12.3 percent for the bottom 90 percent of the population.

The Credit Suisse report focused not on the top 1 percent, but on a slightly smaller group, the 0.7 percent of adults with assets of more than 1 million US dollars. This figure includes both financial assets and real assets, such as homes, small businesses and other physical property.

The report’s eye-catching “Global Wealth Pyramid” divides the human race into four categories by wealth: 3.4 billion adults with net assets of less than $10,000; 1 billion with net assets from $10,000 to $100,000; 349 million with net assets from $100,000 to $1 million; and 34 million with net assets over $1 million.

Image: The global wealth pyramid

The lowest category comprises 71 percent of all adults and owns only 3 percent of total wealth; the next-poorest group comprises 21 percent of adults and owns 12.5 percent of the wealth; above this is a group comprising 7.4 percent of adults and owning 39.4 of the wealth; and finally the top layer, 0.7 percent of adults owning 45.2 percent of the wealth.

This top layer, defined by the report as “high-net-worth individuals,” is itself divided very unequally, as shown in a second pyramid: 29.8 million with assets of $1 million to $5 million; 2.5 million with assets of $5 million to $10 million; 1.34 million with assets of $10 million to $50 million; and finally, 123,800 with assets over $50 million.

These 123,800 “ultra-high-net-worth individuals,” as the report calls them, are the true global financial aristocracy, exercising decisive sway not only over banks and corporations, but over governments and international institutions as well. Of these, nearly 59,000, almost half the total, live in the United States. Another quarter live in Europe (mainly Britain, Germany, Switzerland, France and Italy), followed by China and then Japan.

The Credit Suisse report notes the particularly rapid rise in inequality since the Wall Street crash of 2008 and relates it directly to the stock market boom that followed the bailout of the banks, initiated by the Bush administration and greatly expanded by the Obama administration. A key passage reads:

“There are strong reasons to think that the rise in wealth inequality since 2008 is mostly related to the rise in equity prices and to the size of financial assets in the United States and some other high-wealth countries, which together have pushed up the wealth of some of the richest countries and of many of the richest people around the world. The jump in the share of the top percentile to 50 percent this year exceeds the increase expected on the basis of any underlying upward trend. It is consistent, however, with the fact that financial assets continue to increase in relative importance and that the rise in the USD (US dollar) over the past year has given wealth inequality in the United States—which is very high by international standards—more weight in the overall global picture.”

In other words, deepening global economic inequality is being driven above all by American capitalism, with the United States being both the wealthiest and by far the most unequal country in the world. The US has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, but a staggering 46 percent of the world’s millionaires.

Image: Number of dollar millionaires by country

Far from demonstrating the health of the US economy, this disproportionate growth of the super-rich resembles the spread of a cancer that is rapidly metastasizing, with fatal consequences for the entire social organism.

Never have the rich increased their wealth so quickly as in America since the financial crash of 2008. But side by side with the amassing of previously unthinkable private fortunes, the infrastructure of America is crumbling, education, health care and other social services are starved of funding, and the living standards of the vast majority of the population, the working people who produce the wealth, are declining.

The Credit Suisse report also calls attention to significant regional differences within the structure of global capitalism, focusing on the diverging fortunes of three main regions: North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific.

Total global wealth declined slightly in 2015, according to the report, but only because the bank’s calculations were in US dollars, and thus were affected by the depreciation of the euro, the Japanese yen, the Russian ruble, the Canadian dollar and many other currencies against the US dollar.

US wealth rose $4.6 trillion, despite a global decline of $12.7 trillion, with Japan, Russia and the European Union countries showing the biggest drops, largely because of currency depreciation. Australia and Canada lost $1.5 trillion in wealth between them, a substantial drop for the two mid-sized economies, which are heavily dependent on resource extraction.

China, whose currency is loosely pegged to the dollar, saw a $1.5 trillion gain. But this has likely already evaporated, since the report is based on figures ending June 30, 2015 and the Chinese financial markets have plunged 25 percent since then, as the report’s foreword notes.

These disparities between countries, like the growing social disparities within countries, have immense significance for world politics. They are a major factor in the increasingly explosive character of international relations, particularly the conflicts between the major imperialist powers—the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain—and countries like Russia, China and Iran that are being targeted for their huge natural and human resources.

US imperialism uses both its preeminent military position and the role of the dollar, still the world’s main reserve currency, as weapons in seeking to offset its economic decline relative to its major rivals. America is both a social powder keg, with class tensions at home approaching the breaking point, and the most destabilizing force in world politics, seeking to maintain its position of global dominance by increasingly reckless and militaristic methods.

Israel bears full responsibility for premeditated violence and brutality, unleashed without mercy against defenseless Palestinians – reminiscent of how Nazis persecuted Jews.

Decades of vicious Israeli persecution explains the root cause of ongoing turmoil. People take so much before reacting in self-defense.

The trigger for things exploding now is multifold, a combination of:

• days of Israeli soldiers and police rampaging through the sacred Al Aqsa Mosque, brutalizing worshipers, forcibly removing them so extremist settlers could enter the compound where they don’t belong;

• longstanding repressive security force viciousness; and

• vigilante settler thuggishness, near daily violence and vandalism against Palestinians ignored or supporting by Israeli soldiers and police: the most horrendous example was immolating three Dawabsha family members, Israel knowing the perpetrators, yet refusing to arrest them, while at the same time kidnapping Palestinians and charging them with offenses they didn’t commit or are too minor to matter.

Western, mainly US, and Israeli media suppress what demands headlines, instead play perhaps the oldest of dirty games – blaming victims, holding them responsible for premeditated, cold-blooded Israeli crimes, committed unaccountably.

An October 13, B’Tselem expressed “deep shock at contempt for human life,” decades of ruthless occupation entirely responsible.

Palestinian Scholars Association chairman Marwan Abu Ras called Palestinian anger a justifiable reaction to Israeli state terror. Netanyahu and complicit thugs are “cowards,” he said.

“(T)hey are neither legally, nor religiously, not ethically, nor morally entitled to grab hold of our land.”

Physician, political analyst, human rights champion Mustafa Barghouti believes a third intifada already began.

Since October 1, daily clashes left 30 Palestinians dead, mostly youths, women and children, nearly 1,600 injured, around 4,000 harmed by toxic tear gas, hundreds arrested, and an entire population under attack – reflecting longstanding Israeli collective punishment in flagrant violation of international law.

Instead of holding Israel accountable for ongoing violence and brutality, complicit media blame ruthlessly persecuted Palestinians, effectively endorsing Netanyahu-ordered state terror.

On Tuesday, The New York Times headlined “Attacks by Palestinians Kill 3 Israelis and Wound More than 20,” – quoting Netanyahu saying “(w)e are in a struggle, a struggle for all of us, and we will face it together.”

The Times highlighted a handful of Palestinian attacks against Jews. Not a single word about decades of state sponsored terrorism against a defenseless population, ruthless persecution demanding accountability, and Israel’s full responsibility for ongoing violence and the horrific toll so far explained above.

The Washington Post headlined “Palestinians kill 3 Israelis as violence mounts in ‘day of rage.’ “

Saying Israelis are “deeply shaken and fearful…” Quoting Netanyahu saying “Israel will settle the score with the murderers and those who help them. We will cut the hands of whoever tries to hurt us.”

His full responsibility for daily violence and atrocities is ignored. He’s shockingly treated like a human rights defender, instead of a brutal executioner.

Wall Street Journal deputy editorial page director Bret Stephens headlined “Palestine: The Psychotic Stage, The Truth about why Palestinians have been seized by their present blood lust.”

No responsible editor or publisher would touch this type rubbish – a vicious, racist mischaracterization of reality. Palestinians alone are responsible for ongoing violence, according to Stephens and likeminded propagandists.

Israeli media are just as unconscionably one-sided, downplaying or ignoring Israeli violence, blaming Palestinian victims unjustifiably.

Headlining Palestinian terror attacks, killing Jews. It’s all their fault, urging tougher crackdowns, ignoring nightmarish conditions they face.

Heavily armed Israeli soldiers and militarized police are using live fire against unarmed Palestinian men, women and children. World community indifference to their suffering lets Israel rampage, brutalize and kill unaccountably.

The only viable solution is ending decades of brutal occupation. Peace and stability are impossible otherwise.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html ; Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

Note: This article originally appeared at German Economic News. Translated from German by Boris Jaruselski

Huge reversal: the EU seeks a normal relationship with Russia. It seems that the EU is being greatly affected by the actions of Vladimir Putin in Syria: suddenly the EU President Jean-Claude Junker is saying that the EU must not let the US dictate their relationship with Russia. He has demanded a normalization of relations – and indirectly, the end of sancitons. 

The EU Commission President advocated a relaxation in the conflict with Russia. “We have to achieve a sustainable relationship with Russia. It’s not sexy, but has to be done. We can’t go on like this anymore”, he said on Thursday in Passau. It isn’t necessary to achieve overall understanding, but a sensible conversational basis. “The Russians are a proud people”, the country has “a role to play”, said Junker: “One must not remove them from the bigger picture, otherwise they’ll call again, very quickly, as we seen already.” He critisized US Presidnet Barack Obama, for having downgraded Russia as “regional power”. “Russia needs to be treated correctly”, the Luxemburgian explained. “We can not have our relationship towards Russia dictated by Washington. It’s simply not on.”

This statement is particularly noteworthy. Until now, the EU always placed emphasis on having complete accord with the Americans, with the placement of the Russian sanctions. Some time ago, the US Vice President Joe Biden made it clear that the US had urged the EU to impose the sacntions. Junkers’ big back flip is confirming the statement made by Biden. It’s hard to discern what’s really going on Junker’s mind: as late as March, Junker was demanding the establishment of a EU army, which was expressly directed against Russia: such a European army would “give Russia the impression, that we are seriously intending to defend European Union’s values”, Junker said word for word, back then.

Indisputably, the 80 – year old President Mahmoud Abbas has established himself internally and worldwide as the icon of Palestinian non – violence. His Israeli peace partners leave none in doubt that they are determined to smash this icon, which would leave them only with opposite alternatives the best of which is a massive peaceful intifada (uprising) against the Israeli occupation.

It is true that Abbas cannot yet be called the Ghandi of Palestine. He has yet to follow in the footsteps of the founder of modern India and deliver similar national results by leading a massive popular revolution for liberation and independence, but his strictly adhered to non – violence platform continues to be the prerequisite for any peaceful settlement of the Arab – Israeli conflict in and over Palestine.

For decades, before and after the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories was completed in 1967, Abbas has stuck to his belief in negotiations as the only way to settle the more than a century old conflict. Building on Abbas’ legacy, his chief negotiator, Saeb Erakat, wrote his book, “Life Is Negotiations.”

Abbas has all along rejected “armed struggle” and all forms of violence. He even did his best to avoid popular uprisings lest they glide into violence. Instead he has unequivocally opted to act as a man of state committed to international law and United Nations legitimacy.

Ever since he was elected as president he conducted Palestinian politics accordingly to make his people an integral part of the international community. His respect to the signed accords with Israel raised backlash among his own people when he described, for example, the security coordination agreement with the Hebrew state as “sacred.”

Demonising Abbas

Nonetheless, the Israelis are still persisting on an unabated campaign to demonise Abbas, tarnish his image, undermine his peace credentials and deprive him of any gains for his people.

A Haaretz editorial on Oct. 4 said that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “fanning the flames of incitement against” Abbas. On Oct. 10, The Times of Israel quoted the Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon as saying that “We have come a long way to convince Israeli society that he’s (i.e. Abbas) no partner.”

Evidently, this is the only way for the Israelis to absolve themselves from their signed peace commitments. Ya’alon’s deputy, Eli Ben – Dahan, was quoted on the same day as saying that “Palestinians have to understand they won’t have a state and Israel will rule over them.”

The Israeli minister of education Naftali Bennett, speaking to the army radio on Oct. 11, raised the anti – Abbas ante to an adventurous and irresponsible end game when he said that Abbas’ “absence is better.”

Bennett left it to the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, to explain the raison d’être for his call for the “absence” of Abbas. In a Ynetnews article on Oct. 3, Oren concluded absurdly that “Abbas poses a danger which may be revealed as strategically more serious than the tactical dangers posed by (the Islamic Resistance Movement) Hamas.”

Former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman was more forthright when he called on Oct. 12 for Abbas’ Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank to be “overthrown.”

According to William Booth, writing in The Washington Post on Oct. 10, “Israeli (Cabinet) ministers have branded Abbas ‘a terrorist in a suit’ and ‘inciter in chief’. They mock him as weak,” ignoring that their smearing campaign accompanied by their government’s determination to undermine his peace – making efforts is making him weaker internally and render the “two – state solution” a non – starter among his people.

A poll released by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research on Oct. 6 found that 65% of the public want Abbas to resign and if new presidential elections were held the deputy chief of the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas,” Ismail Haniyeh, would win 49 percent of the votes against 44 percent for Abbas. The “main findings” indicated a “decline in the level of support for the two – state solution” as 51 percent “opposed” this solution. What is more important in this context was that “57% support a return to an armed intifada.”

International Community Indifference

The Israeli anti – Abbas campaign could only be interpreted as a premeditated endeavour to evade a mounting international pressure for saving the so – called “two – state solution.”

The cancelation of a visit scheduled for last week by senior envoys of the international Middle East Quartet upon Netanyahu’s request was the latest example of the world community’s helplessness and indifference vis – a – vis Israel’s sense of impunity against accountability, which empowers the Israeli occupying power to escalate its crackdown on Palestinians under its military occupation since 1967.

In particular, U.S. President Barak Obama Administration’s “reversals” and “empty promises,” in the words of Peter Berkowitz on Oct. 13, to Abbas as well as the inaction of the European Union and the other two Russian and UN members of the Quartet are encouraging Israel in its anti – Abbas campaign, thus discrediting the Palestinian icon of non – violence further in the eyes of his own people as incapable of delivery to walk away from his non – violent path.

On Oct. 12 the AFP reported that the “frustrated’ Palestinians “have defied” both Abbas and the “Israeli security crackdown” to launch what many observers are calling the beginnings of a “third intifada.”

To his credit, Abbas proved true to his non – violence commitment. Israeli daily Haaretz on Oct. 11 quoted a senior official of the Israeli Shabak intelligence agency as telling a cabinet meeting on the same day “that not only does Abbas not support ‘terrorist attacks’ but also tells PA security services to ‘undermine’ anti-Israel protests as much as possible.”

Abbas was on record recently to tell “our Israeli neighbours that we do not want a security or military escalation. My message to our people, security agencies and leaders is that the situation must calm down.” He warned against “an intifada which we don’t want.” On Oct. 6, he publicly told a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) that “we want to reach a political solution by peaceful means and not at all by any other means.”

The practical translation of his on record “principles” was self evident on the ground during the past two weeks of Palestinian rebellion against the escalating violence of the illegal Israeli settlers of the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), especially in eastern Jerusalem, which so far claimed the lives of more than 25 Palestinians and at least four Israelis in October 2015.

Within the PA security mandate, violence was practiced by the IOF only and only Palestinians were killed. Mutual violence was confined to Jerusalem, the area designated “C” by the Oslo accords in the West Bank and Israel proper, where security is an exclusive Israeli responsibility. There Abbas has no mandate. Most victims of both sides fell there and there only Israel should be held responsible and accountable.

One could not but wonder whether eastern Jerusalem and area “C” of the West Bank would have seen no violence had Abbas’ security mandate been extended to include both areas. U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, who announced on Tuesday plans to visit “soon” to calm down the violence, should consider this seriously.

Ending the Israeli occupation is the only way to move the situation “away from this precipice,” lest, in Kerry’s words, the two-state solution, “could conceivably be stolen from everybody” if violence were to spiral out of control.

In 1974 late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat appealed to the UN General Assembly to “not let the olive branch fall from my hand,” saying that he was holding a “freedom fighter’s gun” in his other hand. Abbas embraced the “olive branch” with both hands and dropped the “gun” forever.

In May this year, Pope Francis told Abbas during a visit to the Vatican: “I thought about you: May you be an angel of peace.” The Jewish Virtual Library’s biography of the Palestinian President vindicates the Pope’s vision. It hailed him as “considered one of the leading Palestinian figures devoted to the search for a peaceful solution to the Palestinian – Israeli conflict… It was Abbas who signed the 1993 peace accord with Israel.

End of Era

Writing in Al – Ahram Weekly on Oct. 12, the President of Arab American Institute, James Zogby, was one only of several observers who announced recently the “burial” of the Oslo accords. In “fact” Oslo “was on life support” and “has been dying for years” Zogby said, concluding: “What happened this week was the final burial rite.”

The Oslo accords were the crown of Abbas’ life – long endeavour. The “burial” of Oslo would inevitably be the end Abbas’ era.

Smashing the Abbas icon of Palestinian non – violence would herald an end to his era, dooming for a long time to come any prospect for a negotiated peaceful solution. His “absence,” according to Gershon Baskin, the Co-Chairman of Israel/Palestine Center for research and Information (IPCRI), will be “definitely the end of an era” and “will be a great loss for Israel and for those who seek true peace.”

Israelis by their ongoing campaign of defamation of Abbas would be missing an irreversible historic opportunity for making peace.

However, Abbas will go down in Palestinian chronicles as a national symbol of non – violence, who raced against time to make what has so far proved to be an elusive peace. Despite his failure, thanks to Israeli unrealistic dreams of “Greater Israel,” he will be the pride of his people in future in spite of the current widespread national opposition to his life – long commitment.

 

Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Birzeit, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories ([email protected]).

At best, the United States, its NATO allies and the regime they have collectively created in Kiev, Ukraine, will be able to claim Russia, or militants defending eastern Ukraine from Kiev’s armed incursions, accidentally shot down Malaysia Airlines flight 17 (MH17) after air controllers in Kiev recklessly sent it on a course over a battlefield other airliners had made a point to circumvent.

At worst, the US and its junior partners across Europe and the remnants of the British Commonwealth, will be implicated either in shooting it down accidentally themselves, or worse still, shooting it down on purpose in order to frame Russia and anti-regime militants in eastern Ukraine.

Russia certainly had nothing to gain by shooting down a civilian aircraft over a battlefield anti-regime militants have been aptly able to hold and defend. But what of NATO and its Ukrainian allies? In a war they are losing, could they have benefited from creating a pretext for NATO to intervene more directly?

The gain they have already wrought in terms of propaganda against Russia has been impressive. From the moment the airliner was shot down, the US, NATO and Ukraine have used the incident to indict Russia and more specifically, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in the court of public opinion. It has used legal maneuvering and its well-oiled press to turn the investigation of the disaster into a witchhunt with an inevitable outcome already eagerly determined to implicate Russia.

The Western media has intentionally twisted the words of investigators to misrepresent evidence and preliminary and very cautious statements to portray them as definitive conclusions to establish Russia’s guilt.

The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) and the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) looking into the disaster provided the following cautious statement in August 2015 regarding anti-air Buk missile parts found near the wreckage of MH17:

The parts are of particular interest to the criminal investigation as they can possibly provide more information about who was involved in the crash of MH17. For that reason the JIT further investigates the origin of these parts. The JIT will internationally enlist the help of experts, among others forensic specialists and weapon-experts.

At present the conclusion cannot be drawn that there is a causal connection between the discovered parts and the crash of flight MH17.

The JIT conducts the criminal investigation and the DSB the investigation into the cause of the crash. Both investigations are conducted separately but JIT and DSB occasionally share material. In its final report the DSB will report on the discovered parts.

The CIA has rebranded its “army of moderates” (sometimes called the “Free Syrian Army” or “terrorists”). The new freedom-spreading group will be called the Syrian Democratic Forces:

“The Syrian Democratic Forces calls itself a unified national military, aimed at establishing a new democratic Syria. Members include Kurds, Arabs and Assyrian Christians. But those familiar with the group say it’s led by the Kurdish YPG, the only partner the U.S. trusts.

“Washington last week announced the overhaul of a rebel training program, which was halted after trainees handed equipment over to al-Qaida. The new Syrian Democratic Forces will absorb some of those trainees. One of them, reached by NPR, says he’s been tasked with calling in airstrikes against ISIS and recruiting moderate rebels.”

The U.S. says it will provide its Democratic Forces with air support — even though it’s a clear violation of international law to conduct air strikes in a country that doesn’t want you there.

Saudi Arabia and the U.S. have already made it clear that they will continue flooding Syria with weapons.

Meet the new moderates, same as the old moderates.

Gone are the days when you could search Google and pull up neutral, relevant content appropriate to your search query. The search engine giant is reportedly pioneering a new search algorithm that will tailor search results not based on popularity or accuracy, but rather on what Google itself deems to be truthful or untruthful.

The world’s new “Ministry of Truth”, Google believes that screening and censoring information requested by its users will help avoid “websites full of misinformation” from showing up at the top of the search list. Known as the “Knowledge Vault,” the novel algorithm is described by The New American as “an automated and super-charged version of Google’s manually compiled fact database called Knowledge Graph.”

Google’s Knowledge Graph, in case you didn’t know, was the search engine’s first attempt at becoming a purveyor of knowledge rather than just information — a “smart” search tool, if you will, designed to enhance the relevancy of search results by analyzing various facts, figures, and other data appropriate to a user’s intended query.

The Knowledge Vault builds upon this concept, but takes it another step further. By sorting through the actual content of websites to determine whether or not they fit the official narrative for the particular idea or concept presented, the Knowledge Vault will act as a type of knowledge gatekeeper in censoring out information and content deemed to be “false.”

“[The Knowledge Vault] promises to let Google answer questions like an oracle rather than a search engine, and even to turn a new lens on human history,” wrote Hal Hodson for NewScientist about the project.

What you’re actually searching for is irrelevant: Google will tell you what it wants you to know

It is this latter statement that’s deeply concerning, as Google now has the power to literally rewrite history by snubbing search content of which the powers that be disapprove, while approving only propaganda and other misinformation dubbed “accurate.” This evolution from information provider to knowledge developer changes the entire nature of Google’s purpose as a company.

Concerning natural health and alternative medicine, Google has already written code into its search algorithm that censors out “anti-vaccine” websites, for instance, as well as other resources categorized as purveying “misinformation. Using the new Knowledge Vault protocol, Google is likely to begin censoring other topics as well.”

“That eerily disconcerting statement becomes ominous when you consider that Google has already implemented its new truth algorithm for medical searches, with disturbing consequences,” writes Rebecca Terrell for The New American.

“Truth-according-to-Google means that anti-vaccination websites no longer make the cut, despite the fact that recently released federal statistics reveal the risk to children’s health posed by vaccines is overwhelmingly greater than that posed by the diseases these medications are formulated to combat.”

Censorship brings scientific progress to a grinding halt

What this all means for sites like NaturalNews, InfoWars, and the many other independent news outlets that regularly challenge the status quo is that our content may soon be declared “inaccurate” by Google and forced down to a lower ranking as a result. Even though our collective readership is exploding because people are tired of the lies from the mainstream media, Google’s new algorithm threatens to stifle this growth by hiding the truth from search results.

“It could make it more difficult for bright young people to bring about the next revolution in science,” says University of Maryland professor Jim Purtillo about the plan. “After all, most of today’s established science came about because someone challenged the herd mentality of yesterday.”