The War on Conspiracy Realists Continues
By Brandon Martinez | Non-Aligned Media | July 24, 2015
Do you believe that governments occasionally conspire to undermine the public good? Do you believe that governments manipulate people through fear to achieve nefarious ends such as war and intervention abroad? Do you believe that ‘elected’ officials serve rich and powerful special interests rather than the majority population?
If you answered yes to any of the above, and you are a British citizen, then you could be the target of a new ‘counter-extremism’ initiative spearheaded by that country’s perverse Prime Minister David Cameron. As part of his Orwellian ‘counter-extremism’ effort, Cameron has instituted a number of truly despotic measures intent on stifling free speech and extirpating ‘heretical’ viewpoints about false flag terrorism and the undue influence of Zionists on Western foreign policy.
While self-evident to most clear thinking people, the notion that the West is deliberately targeting Muslims and their countries in accordance with an intricately fashioned master plan of divide and conquer will now be a prohibited opinion that could put the British police state on your trail.
“Muslim conspiracy theorists,” Cameron proclaimed in a recent speech outlining his ‘five year strategy’ to combat extremism, who believe that “Jews exercise a ‘malevolent’ power, that [the] Israeli intelligence agency Mossad inspired 9/11 and that the UK allowed 7/7 because it wanted an anti-Muslim backlash” are to be singled out for suppression.[1]
Cameron’s 1984-style designs will give parents the ability to revoke their children’s passports if suspected of holding ‘extremist’ beliefs. Police will be given new surveillance powers as well as the authority to vet what certain ‘extremists’ and ‘conspiracy theorists’ post on social media. Additionally, Ofcom – Britain’s communications regulatory body – will also be empowered to “crack down on television channels broadcasting extremist messages.” ‘Extremist messages’ appears to be a thinly disguised euphemism for anything not consonant with Western and Zionist propaganda.
Cameron’s aggressive moves against free expression were not unforeseen. During a speech at the United Nations last September, the British leader decried “conspiracy theorists” as “non-violent extremists” who should be confronted with the “full force” of the British state.[2] The theory that Israel and Western intelligence agencies were involved in the fabrication of 9/11 and other false flag attacks was specifically mentioned by Cameron as one of those “dangerous ideas” that needs to be eliminated from public discourse. Inferences about Jewish-Zionist manipulation of Western foreign policy towards the Islamic world should also be combatted, said Cameron in the speech.
Distracting the Public from Western Sponsorship of ISIS
All of this disingenuous bluster rings hollow when one considers the fact that Western governments and their allies have supported, and many would argue created, ISIS to serve their duplicitous agenda in the Middle East.
The CIA, MI6 and Mossad, in conjunction with the oppressive autocrats of Saudi Arabia, have long worked with Wahhabi-Salafist extremist elements in the Middle East and North Africa to counter other more formidable, non-sectarian adversaries in the region such as Libya’s Gaddafi, Syria’s Assad, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran. A re-run of the CIA’s “Operation Cyclone” which empowered Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 1980s is currently unfolding in the Middle East under the auspices of many of the same players.
Award winning reporter Seymour Hersh revealed in a 2007 report titled “The Redirection” that the Bush administration launched a joint covert operation with Israel and Saudi Arabia to augment “Sunni extremist groups” and other fanatics to weaken the influence of Syria, Iran and Hezbollah.[3] Obama picked up where Bush left off, flooding Syrian and Libyan insurgent groups with untold largesse and arms, using the corrupted Arab Gulf kingdoms as conduits for weapons transfers for the sake of plausible deniability.
Hersh’s sources close to the US government told him that the Saudis assured Washington that they exercised control over the extremist Wahhabi and Salafist groups, and would steer their fanaticism towards the Shiites. “It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran,” Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia’s then-National Security Advisor, purportedly told his American counterparts in the Bush administration. “We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.”[4]
Part of the arrangement, Hersh explained, was a guarantee from the Saudis that Israel’s security interests would be safeguarded, which clarifies why ISIS and its affiliates have not attacked Israel despite the country’s close proximity to the terrorists’ strongholds in Syria and Iraq. “Israel would be assured that its security was paramount and that Washington and Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states shared its concern about Iran,” Hersh noted was the first point in a series of “informal understandings about their new strategic direction” to combat Shiite influence led by Iran.[5]
ISIS themselves have mostly eschewed hostility towards Israel, posting an official statement on social media in July 2014 saying that they’re more interested in fighting “Muslim infidels” than the Zionist state.[6] Israeli officials have expressed similar sentiments, with Israel’s former envoy to the US, Michael Oren, stating in a September 2013 interview that Tel Aviv “prefers” ISIS and al-Qaeda over the “bad guys backed by Iran,” namely Syria’s Assad and Hezbollah. Oren forthrightly conceded that Israel is committed to defeating through terrorist violence “the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut” with Assad in Syria functioning as the “keystone in that arc.” “That is a position we had well before the outbreak of hostilities in Syria,” Oren told the Jerusalem Post. “With the outbreak of hostilities we continued to want Assad to go.”[7]
The unholy alliance between Israel and the Salafist jihadists came right out in the open in June 2015 when ISIS released a video threatening to topple Hamas in Gaza[8], promising to bring bloodshed and ruin to the Strip. Salafist elements tied to ISIS have in fact attacked Hamas havens in Gaza on multiple occasions over the past few months, showcasing their utility as pawns of Israel.[9][10][11] There are also well-documented direct connections between ISIS-linked militants and Israel. A 2014 report compiled by United Nations observers stationed in the area revealed that the Israeli military has provided anti-Assad militants with sanctuary on the Israeli side of the Golan region, ostensibly treating wounded fighters in Israeli field hospitals and even giving them caches of weapons and other supplies.[12] On top of material support for the terrorists that have besieged Syria, Israel has aided their onslaught through numerous air strikes against Syrian military targets since the turmoil began in earnest in 2012, effectively attempting to tip the tide of the war in the Takfiris’ favour.[13] In January 2015 Israel conducted an airstrike that wiped out a brigade of Hezbollah fighters on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, once again highlighting the Takfiri-Tel Aviv nexus.[14]
In light of such treachery against Arabs and Muslims trying to liberate themselves from oppression and domination, ISIS’s primary function as an acquiescent tool of US-Israeli imperialism cannot be overstated.
Perfidious Albion
As Prime Minister Cameron feigns outrage and opposition to Islamic extremism, the British government under his watch has been an active and willing partner in the Machiavellian strategy of divide and rule in the Middle East spearheaded by the US and Israel.
The 2015 trial of Swedish national Bherlin Gildo – who fought for a militant group in Syria – confirmed London’s role in backing Takfiri insurgents battling Damascus. In his defense, Gildo’s lawyers introduced evidence that British intelligence agencies “were supporting the same Syrian opposition groups as he was, and were party to a secret operation providing weapons and non-lethal help to the groups, including the Free Syrian Army.” Confronted with this contradiction, the British court dropped all charges against Gildo, fearing more embarrassing evidence showcasing British complicity with Syrian rebels could surface during proceedings.[15]
In 2013, Roland Dumas, France’s former foreign minister, told a French television station that during a visit to Britain two years before the Syrian crisis began in 2011, British officials informed him of a secret plan to spark a rebel invasion of Syria.[16] “Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria,” Dumas said, pinpointing the origins of the scheme to Israel which, according to Dumas, sought to oust a neighbouring regime hostile to its imperial ambitions in the Levant. Dumas then recounted a conversation he had with an unnamed Israeli prime minister who allegedly told him that the countries in the Middle East that get in the way of Zionist objectives for the region would be swiftly eliminated.
In an April 2014 report entitled “The Red Line and the Rat Line,”[17] journalist Seymour Hersh uncovered British involvement with a CIA-led covert operation in Benghazi, Libya, wherein the Agency was secretly channeling the looted weapons stockpiles of the fallen Gaddafi regime to Western-backed Syrian rebels through a “rat line.” Commenting on Hersh’s report, The Independent’s Patrick Cockburn described the CIA/MI6 “rat line” project in Benghazi as a “supply chain for the Syrian rebels overseen by the US in covert cooperation with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.”[18] He summarized Hersh’s findings in more detail as follows:
“The information about this comes from a highly classified and hitherto secret annex to the report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee on the attack by Libyan militiamen on the US consulate in Benghazi on 11 September 2012 in which US ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed. The annex deals with an operation in which the CIA, in cooperation with MI6, arranged the dispatch of arms from Mu’ammer Gaddafi’s arsenals to Turkey and then across the 500-mile long Turkish southern frontier with Syria. The annex refers to an agreement reached in early 2012 between Obama and Erdogan with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar supplying funding. Front companies, purporting to be Australian, were set up, employing former US soldiers who were in charge of obtaining and transporting the weapons. According to Hersh, the MI6 presence enabled the CIA to avoid reporting the operation to Congress, as required by law, since it could be presented as a liaison mission.”
In addition to conniving with the US and Israel to arm Takfiri rebel gangs that eventually overran Gaddafi and continue to menace Syria, the British government has also covertly collaborated with Wahhabi extremists in its own country who serve as cartoonish fodder for anti-Muslim war on terror propaganda. In a May 2013 report for the Asia Times, security scholar Nafeez Ahmed disclosed that the British-based Salafist group Al Muhajiroun has been secretly supported by the British intelligence services since its inception in 1996.[19] That group has spawned nearly all of the supposed Islamic extremists implicated in (and perhaps framed for) various attacks in Britain, including the alleged ‘shoe bomber’ Richard Reid, the alleged Woolwich killers of British soldier Lee Rigby, the alleged 7/7 bombers and many others accused or convicted of terrorism-related offenses. Ahmed contends that various dubious personalities acting as leaders of Al Muhajiroun over the years – including Abu Hamza, Omar Bakri, Haroon Rashid Aswat and Anjem Choudary – have been clandestine agents of British intelligence fronting as ‘Islamic radicals.’
Despite his vocal support for al-Qaeda and ISIS, outwardly championing their grotesque bloodletting in Syria and Iraq today, Anjem Choudary (the current leader of Al Muhajiroun which has re-branded and re-named itself several times) is left untouched by British authorities and appears frequently on mainstream media. How can this impunity be explained if Choudary and his organization are operating independently without state protection? “Almost every major terrorist attack and plot in the UK has in some way been linked to Choudary’s extremist network,” noted Ahmed in the aforesaid piece, yet the radical preacher and his organization “[continues] to function with impunity in new incarnations.”
“[T]hrough Al Muhajiroun,” Ahmed explained, “MI5 is spawning many of the plots it lays claim to successfully foiling – as the FBI is also doing.” The MI5-controlled front group essentially serves a dual purpose: 1) it functions as a repository for Muslim patsies used in US-Israeli-British false flag operations, and 2) it acts as a recruiting hub for Wahhabi-Salafist mercenaries wielded as cannon fodder in various battle zones where Western/Zionist geopolitical and economic interests are at stake.
Unraveling the Web of Intrigue
Those not learned in the dark arts of black operations will likely be confused by all of this. “The West is fighting a war on Islamic extremism,” the indoctrinated lemmings will proclaim with confidence, completely unaware that they are being played for fools by professional spooks trained to employ artifices against the masses.
The surface rhetoric that politicians employ is merely a pack of daft lies intended to divert attention from the real agendas that drive policy. The public is fed a steady diet of cover stories and feel-good rationales – fanciful tales of good vs. evil – to pacify adverse reactions to and deflect unwanted attention from nefarious plots designed to benefit rich people and their interests.
David Cameron himself inadvertently identified whom some of these wealthy string-pullers are: Jewish Zionists committed to overturning every regime in the Middle East that is not yet subordinated to Tel Aviv. The other half of that equation includes an assortment of profiteering Anglos, Americans, Europeans, Arabs, Russians, Chinese and other money-mad opportunists. The Cameron’s, Obama’s, Harper’s, Hollande’s and Merkel’s of the world are mere screens or dummies for the real power behind the throne: the unscrupulous financiers, oligarchs and speculators who dominate Wall Street and the City of London, and to a lesser extent Shanghai and Moscow.
The Zionists, however, seem to be the most organized, the most aggressive and the most committed to living out their grandiose messianic dreams. Whether that vision entails a “New Middle East” in which “Greater Israel” rules the roost or a global government headquartered in Jerusalem remains to be seen. Either way it spells disaster for most of the world’s peoples.
Sources
[1] “Parents may cancel children’s passports in war on IS,” The Week, July 20, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150724070333/http://www.theweek.co.uk/64449/cameron-attacks-ludicrous-extremist-conspiracy-theories
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g-HqRP-ANk
[3] Seymour Hersh, “The Redirection,” The New Yorker, March 5, 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20150318015442/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirection
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Elad Benari, “ISIS: Fighting ‘Infidels’ Takes Precedence Over Fighting Israel,” Israel National News, July 8, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140831070443/http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/182632
[7] Herb Keinon, “’Israel wanted Assad gone since start of Syria civil war’,” Jerusalem Post, Sept. 17, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20150112102133/http://www.jpost.com/Syria-Crisis/Oren-Jerusalem-has-wanted-Assad-ousted-since-the-outbreak-of-the-Syrian-civil-war-326328
[8] “ISIS Threatens To Topple Hamas In Gaza,” Reuters, July 1, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/01/isis-hamas-gaza_n_7704360.html
[9] “Isis blamed for Gaza City bomb attacks,” The Independent, July 20, 2015. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-blamed-for-gaza-city-bomb-attacks-10400747.html
[10] “ISIS Allies Target Hamas and Energize Gaza Extremists,” New York Times, June 30, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150713130805/http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/world/isis-allies-target-hamas-and-energize-gaza-extremists.html?_r=0
[11] “ISIS supporters claim attack on Hamas base in Gaza Strip,” Russia Today, May 8, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150713195921/http://rt.com/news/256941-isis-attack-gaza-hamas/
[12] “UN details Israel helping Syrian rebels at Golan Heights,” Russia Today, Dec. 8, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150316140841/http://rt.com/news/212319-israel-helps-syrian-militants/
[13] “Head of Syrian army after alleged airstrikes: Israel working with ISIS and al-Qaida,” Jerusalem Post, Dec. 7, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150316154301/http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Head-of-Syrian-army-after-alleged-airstrikes-Israel-working-with-ISIS-and-al-Qaida-383907
[14] “’Israel strike’ kills Hezbollah men in Syria’s Golan Heights,” BBC News, Jan. 18, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150316090443/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30873402
[15] “Terror trial collapses after fears of deep embarrassment to security services,” The Guardian, June 1, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150610080819/http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/01/trial-swedish-man-accused-terrorism-offences-collapse-bherlin-gildo
[16] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeyRwFHR8WY
[17] Seymour Hersh, “The Red Line and the Rat Line,” London Review of Books, April 17, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150315050157/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line
[18] Patrick Cockburn, “MI6, the CIA and Turkey’s rogue game in Syria,” The Independent, April 13, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150110040831/http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/mi6-the-cia-and-turkeys-rogue-game-in-syria-9256551.html
[19] Nafeez Ahmed, “UK pays price for MI5 courting terror,” Asia Times, May 30, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130801060233/http://atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-300513.html
Copyright 2015 Brandon Martinez
These are the U.S. Representatives who voted to ban GMO labeling and deny your right to know what you’re eating
By Julie Wilson | Natural News | July 23, 2015
“We should not raise prices on consumers based on the wishes of a handful of activists,” said Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), who just became consumer enemy number one after he decided to author a bill that destroys any chance Americans have of knowing what’s in their food, specifically whether or not they contain genetically modified ingredients, or GMOs.
What Pompeo isn’t telling you, and in fact is deliberately covering up, is that Americans overwhelmingly support GMO labeling (we’re talking in the 90th percentile); you can view proof of that support here, here and here.
Pompeo, who has likely been paid VERY well by Big Food lobbyists to spearhead this initiative, has made it his mission to make sure that you and your family continue eating foods made from crops that are genetically engineered to withstand high doses of Monsanto’s Roundup, which by the way, its primary ingredient, glyphosate, was labeled as being “probably” carcinogenic to humans by the World Health Organization last spring.
Scientists also concluded that glyphosate is “genotoxic,” meaning that it damages DNA and there’s actually no safe level of exposure.
But Pompeo doesn’t want you to know any of that. In fact, he’s worried that GMO labeling will only confuse you. Are you insulted? Well, you should be.
Named the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015 by a bunch of politicians who know next to nothing about GMOs, and the DARK Act (Denying Americans the Right to Know) by passionate food activists and consumer groups who have practically dedicated their lives to bringing awareness about the dangers of GMOs, the legislation that was recently passed in the House Committee prevents all states from enacting their own GMO labeling laws, ever.
It also strips states like Vermont, which already passed GMO labeling, their right from doing so.
Below is a list of politicians actively working to keep you and your family in the dark regarding the dangers of GMOs. Click here for their contact information.
Alabama
Byrne, Bradley (R-AL)
Roby, Martha (R-AL)
Rogers, Mike (R-AL)
Aderholt, Robert (R-AL)
Brooks, Mo (R-AL)
Palmer, Gary (R-AL)
Sewell,Terri (D-AL)
Young, Don (R-AK)
Kirkpatrick, Ann (D-AZ)
McSally, Martha (R-AZ)
Gosar, Paul (R-AZ)
Salmon, Matt (R-AZ)
Schweikert, David (R-AZ)
Sinema, Kyrsten (D-AZ)
Arkansas
Crawford, Eric (R-AR)
Hill, French (R-AR)
Womack, Steve (R-AR)
Westerman, Bruce (R-AR)
California
LaMalfa, Doug (R-CA)
Garamendi, John (D-CA)
McClintock, Tom (R-CA)
Bera, Ami (D-CA)
Cook, Paul (R-CA)
Denham, Jeff (R-CA
Costa, Jim (D-CA)
Valadao, David (R-CA)
Nunes, Devin (R-CA)
McCarthy, Kevin (R-CA)
Knight, Steve (R-CA)
Royce, Ed (R-CA)
Calvert, Ken (R-CA)
Walters, Mimi (R-CA)
Rohrabacher, Dana (R-CA)
Issa, Darrell (R-CA)
Hunter, Duncan (R-CA)
Colorado
Buck, Ken (R-CO)
Tipton, Scott (R-CO)
Lamborn, Doug (R-CO)
Coffman, Mike (R-CO)
Delaware
Carney, John (R-DE)
Florida
Miller, Jeff (R-FL)
Graham, Gwen (D-FL)
Yoho, Ted (R-FL)
Crenshaw, Ander (R-FL)
Brown, Corrine (D-FL)
DeSantis, Ron (R-FL)
Mica, John (R-FL)
Webster, Daniel (R-FL)
Nugent, Richard (R-FL)
Bilirakis, Gus (R-FL)
Jolly, David (R-FL)
Castor, Kathy (D-FL)
Ross, Dennis (R-FL)
Rooney, Thomas (R-FL)
Hastings, Alcee (D-FL)
Diaz-Balart, Mario (R-FL)
Curbelo, Carlos (R-FL)
Ros-Lehtinen, Ileana (R-FL)
Georgia
Carter, Buddy (R-GA)
Bishop, Sanford (D-GA)
Westmoreland, Lynn (R-GA)
Price, Tom (R-GA)
Woodall, Rob (R-GA)
Scott, Austin (R-GA)
Collins, Doug (R-GA)
Hice, Jody (R-GA)
Loudermilk, Barry (R-GA)
Allen, Rick (R-GA)
Scott, David (D-GA)
Graves, Tom (R-GA)
Idaho
Labrador, Raul (R-ID)
Simpson, Mike (R-ID)
Illinois
Kelly, Robin (D-IL)
Lipinski, Daniel (D-IL)
Roskam, Peter (R-IL)
Davis, Danny (D-IL)
Duckworth, Tammy (D-IL)
Dold, Bob (R-IL)
Foster, Bill (D-IL)
Bost, Mike (R-IL)
Davis, Rodney (R-IL)
Hultgren, Randy (R-IL)
Shimkus, John (R-IL)
Kinzinger, Adam (R-IL)
Bustos, Cheri (D-IL)
Indiana
Walorski, Jackie (R-IN)
Stutzman, Marlin (R-IN)
Rokita, Todd (R-IN)
Brooks, Susan (R-IN)
Messer, Luke (R-IN)
Bucshon, Larry (R-IN)
Young, Todd (R-IN)
Iowa
Blum, Rod (R-IA)
Loebsack, David (D-IA)
Young, David (R-IA)
King, Steve (R-IA)
Kansas
Huelskamp, Tim (R-KS)
Jenkins, Lynn (R-KS)
Yoder, Kevin (R-KS)
Pompeo, Mike (R-KS)
Kentucky
Whitfield, Ed (R-KY)
Guthrie, Brett (R-KY)
Rogers, Hal (R-KY)
Barr, Andy (R-KY)
Louisiana
Scalise, Steve (R-LA)
Richmond, Cedric (D-LA)
Boustany, Charles (R-LA)
Fleming, John (R-LA)
Abraham, Ralph (R-LA)
Graves, Garret (R-LA)
Maryland
Harris, Andy (R-MD)
Ruppersberger, A. Dutch (D-MD)
Michigan
Benishek, Dan (R-MI)
Huizenga, Bill (R-MI)
Moolenaar, John (R-MI)
Upton, Fred (R-MI)
Walberg, Tim (R-MI)
Bishop, Mike (R-MI)
Miller, Candice (R-MI)
Trott, Dave (R-MI)
Lawrence, Brenda (D-MI)
Minnesota
Walz, Timothy (D-MN)
Kline, John (R-MN)
Paulsen, Erik (R-MN)
McCollum, Betty (D-MN)
Emmer, Tom (R-MN)
Peterson, Collin (D-MN)
Mississippi
Kelly, Trent (R-MS)
Thompson, Bennie (D-MS)
Harper, Gregg (R-MS)
Palazzo, Steven (R- MS)
Missouri
Clay, Lacy (D-MO)
Wagner, Ann (R-MO)
Luetkemeyer, Blaine (R-MO)
Hartzler, Vicky (R-MO)
Cleaver, Emanuel (D-MO)
Graves, Sam (R-MO)
Long, Billy (R-MO)
Smith, Jason (R-MO)
Montana
Zinke, Ryan (R-MT)
Nebraska
Fortenberry, Jeff (R-NE)
Ashford, Brad (D-NE)
Smith, Adrian (R-NE)
Nevada
Amodei, Mark (R-NV)
Heck, Joseph (R-NV)
Hardy, Cresent (R-NV)
New Hampshire
Guinta, Frank (R-NH)
New Jersey
Norcross, Donald (D-NJ)
LoBiondo, Frank (R-NJ)
MacArthur, Tom (R-NJ)
Garrett, Scott (R-NJ)
Pascrell, Bill (D-NJ)
Frelinghuysen, Rodney (R-NJ)
New Mexico
Pearce, Steve (R-NM)
New York
King, Pete (R-NY)
Donovan, Daniel (R-NY)
Stefanik, Elise (R-NY)
Hanna, Richard (R-NY)
Reed, Tom (R-NY)
Katko, John (R-NY)
Collins, Chris (R-NY)
North Carolina
Butterfield, G.K. (D-NC)
Ellmers, Renee (R-NC)
Jones, Walter (R-NC)
Foxx, Virginia (R-NC)
Walker, Mark (R-NC)
Rouzer, David (R-NC)
Hudson, Richard (R-NC)
Pittenger, Robert (R-NC)
McHenry, Patrick (R-NC)
Meadows, Mark (R-NC)
Adams, Alma (D-NC)
Holding, George (R-NC)
North Dakota
Cramer, Kevin (R-ND)
Ohio
Chabot, Steve (R-OH)
Wenstrup, Brad (R-OH)
Jordan, Jim (R-OH)
Latta, Robert (R-OH)
Johnson, Bill (R-OH)
Gibbs, Bob (R-OH)
Turner, Michael (R-OH)
Fudge, Marcia (D-OH)
Tiberi, Pat (R-OH)
Joyce, David (R-OH)
Stivers, Steve (R-OH)
Renacci, James (R-OH)
Oklahoma
Bridenstine, Jim (R-OK)
Mullin, Markwayne (R-OK)
Lucas, Frank (R-OK)
Cole, Tom (R-OK)
Russell, Steve (R-OK)
Oregon
Walden, Greg (R-OR)
Schrader, Kurt (D-OR)
Pennsylvania
Kelly, Mike (R-PA)
Perry, Scott (R-PA)
Thompson, Glenn (R-PA)
Costello, Ryan (R-PA)
Meehan, Patrick (R-PA)
Fitzpatrick, Michael (R-PA)
Shuster, Bill (R-PA)
Marino, Tom (R-PA)
Barletta, Lou (R-PA)
Rothfus, Keith (R-PA)
Dent, Charles (R-PA)
Pitts, Joseph (R-PA)
Murphy, Tim (R-PA)
South Carolina
Wilson, Joe (R-SC)
Duncan, Jeff (R-SC)
Gowdy, Trey (R-SC)
Mulvaney, Mick (R-SC)
Clyburn, Jim (D-SC)
Rice, Tom (R-SC)
South Dakota
Noem, Kristi (R-SD)
Tennessee
Roe, Phil (R-TN)
Fleischmann, Chuck (R-TN)
DesJarlais, Scott (R-TN)
Cooper, Jim (D-TN)
Black, Diane (R-TN)
Blackburn, Marsha (R-TN)
Fincher, Stephen (R-TN)
Texas
Gohmert, Louie (R-TX)
Poe, Ted (R-TX)
Johnson, Sam (R-TX)
Ratcliffe, John (R-TX)
Hensarling, Jeb (R-TX)
Barton, Joe (R-TX)
Culberson, John (R-TX)
Brady, Kevin (R-TX)
Green, Al (D-TX)
McCaul, Michael (R-TX)
Conaway, Michael (R-TX)
Granger, Kay (R-TX)
Thornberry, Mac (R-TX)
Weber, Randy (R-TX)
Hinojosa, Ruben (D-TX)
Flores, Bill (R-TX)
Jackson Lee, Sheila (D-TX)
Neugebauer, Randy (R-TX)
Smith, Lamar (R-TX)
Olson, Pete (R-TX)
Hurd, Will (R-TX)
Marchant, Kenny (R-TX)
Williams, Roger (R-TX)
Burgess, Michael (R-TX)
Farenthold, Blake (R-TX)
Cuellar, Henry (D-TX)
Green, Gene (D-TX)
Johnson, Eddie (D-TX)
Sessions, Pete (R-TX)
Veasey, Marc (D-TX)
Babin, Brian (R-TX)
Utah
Stewart, Chris (R-UT)
Chaffetz, Jason (R-UT)
Love, Mia (R-UT)
Virginia
Wittman, Robert (R-VA)
Rigell, Scott (R-VA)
Forbes, Randy (R-VA)
Hurt, Robert (R-VA)
Goodlatte, Bob (R-VA)
Brat, Dave (R-VA)
Griffith, Morgan (R-VA)
Comstock, Barbara (R-VA)
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New York Times: Outcry Over Susiya Nothing but Clever PR
By Barbara Erickson | Times Warp | July 24, 2015
Susiya, a West Bank village under threat of demolition, has now made it into the pages of The New York Times news section, and we are permitted a view of how Israel wants us to see this disturbing story: All the fuss about Susiya is little more than the result of clever marketing on the part of the villagers.
Thus we find a story today by Diaa Hadid titled (in the online version) “How a Palestinian Hamlet of 340 Drew Global Attention.” This primes readers from the start to expect a tale of simple villagers who devised a winning media strategy, and it distracts from the real issue, which is nothing less than ethnic cleansing: Susiya is to be destroyed to make way for Jewish settlers.
High in her story Hadid writes, in a telling phrase, that “the cause of [this] tiny village” has become “outsized,” in other words overblown, as if Susiya, with its population of 300 or so, is not worth the fuss.
The village first got notice when “sympathetic” foreigners visited Susiya some 20 years ago and took up its cause, Hadid states. By that time the residents had been forced out of their original homes and were living near the centuries-old site that had belonged to their ancestors.
Jewish settlers had taken over the original village in 1986, she writes, and Israeli forces made them move on again them in 1990 “for unknown reasons.” They were expelled once more in 2001, according to Hadid, “as collective punishment over the shooting death of a Jewish settler.”
Her story omits a crucial detail: The authorities knew that the villagers were innocent of the killing but used the incident as an excuse to harass the Susiya residents once more. The Times account leaves the impression that a Susiya resident was responsible for the settler’s death.
Hadid quotes a staff member of B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group, who notes that residents “have managed to place Susiya on the international agenda in ways that other villages have not managed to do,” and her story goes on to say that “years of advocacy appeared to pay off when Susiya’s residents began warning early this month that their village was under threat.”
As a result, the story reports, Susiya received visits from a European Union delegation, Israeli activists and American consular officials. Then, a week ago, the U.S. State Department mentioned Susiya in a press briefing and urged Israel to spare the village.
The Times story suggests that Susiya has received this backing because of its skill in winning attention, and by imposing this angle on the story, the newspaper is attempting to divert readers from the real issues at play: the fact that Israel’s treatment of the villagers is blatantly racist and defies the norms of international and humanitarian law.
Also missing is the context of occupation and dispossession that is crushing Susiya and other villages. Hadid fails to give any sense of this. She writes only that activists have used the village as a symbol of how Israel “has sought to maintain control over large parts of the occupied West Bank.”
We find the word “occupied” here, as usual in Times reporting, but it is devoid of meaning. Readers do not hear that the West Bank is Palestinian territory; that Israel is there as an invading military force; and that the settlements violate international law, which forbids an occupying power from transferring its own population into the foreign territory.
The Times story makes no reference to international law, but it does quote an Israeli military spokesman who says Susiya “was built illegally.” Thus Hadid emphasizes the pretext of legality Israel draws over its defiance of international norms while she ignores the flagrant breaches of the Geneva Convention and other standards.
Readers can pick up some revealing details in the story: the ousted villagers’ descriptions of sleeping outside “in the wild, in the rain,” the fact that they can no longer access two- thirds of their original land because of the settlers, the expectation that if Susiya goes, other vulnerable villages will also fall to Israel’s greed for Palestinian land.
But the story glosses over these details to present the Susiya’s case as above all a successful publicity effort. The Times would have us believe that the real story here is how the village became an “outsized” international cause, through “years of advocacy.”
Susiya is just one of many villages in Israel’s Negev and in the occupied West Bank where Israel is determined to ethnically cleanse certain areas of their indigenous inhabitants and install Jewish residents in their place. Times readers are finally learning about Susiya only because international attention has forced the newspaper to acknowledge the issue.
The village should have been known to readers long before now, just as they should also know of dozens more facing annihilation: Al Araqib, Umm Al Kher and Khirbet Yarza, to name just a few. In the South Hebron Hills alone, where Susiya is located, some 30 villages are faced with demolition.
But even now the Times can’t just tell the story of a village nearly helpless under the weight of Israeli might, a community faced with extinction after centuries of living on the land. Instead we find an effort to play down the tragedy, to present it as an overblown cause, not really worth our concern.
UN lists 3,200 children arrested in Egypt since 2013 coup
MEMO – July 25, 2015
The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has said in a report that the arbitrary detention of minors by the Egyptian regime is “systematic and widespread.” Rassd.com published the findings of the report on Friday.
According to the working group, 3,200 children have been arrested since the end of June 2013, when the military carried out a coup against the first ever freely-elected Egyptian President, Mohamed Morsi. The UN claims that minors have been tortured inside state detention centres. Around 800 are still in prison, it reports, 200 of whom are in the Central Security Camp in Banha, north of Cairo.
“These minors are subject to ill treatment, including physical torture and sexual violence,” the report points out. “They are prevented from having any visits.”
The working group called on the Egyptian authorities to release all of the detained minors and compensate them proportionally for the harm they have suffered.
The report was produced following a complaint to the UN Working Group by Al-Karama, a Geneva-based, independent human rights organisation.
US to sell Saudis 355 missiles amid war on Yemen
Press TV – July 25, 2015
The US Defense Department has awarded major weapons maker Raytheon to provide the Persian Gulf Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with 355 air-to-ground missiles amid its persisting campaign of aerial strikes against civilian and economic targets in neighboring Yemen.
According to a Pentagon announcement cited Saturday by the Russia-based Sputnik News, in a $180-million contract assigned to the arms manufacturer, Raytheon is to deliver the AGM-154 series missiles to the Saudi regime in a move clearly regarded as a bid to support the aerial strikes against Yemen.
The AGM-154 is described as a Global Positioning System and infrared guided air-to-ground missile with stand-off capability.
The contract, the report adds, also includes the delivery of 200 AGM-154C-1 missiles to the US Navy.
Washington, the report adds, has justified the missile sales to Riyadh as part of an agreement by Persian Gulf Arab dictatorships to expand their military cooperation with Washington amid “concerns” over the recent nuclear talks conclusion with Iran as well as the Islamic Republic’s persisting influence as a major power and the most stable nation in the strategic region.
Meanwhile, the oil-rich Saudi Arabia, widely regarded as a US client in the Persian Gulf region, has been among the world’s largest importers of lethal weaponry over the years and has significantly expanded its purchase of armaments in recent months, becoming the world’s top importer in 2015 so far.
This is while Riyadh signed major arms deals worth billions of dollars with France last month for the purchase of patrol ships, border guard helicopters and aircraft as it escalated its war effort against Yemen.
The announcement of the deals came during a visit by Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud to Paris.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius defended the selling of French patrol boats to Riyadh, claiming that they are meant “to enhance the capability of the Saudi Coast Guard, which is today facing growing threats.”
Saudi Arabia has been carrying out airstrikes against Yemen since March 26 without a UN mandate. The strikes are meant to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and restore power to fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a staunch ally of the Al Saud regime.
Thousands have been killed and at least 11,000 more injured in the airstrikes.
US expands training mission in Ukraine as part of long-term military partnership
RT | July 25, 2015
US military instructors are expanding their mission in Ukraine beyond the National Guard and will boost the army’s “defense capabilities” as part of a security partnership which has been going on for the “last 20 years,” the US State Department said.
“The United States intends to continue training Ukrainian security forces this fall in western Ukraine,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner has announced. He labeled the training part of a long-running defense cooperation with Ukraine.
The US instructors are to focus on small unit training aimed at bolstering Ukraine’s “internal defense capabilities” as conflict in the Donbass region continues for over a year. The new program would increase Washington’s military assistance provided to Ukraine by more than $244 million.
“This is going be small unit training conducted by US Army Europe for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense personnel,” Toner told reporters Friday. “It’s similar quite frankly to our ongoing training of the National Guard which we announced last March.”
Some 300 US troops are already training the country’s National Guard, which is a semi-official Ukrainian military force hastily created in 2014 to legalize groups of volunteers, patriots and activists following the coup and protests on Maidan. Earlier this month, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges said that US was considering the expansion of its military training to Ukrainian army soldiers.
“We have been providing this kind of assistance training program to Ukraine, over the last 20 years,” Toner stated, adding the new program is not unique and is in line with the US’ “ongoing partnership” with Ukraine.
Meanwhile Washington has stepped up military exercises in Eastern Europe to “reassure” NATO allies in the face of a perceived “Russian threat.” NATO’s Saber Guardian/Rapid Trident 2015 military drills have been seeing almost 2,000 soldiers from 18 different countries displaying their military might this week near the city of Lvov in western Ukraine, inching further towards the Russian border.
The US-led drills are fueling “revanchist moods among the ‘party of war’ in Kiev, which jeopardizes the outlined progress in the peaceful settlement of a deep internal crisis in Ukraine,” the Russian Foreign ministry said in a statement, earlier this week.
The ministry called the drills “a clear manifestation of NATO’s course of unconditional support for the current policy of the Kiev authorities in the south-east of Ukraine, which leads to civilians dying on a daily basis in the region.”
NATO drills will continue until the end of July, but Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has already called for more cooperation in the defense sector since meeting the Supreme Allied Commander Europe US General Philip Breedlove in Kiev.
“We’ve got an effective military and technical cooperation,” he said. “There are also good prospects for cooperation in terms of military exercises.”
Kiev is also pushing for Washington to provide lethal military aid to Ukraine, which the US has so far been reluctant to do.
“We expect to get additional support from the United States,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told AP, less than 10 days ago. “We do understand that some NATO allies are a little bit reluctant in the decision to supply defensive weapons to Ukraine. But this is not just about Ukraine. This is about the security of the world.”
Commenting on the possibility of sending non-lethal aid to Ukraine, Toner stated on Friday that he had nothing to announce, assuring that for now Washington’s focus is on providing non-lethal aid.
“There’s no plan to change that,” Toner said.
Nevertheless Washington said last month that more heavy equipment, including artillery and tanks, will be moved closer to the Russian borders and stationed on a rotating basis in a number of Eastern European NATO countries. Amid the “Russian threat” hysteria, NATO is also tripling the size of its Response Force, recently reinforced with a new Very High Readiness Joint Task Force.
READ MORE: 1,800 troops from 18 states: NATO launches biggest ever drill in Ukraine
Crimea’s 2014 Secession Referendum Was Legal – French Lawmaker
Sputnik – 25.07.2015
Residents of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea have a legal right to hold a secession referendum, including the 2014 vote that separated them from Ukraine and reunited them with Russia, French lawmaker Claude Goasguen, currently in Russia with the French delegation, said Saturday.
“They say that Crimean people had no legal right to hold a referendum. Of course they had! Why not? This is what saved the region from war,” Goasguen said at a press conference in Moscow.
A group of 10 French lawmakers, led by lower-house National Assembly Foreign Affairs Committee member Thierry Mariani, arrived in Russia for a three-day visit on Thursday. The delegation visited Crimea to see the Black Sea peninsula following its secession from Ukraine in March 2014.
Both the French and Ukrainian governments have condemned the trip, considering it a breach of international law.
The Crimean peninsula split from Ukraine to rejoin Russia in March 2014 after a referendum in which over 96 percent voted in favor of the secession.
Kiev and its Western allies labeled the vote an “annexation,” while Moscow pointed out that the actions of the local populace were within the international legal framework.
Israel Clears the Bench in Iran Fight
By Robert Parry | Consortium News | July 24, 2015
Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, acting like the coach of a football team, instructed congressional Republicans to “leave everything on the field” in the fight to defeat the international agreement with Iran over its nuclear energy program, a sign of how openly Israel now feels it controls the GOP.
Israel wants the Iran deal killed so it can keep open options for bombing Iran and imposing “regime change.” And, immediately after Dermer’s locker-room-style pep talk, Republican members of Congress began falling into line, lashing out at Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior officials who negotiated the agreement reached earlier this month between six world powers and Iran.
John Kerry and Benjamin Netanyahu. (State Department photo)
House Speaker John Boehner announced that he would “do everything possible to stop” the deal. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker told Kerry that he’d been “fleeced.” Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican candidate for president, said the next president – presumably meaning himself if he’s successful – could overturn the deal because it’s not a binding treaty.
All this was remarkable even to The New York Times, which usually looks the other way when Israel flexes its muscles in Official Washington. A Times article by Jonathan Weisman noted the extraordinary image of the Israeli ambassador using sports analogies to rile up Republican congressmen to overturn a key foreign policy initiative of the U.S. president.
“Mr. Dermer’s plea — which is widely expected to be followed by a mail, television and radio assault in Democratic districts during the August recess — demonstrates the power that the Israeli government and supportive interest groups in Washington maintain over congressional Republicans,” Weisman wrote.
Obviously, some of this Republican opposition is driven by a deep-seated animus toward President Barack Obama, but the confidence that Dermer, a onetime aide to former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, showed in rallying Republicans to Israel’s foreign policy priority of hostility toward Iran reveals the degree to which the GOP as a party now ties its agenda in the Mideast to Israel.
Connections between Republicans and right-wing Israelis have grown tighter since the presidency of George W. Bush who began implementing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy of “regime change” against countries on his enemies list, starting with Iraq in 2003. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Mysterious Why of the Iraq War.”]
Since then, wealthy Israeli backers, such as casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, have funneled huge sums of money into Republican campaigns. In 2012, Netanyahu virtually endorsed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. And, on March 3, House Speaker Boehner invited Netanyahu to deliver a speech to a joint session of Congress that was remarkable in its overt appeal to American lawmakers to embrace Israel’s foreign policy regarding Iran – over the head of the sitting U.S. president.
Clearing the Bench
In its current pull-out-all-the-stops to show who controls the U.S. political/media process, Israel also is throwing other key assets into this high-stakes fight. For instance, Steven Emerson, who has long posed as a professional journalist and then as a terrorism expert, was a featured speaker at a Times Square rally urging not only death to the nuclear deal but death to Iran.
“So now we have the situation that unless Congress acts, I believe ultimately, it’s going to be left up to a military strike to take out the Iranian capabilities to take out the world,” Emerson told a cheering crowd of a couple of thousand. “If we don’t take out Iran, they will take out us. … Because if you don’t your children will never forgive you – never forgive you for not protecting this country from a holocaust. For not protecting the state of Israel from a holocaust that will occur assuredly just as it did 70 years ago.
“Rarely in our lives do we have an opportunity to change history. Now is the time to do it, and it’s your responsibility all of ours, to go do it.”
Earlier this year, Emerson, who has longstanding close ties to right-wing Israeli officials, was caught in a blatant falsehood – and slur – about British Muslims. Appearing on Fox News as a “terrorism expert,” claimed that Birmingham, England, is now a “Muslim-only city” and that in parts of London “Muslim religious police … beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn’t dress according to religious Muslim attire.”
Emerson asserted that Muslim areas have become “no-go zones” for non-Muslims and cited as an example “actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim, where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in.” Yet, Birmingham, Great Britain’s second-largest city of more than one million people, is nearly half Christian, with the Muslim population less than one-quarter and with significant numbers of Sikhs, Hindus, Jews and non-religious.
As Emerson’s Muslim-bashing remarks drew criticism from the media watchdog group FAIR and ridicule across the United Kingdom, he acknowledged that his “comments about Birmingham were totally in error” and vowed not to blame someone else for his slander.
“I do not intend to justify or mitigate my mistake by stating that I had relied on other sources because I should have been much more careful,” Emerson said in an apparent attempt to do exactly that, shift the blame to some unnamed source for supposedly misleading him. [For more on Emerson’s history of distortion, see Consortiumnews.com’s “The Sorry Record of a Muslim Basher.”]
The heated debate over the Iran nuclear deal is bringing out of the woodwork other longstanding alarmists about Iran’s nuclear program, which has not produced a single bomb, even as some of these same “experts” have studiously ignored the reality of Israel’s rogue nuclear arsenal.
For instance, David Albright, the president of the Institute for Science and International Security (with the now unfortunate acronym ISIS), is back in the pages of the mainstream media warning about possible gaps in the Iranian nuclear deal.
Albright was sought out for comment by the Times’ neocon national security writer Michael R. Gordon, who co-authored the infamous “aluminum tube” story in 2002 that was used to frighten Americans about “mushroom clouds” if they didn’t support an invasion of Iraq. On Thursday, Gordon’s latest story quoting Albright was entitled, online, “Verification Process in Iran Deal Is Questioned by Some Experts.”
An Iraq War Reunion
At times, this Israeli-driven battle to stop the Iran deal almost seems like a reunion of discredited journalists and “experts” who helped guide the United States into the disastrous Iraq War. In 2002, around the same time Gordon, along with Judith Miller, was penning his “aluminum tube” story, Albright and his ISIS were key figures in stoking the hysteria for invading Iraq around other false allegations of its WMD program.
At the end of summer 2002, as Bush was beginning his advertising roll-out for the Iraq invasion and dispatching his top aides to the Sunday talk shows to cite Gordon’s “aluminum tube” article and warn about “smoking guns” and “mushroom clouds,” Albright co-authored a Sept. 10, 2002, article – entitled “Is the Activity at Al Qaim Related to Nuclear Efforts?” – which declared:
“High-resolution commercial satellite imagery shows an apparently operational facility at the site of Iraq’s al Qaim phosphate plant and uranium extraction facility … This site was where Iraq extracted uranium for its nuclear weapons program in the 1980s. … This image raises questions about whether Iraq has rebuilt a uranium extraction facility at the site, possibly even underground. … The uranium could be used in a clandestine nuclear weapons effort.”
Albright’s alarming allegations fit neatly with Bush’s propaganda barrage, although as the months wore on – with Bush’s warnings about aluminum tubes and yellowcake from Africa growing more outlandish – Albright did display more skepticism about the existence of a revived Iraqi nuclear program. Still, he remained a “go-to” expert on other Iraqi purported WMD, such as chemical and biological weapons. In a typical quote on Oct. 5, 2002, Albright told CNN: “In terms of the chemical and biological weapons, Iraq has those now.”
After Bush launched the Iraq invasion in March 2003 and Iraq’s secret WMD caches didn’t materialize, Albright admitted that he had been conned, explaining to the Los Angeles Times : “If there are no weapons of mass destruction, I’ll be mad as hell. I certainly accepted the administration claims on chemical and biological weapons. I figured they were telling the truth. If there is no [unconventional weapons program], I will feel taken, because they asserted these things with such assurance.” [See FAIR’s “The Great WMD Hunt,”]
Albright may have been “mad as hell” for being “taken” but he suffered little, especially compared to the nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq and the hundreds of thousands of slain Iraqis, not to mention the millions of others who have suffered from the chaos that the likes of Emerson, Gordon and Albright helped unleash across the Middle East.
In recent years, Albright and his institute have adopted a similarly alarmist role regarding Iran and its purported pursuit of a nuclear weapon, even though U.S. intelligence agencies say Iran terminated that weapons project in 2003.
Nevertheless, Albright transformed his organization into a sparkplug for a new confrontation with Iran. Though Albright insists that he is an objective professional, his ISIS has published hundreds of articles about Iran, which has not produced a single nuclear bomb, while barely mentioning Israel’s hundreds of bombs.
An examination of the ISIS Web site reveals only a few technical articles relating to Israel’s nukes while Albright’s ISIS expanded its coverage of Iran’s nuclear program so much that it was moved onto a separate Web site. The articles have not only hyped developments in Iran but also have attacked U.S. media critics who questioned the fear-mongering about Iran.
A few years ago when a non-mainstream journalist confronted Albright about the disparity between his institute’s concentration on Iran and de minimis coverage of Israel, he angrily responded that he was working on a report about Israel’s nuclear program. But there is still no substantive assessment of Israel’s large nuclear arsenal on the ISIS Web site, which goes back to 1993.
Despite this evidence of bias, mainstream U.S. news outlets typically present Albright as a neutral analyst. They also ignore his checkered past, for instance, his prominent role in promoting President Bush’s pre-invasion case that Iraq possessed stockpiles of WMD.
However, since Albright and these other propagandists/operatives were never held accountable for the Iraq catastrophe, they are now rushing back into the game to try to block the Iran nuclear deal – and potentially turn the ball over in pursuit of another Mideast war. Netanyahu and his team appear to be clearing the bench for a goal-line stand.
~
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).
Germans Resoundingly Saying “No!” To Clearing Forests To Make Way For Wind Parks
No Tricks Zone | July 24, 2015
A survey conducted by the German Emnid polling institute found that 79% of Germans reject the installation of wind turbines in forests. That’s the result of a survey commissioned by the Deutschen Wildtier Stiftung (German Wildlife Foundation).
Not only are there plans to disfigure and destroy forest regions in Germany, it is already a sad reality in Vermont (New England). Here an aerial photo of a portion of the Lowell Mountain wind park shows how the once natural mountain was blasted with dynamite and forests cleared and industrialized. Photo: courtesy of Daniel F.
When asked if they agreed with the statement: “For the construction of more wind energy, in general no forest areas should disappear or be cut down.”, 79 percent replied with: “I agree!” Only 11% agreed with: “for additional wind parks also forest areas should be cleared away or cut down.” The Emnid Institute survey also determined that the public’s interest in the issue of wind parks in forests is very high. Only 8% said that the issue did not interest them.
For the Deutsche Wildtier Stiftung, the Emind results prove that a large majority of the German population reject wind parks in forests. “Wind power at any cost must not be the result of the Engergiewende,” emphasized Prof. Dr. Fritz Vahrenholt, Chairman of the German Wildlife Foundation. “The citizens of Germany do not want forests to become the victims of a one-dimensional climate policy.“ People think it is important to keep forests and biodiversity intact. Even 65% of those responding said: “In the case of any doubt, the construction of wind turbines must yield to the protection of birds and other animals”.
The thoughtless construction of wind energy in the forest is a serious threat. “Opening up forests to allow wind parks leads to the endangerment of rare species,” Prof. Dr. Vahrenholt criticized. Every year in Germany up to 240,000 bats are killed by wind turbine rotors. Although they are able to dodge the moving rotors, the negative pressure in the rotor’s wake causes the bats’ lungs to burst. Most of the domestic bats are on the endangered species list.
Bird species like the rare lesser spotted eagle, the red kite and the black stork are especially sensitive to turbines. For example half of the breeding population of the black stork disappeared in just 6 years at the Vogelsberg site in the state of Hesse after 125 wind turbines were constructed. Many predatory birds die in collisions with rotors.
“So far only the state of Saxony Anhalt has opted not to allow wind parks in forests,” says Prof. Vahrenholt. In German states with large forest areas, such as Baden-Wuerttemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, North Rhine Westphalia, Hesse and Brandenburg, there are already decrees to allow the construction of wind parks despite regional resistance to them,” said Vahrenholt.
Moreover Emnid found that among those surveyed, wind energy in forests is not a matter of personal preference, but one of a greater good – namely forest as a space for life. On the question: “Would you feel disturbed about wind turbines in the forest?”, 43% answered with “yes”.
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From the Archives
A history of US threats to use nuclear weapons
By David North | WSWS | October 5, 2022
The Biden administration and the media present Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in response to military setbacks as an unprecedented break with long-established and hitherto unquestioned rules of international statecraft. This narrative is a lie.
In fact, the United States and other imperialist powers have not only considered on several critical occasions using nuclear weapons to reverse military defeats. They have directly threatened to drop atom bombs in order to extract concessions from their enemies.
There are the well-documented demands of General Douglas MacArthur for the dropping of nuclear bombs on China, President Eisenhower’s weighing of France’s request for the detonation of nuclear devices at Dien Bien Phu, and President Kennedy’s threats during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Far less known and even more serious were the use of nuclear threats by President Nixon against the USSR and Vietnam. Operation Giant Lance was initiated on October 27, 1969, according to Wikipedia, to force a settlement of the Vietnam War on terms favorable to the US.
According to Wikipedia, Nixon “authorized a squadron of 18 B-52 bombers to patrol the Arctic polar ice caps and escalate the nuclear threat … to coerce both the Soviet Union and North Vietnam to agree on favorable terms with the US, and conclusively end the Vietnam War.”
Nixon made use of what was referred to as the “madman” tactic to convince the Soviet Union that he was capable of ordering a nuclear strike. Another operation, related to Giant Lance, was “Duck Hook.” … continue
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