Speak2Tweet: Google & Twitter Partner Up with US State Dept. to Monopolise Information Flow Out of Syria
By Martin Iqbal | Empire Strikes Black | 1 December 2012
Amid Internet and telephone network outages in Syria, US-trained opposition activists are using US-supplied satellite phones to contact Google & Twitter’s ‘Speak2Tweet‘ service. Despite these efforts, the service seems so far to be a resounding failure.
Internet and telecommunications networks have been failing across Syria, leading some including Tony Cartalucci to speculate that NATO may be preparing a psychological warfare operation(1) to bolster the flagging unconventional war against Syria.
Recent developments add weight to this theory. There are now reports(2) that Google and Twitter have re-launched their ‘Speak2Tweet’(3) service to ostensibly aid isolated Syrians affected by the communication network outages.
This is reminiscent of Iran’s CIA-sponsored(4) ‘Green Revolution‘ in 2009 wherein Twitter followed White House instructions(5) to delay its scheduled maintenance, in order to provide continued service to Iran’s Green opposition. If this event hinted at Twitter’s possible status as being a CIA tool in this respect, today’s events should leave little doubt.
‘Speak2Tweet‘ is a communication service which allows the user to dial a conventional telephone number and leave a voice message which is then posted to https://twitter.com/speak2tweet where web users can listen. Speak2Tweet was first launched during Egypt’s January 25th ‘revolution’ back in 2011.
At this important time for Google, Hillary Clinton offered an interesting tidbit yesterday. While giving an especially servile, fawning speech at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy’s Opening Gala Dinner in Washington D.C, she quoted Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt(6) who recently called Israel, “the most important high tech center in the world, after the United States.” I will leave it to the reader to decide whether this suggests a central Israeli role in Google’s recent ventures.
After interviewing Google’s Christine Chen, Al Arabiya tellingly reported:(3) “Although phone connections are also are suspended, some Syrians were able to call and get through.”
This begs the question: if Internet and telecommunications networks have been failing across Syria, how does the opposition manage to communicate using Speak2Tweet, which requires the user to call an international telephone number (using either a mobile telephone or landline)?
US State Department provided Syrian opposition activists with satellite communications equipment and training
Ever since August 2012 Syrian opposition activists have been travelling to Istanbul, Turkey, to receive satellite communications equipment and training from the U.S. State Department.(7) The UK Telegraph reported in August 2012 that the US State Department’s Office of Syrian Opposition Support (OSOS) was overseeing this scheme, with $25 million reportedly being set aside for the project, and a further $5 million coming from Britain.
According to ForeignPolicy.com(8) the activists are all ‘given a satellite phone and computer‘ at the end of their training, and they are expected to return to Syria.
It is important to note at this point that satellite telephony is not affected by Internet and telecommunications network outages, and indeed satellite telephones allow users to call any conventional telephone number. In fact satellite phones are often used in warzones and in areas affected by natural disasters, as terrestrial cell antennas and networks are often damaged and non-operational in such cases.
In view of this it is highly likely as many have posited, that the country-wide communications outages were engineered by the NATO-GCC axis, with a view to allowing the opposition activists to monopolise the information flow using the satellite equipment and training given to them by the U.S. State Department. It should be noted that Google has been involved in training ‘Arab Spring’ opposition activists(9) through its partnership with the US State Department’s Movement.org.
The voice messages that are posted to the service can be listened to online at: https://twitter.com/speak2tweet. After listening to a sample of the messages, at this point in time the service seems to be a resounding failure insofar as the NATO-GCC axis is concerned. Messages range from merely “Allahu Akbar“, to garbled nonsense, and they do nothing to bolster the ongoing propaganda campaign against the Syrian regime. Furthermore, the Speak2Tweet service has most definitely not ‘made waves’ online, with many web users not even being aware of its existence.
Though many of the Speak2Tweet audio messages seem to be coming from people outside Syria, it is eminently clear that the US State Department intended their activist-proxies whom they had trained and supplied with satellite telephones in Istanbul, to be the only people within Syria able to use the service.
As with all aspects of the now struggling NATO-GCC unconventional war against sovereign Syria, this too seems to have been an embarrassing failure and a waste of time and money.
Notes
(1) ‘URGENT: NATO Preparing Psy-Op in Syria’ by Tony Cartalucci.
(2) ‘Google reactivates Speak2Tweet for Syrian Internet cutoff’ – CNET.com, November 30, 2012.
(3) ‘Google and Twitter re-launch ‘Speak2Tweet’ to aid isolated Syrians’ – Al Arabiya, Saturday, 01 December 2012.
(4) ‘Color revolution fails in Iran’ by Thierry Meyssan
(5) ‘US confirms it asked Twitter to stay open to help Iran protesters’ – The Guardian, Wednesday 17 June 2009.
(6) ‘Remarks at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy 2012 Saban Forum Opening Gala Dinner’ – U.S. State Department
(7) ‘Britain and US plan a Syrian revolution from an innocuous office block in Istanbul’ – The Telegraph, 26 Aug 2012.
(8) ‘Holding Civil Society Workshops While Syria Burns’ – ForeignPolicy.com, OCTOBER 10, 2012.
(9) ‘Google’s Revolution Factory’ by Tony Cartalucci.
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Refusing to Acquiesce in Gaza
By JOSHUA BROLLIER | CounterPunch | November 30, 2012
Gaza City – The past few days have been harrowing, yet still deeply inspiring in Gaza as people in the strip must carry on with their lives after the Israeli army’s deadly 8 day offensive operation “Pillar of Cloud” which killed at least 160 Palestinians and left over 1000 wounded, many of them severely. To “carry on” in Gaza does not mean returning to predictable routines or a reasonable set of expectations of calmness in what amounts to everyday life in most parts of the world. This is exceptionally true for Palestinian fishermen who return to the daily struggle with the Israeli Navy to fish in waters that are rightfully theirs.
There has been no ceasefire for these men who bravely attempt to exercise not only their legal rights, but perhaps more urgently, the human right to fulfil the most basic of needs, such as feeding their families and paying rent. Since November 26th, 2012, 15 fishermen have been arrested and 6 boats destroyed. As participants in an emergency delegation to Gaza, we have had the opportunity to speak to several of the fishermen arrested, members of their families, and a Palestinian activist, Maher Alaa, who was documenting the situation while aboard one of the adjacent boats, which also received heavy gunfire. We spoke with concerned relatives in the afternoon after the attacks, but we did not get the full story until Maher returned in the evening.
Israeli gunboat off coast of Gaza.
The scene Maher described was chaotic, but not uncommon. Only one boat sailed the full length of six nautical miles, the distance supposedly conceded by Israel as a term of the ceasefire, before it was attacked. Israeli Navy and helicopters assaulted the others boats, most far inwards of six miles, with live fire periodically from the early morning until evening. (It’s also essential to keep in mind that Gazans were guaranteed 20 nautical miles for fishing in the Olso Accords.) The boat of Jamal Baker (20) was completely destroyed. Others had engines destroyed from bullets. Five men from the al-Hessi family were ordered to take off their clothes and jump into the water, which is a common humiliation tactic deployed by the Israeli Navy. They were then forcefully arrested at gunpoint and their boat impounded for the second time in one year. The al-Hessi’s boat alone was the main source of income for the twenty-five person crew and the families depending on them.
Another brave Gazan fisherman, Mohammed Morad Baker (40), was fired upon and ordered to strip his clothes and leave his boat. According to Maher, he looked directly at the Israeli gunboat captain and responded loudly “You can put a bullet in my head before I will jump into the water.” He then draped his body over the engine to protect it. This brave act apparently caught the Israeli soldiers off guard as he was then able to navigate another course and avoid being detained.
In the aftermath of an eight day war and what Dr. Khalil Abu-Foul of the Palestine Red Crescent describes as a “chronic, acute and protracted state of emergency” in Gaza, the heroic acts of fishermen like Mohamed Baker are often left out of the broader mainstream media’s discussion of military and diplomatic victory or defeat.
It has often been said that “existence is resistance” in Palestine. From what I have seen here, Gazans are doing far more than just existing. They are standing up with dignity and ingenuity to a slow and inhuman process of destabilization and colonization that many feel is intended to gradually force Gaza to become uninhabitable for Palestinians. Mohamed Baker and the other fishermen’s refusal to acquiesce to the destruction of their livelihoods is a victory over the cowardly conscience of Israeli soldiers who make sport of shooting at unarmed men, most of whom are very poor and supporting families with over ten children.
It’s also heartening to witness that after such a traumatic eight days where many people did not leave their houses for fear of their lives, Gaza’s streets are alive. Just across from our apartment at Al-Bakri Tower, families are filling a wedding hall. Dozens of youth pile into the back of trucks, enthusiastically beating on drums. Adults and children alike laugh and hold hands as they perform Debke, a traditional wedding dance. Though Khalil Shahin, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, has spent long nights taking only as little as two hours of sleep while documenting and double checking the casualties and injuries from the conflict to avoid duplication, he still smiles brightly as he tells of reviving plans for his daughter’s upcoming wedding, which had been postponed due to the fighting.
In the afternoons, children pour out of the schools, many of which were used to shelter thousands during the recent bombings. They kick cans and soccer balls while approaching our delegation with openness, curiosity and playfulness. The shock they have just endured will likely remain with them in some ways for the rest of their lives, but the strong sense of community and family is evident. I cannot help but wonder how children and families from the United States would cope given such conditions, especially with the breakdown of the communal structure and obsessive focus on individualism in our culture.
Perhaps one of the most beautiful things I have seen throughout our short time here is that, despite the very legitimate anger, mourning and failure of the political process to provide scarcely any justice to Palestinians, the Gazans I have met know better than to waste their lives on hate. The suffering they have seen all around them is too great to wish upon others. Just today we sat with Dr. Anton Shuhaibar, a Palestinian physician and also one of Gaza’s 3,000 Christians, who described at length his hope for a solution that includes psychological healing for all parties involved, especially the youth, so that both Israel and Palestine’s children can live as neighbours. His sentiment was not without critique of long needed political changes that would have to be implemented for this vision to be a possibility. However, the intention I sensed from his words reminded me of what Mamie Till uttered so profoundly in response to the brutal and racist lynching of her son in Mississippi in the fall of 1955: “I have not a minute to hate. I’ll pursue justice for the rest of my life.”
Palestinian farmer in Johr Al-Deek.
Gaza’s farmers continue to pursue justice on the issue of land rights. Yesterday, November 29th at approximately 9:30 AM, members of our delegation accompanied other international solidarity activists and Palestinians from the Ministry of Agriculture to the farm of Ahmad Hassan Badawi who lives and farms along the border with Israel in an area called Johr Al-Deek. Mr. Badawi has remained on his land despite multiple incursions and direct attacks from the Israeli Occupation Forces, including attacks during the recent Israeli offensive which killed many of his sheep and chickens.
Much of Ahmad’s farmland has now been rendered useless by Israel’s arbitrarily declared buffer zone, which has confiscated around twenty -per cent of Gaza’s arable land. After the November 21st ceasefire, negotiations were supposedly in place that Hassan would now be able to farm within 300 meters of the fence. The allowed distance has often changed and has nothing to do with international law or any understandable pattern. After we heard from Hassan and other farmers about their situation, we approached the barb wire fence, which also separates residents of Johr al-Deek from their former water source. In a manner of minutes, multiple shots were fired in our direction by Israeli soldiers. Moments later, tear gas canisters were launched within a few feet of where we were standing. This treatment was mild compared to many other instances, including the killing of a young Palestinian named Anwar Abdul Hadi Musallam Qudaih (20) in Khan Yunis on November 23rd and the injury of 14 others.
One does not need to travel far in any direction to witness the destruction wreaked by the Israeli offensive. Yesterday in Tal al-Hawa we met with Ahmed Suleman Ateya. His entire house and a small olive grove were destroyed when Israel targeted an empty house across the street ostensibly used by militants. His was not the only other house flattened nearby by Israel’s “precision guided” missile strikes. A former farmer, Ahmed is sixty-six years old and has no money to rebuild and no permanent place to house his family who are staying with relatives in Al-Tufah while he searches for scrap metal from the rubble of his home to sell for a few shekels. As we talked with Ahmed, an Islamic relief agency arrived to provide him with a heavy blanket for the winter and a few other items. Mr. Ateya received them gratefully and with a dignity which escapes those who have not suffered such loss.
Ahmad Hassan Badawi amid ruins in Gaza City.
The wounds from operation “Pillar of Cloud” are obvious and the stories we have heard are tragic, but a spirit of resilience and determination is equally visible in the eyes of the families we have visited. Last night, Gazans were in the streets celebrating the UN General Assembly’s decision to upgrade Palestine’s status to a non-member observer state. The United States was one of only nine UN countries, including Israel and Canada, to vote against the resolution. Even so, Palestinians continue to extend hospitality to the members of our delegation as relentlessly as the fishermen who refuse to be pushed from their waters. It is my hope that residents of the United States will learn such strength based in friendship and resistance to inhumane policies, demanding that our government recognize the aspirations and political rights of Palestinians that have been ignored now for decades.
Joshua Brollier (joshua@vcnv.org) co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (vcnv.org).
Related articles
- PCHR Statement On Ongoing Attacks Against Palestinian Fishermen In Gaza (imemc.org)
- Palestine: More land taken in WB, two succumb to serious injuries, 70 year old farmer assaulted, & Gaza’s fishermen taken (realisticbird.wordpress.com)
- PCHR Statement On Ongoing Attacks Against Palestinian Fishermen In Gaza (occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com)
Empirical evidence: Top-secret colonial files missing in UK
RT | December 1, 2012
Boxes containing top secret files about former British colonial rule have gone missing, with those relating to Singapore possibly destroyed. Declassified colonial Kenyan files earlier played a key role in proving the UK responsible for grave abuses.
Britain has admitted that it was aware that 170 boxes of files were transferred to Britain from former colonies. But the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) Minister David Lidington said that the government did not know what had happened to the files afterwards.
“It remains the case that the FCO is still unable to confirm the existence or destruction of 170 boxes of top secret colonial administration files known to have been returned to the UK,” Lidington told AFP.
“There is some evidence that the Singapore-related top secret colonial administration files were destroyed as part of a review of FCO post files in the 1990s.”
The FCO is continuing the search for the files and any evidence relating to their possible destruction.
The revelation comes after files relating to British rule in Kenya and Cyprus were declassified, made public and played a key in a court case by three elderly Kenyans who say they were tortured during the British army’s suppression of the 1950s Mau Mau Rebellion.
At the court hearing an archive of 8,800 secret files were examined. The released documents proved attempts by UK authorities to cover-up the killings of 11 prisoners during the uprising and showed that detainees had been battered to death by warders at the Hola detention camp.
A British court granted a historic victory to the three Kenyans, allowing them to claim damages for the suffered abuses when imprisoned during the Mau Mau uprising, including castration, beatings and severe sexual assaults.
The Kenyan case set a historical precedent and it is estimated that 2,000 other surviving Kenyans imprisoned during the Mau Mau insurgency can know sue the British government, which could have significant consequences for the government.
Overall, Britain used to have total control over 50 colonies including Canada, India, Australia, Nigeria, and Jamaica. Currently, there are 14 British Overseas Territories that remain under British rule. However, all have their own internal leadership and most are self-governing.
Related articles
- How Britain covered up a brutal Kenya massacre (morningstaronline.co.uk)
NYT Undercounts Drone Deaths in Pakistan
By Peter Hart | FAIR | November 30, 2012
The New York Times editorial page (11/30/12) weighs in on the Obama administration’s drone policies. What the paper wants is more accountability: The government “must stay within formal guidelines based on the rule of law.”
That’s all well and good–but the paper should do a better job of counting the innocents killed by drone attacks. The Times explains that aspect of the story this way:
For eight years, the United States has conducted but never formally acknowledged a program to kill terrorists associated with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban away from the battlefield in Afghanistan. Using drones, the Central Intelligence Agency has made 320 strikes in Pakistan since 2004, killing 2,560 or more people, including at least 139 civilians, according to the Long War Journal, a website that tracks counterterrorism operations.
That’s an astonishingly low rate of civilian deaths. And it’s fiercely contested by researchers who have tracked the CIA drone program.
The British Bureau of Investigate Journalism estimates the civilian death toll is at least four times greater. Other researchers have reached similar conclusions.
So why would the Times use what would appear to be one of the lowest estimates of the civilian toll? The paper is aware of the Bureau’s work. In February, the Times reported on their research–but, for the sake of “balance,” allowed an anonymous U.S. government source smear the Bureau as Al Qaeda sympathizers.
The Long War Journal, the Times failed to tell readers, is a project of the neoconservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies, whose advisers include William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Joe Lieberman and Iran/Contra conspirator Robert McFarlane.
In the end, the editorial’s call for the government to give a clearer picture of the drone policy is undercut by the fact that the paper does not seem all that interested in knowing how many innocents that policy has killed.
Related articles
- Reining in Obama and His Drones (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Counting the bodies in the Pakistani drone campaign (thebureauinvestigates.com)
Stevie Wonder cancels performance for the Friends of the Israel “Defense” Forces following international outcry
US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation | November 30, 2012
Washington, D.C. — Following a growing outcry from individuals, human rights organizations, and public figures from around the world, renowned musician and civil rights leader Stevie Wonder has cancelled a planned performance for the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) Annual Fundraiser Gala. In conjunction with letters and phone calls from Israelis, Palestinians, other artists and public figures, three international petitions had garnered more than 10,000 signatures, including an open letter by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation that garnered more than 4,000 signatures in less than 24 hours directly preceding the announcement.
A statement issued by Wonder read in part: “with a heart that has always cried out for world unity, I will not be performing at the FIDF Gala on December 6th… As a Messenger of Peace, I am and have always been against war, any war, anywhere.”
Wonder’s representatives said that the United Nations had also recommended cancellation in light of Wonder’s official designation as a UN “Messenger of Peace.” Symbolically, the announcement came on November 29, 2012, the annual UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, marking 65 years since the UN voted to partition Palestine, leading to the exile and dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, whose descendants number more than 7 million today. Stevie’s performance had been set to take place one week later in Los Angeles.
Wonder’s effective boycott of FIDF constitutes a major victory for the international campaign based on a 2004 Palestinian civil society call for cultural boycott against institutions complicit in Israel’s occupation and colonization of Palestinian land and discriminatory practices. It illustrates the mobilization power of the growing international movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, based on similar tactics used to help end apartheid in South Africa.
Bassem Nasir, a Palestinian writer who had reached out to Wonder, said: “As a longtime fan, I am delighted that the inspiration I have long received from Wonder has been reaffirmed. More importantly, as a Palestinian, I am grateful that he had the courage to stand against the injustices done to my people. I hope more artists do the same and boycott Israel.”
Cindy and Craig Corrie — the parents of American peace activist Rachel Corrie who was killed in 2003 by an Israeli soldier driving a U.S.-made Caterpillar bulldozer as she was protecting a Palestinian family’s home from demolition in Gaza — commended the decision. The Deputy National Director and Director of Development for FIDF, Pinhas Zoaretz, was the commanding officer of the Israeli military’s Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade when Rachel was killed. “We are heartened by reports that Stevie Wonder has decided not to perform for the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. The death, destruction, confiscation of land, and suppression of basic human rights executed by the Israeli military do not merit the support of those who yearn for justice, peace, and security for all in the region.”
For more information, contact Anna Baltzer; organizer@endtheoccupation.org; 202-332-0994.
NAM slams nuclear meeting cancellation, urges Israel to join NPT
Press TV – December 1, 2012
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) has criticized the cancellation of a conference on banning nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
In a statement issued on Friday, NAM strongly condemned the opposition of the US, Russia, Britain and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to the conference that was originally scheduled to be held in Finland’s capital, Helsinki, in December, upon an agreement reached during the 2010 NPT Review Conference.
The movement emphasized that the conference should be held before the end of 2012, voicing the NAM member states’ full support for the establishment of a Middle East region free of nuclear weapons.
It also urged the Israeli regime, the only non-signatory to the NPT in the Middle East, to destroy its nuclear weapons, place its nuclear facilities under the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) supervision and carry out all its atomic activities in accordance with international non-proliferation regulations.
On November 23, the US announced that the Helsinki conference cannot be convened at this point due to the special conditions in the Middle East.
The major event has reportedly been cancelled on US worries that its long-time ally in the region, the Israeli regime, would come under fire as the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
Israel is widely known to possess between 200 and 400 nuclear warheads.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammad Khazaei called on Friday for joint efforts to pursue the idea of creating a Middle East region free of weapons of mass destruction.
He said that the nuclear weapons of Israel, which has a dark background in state terrorism and resorting to aggression, threat and bullying against other countries, are a real threat to regional and international peace.
“It is necessary that the international community swiftly and firmly counter this threat,” the Iranian envoy pointed out.
The Israeli regime rejects all the regulatory international nuclear agreements – the NPT in particular – and refuses to allow its nuclear facilities to come under international regulatory inspections.
Related articles
- Iran Urges Israel to Join NPT (en.rian.ru)
- NAM calls for total nuclear disarmament (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- US cancels ME nuclear conference to protect “Israel” & over 100 NAM states support Iran’s program (realisticbird.wordpress.com)