Regardless of how tired, threadbare and discredited the entire “humanitarian war” meme is becoming, and no matter how transparent the agenda, the Guardian is continuing to push for a “humanitarian”, intervention in Syria.
Currently you can read Simon Jenkins wringing his hands and his conscience. He starts reasonably well, with a brief overview of the horrors inflicted by previous western attempts to bring peace to the world, which does at least acknowledge how cynically brutal we have been. But he betrays the agenda behind his avowed sense of outrage with a rather shocking u-turn in the final few paragraphs, in which he argues that since bombing doesn’t win wars, there really might be nothing else to do but get over all those silly non-interventionist scruples and get right behind a full scale invasion of Syria. Here are his words (emphasis ours)
“…If ever in the past quarter century there was a clear humanitarian case for intervening to pacify, reorder and restore good governance to a failed state, it must be in Syria. I still regard this as none of Britain’s business, which should be to help refugees. But if parliament were to decide otherwise, there is no other moral course but to insert ground troops. If winning is Cameron’s goal, he should put his army where his mouth is and pledge a massive British presence in a UN intervention force….”
Does Jenkins realise the west has already been “intervening” in Syria for at least the past three years, and this is the main reason the state is “failing”? Does he know anything of the claims the civil war is not a domestic protest movement gone rogue but a cynically organised foreign intervention?
Can he tell us what he means by ‘winning’ in this specific context?
Meanwhile, elsewhere at the Graun Natalie Nougayrede is begging Obama “not to play Putin’s game in Syria.” Because Putin isn’t to be trusted. Let’s allow Natalie to explain exactly why in her own unforgettable words:
“…But Putin’s intentions are best described by the man himself. In a recent interview he was clear about the kind of “political process” he has in mind: “Holding early parliamentary elections and establishing ties with the so-called healthy opposition, involving them in running the country” – all this “in agreement” with Assad.”
Elections? Power-sharing? Healthy opposition? What foolishness is this? But of course Natalie knows what this really means is “fake elections in a war torn country,” because Putin is playing the same game Kissinger played with the Khmer Rouge. This is a legitimate comparison you understand, and not some hysterically offensive bid to discredit by association. Assad is exactly like the Khmer Rouge. You heard it from Natalie.
Notably she doesn’t offer any specific alternatives to Putin’s crazy “democracy” fixation. What she does offer in abundance is scatter gun claims from the propaganda matrix. Everything is thrown in the mix here. Assad’s alleged “barrel bombs” of course get a mention, though the distortions and outright deceptions underpinning that narrative are not discussed. Assad being responsible for most civilian deaths is said as if it were a known fact and not merely an assertion, as is Assad’s army being “pumped up with new Russian weapons”(she links to an earlier Guardian article for “proof” of this, even though said article itself is reproducing nothing but hearsay, and contains a direct refutation by the Syrian ambassador to Moscow, who points out Russia has been supplying Syria with weapons quite openly for 40 years.)
All of this looks strained and frantic and hollow, because it is. The rationale behind western intervention has been discredited and exposed to the point where nothing honest can be said in its favour. While the US seems to be going for broke in the Middle east and worldwide, lies, smears and allusions are all the justification it has left. Like Jenkins, Natalie is asking us to believe diplomacy, negotiations and elections are just for tyrants and the Khmer Rouge, while illegally invading a sovereign country, supplanting and/or murdering its elected leader and killing thousands of innocent civilians in the process is the more ethical, democratic and freedom-loving thing to do.
But neither of them can quite bring themselves to say such a thing out loud.
September 19, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Syria, UK |
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In late August 2013, the Obama administration lurched to the brink of invading Syria after blaming a Sarin gas attack outside Damascus on President Bashar al-Assad’s government, but evidence – reported by investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh – implicates Turkish intelligence and extremist Syrian rebels instead.
The significance of Hersh’s report is twofold: first, it shows how Official Washington’s hawks and neocons almost stampeded the United States into another Mideast war under false pretenses, and second, the story’s publication in the London Review of Books reveals how hostile the mainstream U.S. media remains toward information that doesn’t comport with its neocon-dominated conventional wisdom.
In other words, it appears that Official Washington and its mainstream press have absorbed few lessons from the disastrous Iraq War, which was launched in 2003 under the false claim that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was planning to share hidden stockpiles of WMD with al-Qaeda, when there was no WMD nor any association between Hussein and al-Qaeda.
A decade later in August and September 2013, as a new war hysteria broke out over Assad allegedly crossing President Barack Obama’s “red line” against using chemical weapons, it fell to a few Internet sites, including our own Consortiumnews.com, to raise questions about the administration’s allegations that pinned the Aug. 21 attack on the Syrian government.
Not only did the U.S. government fail to provide a single piece of verifiable evidence to support its claims, a much-touted “vector analysis” by Human Rights Watch and The New York Times – supposedly tracing the flight paths of two rockets back to a Syrian military base northwest of Damascus – collapsed when it became clear that only one rocket carried Sarin and its range was less than one-third the distance between the army base and the point of impact. That meant the rocket carrying the Sarin appeared to have originated in rebel territory.
There were other reasons to doubt the Obama administration’s casus belli, including the irrationality of Assad ordering a chemical weapons strike outside Damascus just as United Nations inspectors were unpacking at a local hotel with plans to investigate an earlier attack that the Syrian government blamed on the rebels.
Assad would have known that a chemical attack would have diverted the inspectors (as it did) and would force President Obama to declare that his “red line” had been crossed, possibly prompting a massive U.S. retaliatory strike (as it almost did).
Plans for War
Hersh’s article describes how devastating the U.S. aerial bombardment was supposed to be, seeking to destroy Assad’s military capability, which, in turn, could have cleared the way to victory for the Syrian rebels, whose fortunes had been declining.
Hersh wrote: “Under White House pressure, the US attack plan evolved into ‘a monster strike’: two wings of B-52 bombers were shifted to airbases close to Syria, and navy submarines and ships equipped with Tomahawk missiles were deployed.
“‘Every day the target list was getting longer,’ the former intelligence official told me. ‘The Pentagon planners said we can’t use only Tomahawks to strike at Syria’s missile sites because their warheads are buried too far below ground, so the two B-52 air wings with two-thousand pound bombs were assigned to the mission. Then we’ll need standby search-and-rescue teams to recover downed pilots and drones for target selection. It became huge.’
“The new target list was meant to ‘completely eradicate any military capabilities Assad had’, the former intelligence official said. The core targets included electric power grids, oil and gas depots, all known logistic and weapons depots, all known command and control facilities, and all known military and intelligence buildings.”
According to Hersh, the administration’s war plans were disrupted by U.S. and British intelligence analysts who uncovered evidence that the Sarin was likely not released by the Assad government and indications that Turkey’s intelligence services may have collaborated with radical rebels to deploy the Sarin as a false-flag operation.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan sided with the Syrian opposition early in the civil conflict and provided a vital supply line to the al-Nusra Front, a violent group of Sunni extremists with ties to al-Qaeda and increasingly the dominant rebel fighting force. By 2012, however, internecine conflicts among rebel factions had contributed to Assad’s forces gaining the upper hand.
The role of Islamic radicals – and the fear that advanced U.S. weapons might end up in the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists – unnerved President Obama who pulled back on U.S. covert support for the rebels. That frustrated Erdoğan who pressed Obama to expand U.S. involvement, according to Hersh’s account.
Hersh wrote: “By the end of 2012, it was believed throughout the American intelligence community that the rebels were losing the war. ‘Erdoğan was pissed,’ the former intelligence official said, ‘and felt he was left hanging on the vine. It was his money and the [U.S] cut-off was seen as a betrayal.’”
‘Red Line’ Worries
Recognizing Obama’s political sensitivity over his “red line” pledge, the Turkish government and Syrian rebels saw chemical weapons as the way to force the President’s hand, Hersh reported, writing: “In spring 2013 US intelligence learned that the Turkish government – through elements of the MIT, its national intelligence agency, and the Gendarmerie, a militarised law-enforcement organisation – was working directly with al-Nusra and its allies to develop a chemical warfare capability.
“‘The MIT was running the political liaison with the rebels, and the Gendarmerie handled military logistics, on-the-scene advice and training – including training in chemical warfare,’ the former intelligence official said. ‘Stepping up Turkey’s role in spring 2013 was seen as the key to its problems there. Erdoğan knew that if he stopped his support of the jihadists it would be all over. The Saudis could not support the war because of logistics – the distances involved and the difficulty of moving weapons and supplies. Erdoğan’s hope was to instigate an event that would force the US to cross the red line. But Obama didn’t respond [to small chemical weapons attacks] in March and April.’”
The dispute between Erdoğan and Obama came to a head at a White House meeting on May 16, 2013, when Erdoğan unsuccessfully lobbied for a broader U.S. military commitment to the rebels, Hersh reported.
Three months later, in the early hours of Aug. 21, 2013, a mysterious missile delivered a lethal load of Sarin into a suburb east of Damascus. The Obama administration and the mainstream U.S. press corps immediately jumped to the conclusion that the Syrian government had launched the attack, which the U.S. government claimed killed at least “1,429” people although the number of victims cited by doctors and other witnesses on the scene was much lower.
Yet, with the media stampede underway, anyone who questioned the U.S. government’s case was trampled under charges of being an “Assad apologist.” But we few skeptics continued to point out the lack of evidence to support the rush to war. Obama also encountered political resistance in both the British Parliament and U.S. Congress, but hawks in the U.S. State Department were itching for a new war.
Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a bellicose speech on Aug. 30, 2013, amid expectations that the U.S. bombs would start flying within days. But Obama hesitated, first referring the war issue to Congress and later accepting a compromise brokered by Russian President Vladimir Putin to have Assad surrender all of his chemical weapons even as Assad continued denying any role in the Aug. 21 attacks.
Obama took the deal but continued asserting publicly that Assad was guilty and disparaging anyone who thought otherwise. In a formal address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 24, 2013, Obama declared, “It’s an insult to human reason and to the legitimacy of this institution to suggest that anyone other than the regime carried out this attack.”
Suspicions of Turkey
However, by autumn 2013, U.S. intelligence analysts were among those who had joined in the “insult to human reason” as their doubts about Assad’s guilt grew. Hersh cited an ex-intelligence official saying: “the US intelligence analysts who kept working on the events of 21 August ‘sensed that Syria had not done the gas attack. But the 500 pound gorilla was, how did it happen? The immediate suspect was the Turks, because they had all the pieces to make it happen.’
“As intercepts and other data related to the 21 August attacks were gathered, the intelligence community saw evidence to support its suspicions. ‘We now know it was a covert action planned by Erdoğan’s people to push Obama over the red line,’ the former intelligence official said. ‘They had to escalate to a gas attack in or near Damascus when the UN inspectors’ – who arrived in Damascus on 18 August to investigate the earlier use of gas – ‘were there. The deal was to do something spectacular.
“‘Our senior military officers have been told by the DIA and other intelligence assets that the sarin was supplied through Turkey – that it could only have gotten there with Turkish support. The Turks also provided the training in producing the sarin and handling it.’
“Much of the support for that assessment came from the Turks themselves, via intercepted conversations in the immediate aftermath of the attack. ‘Principal evidence came from the Turkish post-attack joy and back-slapping in numerous intercepts. Operations are always so super-secret in the planning but that all flies out the window when it comes to crowing afterwards. There is no greater vulnerability than in the perpetrators claiming credit for success.’”
According to the thinking of Turkish intelligence, Hersh reported, “Erdoğan’s problems in Syria would soon be over: ‘Off goes the gas and Obama will say red line and America is going to attack Syria, or at least that was the idea. But it did not work out that way.’”
Hersh added that the U.S. intelligence community has been reluctant to pass on to Obama the information contradicting the Assad-did-it scenario. Hersh wrote:
“The post-attack intelligence on Turkey did not make its way to the White House. ‘Nobody wants to talk about all this,’ the former intelligence official told me. ‘There is great reluctance to contradict the president, although no all-source intelligence community analysis supported his leap to convict. There has not been one single piece of additional evidence of Syrian involvement in the sarin attack produced by the White House since the bombing raid was called off. My government can’t say anything because we have acted so irresponsibly. And since we blamed Assad, we can’t go back and blame Erdoğan.’”
Like the bloody U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the near U.S. air war against Syria in 2013 is a cautionary tale for Americans regarding the dangers that result when the U.S. government and mainstream media dance off hand in hand, leaping to conclusions and laughing at doubters.
The key difference between the war in Iraq and the averted war on Syria was that President Obama was not as eager as his predecessor, George W. Bush, to dress himself up as a “war president.” Another factor was that Obama had the timely assistance of Russian President Putin to chart a course that skirted the abyss.
Given how close the U.S. neocons came to maneuvering a reluctant Obama into another “regime change” war on a Mideast adversary of Israel, you can understand why they are so angry with Putin and why they were so eager to hit back at him in Ukraine. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “What Neocons Want from Ukraine Crisis.”]
~
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).
September 19, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Syria, Turkey, United States, Zionism |
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Iran has dismissed a report claiming that the upcoming visit to the Iranian capital, Tehran, by the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is aimed at securing interviews with Iranian nuclear scientists.
“Some international media release biased reports with certain motives and this is not a new practice,” said Behrouz Kamalvandi, the speaker for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), on Saturday.
The visit by UN nuclear agency’s chief Yukiya Amano is intended to pave the way for the “implementation” of the road map signed between Iran and the IAEA in mid-July, he added.
The remarks came following a report by The Associated Press quoting unnamed diplomats as saying that during his visit, “Amano plans to push for long-delayed interviews with Iranian scientists linked to alleged experiments as well as to discuss a planned inspection of Parchin [military site].”
Earlier in the day, the IAEA announced that Amano will travel to Iran later on Saturday to discuss issues related to the country’s nuclear program.
“The visit will focus on the ongoing cooperation between the IAEA and the Islamic Republic of Iran in the context of the Road-map for the clarification of past and present outstanding issues regarding Iran’s nuclear program,” read the statement issued by the agency, adding that Amano will meet with Iranian officials on Sunday.
On July 14, Iran and the IAEA signed a road map regarding the Islamic Republic’s nuclear work in the Austrian capital city of Vienna. The agreement was reached on the same day Iran and the P5+1 – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – finalized the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna.
As part of the road map, the IAEA is required to finish its investigations about Iran’s nuclear activities and submit a report to the agency’s board by December 15.
Back on Monday, Amano said Iran has successfully met its obligations as stipulated in the road map, including an August 15 deadline for sending written explanations on its past activities.
Earlier this week, experts from Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog wrapped up a two-day session in Tehran, during which the Iranian team discussed the questions posed by the IAEA on September 8 with regard to Iran’s explanations. According to reports, expert meetings will continue in the city during the first week of the Iranian calendar month of Mehr (late September).
The UN Security Council on July 20 unanimously endorsed a draft resolution turning the JCPOA into international law.
Under the JCPOA, limits will be put on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for, among other things, the removal of all economic and financial bans against the Islamic Republic.
September 19, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Iran, The Associated Press |
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Three members from the Guatemala’s Council of Displaced Peoples, CONDEG, were kidnapped on Thursday in the palm oil producing town of Petén.
Local human rights organization, UDEFEGUA, issued a press release Thursday denouncing inaction on the part of local authorities following the disappearance.
“We reiterate and demand immediate action by the authorities to ensure the security, life and physical integrity of the human rights defenders,” the statement read.
Police officials have not identified any suspects or persons of interest involved in the incident.
According to local media reports, the kidnappers are demanding the reversal of a Guatemalan court ruling, which ordered local palm oil manufacturer Repsa to temporarily halt its operations due to unethical environmental practices.
The decision was handed down Wednesday after local residents filed legal motions against the company for contaminating drinking water and endangering protected species along the La Pasión River.
Last June, heavy rains caused a holding pond containing chemicals to overflow into the river, marking the second time in two years that communities in northern Guatemala have seen large scale fish die-offs in their rivers.
Water pollution is a major environmental problem associated with palm oil production, according to labor watchdog Verité.
The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources recently concluded that the La Pasion River had been polluted with malathion, an agricultural pesticide.
The court ruling, however, angered some local residents who depend on the company for work. Repsa employs more than half the local population and the majority of jobs center around the palm oil industry.
Guatemala has become the ninth largest palm oil exporter in the world, and the second largest palm oil exporter in Latin America.
September 19, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Environmentalism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | Guatemala, Palm oil |
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Native Americans are upset at Pope Francis for his decision to canonize 18th-century Franciscan missionary Junipero Serra.
Serra founded the mission system in California, which helped establish the Catholic Church long before California ever became a state.
But the missions treated local Native Americans cruelly while trying to convert them to Christianity. Many of them were whipped, imprisoned, and put in stocks. Serra’s drive to “civilize” native peoples resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the eradication of their culture, Gary Kamiya wrote at San Francisco Magazine.
That’s why tribal leaders and others have voiced objections to Pope Francis’ announcement in January to make Serra a saint. Protests have been staged all across California and more are expected throughout the year.
Francis has tried to soften the opposition by apologizing on behalf of the church for its crimes against indigenous peoples. In July, Francis “made a sweeping apology for the church’s sins and ‘crimes’ against indigenous peoples during a visit to Bolivia” by “humbly” begging for “forgiveness in the presence of Bolivia’s first-ever indigenous president and representatives of native groups from across South America, who wildly cheered the pope and said they accepted the apology,” the Associated Press reported.
“Pope Francis has gone to South America and apologized,” Norma Flores, a spokeswoman for Kizh Nation, told AP. “Yet he is going to canonize the individual responsible for the genocide of Native people.”
Flores wants the pope to come to California and acknowledge the church’s specific crimes. “We will never forgive or forget, but we need that in order for our wounds to heal,” she added. The pope’s travel plans don’t include a visit to the state.
“Back in the 1930s, there were just two remaining speakers of our language, Chochenyo,” Vincent Medina told San Francisco Magazine. “When I went to my grandfather and asked him about the language, he said, ‘We don’t know the language anymore’… There’s a reason why it wasn’t passed down to him from his mother. The decline started with Junípero Serra’s policies. He used to gripe about how Indians wouldn’t stop speaking their languages. He wanted them to speak Spanish.”
Louise Miranda Ramirez, tribal chairwoman of the Ohlone Costanoan Esselen Nation, whose people occupied large parts of northern California at the time of Serra’s arrival in 1769, told San Francisco Magazine she “felt betrayed” by the decision to canonize Serra.
“The missions that Serra founded put our ancestors through things that none of us want to remember. I think about the children being locked into the missions, the whippings—and it hurts. I hurt for our ancestors. I feel the pain. That pain hasn’t gone away. And it needs to be corrected,” Ramirez said.
teleSUR | September 24, 2015
On Wednesday, Pope Francis canonized Junipero Serra, a Franciscan priest, who is revered by Catholics but is also detested by some Native Americans groups who accuse Serra of abusing the native populations, subjecting them to forced labor, and cultural genocide.
Serra, an ordained a priest in 1738 is most famous for establishing nine of the state of California’s 21 missions in the 1700’s, effectively bringing Catholicism to the America’s.
According to U.S. census records, the population of native Californians dropped from approximately 310,000 when the missionaries first arrived to 20,000 at the start of the twentieth century.
Scholar Calley Hart attribute the sharp decline in population due to the discouragement of traditional medicinal practices, unsanitary living conditions, the lack of medical care along with radical changes in diet and location.
Native American groups argue that Serra, like many Franciscan missionaries at the time, forced native populations to work for Spanish settlements and were gradually stripped of their culture and religion.
“Pope Francis continues to ignore the true history of what happened to American Indian tribes in California. What Serra did to Indians was about the conquest of our people,” commented Valentin Lopez, chairman, the Amah Mutsun tribal band of Costanoan-Ohlone Indians to native news online on Monday.
Serra was first designated a candidate for sainthood in 1934 and later in 1988.
To Learn More:
Junípero Serra’s Missions Destroyed Entire Native Cultures. And Now He’s Going to Be a Saint. (by Gary Kamiya, San Francisco Magazine )
Pope’s Apology Doesn’t Change Opinions On Canonization (by Sudhin Thanawala, Associated Press )
Pope Taps Junipero Serra for Sainthood despite Pesky Complaints of Genocide (by Ken Broder, AllGov California )
September 19, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular | Catholic Church, Christianity, Native Americans, Pope Francis |
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For years the 9/11 Truth movement has been vainly pleading with mainstream media – and the “alternative” 9/11-Truth-rejecting media (which we’ll include for our purposes as mainstream) to cover any of the endless, obvious problems with any of the Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory (OCT) tales we’ve been told. Now, all of a sudden, these same mainstream media, echoing prestigious players like former US Senator Bob Graham, are on the rampage about a “9/11 cover-up,” and are pushing for the release of 28 redacted pages from the 2002 Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee 9/11 Inquiry’s report! So…let’s all of us 9/11 Truthers jump aboard this fast moving train with both feet, right?
The Truth movement has gradually been gaining a foothold with the public; a growing number of people countenance some kind of government role in 9/11 and/or its cover-up. Suspicion has likewise grown about the role played by Bush-administration neocons and their Zionist bedfellows. After 15 years of staunch media refusal to report the flagrantly obvious holes in the various OCT stories we’ve been fed, why is this particular issue suddenly headline news? Why at this particular juncture? And how does it just happen to be spearheaded by one of the major contributors to the initial coverup?
Let’s examine the question of why the Deep State might want this story heated up to a fever pitch:
Misdirection
It is now commonly assumed among the public that those 28 pages in some way implicate the Saudi government in the events of 9/11, probably by financing the OCT-alleged hijackers. But consider the not unlikely possibility that the real players in 9/11 were not the Saudis, but rather the Bush neocons and their Israeli partners in crime. If they were looking for a way to deflect increasing public doubt about the OTC, blaming the Saudis would be an excellent choice.
Professional magicians employ misdirection – irrelevant bodily motions and various props – to distract the audience’s attention from what they’re really up to. Some of us in the movement consider the 28 Pages campaign to be just such a classical misdirection, so that the Saudis can be pulled out of the hat as the new scapegoats for 9/11. The benefits of such minor modification of the OTC outweigh its risks:
Risks and benefits
Sure, there’s some risk involved. Releasing the 28 pages (if they say what it is widely believed they will say) would, after all, make it obvious to the public that the government has been involved in some kind of cover-up. Hardly a surprise to the Truth movement, or to that majority of Americans who have lost confidence in the official narrative. But let’s remember that the government survived the Snowden/NSA disclosures virtually unscathed – Big Brother can now legally get all the info he wants, and polls have indicated that many Americans are absorbing this “new normal” by censoring themselves online. So another such embarrassment might be just as easily spun and exploited to the real perpetrators’ advantage.
On the other hand, the benefits of such misdirection would be huge:
- Everyone’s focus would now be on the Saudis and off the Neocons and their Zionist bedfellows.
- The core OCT mythology would not only remain intact, but become solidified in the public mind (i.e., the catastrophic events of 9/11 were entirely the result of 19 hijackers’ actions, whose commandeered airliner crashes were the efficient cause of numerous fire-induced building collapses).
Why does this matter?
On the broadest level of geopolitics, the OCT myth is the basis for Western Islamophobia and the perpetual “Global War on Terror.” Blaming the Saudis only amplifies the assumption of “international Islamic terrorism,” still omitting all reference to Western players.
It is patently clear that the hijacker aspect of 9/11 is logically unsustainable (see below). Whether or not these men ever really existed, whether or not they behaved as devout Muslims, whether or not they were on the planes and whether or not they were financed by the Saudis, Pakistan’s ISI or anyone else – these may be useful questions for some purposes, but not for determining who was ultimately behind 9/11. Moving the public perception in the direction of blaming the Saudis for 9/11 because they supported the “hijackers” – the effect of 28 Pages campaign-support websites like hr14.org, – means abandoning the ever-widening trail of truth so relentlessly blazed by the 9/11 Truth movement, a trail leading close enough to their doors that the real culprits are beginning to feel some heat.
Yet movement veterans who should know better are falling all over each other to jump on the campaign bandwagon, and indeed, to be seen as leading the parade for “HR14,” the Congressional resolution demanding that the administration declassify those 28 pages! As 9/11 activists, they are well aware that the whole OCT story is a fabrication, and that the Saudis could not possibly have masterminded 9/11. Here’s their rationalization in a nutshell: Because the mainstream media are suddenly embracing the topic, any wide public revelation of a “cover-up” will eventually lead to an unraveling of the real cover-up, and therefore represents Truth movement’s first – and perhaps last – real opportunity to break into the wider realm of acceptable public opinion. But meanwhile, to “protect” the politicians (and the uninformed public?) whose support is needed for the passage of this bill, these websites, whilst making a pretense of advancing the cause of 9/11 Truth, implicitly embrace the long-debunked OCT (now twisted ever so slightly to incriminate the Saudis).
But consider the past fourteen years of consistent derogatory treatment by the corporate (and even many “alternative”) media of those who seriously question the basic OCT myth, and the media consolidation this represents – the control of these sources by corporate directors and the Deep State agents who write their playbook. These people are not fools – they don’t launch a propaganda ploy without Plans B, C, etc. in place for potential damage control. Based on the mainstream media’s track record of the past fourteen years, the chances of their running away with this story in a way that genuinely promotes 9/11 Truth seem vanishingly small. And the Achilles’ heel of such an overly optimistic hope is that the solid research and evidence gathered by the Truth movement fall outside (and contradict) the Saudi-financed hijackers-dunnit scenario, so the media is unlikely to seriously reference any of it in its treatment of any forthcoming 28-pages “revelation.”
Looking ahead, where will this leave the Truth movement? How is it going respond if the 28 pages say exactly what people are expecting them to say, and movement leaders are credited for their release? Will these same activists now tooting the horn for hr14 be able to credibly turn around and say “Wait, this information is misleading because ‘the real 9/11’ was something far beyond the abilities of the Saudis to manage!”? And will the media do an about-face with them, and obligingly lavish coverage on what it has complicitly covered up since 9/11?
About those “hijackers”
Our position on the irrelevance of Saudi “financing” admittedly hinges on the question of the alleged “hijackers.” If these alleged 19 hijacked and flew the jetliners in question, Saudi involvement might be argued to have significance (albeit still not the key to 9/11 perpetration). But there are a host of reasons for rejecting the entire OCT hijack scenario:
- The “hijackers’” publicly documented behavior was not that of devout Muslims [1]
- There is no credible time-stamped video record of them boarding planes, much less arriving at the departing airports. [2]
- The stories told about Muhammed Atta and whomever it was who allegedly accompanied him to Portland, Maine changed constantly. [3]
- There is no original flight manifest showing Middle Eastern names. [4]
- The FBI came up with a list of hijackers within just a few hours of the first 9/11 event, a number of whom they replaced with substitutes shortly afterwards. [5]
- The transmission of cockpit comments of “hijackers” heard by the control towers could have been generated anywhere.
- The simple button-press sequence (“squawk”) signaling a hijacking was not executed on any of the four planes. [6]
- The initially-alleged cellphone calls that reported hijackings in progress were proven in most cases to have been technically impossible; most were later changed to on-board phone calls, some from planes that didn’t have on-board phones, and some calls (per the FBI) were never completed or didn’t exist – particularly the only one referencing “box cutters.” [7]
- The conditions in the planes’ passenger cabins that would have existed under the alleged flight behavior of the planes at the time of the calls were completely inconsistent with the background sounds on the calls and the behavior of the alleged callers [8].
- With one exception, the alleged “pilots” had never flown a jet-liner; one had flown a simulator of a different plane with a completely different cockpit layout; the one who allegedly made the almost-impossible maneuver over the Pentagon had been declared by his instructors to be unable to even fly a single-engine plane. [9]
- The claims of finding a “hijacker” passport unscathed on the ground in NYC, and undamaged red bandanas (indicative of the wrong Muslim sect, in any case) in Pennsylvania, given the alleged physical reality of those crashes, are absurd on their face. [10]
- With respect to the question of how 9/11 could have happened without human hijackers, it is vital to note that as of 2001, the technology for complete remote takeover, isolation and control (takeoff, flying, landing) of commercial jetliners was well advanced and had been fully tested in the types of aircraft involved in 9/11, and the air traffic auto-pilot navigation lanes in the sky were precise to within a few feet. [11]
The list goes on. . . As one considers each piece of evidence, the chance that “hijackings” took place approaches zero. The real role of the alleged hijackers is not yet known – those with documented flying lessons may very well have been unwitting patsies. In any case, the question of who might have been financing their stay in this country, Saudi or otherwise, is at best tangential to the larger picture of what really happened on 9/11. No matter what the motive, then, any attempt to persuade people that the final answer to the question of 9/11 perpetration lies in this direction can only be construed as dangerous misdirection. The real price already being paid by the Truth movement is the subversion of unwitting activists who help promote such meretricious campaign propaganda, thereby betraying the movement’s hard-won, fact-based alternative perspective.
The 28 Pages campaign: 9/11 Truth bonanza or limited hangout?
Our own concern about the 28 Pages campaign was triggered by the emergence of several websites supporting it, which hold out the promise that the 28 pages will answer the question of who was really behind 9/11 (and that this will turn out to be Saudi Arabia). Examples are 28pages.org and most especially hr14.org. As the latter is controlled by a veteran 9/11 truther, we appealed to him as fellow activists – an ad hoc group of 9/11 activists sent him a letter critiquing the website from the standpoint of 9/11 Truth, requesting specific revisions of its message. Because his reply failed to substantially address the issues we raised, we have now published it as an open letter.
We are hardly the first to find serious problems with the direction of the 28 Pages campaign. Perhaps the first notable critique came from the blog of Kevin Ryan; whilst this early criticism was on the milder side, its excoriation of the leadership of the 28 Pages campaign – Bob Graham and his “CIA protege” Porter Goss – is not to be missed! Years earlier, in fact, Ryan had opined in Washington’s Blog : “Those redacted pages, and much of the 9/11 Commission report that followed, have always seemed to be a kind of ‘Get into Saudi Arabia free’ card for the powers that be.” Given the recent sea change in Saudi foreign policy – its nearer alignment with Russia and the BRICS bloc – such a prospect cannot be overlooked. What better way to incite public animosity towards the Saudis than by playing the tried and true 9/11 blame game?
Expanding on Ryan’s disquieting report, Professor Michel Chossudovsky, of Globalresearch, wrote:
Calling for the official release and publication of the 28 page classified section of the joint inquiry report pertaining to Saudi Arabia is an obvious red-herring. The objective is to confuse matters, create divisions within the 9/11 Truth movement and ultimately dispel the fact that the 9/11 attacks were a carefully organized False Flag event which was used to declare war on Afghanistan as well as usher in sweeping anti-terrorist legislation.
Both the Congressional inquiry as well the 9/11 Commission report are flawed, their objective was to sustain the official narrative that America was under attack on September 11, 2001. And Graham’s role in liaison with the CIA, is “damage control” with a view to protecting those who were behind the demolition of the WTC towers as well [as] sustaining the Al Qaeda legend, which constitutes the cornerstone of US military doctrine under the so-called “Global War on Terrorism”.
As the 28 Pages campaign unfolds, such scathing criticism has proven remarkably prescient. We urge our fellow 9/11 Truth activists to take it to heart, and to approach the 28 Pages campaign juggernaut, if at all, with extreme caution, so long as it faithfully clings to the OTC . Caveat emptor!!
- Agents of terror leave their mark on Sin City / Las Vegas workers recall the men they can’t forget; Kevin Fagan, SFGate, 4 Oct 2001 http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/10/04/MN102970.DTL * Terrorists partied with hooker at Hub-area hotel; Dave Wedge, Boston Herald, 10 Oct 2001 (retrieved from Wayback Machine 11 Sep 2015) http://web.archive.org/web/20011010224657/http://www.bostonherald.com/attack/investigation/ausprob10102001.htm * Suspects’ actions don’t add up; Jody Benjamin, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 16 Sep 2001 (retrieved from Wayback Machine 11 Sep 2015) http://web.archive.org/web/20010916150533/http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-warriors916.story * Welcome To Terrorland; Daniel Hopsicker (Trine Day, 2004) http://www.amazon.com/dp/0970659164/
- Point Video-2: Was the Airport Video of the Alleged AA 77 Hijackers Authentic?: Official 9/11 Videotaped Evidence; Consensus 911: The Best Evidence Panel http://www.consensus911.org/point-video-2/ * Point Video-1: The Alleged Security Videos of Mohamed Atta during a Mysterious Trip to Portland, Maine, September 10-11, 2001; Consensus 911: The Best Evidence Panel http://www.consensus911.org/point-video-1/
- 9/11 Contradictions: Mohamed Atta’s Mitsubishi and His Luggage; David Ray Griffin, Global Research, 9 May 2008 http://www.globalresearch.ca/9-11-contradictions-mohamed-atta-s-mitsubishi-and-his-luggage/8937
- The FBI took control of the original flight manifests and still refuses to release them, while the airlines defer to the FBI. It has been said that the following versions had the hijackers removed to spare the feelings of the victims’ relatives. The reader must draw his/her own conclusions. The following from CNN on 17 Sep 2001 were retrieved from Wayback Machine 11 Sep 2015 ) * Flight 11: https://web.archive.org/web/20010917033844/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA11.victims.html * Flight 175: https://web.archive.org/web/20010917034224/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/ua175.victims.html * Flight 77: https://web.archive.org/web/20010917033858/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA77.victims.html * Flight 93: https://web.archive.org/web/20010917033913/http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/UA93.victims.html
- Not a shred of evidence that any 9/11 ‘hijackers’ boarded any planes; Craig McKee, Truth and Shadows https://truthandshadows.wordpress.com/2015/03/19/hijackers-did-not-board-planes/
- Point Flt-1: A Claim Regarding Hijacked Passenger Jets; Consensus 911: The Best Evidence Panel http://www.consensus911.org/point-flt-1/
- * Project Achilles Report Parts One, Two and Three; A.K. Dewdney, 23 Jan – 19 Apr 2003 http://physics911.net/projectachilles/ * Point PC-3: Cell Phone Calls From the Planes: The First Official Account; Consensus 911: The Best Evidence Panel http://www.consensus911.org/point-pc-3/ * September 11 – The New Pearl Harbor, Part 1; Massimo Mazzucco, YouTube [at 1:38:35] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1GCeuSr3Mk&t=5915 * Point PC-4: Cell Phone Calls from the Planes: The Second Official Account; Consensus 911: The Best Evidence Panel http://www.consensus911.org/point-pc-4/ * Methodical Illusion Series with Rebekah Roth, Part 2 [1:57:50]; Wake Up To the Truth (BlogTalk Radio); 19 Nov 2014 http://www.blogtalkradio.com/911falseflags/2014/11/19/methodical-illusion-series-w-rebekah-roth-part-2 * Ted Olson’s Report of Phone Calls from Barbara Olson on 9/11: Three Official Denials; David Ray Griffin, Global Research, 1 Apr 2008 http://www.globalresearch.ca/ted-olson-s-report-of-phone-calls-from-barbara-olson-on-9-11-three-official-denials/8514
- Methodical Illusion Series with Rebekah Roth; Wake Up To the Truth (BlogTalk Radio); 17 Nov 2014 * Part 4 [17:50-1:09:50] http://www.blogtalkradio.com/911falseflags/2014/11/21/methodical-illusion-series-wrebekah-roth-part-4 * Part 3 [1:05:23-1:17:30, 1:28:00-1:31:15, 1:42:00-1:45:20] http://www.blogtalkradio.com/911falseflags/2014/11/20/methodical-illusion-series-w-rebekah-roth-part-3 * Part 1 [35:35-55:35] http://www.blogtalkradio.com/911falseflags/2014/11/18/methodical-illusion-series-wrebekah-roth-part-1
- Hani Hanjour: 9/11 Pilot Extraordinaire; What ReallyHappened http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/hanjour.html * September 11 – The New Pearl Harbor, Part 1; Massimo Mazzucco, YouTube [at 1:07:06] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1GCeuSr3Mk&t=4026
- FBI agent Dan Coleman explains how the passport of 9/11 hijacker Satam Al Suqami was “found”; 9/11 Blogger, 14 Nov 2011 http://911blogger.com/news/2011-11-14/fbi-agent-dan-coleman-explains-how-passport-911-hijacker-satam-al-suqami-was-found * Jihadist bandana – the “in” fashion for fall; Pilots for 9/11 Truth, 8 Nov 2006 http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/lofiversion/index.php?t1383.html
- Plausibility of 9/11 Aircraft Attacks Generated by GPS-Guided Aircraft Autopilot Systems; Aidan Monaghan (with extensive references), Oct 2008 http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/AutopilotSystemsMonaghan.pdf
Dick Atlee is a member of the Maine 9/11 Truth group.
Ken Freeland is a member of Houston 9/11 Truth (http://houston911truth.net/) and is facilitator of the monthly 9/11 Truth and Other Deep State Crimes Teleconference (http://houston911truth.net/9-11TruthTeleconferenceArchives.html).
Cheryl Curtiss is a member of the Connecticut 9/11 Truth group and host of the radio show “9/11 Wake-Up Call” produced at the University of Hartford and archived at http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/4212.
September 19, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | 9/11, Saudi Arabia |
3 Comments
The US government for the first time will officially use the term “sexual rights” in international negotiations on human rights and global development, according to media reports.
The adoption of the term marks a “significant shift” in policy, the Christian Science Monitor stated on Friday.
The use of the term in diplomatic talks on sexual and reproductive rights will help the US government focus more effectively on combatting early child marriage and HIV/AIDS prevention, supporters of the term argue, according to the report.
The use of the new term was announced before the UN General Assembly convenes for its annual main session later this month in New York City.
At the UN General Assembly session, hundreds of world leaders will “meet and lay out a variety of sustainable development goals aimed at eliminating poverty and hunger by 2030,” the Christian Science Monitor report said.
One of the goals given priority by the Obama administration is the empowerment of women around the world and strengthening their sexual rights and the right to have abortions on demand, termed “reproductive rights,” by US activists, according to the report.
The use of the new term followed “heavy lobbying from lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender groups,” the report noted.
Women’s rights activists hope that the use of the term will be useful in making US foreign policy more conditional on recipient governments taking effective action on implementing sexual rights and related issues in their own countries, according to the report.
September 19, 2015
Posted by aletho |
Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | Obama, United States |
4 Comments
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