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Crosstalk: Syria Lessons

RT | May 18, 2016

The Obama administration again says it supports the peace process to end the Syrian proxy war. However, there is still the demand for a political transition defined by Washington. And this demand is backed up by threats. Has this conflict entered a new stage for Syria and the region?
CrossTalking with Mohammad Marandi, Richard Weitz, and Kevork Almassian.

May 18, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Venezuelan President Slams US “Double” Incursion into National Airspace

By Rachael Boothroyd Rojas | Venezuelanalysis | May 18, 2016

Caracas – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has hit out at “mounting aggressions” against his government after it was confirmed that a US plane had twice violated Venezuelan airspace.

The US Boeing 707 E-3 Sentry is reported to have illegally entered Venezuela’s national airspace on May 11th at 6.09am, as well as on May 13th at 6.03 am.

Both incursions were detected by Venezuela’s Bolivarian airforce and have sparked rumours that the US might be conducting covert spying operations over Venezuela.

“This plane has all the mechanisms to carry out electronic espionage,” stated Maduro on his television programme Tuesday.

According to US Airforce information, the Boeing 707 E-3 Sentry provides an accurate, real-time picture of the battlespace to the Joint Air Operations Center, and possesses a powerful radar to “detect, identify and track enemy and friendly low-flying aircraft”.

The double incursion comes as rightwing politicians at home and abroad step up their demands for military intervention against Maduro’s government.

Last Thursday, a former Colombian president made headlines after publicly enquiring which “democratic country is willing to put its armed forces at the service of the protection of the Venezuelan opposition?”

Likewise, rightwing “Justice First” politician and former Venezuelan presidential candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski, yesterday encouraged Venezuelan troops to form a mutiny against the national government.

“Prepare the tanks and war planes,” said the politician

“The hour of truth is coming to decide whether you are with the constitution or with Maduro,” he added.

A frenzy of international media reports over the last two weeks have painted an apocalyptic vision of the struggling South American country, citing a lack of access to basic food and medicine, skyrocketing inflation and devaluation of the national currency.

“I can say today that we are victims of the worst media, political and diplomatic aggression that our country has lived through in the past ten years,” stated Maduro.

The head of state has confirmed that his government will deliver an official complaint on the airspace incursions to US authorities.

May 18, 2016 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 2 Comments

Chicago police officer threatened baby with Taser shock – lawsuit

RT | May 18, 2016

A federal lawsuit claims that a Chicago police officer threatened to use a Taser on a man who was holding a baby boy in his arms, and warned him that the one-year-old would feel the electricity.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, claims that the entire incident was caught by a security camera, and it names the city and several police officers as defendants, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Cesar Carrizales said that during the October incident, he was approached by officers in an alleyway near his garage, who then demanded that he put his son down on a filthy alleyway. He told the officers that the mother of the son, Theresa Cmiel, would take his child.

At this point, the lawsuit claims, an officer “began to violently assault” Carrizales and tried to pry the boy from his father’s arms. The infant then “screamed in a way that Mr. Carrizales and his mother had never heard before.” Officers then slammed Carrizales onto the hood of a police cruiser while he held his infant son, pinning the child underneath him, the lawsuit says.

The filing indicates that Carrizales was confronted by police over a neighbor’s complaint about damaging a fence on the property line and threatening the neighbor. The lawsuit said that even if these allegations are true, they “amounted to minor misdemeanor charges.”

Carrizales pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor of resisting arrest. He was originally charged with aggravated battery against a police officer, but the charge was later dismissed.

Chicago Police Department did not immediately respond to RT’s request for comment.

Read more:

Family seeks justice after police in Georgia taser son to death, then ‘high five’

May 18, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

‘Make It Look Like It’s ISIS’: A Fake Bomb, a Would-Be Terrorist, and an FBI Sting in Miami

By Benjamin Gilbert | Vice News | May 17, 2016

The FBI says it caught a terrorist trying to blow up a synagogue on the outskirts of Miami.

But the FBI supplied the bomb.

The device was fake, part of an undercover FBI sting operation that, like hundreds of controversial investigations before it, used an undercover informant to target an alleged terrorist.

In the Miami case, federal authorities accuse 40-year-old James Medina of planning to bomb the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center north of the city.

The FBI started their investigation of Medina in March 2015 “based on his suspected desire to attack” the Jewish center, according to an affidavit filed in federal court and a statement released by the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Florida.

Medina, who said he converted to Islam four years ago and referred to his alias “James Muhammad” in court, has been charged with “attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.” He pleaded not guilty on Monday morning.

Apart from the fact that the FBI supplied Medina with the weapon that he intended to use against the Jewish center, rights activists and legal experts are troubled by the facts presented by the FBI and Justice Department. Their concern includes instances where the informant, or “confidential human source” in bureau parlance, offered to assist Medina in attacking the center, and even suggested that he link the attack to the Islamic State.

The FBI’s affidavit — which reveals only enough information to justify the criminal complaint against Medina, and does not include all of the evidence against him — says that an informant met with Medina in March and secretly recorded conversations with him after he expressed a desire to attack the Jewish center.

But the affidavit does not say how the FBI learned of Medina’s “suspected desire” to attack the Jewish center, or what initial remarks or actions led agents to believe that Medina was willing to use violence before he devised his plans with the informant.

David Shapiro, a former New Jersey prosecutor and FBI special agent who is now a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said the affidavit makes it appear that the FBI did more than a little pushing to get Medina to develop the synagogue bombing plan.

“It seems this desire was developed,” he said. “It was watered with very potent fertilizer.”

The affidavit lays out how the FBI informant took an active part in helping Medina cook up the bombing plot. It recounts how the informant drove Medina to the Jewish center and suggested that he launch the attack on a Jewish holiday.

When the two later discussed a claim of responsibility, the affidavit says that the informant “indicated that they should leave a ‘clue’ as to who was responsible and Medina concurred.” It’s the informant, rather than Medina, who suggests linking the bombing to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, or the East African al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab.

“You can, you can do all that,” the affidavit quotes Medina as saying. “Yeah, we can print up or something and make it look like it’s ISIS here in America. Just like that.”

The informant later suggested that Medina could use “untraceable” firearms instead of AK-47s that an acquaintance of Medina’s said he could provide. At another meeting, the informant “addressed the concerns of entering the synagogue with firearms and then getting shot and instead proposed leaving an unspecified object behind and leaving the scene.” The informant suggested that Medina could use a bomb with a timer, and then introduced Medina to a man described as having “explosives expertise and access.” The bomb expert was really an undercover FBI agent.

Medina didn’t do himself any favors by repeatedly telling both the FBI informant and undercover agent that he was willing to leave the bomb at the synagogue, then escape with the informant and watch as they remotely detonated it. He also repeatedly assured the undercover agent that he was willing to go forward with the plot, according to the affidavit.

When asked why, Medina answers, “Because I realize that I have a lot of love for Allah. And I know that all these, all these wars that are going on, it hurts me, too. You know? It’s my call of duty. I gotta get back, when I’m doing this, I feel that I’m doing it for a good cause for Allah.”

In a subsequent conversation, the agent asked Medina if he was okay with killing women and children. Medina appeared to say yes, but he also seemed hesitant.

Medina: I think so. I think I’m fine, Urn hmm.

Agent: You need to be sure brother.

Medina: I am pretty sure. I think so. I believe so. I’m ready bro!

Agent: Ok. Cause you know you don’t have to do any of this.

Medina: What do you mean doing it?

Agent: No, you don’t have to do it if you’re not comfortable with it.

Medina: What? I’m ready.

Agent: It’s Allah’s will but you know…

Medina: I’m up for it. I really am. This is no joke. This is serious dog. If I have the equipment, believe me, in the time is, is that day and we doin’ it, I’m up for it bro. Just like I said.

The FBI says Medina and the undercover agent decided to bomb the synagogue on Friday, April 29. Medina made three videos on the informant’s phone: One as a goodbye to his family in case he was killed, and the other two to explain why he conducted the attack.

“I am a Muslim and I don’t like what is going on in this world. I’m going to handle business here in America. Aventura, watch your back. ISIS is in the house,” he said in one video. In another, he said, “Today is gonna be a day where Muslims attack America. I’m going to set a bomb in Aventura.”

On the appointed day, the agent met with Medina, gave him the fake bomb, instructed him how to use it, and then drove him to the synagogue. Medina exited the vehicle and began to walk toward the synagogue, at which point the authorities arrested him.

The US government has convicted more than 200 people on terrorism-related charges using similar methods, according to Trevor Aaronson, executive director of the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting and author of The FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism. He said that the FBI “isn’t finding people with a bomb in their garage. They’re finding people who are loudmouths and they say, “Oh, we can help you in the name of al-Qaeda or the Islamic State.”

“These are sting operations where the FBI provides the means and opportunities for people to commit crimes,” Aaronson said. “And the most disturbing part is that most of these people seem to be mentally ill and do not have connections to overseas terrorists on their own.”

Medina fits this profile. The 40-year-old is divorced, single, and unemployed. He was arrested previously for behavior consistent with mental illness, including sending more than 50 text messages, some threatening violence, to his estranged family and then telling a cop about it.

Karen J. Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School, said the quoted conversations in the affidavit that are supposed to damn Medina instead make it look like he can “barely seem to string a sentence together.”

And while it appears to be clear that Medina is a bigot who harbors anti-Jewish feelings, neither of those two things is illegal. Of course, plotting to blow up a synagogue is illegal. Retired FBI counterterrorism executive David Gomez says the FBI’s investigative techniques were legitimate, even if Medina does have mental or cognitive issues.

“Just because you’re dumb doesn’t mean you’re not dangerous,” he said. “Just because you have some mental incapacitation doesn’t mean you’re not capable of murder.”

Gomez said he’s seen other cases where lonely, fringe suspects join gangs or right-wing extremist groups to gain approval, and then peer pressure or other factors leads them to commit violent acts. In cases such as Medina’s, he argued, the FBI is just getting to these suspects before other malicious actors.

“Let’s say we didn’t get a source on this person, and somebody else talks to them and says, ‘Wanna blow up some Jews?’ It doesn’t matter if you blow them up for the KKK or ISIS. Some guy says, ‘I’ll drive you there,’ and there are plenty of people out there who would do that,” Gomez said. “The FBI and others are worried about a guy who gets in with the wrong crowd.”

Greenberg questioned where the rationale for this type of investigation ends.

“If you want to look for individuals who are susceptible to some kind of inducement to violence, and who have to be told whose name the violence is in, there are countless people and countless extremist groups you could identify them with,” she said.

Gomez said that the FBI’s informants and undercover agents set up the suspect for the “next proactive move,” but don’t make them take it.

“At some point he has to have an overt act,” he said — such as taking what he thinks is a bomb onto the grounds of a synagogue with the intent to detonate it.

Under the law, this act essentially closes the door to an entrapment defense.

“Those are hard to assert in this situation,” said Hugh Handeyside, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project. “That’s the situation that the FBI and DOJ are taking advantage of.”

According to Greenberg, the FBI has been using these types of investigations to send a message: “If someone approaches you and asks you if want help with a terrorist attack, you’re supposed to say no.”

Gomez notes that since 9/11, the bureau has been tasked with preventing another terrorist attack on US soil.

“The attitude is, do what you have to legally do to prevent a Paris-style attack in the US,” he said, “and I think there are a lot of prosecutors out there who would say, ‘I would rather prosecute a case and take the chance on losing on technicality or jury nullification than take a chance to not prosecute on terrorism charges.”

But most terrorism cases do not go to trial, meaning prosecutors rarely lose. Most defense lawyers encourage their clients to enter into a plea agreement in order to avoid a lengthy prison sentence.

“The threat of long-term incarceration compels people to cut their losses,” said Michael German, a former FBI agent who worked on undercover domestic terrorism investigations. “Part of reason they’re encouraged to cut losses is that when these cases go to trial, despite the judges expressing concerns about FBI methodology, the political and social climate is such that fear actually compels them to not acquit people based on entrapment or other government misconduct.”

The FBI declined to comment on the Medina case or other counterterrorism investigations like it, but said in a statement that there are “strict guidelines governing the use of undercover operations which involve extensive legal reviews and senior-level approvals.”

The bureau’s director, James B. Comey, told Congress in February that “preventing terrorist attacks remains the FBI’s top priority” as he requested more than $9 billion to fund the bureau’s operations in 2017.

Nearly half of the FBI’s 2016 budget was committed to “counterterrorism and counterintelligence” operations, along with more than 13,000 members of the bureau’s 35,000 employees.

According to German, the funding means the FBI is under pressure to show Congress that it’s using its resources to stop terror attacks.

“Is there actually a threat being resolved, or is the FBI manufacturing these terrorism cases to make its counterterrorism efforts look worthwhile?” he asked. “Knowing that there are real threats out there, are they wasting resources when the people they’re targeting don’t present an immediate threat?”

Handeyside said counterterrorism cases like Medina’s are not only a waste of resources, they might actually be making America less safe.

“It’s not only that they’re manufacturing terror plots, but also sowing fear and distrust within minority communities in ways that I think are damaging to counterterrorism efforts,” he said. “So there are not only constitutional issues, but also effectiveness issues.”

Follow Benjamin Gilbert on Twitter: @benrgilbert

Related: The FBI Suspected an Army Vet Was Plotting Attacks in the US — So They Gave Him Guns

May 18, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | 2 Comments

Turkey demands double life sentence for Greek pilot over alleged jet downing in 1996

RT | May 18, 2016

Turkish prosecutors have demanded two aggravated life sentences for a Greek airman who allegedly shot down a Turkish jet over the Aegean Sea in 1996. They also requested cooperation from Greece in launching legal action against the pilot.

Greek pilot Thanos Grivas was charged by Turkish prosecutors with “voluntary manslaughter,” “actions for weakening the independence of the state” and “vandalizing the jet,” the Hurriyet Daily reports, citing the indictment.

The charges were based on an incident that occurred in October 1996 and was referred to as a dogfight and aircraft accident in the legal documents. At that time, a Turkish F-16 fighter jet crashed to the south of the Greek island of Chios after an encounter with a Greek Mirage 2000 aircraft. The Turkish jet’s pilot, Captain Nail Erdogan, died in the incident while co-pilot Osman Cicekli was rescued.

The Turkish authorities now claim that Grivas deliberately shot down the F-16. Turkey opened a probe into the incident after the family and lawyer of the Turkish pilot who died in the crash addressed the Greek authorities, asking them to initiate legal proceedings against the Greek airman.

Ankara Public Prosecutor’s Office made an inquiry into the case by analyzing the radar data and conversation records from the two jets obtained from the Turkish General Staff. The Turkish jet’s co-pilot, Cicekli, also gave testimony and filed his own complaint against the Greek pilot.

“It was determined that the jet caught fire and crashed by burning when conversation records of the pilots and radar were examined. In the testimony, Lt. Col. Çiçekli said they were shot down by a missile fired from one of the jets without motive in international airspace,” Hurriyet reports, citing Turkish authorities.

Meanwhile, the lawyer for Erdogan family, Mehmet Emin Keles, said that the trial would be held in Turkey if Greece does not take action, citing a judicial assistance agreement between Greece and Turkey.

The Greek Council of Appeals Court rejected Turkey’s request concerning the pilot, Greece’s Kathimerini Daily reports. Athens also denies the downing of the jet, and says that Turkish pilot reported a control failure. It also claims that the jet violated Greece’s airspace because one of the Turkish pilots was rescued in the Greek flight information region, RIA Novosti reports.

Turkey initiated legal proceedings against the Greek pilot during a period of increasingly tense relations between the two countries, which follows a series of Greek airspace violations by Turkish fighter jets.

In April, Athens News Agency reported at least three incidents of Turkish jets entering Greek airspace without “submitting a flight plan.” Similar incidents were recorded in February with up to 14 Turkish fighter jets entering Greek airspace at once.

When a Turkish jet downed a Russian Su-24 bomber over the Syrian border on November 24, 2015, Turkey did not raise the question of the responsibility of its pilot for actions that led to the destruction of the Russian aircraft and the death of its pilot.

Turkey has repeatedly claimed that it has nothing to apologize for, and has tried to shift the blame for the incident onto Russia by claiming that the bomber violated Turkish airspace – although it has never able to prove these allegations.

Moscow denies any violation of Turkish airspace and has demanded that Ankara arrest Turkish ultranationalist Alparslan Celik, who bragged about killing the pilot of the Su-24 downed by the Turkish Air Force.

This demand was also ignored by Turkey while Celik continued to give interviews and travel freely in Turkey and across the border into Syria. He was eventually arrested by Turkish authorities on unrelated charges on March 31. However, on May 10, the charges against him were dropped due to insufficient evidence.

The incident with the downing of the Russian bomber soured relations between the two countries, with Russia subsequently imposing sanctions against Turkey and suspending the visa-free regime, as well as introducing an embargo on a number of Turkish goods.

Read more:

Tsipras blasts ‘mercurial’ Turkish pilots & air defense budgets amid ground refugee crisis

Russia demands arrest of Su-24 pilot’s murderer who gave interview to Turkish media

Turkish prosecutor drops charges against alleged killer of Russian pilot

May 18, 2016 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

For the second time, Palestinian family sees their E. Jerusalem home demolished by Israel

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Ma’an – May 18, 2016

JERUSALEM – Israeli forces demolished a Palestinian family’s home in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Shufat early on Wednesday morning, marking the second time the al-Hawarin family saw their home destroyed in 15 years.

“The occupation is stealing our dreams, depriving us of living safely in our own homes,” Nadia al-Hawarin told Ma’an as she looked at the ruins of her home.

Al-Hawarin added that Israeli forces had demolished the family’s former home in the neighborhood of Beit Hanina in 2001, under the pretext that it was built without a license from the Israeli municipality.

“Today, they demolished our house in Shufat for the sake of a road serving settlers,” she said. “The occupation demolished our home to serve the settlers, paying no attention to the fact that eight family members will become homeless.”

Al-Hawarin said that Israeli forces demolished a house belonging to al-Rishiq family in the same area in January, displacing dozens in order to build a road to benefit Israeli settlers in the area.

Al-Hawarin’s husband, Rajih al-Hawarin, said in a filmed interview with Ma’an that a large number of Israeli troops stormed the house at dawn and started to tear down the building.

He said that the house had been built in 2001 following the demolition of the family’s Beit Hanina home.

Before he started to build in Shufat, Rajih al-Hawarin said he had applied for a construction license and obtained initial approval.

“Then I was taken by surprise in 2002, when the application was suspended under the pretext that the area had been rezoned to build a new road connecting the illegal Ramat Shlomo and Pisgat Zeev settlements,” he added.

Rajih al-Hawarin added that the Jerusalem municipality handed him a first demolition order in 2012, and that he had submitted several appeals, to no avail.

East Jerusalem was seized by Israel along with the West Bank in 1967 during the Six-Day War, and since then, the Israeli government has undertaken a policy of “Judaization” across the city, constructing Jewish settlements and demolishing Palestinian homes.

There are upwards of 500,000 Israeli settlers living in illegal settlements across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in contravention to international law.

A study by the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department reported more than 3,000 Palestinian structures demolished in East Jerusalem since 1967.

According to rights group Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the Israeli government issues building permits in line with discriminatory state policy enacted to increase the Jewish population, while neglecting local Palestinians.

Only 14 percent of East Jerusalem land is zoned for Palestinian residential construction, while one-third of Palestinian land has been confiscated since 1967 to build illegal Jewish-only settlements, ACRI documented.

In January, Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein approved recommendations for the “enforcement of regulations” in occupied East Jerusalem, in what Israeli daily Haaretz reported would likely prioritize the demolitions of Palestinian homes.

The daily reported that the new recommendations could expedite the demolition of around some 50,000 houses in Palestinian communities in Israel and Jerusalem.

May 18, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Lobby Fails to Block Screening of Palestinian Film at Cannes

teleSUR – May 18, 2016

Despite the efforts of Israeli lobby groups, a Palestinian film about the 1972 Munich Olympics events was screened at the Cannes Film Festival’s Marche Marche du Film in Paris Monday as planned.

An excerpt of Nasri Hajjaj’s documentary, Munich: A Palestinian Story, was shown to film industry professionals in partnership with the Cannes Film Festival and the Dubai International Film Festival.

Hajjaj’s documentary came under attack by Israeli lobby groups who claimed that the film wrongly accuses German security forces for the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes, a German police officer and five hostage-takers at the 1972 Munich Olympics after a raid by the Palestinian group Black September.

The biggest lobbying group, the Council of Jewish Organizations in France, claimed that the film was an example of “historical revisionism” about the event.

Lobby groups reportedly put intense pressure on the organizers for the film to be banned.

Hajjaj, a former journalist who grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp, said that lobby groups and other critics made false claims about his documentary, which none of them have seen.

“Eight films have been made on the Munich chapter, but none of them are Palestinian or Arab. I want to present the Palestinian version of this story, which is not necessarily uncritical of the operation and its sequences,” Hajjaj was quoted as saying on the Dubai International Film Festival website.

May 18, 2016 Posted by | Film Review, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Tony Blair lied on Iraq and will be exposed by Chilcot report’ – Corbyn

RT | May 18, 2016

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s lies about weapons of mass destruction and his secret war pact with former US President George W Bush will be exposed by the Chilcot Inquiry, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has said.

Sir John Chilcot is due to finally release his long-delayed report on the legality of the 2003 Iraq invasion on July 6, seven years after the inquiry was commissioned.

Corbyn made the remarks on Tuesday in a speech at the London School of Economics to honour the late Ralph Miliband, a Marxist scholar and father of Corbyn’s predecessor, Ed Miliband.

While Corbyn supported some of the domestic achievements of Blair’s “New Labour,” he argued it had stuck too closely to its neoliberal, Thatcherite ideological roots.

Addressing Blair’s Iraq legacy, Corbyn warned: “The Chilcot report will come out in a few weeks’ time and tell us what we need to know, what I think we already know: There were no weapons of mass destruction, there was no ability to attack within 45 minutes and a deal had been done with Bush in advance.”

Corbyn took a leading role in opposing the 2003 invasion both inside and outside parliament.

Asked if Blair should be tried for war crimes, Corbyn said: “If he’s committed a war crime, yes. Everyone who’s committed a war crime should be.

“I think it was an illegal war, I’m confident about that, indeed [former UN Secretary General] Kofi Annan confirmed it was an illegal war, and therefore [Blair] has to explain to that.”

“Is he going to be tried for it, I don’t know. Could he be tried for it? Possibly,” Corbyn added.

Some MPs are trying to revive a campaign to have Blair prosecuted for his part in the war, either at an international tribunal or by a special parliamentary impeachment process.

Although rare, parliament can impeach a current or former official. It would involve a member of the Commons presenting evidence in the manner of a parliamentary motion, and if carried, it would then move to the House of Lords. If it was also passed by the Lords, the impeachment process would resemble a conventional trial.

The last time parliament attempted to impeach anyone, however, was in 1806, according to the BBC.

Scottish National Party (SNP) MP Alex Salmond said Monday that, rather than parliamentary impeachment, he favored Blair being brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

However, the ICC has said it is not yet able to exercise jurisdiction over international “crimes of aggression” – the offense often connected with Blair’s role in Iraq.

The ICC will rule on whether to extend its powers to try suspects of aggression on January 1, 2017.

May 18, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Danger of Demonization

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | May 17, 2016

Does any intelligent person look at a New York Times article about Russia or Vladimir Putin these days and expect to read an objective, balanced account? Or will it be laced with a predictable blend of contempt and ridicule? And is it any different at The Washington Post, NPR, MSNBC, CNN or almost any mainstream U.S. news outlet?

And it’s not just Russia. The same trend holds true for Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Nicaragua and other countries and movements that have fallen onto the U.S. government’s “enemies list.” We saw the same pattern with Saddam Hussein and Iraq before the 2003 U.S. invasion; with Muammar Gaddafi and Libya before the U.S.-orchestrated bombing campaign in 2011; and with President Viktor Yanukovych and Ukraine before the U.S.-backed coup in 2014.

That is not to say that these countries and leaders don’t deserve criticism; they do. But the proper role of the press corps – at least as I was taught during my early years at The Associated Press – was to treat all evidence objectively and all sides fairly. Just because you might not like someone doesn’t mean your feelings should show through or the facts should be forced through a prism of bias.

In those “old days,” that sort of behavior was deemed unprofessional and you would expect a senior editor to come down hard on you. Now, however, it seems that you’d only get punished if you quoted some dissident or allowed such a person onto an op-ed page or a talk show, someone who didn’t share Official Washington’s “group think” about the “enemy.” Deviation from “group think” has become the real disqualifier.

Yet, this conformity should be shocking and unacceptable in a country that prides itself on freedom of thought and speech. Indeed, much of the criticism of “enemy” states is that they supposedly practice various forms of censorship and permit only regime-friendly propaganda to reach the public.

But when was the last time you heard anyone in the U.S. mainstream say anything positive or even nuanced about Russian President Putin. He can only be portrayed as some shirtless buffoon or the devil incarnate. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got widespread praise in 2014 when she likened him to Hitler.

Or when has anyone in the U.S. media been allowed to suggest that Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and his supporters might actually have reason to fear what the U.S. press lovingly calls the “moderate” rebels – though they often operate under the military command of Sunni extremist groups, such as Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Obama’s ‘Moderate’ Syrian Deception.”]

For the first three years of the Syrian civil war, the only permissible U.S. narrative was how the brutal Assad was slaughtering peaceful “moderates,” even though Defense Intelligence Agency analysts and other insiders had long been warning about the involvement of violent jihadists in the movement from the uprising’s beginning in 2011.

But that story was kept from the American people until the Islamic State started chopping off the heads of Western hostages in 2014 – and since then, the mainstream U.S. media has only reported the fuller story in a half-hearted and garbled way. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Hidden Origins of Syria’s Civil War.” ]

Reason for Conformity

The reason for this conformity among journalists is simple: If you repeat the conventional wisdom, you might find yourself with a lucrative gig as a big-shot foreign correspondent, a regular TV talking head, or a “visiting scholar” at a major think tank. However, if you don’t say what’s expected, your career prospects aren’t very bright.

If you somehow were to find yourself in a mainstream setting and even mildly challenged the “group think,” you should expect to be denounced as a fill-in-the-blank “apologist” or “stooge.” A well-paid avatar of the conventional wisdom might even accuse you of being on the payroll of the despised leader. And, you wouldn’t likely get invited back.

But the West’s demonization of foreign “enemies” is not only an affront to free speech and meaningful democracy, it is also dangerous because it empowers unscrupulous American and European leaders to undertake violent and ill-considered actions that get lots of people killed and that spread hatred against the West.

The most obvious recent example was the Iraq War, which was justified by a barrage of false and misleading claims about Iraq which were mostly swallowed whole by a passive and complicit Western press corps.

Key to that disaster was the demonization of Saddam Hussein, who was subjected to such unrelenting propaganda that almost no one dared question the baseless charges hurled at him about hiding WMD and collaborating with Al Qaeda. To do so would have made you a “Saddam apologist” or worse.

The few who did dare raise their voices faced accusations of treason or were subjected to character assassination. Yet, even after their skepticism was vindicated as the pre-invasion accusations collapsed, there was very little reappraisal. Most of the skeptics remained marginalized and virtually everyone who got the WMD story wrong escaped accountability.

No Accountability

For instance, Washington Post editorial-page editor Fred Hiatt, who repeatedly reported Iraq’s WMD as “flat fact,” suffered not a whit and remains in the same prestigious job, still enforcing one-sided “group thinks” about “enemies.”

An example of how Hiatt and the Post continue to play the same role as neocon propagandists was on display last year in an editorial condemning Putin’s government for shutting down Russian activities of the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy and requiring foreign-funded groups seeking to influence Russian politics to register as foreign agents.

In the Post’s editorial and a companion op-ed by NED President Carl Gershman, you were led to believe that Putin was delusional, paranoid and “power mad” in his concern that outside money funneled into non-governmental organizations was a threat to Russian sovereignty.

However, the Post and Gershman left out a few salient facts, such as the fact that NED is funded by the U.S. government and was the brainchild of Ronald Reagan’s CIA Director William J. Casey in 1983 to partially replace the CIA’s historic role in creating propaganda and political fronts inside targeted nations.

Also missing was the fact that Gershman himself announced in another Post op-ed that he saw Ukraine, prior to the 2014 coup, as “the biggest prize” and a steppingstone toward achieving Putin’s ouster in Russia. The Post also forgot to mention that the Russian law about “foreign agents” was modeled after a U.S. statute entitled the Foreign Agent Registration Act. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Why Russia Shut Down NED Fronts.”]

All those points would have given the Post’s readers a fuller and fairer understanding of why Putin and Russia acted as they did, but that would have messed up the desired propaganda narrative seeking to demonize Putin. The goal was not to inform the American people but to manipulate them into a new Cold War hostility toward Russia.

We’ve seen a similar pattern with the U.S. government’s “information warfare” around high-profile incidents. In the “old days’ – at least when I arrived in Washington in the late 1970s – there was much more skepticism among journalists about the official line from the White House or State Department. Indeed, it was a point of pride among journalists not to simply accept whatever the spokesmen or officials were saying, but to check it out.

There was plenty of enough evidence – from the Tonkin Gulf lies to the Watergate cover-up – to justify a critical examination of government claims. But that tradition has been lost, too. Despite the costly deceptions before the Iraq War, the Times, the Post and other mainstream outlets simply accept whatever accusations the U.S. government hurls against “enemies.” Beyond the gullibility, there is even hostility toward those of us who insist on seeing real evidence.

Examples of this continuing pattern include the acceptance of the U.S. government line on the sarin gas attack outside Damascus, Syria, on Aug. 21, 2013, and the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. The first was blamed on Syria’s Assad and the second on Russia’s Putin – quite convenient even though U.S. officials refused to present any solid evidence to support their claims.

Reasons for Doubt

In both cases, there were obvious reasons to doubt the Official Story. Assad had just invited United Nations inspectors in to examine what he claimed were rebel chemical attacks, so why would he pick that time to launch a sarin attack just miles from where the inspectors were staying? Putin was trying to maintain a low profile for Russian support to Ukrainians resisting the U.S.-backed coup, but provision of a large, sophisticated and powerful anti-aircraft battery lumbering around eastern Ukraine would just have invited detection.

Further, in both cases, there was dissent among U.S. intelligence analysts, some of whom objected at least to the rushes to judgment and offered different explanations for the incidents, pointing the blame in other possible directions. The dissent caused the Obama administration to resort to a new concoction called a “Government Assessment” – essentially a propaganda document – rather than a classic “Intelligence Assessment,” which would express the consensus views of the 16 intelligence agencies and include areas of disagreement.

So, there were plenty of reasons for Washington journalists to smell a rat or at least insist upon hard evidence to make the case against Assad and Putin. Instead, given the demonized views of Assad and Putin, mainstream journalists unanimously fell in line behind the Official Story. They even ignored or buried evidence that undermined the government’s tales.

Regarding the Syrian case, there was little interest in the scientific discovery that the one sarin-laden rocket (recovered by the U.N.) had a range of only about two kilometers (destroying Washington’s claims about the Syrian government firing many rockets from eight or nine kilometers away). [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Was Turkey Behind Syria-Sarin Attack?”]

Regarding the MH-17 case, a blind eye was turned to a Dutch intelligence report that concluded that there were several operational Buk anti-aircraft missile batteries in eastern Ukraine but they were all under the control of the Ukrainian military and that the rebels had no weapon that could reach the 33,000-foot altitude where MH-17 was flying. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Ever-Curiouser MH-17 Case.”]

Though both those cases remain open and one cannot rule out new evidence emerging that bolsters the U.S. government’s version of events, the fact that there are substantive reasons to doubt the Official Story should be reflected in how the mainstream Western media deals with these two sensitive issues, but the inconvenient facts are instead brushed aside or ignored (much as happened with Iraq’s WMD).

In short, there has been a system-wide collapse of the Western news media as a professional entity in dealing with foreign crises. So, as the world plunges deeper into crises inside Syria and on Russia’s border, the West’s citizens are going in almost blind without the eyes and ears of independent journalists on the ground and with major news outlets delivering incessant propaganda from Washington and other capitals.

Instead of facts, the West’s mainstream media traffics in demonization.

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).

May 18, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

US Agenda in Syria Is War, Not Peace

By Stephen Lendman | May 18, 2016

Syria is Obama’s war, complicit with Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. It objective remains regime change, wanting Syrian sovereign independence destroyed, the nation transformed into another US vassal state.

John Kerry and other US policymakers maintain the pretense of wanting things resolved diplomatically – preventing it by undermining three rounds of Geneva talks since 2012.

Conflict resolution is as simple as America and its rogue allies ending support for ISIS and other terrorist groups. They can’t exist without it.

Instead, escalated support looks likely, Washington’s strategy of choice. Following Tuesday’s Russia/US co-chaired International Syria Support Group (ISSG) meeting in Vienna, Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir said Assad has “two choices.”

“(E)ither he will be removed through the political process or… by force. We believe” the latter choice should have been implemented “a long time ago.”

He suggested escalated conflict ahead. Rogue Western and regional officials demanding Assad must go runs counter to fundamental international law.

Syrians alone may decide who’ll lead them. Assad remains overwhelmingly popular for good reason. He’s holding Syria together during its most troubled time in memory.

John Kerry left no doubt where Washington stands, insisting on illegitimate political transition. The vast majority of Syrians reject it.

Saying “(n)o one can be remotely satisfied with the situation in Syria’s” ignores the Obama administration’s full responsibility for over five years of US naked aggression against a nonbelligerent sovereign state.

Tuesday’s meeting like numerous earlier ones accomplished nothing. Endless war rages. Ceasefire is pure fantasy. Peace talks collapsed with no agreed date on another round.

Peaceful conflict resolution remains unattainable because Washington rejects it. US warplanes continue attacking Syrian infrastructure and government sites on the phony pretext of combating ISIS.

Growing numbers of US and allied combat troops operate in northern Syria, aiding terrorists wage war on government forces while claiming otherwise.

Russia’s diplomatic efforts failed. Washington continues undermining them. It wants Syria transformed into another US vassal state.

The longer US policymakers obstruct peaceful conflict resolution, the greater the risk of direct confrontation with Russia.

Things seem headed in this direction. The possibility should scare everyone. Moscow calls combating terrorism its top priority in Syria.

Washington supports what Russia opposes. An inevitable clash of civilizations looms.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.

May 18, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Pouring arms onto troubled Libyan waters makes no sense’

RT | May 17, 2016

World powers’ decisions to provide weapons to Libya’s unity government may lead to negative consequences as the arms will likely be used not only against ISIS but against all other sides, says Marko Gasic, an international affairs commentator.

World powers are ready to lift an arms embargo and to arm Libya’s internationally-recognized unity government to combat Islamic State terrorists.

The decision was announced by US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday as members of the UN Security Council signed an official communique at talks in Vienna.

RT discussed the issue with experts.

RT: Libya is far from stable at the moment. Is this the right time to arm the country?

Diana Johnstone, political writer: There isn’t any right time. This would be comic if it wasn’t so tragic. We talk about the internationally recognized government. This is an internationally imposed government that was imposed by the supposed UN which has become really an instrument of US policy in this case. This government is called the government of national accord – but there is no national accord, this is a government of international accord that allows the US to bring in 20 countries to fight ISIS. Of course, ISIS is there because of the US bombing. So this is a perfectly circular situation: the US creates the chaos and then sends in soldiers…

RT: Is Libya ready to be armed? Or will this add more fuel to the fire?

Abayomi Azikiwe, the editor of Pan-African News Wire: We have to look at who caused the crisis in Libya. It was, in fact, the Pentagon, the CIA and NATO that armed Islamist extremist organizations five years ago. NATO and the Pentagon [dropped] 10,000 bombs on the country over a period of seven months. It is they who created the crisis. This is just another method of justifying a ground intervention in Libya by saying they are willing to lift the arms embargo. The arms embargo was imposed by the Pentagon and NATO during the period of the bombing in 2011. They were the ones who prevented arms and other goods from reaching Libya.

RT: Is it a practical way to try and counter ISIS in Libya?

AA: I don’t think it is a method to bring stability to Libya. It was the US who created the conditions for the growth of ISIS in Iraq and later in Syria.  Because of the intervention of Russia, of Hezbollah, of Lebanon and assistance from the Islamic Republic of Iran many of them have now been forced to flee to Libya, where there is a political vacuum in existence. I think that the US has to be honest about its overall intentions in Libya. They have destroyed the country. They turned it into one of the major sources of human trafficking across North Africa, the Mediterranean into southern, eastern and central Europe.  They created the worst humanitarian crisis since the conclusion of World War Two with some 60 million refugees and internally displaced persons. No, I don’t think they can create a solution for the problem that they in fact are responsible for bringing into existence.

RT: How do you see this decision to arm the recognized government – decisive or destructive?

Marko Gasic, an international affairs commentator: I don’t know what there is to recognize here because what we have to recognize first of all, is that there is a degree of chaos in Libya. There are alliances which are shifting, which are in a state of flux, which you can’t predict probably more than couple of months ahead.  It makes no sense to be pouring arms onto troubled Libyan waters because all that we are going to do effectively is give one side an encouragement to attack the other side, to create more refugees and problems for Libya and the wider region.

The problem is of course that ISIS will not be the only side that will be attacked. Because when a side has weapons it of course will use these weapons against all its enemies as convenient. It is not going to have a glass ceiling between one of the enemies and the other. It will simply act in a pragmatic way to achieve its self-interests. So, there is absolutely no guarantee that these weapons would purely be used against ISIS. And they are far more likely to be used against all other sides as well with negative consequences to the stability of Libya and also for the chance of creating an inclusive solution for the peoples of Libya because with an increasing killing, an upscale of killing we are not going to have less polarization – we are going to get more.

May 18, 2016 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cost of Western Unity: Anti-Russia Sanctions Hit EU 10 Times Harder Than US

Sputnik – 18.05.2016

Europe has suffered ten times worse than the US in terms of trade with Russia since the onset of anti-Russian sanctions, according to Stephen Szabo, the Executive Director of the Transatlantic Academy, and the “Western unity” remains crucial to the allies’ relationship with Moscow; however it will be seriously tested in the months to come.

“The European economies have suffered ten times the losses in trade with Russia than has the United States,” Stephen Szabo acknowledges in his introduction to the recent report of the Transatlantic Academy, entitled Russia: A Test for Transatlantic Unity.

“For example, total EU trade in goods with Russia fell from €326.5 billion ($368,4 bln) in 2013 to €210 billion ($237 bln) in 2015,” he says, “while the total US trade in goods with Russia dropped from $38.2 billion to $23.6 billion during that period.”Therefore the transatlantic cooperation and the “Western unity” will remain crucial to the allies’ relationship with Moscow.

However, Szabo adds, it will be seriously tested in the months to come, when “major changes in key western governments occur over the next year and a half.”

“A new US Administration will take office in January 2017, with key elections in France and Germany following later that year. Sanctions will be up for a number of renewals over that period and Western resolve will be tested,” he says.

The Executive Director of the Transatlantic Academy however does not mention that the sanctions have already been challenged by a number of the European countries, which demand the soonest lifting of the imposed measures.

Thus, a wide array of politicians and businessmen in Germany and France are saying that the anti-Russian sanctions have already weighed heavily on their countries’ political and economic sectors.They accuse the United States of using financial pressure to prevent them from abolishing these restrictive measures,

Hungary, Greece, Austria and Italy have also begun to oppose the punitive measures against Russia,

In Italy, the Council of its North-Eastern region of Veneto, with the administrative center in Venice, is set to vote on Wednesday on the recognition of Crimea as part of Russia and on lifting the sanctions.

Germany’s top diplomat, Frank-Walter Steinmeier also recently said that when the EU’s anti-Russia sanctions expire this summer, it will be far more difficult for the bloc to find common ground on the issue, as more of its members are now resisting the prolongation of the restrictive measures.

Read more: Break the Silence About Crimea, Italian MP Says, Demanding End to Sanctions

May 18, 2016 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

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