Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Rubio Follows the Big Money

By Jonathan Marshall | Consortium News | November 1, 2015

On the morning of Halloween, the New York Times broke the scary news that Republican presidential contender Marco Rubio had won a big jackpot: the endorsement of billionaire hedge fund investor Paul Singer. But aside from citing Singer’s praise for Rubio’s “message of optimism” and “work on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,” the story offered little explanation of what could prove to be a decisive turning point in the GOP primary race.

On the policy front, Rubio clearly meets Singer’s requirement for a candidate who favors lower taxes on the rich and, even more important, a blank check for Israel’s right-wing government. With his hawkish stands on the Middle East, including fervent opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, Rubio had already won over another leading Republican “bundler,” New York attorney Phil Rosen, former chairman of American Friends of Likud and a believer that Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians “was, and will always be, a holy war.”

Rubio is a protégé of Florida billionaire Norman Braman, who has contributed at least six figures to support the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. Rubio reportedly leads the all-important “Adelson primary,” the race to tap the virtually unlimited cash box of gambling billionaire Sheldon Adelson, the single most prominent U.S. supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

All that is music to Singer’s ears, but Rubio’s “work on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee” is about something else altogether: his political support for Singer’s efforts to drain more than $1.5 billion dollars from Argentina in payments on old bonds that lost most of their value after the country defaulted in 2001.

Singer’s Elliott Management bought that debt several years ago for less than $50 million, and then successfully sued in U.S. court to demand full recovery of the face amount — in the face of opposition from the Obama administration, most other bondholders, and, above all, Argentina’s government, led by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Singer, who is famous for his bare-knuckles tactics against foreign governments, has gone after Kirchner’s government on all fronts. Most strategically, he supported the highly questionable claims by an Argentine prosecutor that the Kirchner government tried to cover up the involvement of the Iranian government in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people.

The issue was perfect for a smear campaign: targeting alleged Iranian terrorism and government anti-Semitism, Singer could undercut the legitimacy of the one entity standing between him and huge profits on his speculative bond purchases.

Singer’s Elliot Management is a major backer of American Task Force Argentina, which advocates for full repayment of the Argentine bonds and has spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress. It also spends big bucks to blacken Argentina’s reputation.

As Huffington Post reported in 2013, the group “has launched a broad attack on Argentina in its PR campaign. … Politico ad, paid for by ATFA, slammed the country as a safe haven for narcotics traffickers. Another ATFA ad accuses Argentine President Cristina Kirchner of making a ‘pact with the Devil,’ pointing to a legal memo between her country and Iran involving Argentina’s effort to prosecute Iranian defendants in a terrorism case.”

As one of its lobbyists told Huffington Post, “We do whatever we can to get our government and media’s attention focused on what a bad actor Argentina is.”

An investigation by Charles Davis for Inter Press Service showed that employees of Singer’s Elliott Management contributed more than $95,000 to Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Illinois, who wrote a letter denouncing President Kirchner’s agreement with Iran to investigate the 1994 bombing.

Rep. Michael Grimm, R-NY, who received $38,000 from Elliott Management employees, co-sponsored legislation demanding that Argentina’s bondholders receive full compensation, and called for an investigation of Argentina’s ties with Iran. Other recipients of Singer’s largesse — including AIPAC, The Israel Project and the American Enterprise Institute — also hammered the Kirchner government, virtually accusing it of anti-Semitism.

Last year, another member of Congress got in on the act: Sen. Marco Rubio. While grilling President Obama’s nominee as U.S. ambassador to Argentina, Rubio complained that Buenos Aires “doesn’t pay bondholders, doesn’t work with our security operations. . . .  These aren’t the actions of an ally.”

Adding a dig at President Kirchner, he added, “We have this trend in Latin America of people who get elected but then don’t govern democratically. Argentina is an example of this.” His speech triggered an angry response from Kirchner’s Foreign Minister Hector Timerman — an Argentine Jew — calling Rubio an “extremist.”

This May, Rubio introduced a resolution in the Senate suggesting that Kirchner conspired to “cover up Iranian involvement in the 1994 terrorist bombing.” Rubio declared that the issues in the case “extend well beyond Argentina and involve the international community, and more importantly, U.S. national security.”

As Eli Clifton noted, “It turns out that Singer’s hedge fund, Elliott Management, was Rubio’s second largest source of campaign contributions between 2009 and 2014, providing the presidential hopeful with $122,620, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.”

When Kirchner herself had the temerity this spring to link Singer to various neoconservative attacks on her policies, citing a “global modus operandi” to coerce foreign states, the reliably neoconservative editorial page of the Washington Post published an editorial reply titled, “Argentina’s President Resorts to Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theories.”

To which Jim Lobe and Charles Davis, citing a long list of Singer connections to Kirchner’s critics, replied, “follow the money.” That advice, made famous in the movie version of Watergate’s Deep Throat, remains the best guide to understanding billionaire funding of candidates in the 2016 election.

November 1, 2015 Posted by | Corruption, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinian Women from Occupied East Jerusalem Call for Protection

A Statement by the JERUSALEMITE WOMEN’S COALITION | Kafila | October 26, 2015

We women of occupied East Jerusalem call for immediate protection as we witness and suffer the widespread and serious violations of Palestinian human rights, including physical attacks and injuries, severe psychological threats, and persecution by the Israeli settler-colonial state and settler entities.

We urge the international community to act and defend the rights of Palestinian children, women, and men, including the right to a safe life amidst the constant attacks, excessive and indiscriminate use of force used by the Israeli oppressive apparatus, acts of violence and daily terror committed by Israeli Jewish civilians, including settlers. This brutality is intimidating our lives, provoking our youth, willfully causing death and bodily and psychological harm, and disabling and injuring of our community members.

We, a group of Palestinian women, mothers, sisters, daughters and youth—and in the name of the “Jerusalemite Women’s Coalition”—call upon the international community to protect our families, community, and children. We are calling for the protection of our bodily safety and security when in our homes, walking in our neighborhood, reaching schools, clinics, work places, and worships venues.

We are calling for protection, for we feel displaced even at home, as the Israeli soldiers, armed settlers, border patrol, and police invade our homes, attack our
families, strip-search our bodies, and terrorize us all.

We women of occupied East Jerusalem feel as if we are orphans, without any protection from the Palestinian Authority or the international community, as the Israeli state terrorizes our homes, educational institutions, and public spaces. The state’s imposition of collective punishment and sanctions invade not only our physical spaces and bodies, but also our psyches. We live in a state of fear and horror, not knowing how to face the omnipotent power of the highly technologized settler colonial entity, and militarized Israeli state that regularly executes Palestinians in the streets. Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem have been abandoned, subject to the discriminatory policies of a violent state and its security and police apparatus.

The current political violence and the lack of any protection, as the Israeli security apparatus is protecting Jews only, jeopardizes women’s safety and her economic, social, psychological, and bodily rights, as well as children’s and men’s safety and security. We call for protection, and the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security, and urge human rights defenders to protect our community from the Israeli machinery of oppression. Our children must be allowed to reach their schools in peace, and our parents and elderly must be able to reach their work places, health institutions and welfare services with safety. We request that we are able to walk in the streets without fearing the attacks of the Israeli security apparatus and its armed settlers.

We are calling to protect women and girls, who are particularly vulnerable to various forms of state violence and mass atrocities. The economic strangulation of Palestinians by the Israeli settler-colonial powers, that have thus far resulted in the total dependency on the Israeli entity, further traps the lives of Palestinians. The feminization of poverty and the economic strangulation of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem enslave Palestinians. The feminization of slavery in the colony is apparent when watching Palestinian women turn into domestic workers humiliated, controlled, and oppressed in Israeli public and private entities.

We are aware that humanitarian law attempts to challenge the inherent inhumanity of wars and colonial criminality by requiring international actors to protect civilians. International humanitarian law suggests moral boundaries of the exercise of power in situations of mass violence. International humanitarian law’s main object is primarily to protect and aid victims of violence.

We, the women of occupied East Jerusalem, are politically orphaned. We are victims without protection, as the Palestinian Authority has no right to protect us in our city, and the Israeli state treats us as terrorists that should be humiliated, attacked, violated, and controlled. The guerrilla state style tactics used in occupied East Jerusalem, be it the attacks on Palestinians in the streets, the beating of the young and old, the attacks on children going to and from school, the invasion of violent settlers to our neighborhoods and homes, the control of our life, water, cell phones, internet, mobility, health, economy, and accessibility to other resources, have situated us in human cages—segregated, restrained by Israeli laws and security theology, unable to know what to anticipate and what will come next.

Having to endure all the above difficulties, which have been escalated by Israeli cabinet resolutions and otherwise ignored due to global amnesia, WE ARE CALLING FOR PROTECTION AND URGENT ACTIONS TO PREVENT FURTHER AGONIES, UPROOTING, DEMONIZATION, AND SUFFERING.

Signed by Jerusalemite Women ’s Coalition /Al-tajamo’ Al-nasawiy Almaqdasy.
The Coalition includes a group of Women NGOs and Jerusalemite feminists from all segments of society
Jerusalem 24.10.2015

November 1, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Hobby Lobby Owners Suspected of Illegally Importing Looted Iraqi Artifacts

By Cassius Methyl – ANTIMEDIA – October 29, 2015

Hobby Lobby is a self-proclaimed “deeply Christian” chain of craft stores run by the wealthy Green family that made headlines in 2014 when a landmark Supreme Court ruling in their favor extended religious freedom rights to corporations.

A strange situation with the infamous craft chain store hit the headlines Wednesday as it was revealed the Green family is being investigated for importing hundreds of ancient artifacts from Israel that rightfully belong to Iraq.

According to the Daily Beast, “For the last four years, law enforcement sources tell The Daily Beast, the Greens have been under federal investigation for the illicit importation of cultural heritage from Iraq.”

In 2011, 200-300 thousand-year-old cuneiform clay tablets on their way to an Oklahoma City Hobby Lobby compound from Israel were seized by U.S. customs in Memphis. The tablets were destined to join the wealthy family’s private collection of 40,000 priceless, ancient artifacts already amassed in their $800 million Museum of the Bible — a “giant” museum set to open in Washington D.C. in 2017.

It’s unclear how the artifacts were suspected to have been looted, but they likely came from ISIS pillagers or Iraqi smugglers taking advantage of the current instability in the region.

Although inarguably disrespectful, the Greens’ attempt to smuggle artifacts might not be as offensive as the objects’ questionable future: it’s not clear to whom they should be returned — or if they will be returned at all.

November 1, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US and Israel’s Insulting Solution to Restore Calm in Palestine

By Stephen Lendman | The Peoples Voice | November 1st, 2015

During his Senate years, no congressional member was more one-sidedly pro-Israeli than John Kerry. It shows in his current capacity, blaming Palestinian victims for Netanyahu’s high crimes.

It’s hard believing his latest scheme, concocted in cahoots with Israeli officials, their absurd way to restore calm in East Jerusalem – supposedly to show Israel won’t change its holy site status, a smokescreen showing nothing.

The proposed idea calls for installing round-the-clock security cameras on what Arabs call al-Haram al-Sarif, the Noble Sanctuary – what Jews call the Temple Mount. Longtime Israeli collaborator Mahmoud Abbas approved. So did Jordanian King Abdullah, both part of the problem, not the solution.

Israel will maintain full control over recorded footage, revealing or concealing whatever it wishes – easily able to produce fake footage to show what it wants, claiming it’s legitimate.

This scheme fools no one. Over the weekend, Kerry sounded buffoon-like, saying: “I am pleased that Prime Minister Netanyahu has reaffirmed Israel’s commitment to upholding the unchanged status quo of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, both in word and in practice.”

He absurdly called installing cameras “a game-changer in discouraging anybody from disturbing the sanctity of this holy site. Netanyahu “reaffirmed” nothing, not now, earlier or ahead. Kerry’s remarks were willful deception.

Netanyahu and Abbas “expressed their strong commitment to ending violence and restoring calm as soon as possible,” he added – code language for wanting Palestinians to continue agreeing to be treated like dogs, leaving the deplorable status quo unchanged, victimizing an entire population, letting Israel continue stomping on it at its discretion.

PA Prime Minister Riyad al-Maliki blasted the camera-installing scheme, saying: “We are falling into the same trap once again. Netanyahu cannot be trusted. Who will monitor the screens of these cameras?”

“Who will record the movements of those worshipers wishing to enter? How will these cameras be employed, and will the recordings later be used to arrest young men and worshipers under the pretext of incitement?”

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said “(t)his is a despicable attempt by Netanyahu, with American collusion, to entrench the Zionist control of Al-Aqsa Mosque by granting the occupation the right to authorize and prohibit Muslims to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

He called Kerry’s statement “pathetic” – an attempt “to beautify the Zionist Judaizing project and rescue Netanyahu from the crisis he is in as a result of his racist, extremist policy.”

Maliki failed to explain the issue for Palestinians goes way beyond assuring the sanctity of Islam’s third holiest site. Longstanding occupation harshness is the root cause of justifiable popular anger – led by a new generation of youths, wanting fundamental freedoms everyone deserves.

The only way to stop daily violence and persecution in Palestine is by ending occupation and effectively challenging US imperial lawlessness.

Washington arms and funds Israel’s killing machine. Without its support, real change is possible. With it, longstanding state terrorism persists, Palestinians blamed for Israeli high crimes, on their own with no outside help against a ruthless occupier.

Kerry, Netanyahu, Abbas, and Abdullah changed the subject, ignored the fundamental issue vital to address equitably to change the destructive dynamic on the ground.

Courageous, justifiable Palestinian resistance won’t end until long abused people are free from repressive occupation.

The only solution is revolutionary change, justice for a long-suffering population too intolerable to accept any longer.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

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

November 1, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Israeli forces increase harassment of Palestinian school-children in al-Khalil (Hebron)

International Solidarity Movement | November 1, 2015

Hebron, Occupied Palestine – This morning at Qurtuba school in al-Khalil (Hebron), Israeli soldiers harassed school-children, teachers and adults trying to pass the nearby checkpoint.

The stairs leading to Qurtuba school, the scene of a heinous murder of a Palestinian youth by Israeli forces three days ago, are directly opposite a checkpoint dividing segregated Shuhada Street into a small strip where Palestinian residents are allowed to walk and the former main Palestinian market now completely closed for Palestinians and only allowed for settlers. The school has, due to its proximity to the illegal settlement of Beit Hadassah been a flashpoint of settler attacks and violence against Palestinians and internationals.

As teachers, school-children and parents are equally scared with violence rising and 19 Palestinian youth shot to death in the last two weeks, all the school-children are now gathering in one place in order to walk to school together. Parents living there were watching out for the children, telling them to move away from the street as soon as they could hear a car in the distance, afraid settlers would run them over if the children didn’t move fast enough. This has happened in the past and settlers continuously try to hit children with their car.

Soldiers at the checkpoint denied one Palestinian adult around 30 years old to walk down the stairs. The soldiers stopped him and didn’t even ask for his ID, but ordered him to go back up the stairs and walk around. A group of female teachers and girls were ordered to stop in front of the stairs and made to wait for about 5 minutes. Again, soldiers did not demand any ID or to check bags, and finally allowed the group to pass and go to school after about five minutes.

All of this comes at a time, where the whole neighbourhood has been declared a ‘closed military zone’ by the Israeli forces, further infringing on the already restricted movement of Palestinians – while settlers from the illegal settlements are allowed to roam the streets freely.

This illustrates the daily harassment Palestinian children and teachers have to face on their way to and from school – a clear infringement on the basic right to education. But this does not only ring true for school-time, harassment and intimidation by soldiers and settlers are increasingly becoming an integral part of day to day life for Palestinians.

November 1, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | 1 Comment

Jewish settlers prevent Palestinian farmers from olive harvest

Ma’an – October 31, 2015

DSCN0752-450x600NABLUS – Israeli settlers on Saturday prevented Palestinian farmers from accessing their olive fields on the outskirts of Burin village near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, locals said.

Local sources told Ma’an that dozens of settlers blocked entrance of farmers to their land while Israeli soldiers stopped two buses carrying volunteers en route to assist Palestinians in the olive harvest.

The buses were stopped on the main road between Nablus and the illegal settlement Yitzhar.

The Palestinians and volunteers were stopped “despite coordination between the Palestinian liaison department and its Israeli counterpart,” locals said.

Locals added that Israeli settlers also stole olives and farming equipment from Palestinians in the Bab Sanna area of Burin, which is completely surrounded by illegal Israeli settlements to the north and west.

Settlers in the Nablus area — known by locals to be more extreme and violent — frequently prevent Palestinian access to their farmland, much of which lies under Israeli control in Area C.

Earlier this week, settlers from Elon Moreh threw rocks at farmers in the Azmut and Deir al-Hatab areas east of Nablus.

The week prior, settlers from the Yitzhar settlement threw stones at locals picking olives in Burin, injuring four Palestinians. Dozens of acres of Palestinian agricultural land was also burned.

Such attacks are regularly carried out in the presence of Israeli military who rarely act to protect Palestinians.

Palestinian leadership has repeatedly requested the UN Security Council to intervene in order to stop aggression by settlers as well as the implementation of a measure to disarm settlers.

Settler violence during the olive harvest has historically taken a heavy toll on the thousands of Palestinian families whose annual living depends on access to their land.

Photo Credit ISM

November 1, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Sicilians Stage Anti-NATO Military Drills Rally

Sputnik – 31.10.2015

5635514cc36188410f8b4584Protesters in the Italian island of Sicily demonstrated against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Trident Juncture-2015 exercises on Saturday less than 10 miles from a NATO base.

The military alliance’s largest exercises in over a decade involving over 36,000 troops from 30 NATO members and partner countries, Trident Juncture moved into an active phase across southwestern Europe in mid-October.

“We are against NATO, against war, against the enormous costs that go to the upkeep of military bases,” Chiara Paladino, one of the protest organizers, told RIA Novosti.

Paladino said around 1,000 people demonstrated in Marsala, south of the Vincenzo Florio Airport used as a NATO forward operating base. Anti-NATO protesters gathered from across the province of Trapani, including large Sicilian cities of Palermo, Catania, Messina and Ragusa, she said.

A similar anti-Trident Juncture and anti-NATO rally took place in the major Sicilian city of Palermo late on Friday.

The first phase of the Trident Juncture drills began October 3, running for two weeks in Canada, Norway, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. The second phase, which ends on November 6, is taking place in southern Europe – Spain, Italy, and Portugal – as well as in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

Spanish and Portuguese demonstrators staged protests against NATO this month.

Photo © Ruptly

November 1, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Solidarity and Activism, Video | , | 1 Comment

The U.S. Spends $35 Billion ‘Helping’ Out The World… But Where Does All this Money Really Go?

HowMuch.net | October 28, 2015

The United States provided approximately $35 billion in economic aid to over 140 countries* in fiscal year 2014. In the map below the relative size of each country is proportionate to the aid received from the United States and the color of each country indicates GDP per capita.

1029398509

* For visualization purposes the map above reflects only 77 countries that received approximately $17 billion of the $35 billion in global aid. We chose top 40 by aid received and then manually selected different countries to illustrate geographic diversity.

November 1, 2015 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Daesh oil sales fall thanks to Russian airstrikes in Syria

Press TV – October 31, 2015

Russian airstrikes against Takfiri positions in Syria have resulted in a swift decline in oil sales by the terrorist group, says a French official.

ISIL-controlled oil sales “have declined significantly in recent weeks due to the Russian campaign in Syria,” Russia’s Sputnik quoted a French National Assembly Defense Commission member, Nicolas Dhuicq, as saying on Saturday.

Apart from selling crude oil, the group also “pays people to refine oil in its own places,” he noted, adding, the majority of the terrorist group’s oil revenue is from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar.

“ISIL is funded, probably, by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are trying to gain back their share of influence in the regions of Iraq and Syria against Iran. Until now, ISIL continues to receive money from these countries, most likely from private donors,” said Dhuicq.

He estimated that the militant group’s budget was around $2 billion, adding further that donors from Turkey also had a hand in re-selling crude oil obtained from Daesh.

“Money may also come from the secret services of the countries and also from Turkey,” he noted.

The Takfiri group currently controls parts of territory in Syria, Iraq and Libya, where it carries out heinous acts of terror such as public decapitations.

Russia launched its first airstrikes against the Takfiri terrorists in Syria on September 30 at the request of the Damascus government. Moscow says its air raids are meant to weaken Daesh and other terrorist groups that are wreaking havoc in Syria.

November 1, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Calculated to put American troops in danger’: Why US wants escalation in Syria

RT | October 31, 2015

Sending some 50 US advisers to Syria illegally to train the so-called ‘moderate rebels’ looks like a calculated move. If, or when, someone gets hurt, the US will have a pretext for boots on the ground, believes retired US Air Force Lieutenant Col Karen Kwiatkowski.

RT:  Does this deployment mean Americans will be putting themselves in the direct line of fire in Syria?

Karen Kwiatkowski: I think there is a danger of that happening and I think that is part of why they are going there. I think they are looking for an excuse to up the ante, to send more troops and to have a crisis of some sort. Clearly the president has been lying, and so has Ash Carter, about what their real intentions are. So, in my opinion, I think this is provocative and I think it is calculated to put our troops in danger.

RT:  How is that not a combat operation?

KK: Well, special forces are combat. And what the president said [is] they are going to be opportunistic. When you are training and advising, you do not use the word opportunistic. Training and advising is a more steady state situation. So they are using the word opportunistic, they are expecting to get involved in combat operations, and they have sent combat troops to do that. I do not care how they have used the term for non-combat. This is combat.

RT:  They are going there to support the so-called moderate rebels. We know it hasn’t been terribly successful. Why should this make a huge difference?

KK: In terms of helping the moderate rebels – if there are any that we can identify – it is not going to make any difference in that regard. This is about US exercising some power, some limited power that it has, to kind of assert its relevance, particularly in the face of our allies who are asking how we are helping or not helping them.

RT:  Sure, but do you think this is a game changer or, perhaps, this is a question of timing, because Russia has obviously taken on Islamic State?

KK: I don’t think it is a game changer in that regard. It is a gesture to kind of save face in some respects. But there is a real danger, that if our troops, even if it is a limited number, get killed, and if they get killed by, let’s say, Russian fire or something like that, than we have a big problem, that we are not able diplomatically or militarily able to deal with. So it is extremely foolhardy what they are doing. But yes, it is a gesture to show that the US is trying something. But it is a weak gesture and it is a dangerous gesture.

RT:  And you mentioned the Russian airstrikes there and, presumably, Americans are saying we do need to speak with the Russians now to say where we are located so we don’t get into an incident like that?

KK: You would think that. You would think so.

RT:  But you sound like that might not happen?

KK: If you believe what the president and Ash Carter say, they aren’t really seeking out any cooperation with the Russians. So perhaps behind the scenes they are. I would like to think that they care about the lives of our soldiers that they are sending over there and that they would coordinate, but their public rhetoric is that we will not coordinate. That is what I’ve heard unless something has changed. They are not really interested in coordinating with Russia, anything that Russia is doing in Syria. And by the way remember that it is an illegal act to send our troops into Syrian space, air space or ground space, without the permission of the government of Syria, which we do not have. So this is an act of war on top of everything else that makes this extremely stupid.

RT:  Americans clearly don’t see that as a big issue, I mean it has been conducting airstrikes, despite it being against international law. It does not seem to matter in this case, at this stage anyway.

KK: It has not mattered in our policy in the Middle East for a long time. But I have pointed out that if our people killed, if we decide to make some sort of case about that, we are in the wrong totally in this, because we don’t have permission of the Syrian government to put those troops there at all. They are there illegitimately. So when they get killed or injured or harmed we have a problem in a diplomatic sense.

RT:  A public opinion sense too, I mean what was the reaction when the US soldier did die on a special operations mission in Iraq. Was there a big public outcry in America?

KK: No. Two things that I have noticed about this: one is there is no public outcry, not a lot of concern. I haven’t seen a lot of attention given to this death. What surprised me was how much Ashton Carter and President Obama paid homage to this particular individual, called him a hero, and this is what we would like to see – some guy running into a fight and getting slaughtered in an illegitimate combat situation, because I think even in Iraq we still have some concerns there about what we are doing. They celebrated it. They tried to put a positive spin on it. American people aren’t listening. We have a lot of other different things on in general. The American people aren’t interested in what is going on in the Middle East. They don’t want to get involved in it. But they really tried to spin the death of this soldier in a very positive way. And, I’m sure, to see if it can be sold. And, as far as I can tell, it was sold. Americans aren’t interested, but they haven’t really pushed back at the death of this guy. I think we’ve become inert to it.

RT:  Just looking into the future, you foresee a similar thing?

KK: I do. I mean if you go in the middle of a fire storm in an ill-planned situation, then certainly, you can’t say that anything the Pentagon is doing in the Middle East is well planned. They themselves admit this. So, yes, it is going to lead to the death of Americans. And given how they spun the death that happened last week we’ll see more spinning and, you know, more of Russia as a ‘bad guy’ in this situation, as they try to salvage what is left of their Middle East policy in this final year of the Obama administration, in these final months of the Obama administration… I hate to be cynical about this, but it is such a game that they are playing – no good results for our people, no good results for the Syrian people. It is not going to help the exodus of refugees at all. In fact, it will probably make it worse.

READ MORE: US ground ops in Syria ‘illegal’, may lead to ‘unpredictable’ consequences 

November 1, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment