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Nuland’s Visit to Moscow: Has the US Arch Neocon Lost Her Bearings?

Sputnik – 18.05.2016

US Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland has wrapped up her visit to Moscow. According to officials, Nuland came to the Russian capital to discuss the situation in east Ukraine. Adding his two cents about the real purpose of the visit, analyst Gevorg Mirzayan suggested that the secretary may have lost her bearings.

On Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov explained the official reason for Nuland’s visit, saying that the two sides discussed the situation in the war-torn eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass, with the US sharing ‘first-hand information’ and looking “to establish a sort of working exchange mechanism” outside the Normandy format, which doesn’t include Washington.

In his own commentary on the visit, Expert Magazine columnist Gevorg Mirzayan clarified, saying that Nuland’s main official goal “is to spur the negotiating process on the Donbass and, in particular, on the holding of local elections in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, one of the most important measures of the Minsk peace agreements.”

“At first glance, of course, it seems like Nuland came to the wrong city,” the analyst noted. “After all, it’s not Moscow that’s sabotaging the holding of elections in the Donbass, but Kiev. One of the key challenges for Ukrainian authorities is not to recognize the situation in the Donbass as a civil war. This is why Kiev comes out against the fulfillment of the political articles of the Minsk agreement, and its most important aspect: direct negotiations between Ukrainian authorities and the leaders of the breakaway republics.”

For now, Mirzayan writes, Kiev’s argument that the DPR and LPR leaders Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky are not democratically elected, and therefore politically illegitimate, carries some weight. “However, after elections take place, Kiev will have to carry deal with the legitimate representatives of the Donbass,” and this is something Ukrainian authorities are desperately looking to avoid.

Speaking to Expert, former Ukrainian lawmaker Oleg Tsaryev emphasized that once elections are held, if the conflict between Kiev and the Donbass continues, “it will fall under the definition of a civil war, and Kiev’s actions will be treated as a war crime.” Therefore, he said, “if the Americans really wanted to ensure the implementation of the agreements, Victoria Nuland would be sitting in Kiev, and speaking in an unyielding tone to its lawmakers, faction heads and oligarchs. Washington has many tools at its disposal: the threat of prohibiting elites from entering the EU, the threat of halting foreign bank lending, the confiscation of property and the seizure of accounts abroad.”

Therefore, Mirzayan notes, “it’s entirely possible that Nuland came to Moscow to offer to exert such pressure on Kiev in exchange for some concessions from the Russian side – on Ukraine, Syria or some other issue. The US is attempting to convince the Kremlin that it must ensure Kiev’s complaisance; after all, the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions depends on the implementation of the Minsk agreements.”

“However, it’s also possible that Nuland will leave Moscow empty-handed, or with a minimum compensation. Because in reality, all she is offering is to ensure a vote in Ukraine’s parliament, while the parties have to not only negotiate on the adoption of the law, but also its contents.”The current bill submitted to the Ukrainian parliament is out of sync with the Minsk agreements, according to the analyst. “But Ukrainian authorities and their Western partners could make it so that further discussions were held about its passing, rather than further changes to the bill. And then, if Kiev gave way and accepted the current version of the bill, it would be perceived as a maximum concession, and the Kremlin would have a difficult time requesting corrections.”

The same thing might happen with the electoral law, the analyst warns. “Those familiar with the document say that it has rather sensible requirements.”

“There are four main positions in this law,” Opposition Bloc lawmaker Yuriy Boyko told Expert. “The election must be in accordance with Ukrainian legislation, Ukrainian media must be given access, electoral commissions must be formed and the elections must take place with the oversight of international observers.”

However, Mirzayan notes, “the real question is how these requirements would be implemented.” For their part, the analyst suggests, Ukrainian officials and analysts have openly said that the law would be deliberately designed to include a whole a series of nuances making it unacceptable to representatives from the breakaway regions.

This, according to Ukrainian political analyst Mikhail Pogrebinsky, “would enable Ukraine, at the Normandy format level, with the participation and support of the United States, to say that we are fulfilling our part of the agreement, but the Donbass is not, and therefore no elections will ever be held.”

For its part, Mirzayan notes, Moscow “does not find this scenario to be acceptable. If the Minsk agreement cannot be implemented in full, the Kremlin may find it advantageous to simply freeze the situation until a new, more pragmatic government emerges in Kiev. Right now, time is on Russia’s side, and the attitudes of the European and even American elites toward Ukraine are changing, and becoming more inclined to seek compromise with Russia.”

Furthermore, “the situation in Ukraine itself is also changing, and not just economically but politically as well. President Petro Poroshenko recently succeeded in consolidating his power, and now controls the cabinet of ministers, the parliament, the prosecutor general and the security forces. The Americans either could not or did not want to interfere, and in the short term this is his victory.””However, in the medium term, such a concentration can be problematic.” After all, “Poroshenko no longer has a lightning rod in the form of [former Prime Minister] Yatsenyuk, who could be blamed for all the country’s economic problems and dismissed. Poroshenko has become personally responsible for everything that happens in the country, while his opponents, removed from power and its privileges, have received a carte blanche to make a name for themselves by criticizing the government and the president.”

“And this is not even mentioning the fact that the population is very tired of the revolutionary enthusiasm of the authorities and the parliament. The majority of Ukrainians have not forgotten about Crimea. However, if they begin to perceive the Donbass as a real civil war, new authorities will be fully capable of resolving the conflict in the spirit of Minsk-2. This is the same thing that Russia seeks, and is something it can achieve without making significant concessions to Victoria Nuland.”

Naturally, Mirzayan emphasizes, “the Kremlin will also have to work very hard to ensure that the conflict remains frozen. The authorities in Donbass have long and persistently sought to hold local elections,” warning that if Brussels and Washington could not force Kiev to fulfill their obligations under the Minsk agreements, they would hold elections independently.

“And while formally such elections would not contradict the Minsk agreements (they simply wouldn’t be recognized), they would create a negative sentiment around the Russian position. This is exactly what Kiev wants, and what Moscow wants to avoid on the eve of a serious dialogue with the EU about the future of the anti-Russian sanctions,” the analyst concludes.

Read more:

Nuland Starts Moscow Visit by Meeting ‘Young Leaders’

Nuland Warns Donbas to Ensure Elections are Held Within Minsk Accord

OSCE: East Ukraine’s Donbass Showing Signs of ‘Frozen Conflict’

Time Out: The Big Picture in Resolving the Ukraine Conflict

May 19, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | 2 Comments

In Kerry’s Footsteps: What Saudi ‘Plan B’ Actually Means for Syria and Iran

Sputnik – May 18, 2016

Saudi Arabia has signaled it is ready to implement the much-talked-about ‘Plan B’ in Syria. What does Riyadh actually mean?

Following the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) meeting in Vienna Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister told journalists that it is time to shift the focus to the so-called ‘Plan B’ in Syria.

“We believe we should have moved to a ‘Plan B’ a long time ago,” Adel al-Jubeir told reporters, as quoted by Reuters.

“The choice about moving to an alternative plan, the choice about intensifying the military support (to the opposition) is entirely with the Bashar [Bashar al-Assad] regime. If they do not respond to the treaties of the international community… then we will have to see what else can be done,” he stressed.

What lies behind al-Jubeir’s statement?Saudi Arabia has long been calling for toppling the legitimate and democratically-elected Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad. It is no secret that the Gulf kingdom has poured millions of US dollars into anti-Assad Islamist radical groups.

The Saudi-backed High Negotiations Committee (HNC) includes such Syrian “opposition groups” as Ahrar ash-Sham and Jaish al-Islam groups which differ from Daesh and the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front in name only.

In April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov underscored that Ahrar ash-Sham and Jaish al-Islam shared the same ideology as Daesh, which is outlawed in Russia, the United States and many other countries.

However, the West still hesitates to recognize the brutal extremist groups as terrorists.

The possibility of Plan B’s implementation was voiced by US Secretary of State John Kerry immediately after the US and Russia announced an agreement on cessation of hostilities in Syria.

“There is a significant discussion taking place now about a Plan B in the event that we do not succeed at the [negotiating] table,” Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 23, 2016.

The plan envisages the partition of Syria and empowering the country’s “moderate opposition.” It should be noted that Washington is well aware that the so-called moderates have no scruples about intermingling with al-Nusra Front terrorists from time to time.As for Riyadh, it has repeatedly pledged its willingness to deploy Saudi boots on Syrian ground. In the eyes of Saudi Arabia, ‘Plan B’ will allow Riyadh to ultimately get rid of Bashar al-Assad, paving the way for undermining the Middle Eastern Shiite Crescent and “encircling” of Iran.

Actually, the roots of the US-Saudi ‘Plan B’ originated in the times of George W. Bush. After Iraq had been occupied by the US, Saudi Arabia urged Washington to shift its attention toward Iran and Syria, parts of the so-called Shiite Crescent in the Middle East.

“In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January [2007], Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that there is ‘a new strategic alignment in the Middle East,’ separating ‘reformers’ and ‘extremists’; she pointed to the Sunni states as centers of moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were ‘on the other side of that divide.’ (Syria’s Sunni majority is dominated by the Alawi sect.) Iran and Syria, she said, ‘have made their choice and their choice is to destabilize’,” Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in his 2007 article “The Redirection” for The New Yorker.

According to Kerry and al-Jubeir, Plan B would be implemented should the ceasefire in Syria collapse. As of yet the truce is holding despite numerous violations.

The recent 17-nation ISSG talks were devoted to discussing the stalled negotiations, suspended after the Saudi-backed opposition faction, the HNC, unilaterally withdrew from negotiations, demanding serious concessions from the Syrian government.

It seems that neither HNC, the Riyadh-sponsored “opposition” group, nor its Saudi masters are interested in further diplomatic efforts.

Read more: Kerry’s Ultimatum to Assad: Why US Plan Means ‘Capitulation to Al-Qaeda’

May 19, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Saudi Arabia providing banned chemical munitions to Nusra Front’

Press TV – May 19, 2016

A senior European official says Saudi Arabia is providing members of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front with internationally-banned chemical weapons.

Secretary General of the European Department for Security and Information (DESI) Haitham Abu Said the terrorists regularly use the munitions in their attacks against Syrian civilians.

Abu Said said Wednesday that the ammunition are being supplied to the extremists monthly under a plan drawn up in Bulgaria, and sneaked into Syria through militant-held areas on the border with Jordan.

Abu Said further noted that Nusra Front terrorists have on a number of occasions used weapons containing chemical agents against Syrians, most recently in the strategic northwestern province of Aleppo.

He added that international organizations have recorded several such incidents in the past.

The remarks come as the Russian Defense Ministry said that several trucks, carrying improvised chemical weapons, have been transported to Aleppo from neighboring Idlib.

“The arms are said to contain chlorine-based toxins,” the ministry said in a statement.

On May 3, Director General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Ahmet Uzumcu said that the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group might have already used chemical weapons both in Iraq and Syria.

Uzumcu said fact-finding teams from The Hague-based watchdog had discovered evidence that suggest the use of sulfur mustard in attacks in the two crisis-hit Arab countries.

“Although they could not attribute this to Daesh… there are strong suspicions that they may have used” chemical weapons, Uzumcu said.

On April 7, 23 people were killed and over 100 others injured in a chemical attack by Daesh terrorists against members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the city of Aleppo.

Videos posted online purportedly show yellow gas rising over Sheikh Maqsood neighborhood in Aleppo, some 355 kilometers (220 miles) north of Damascus.

The development came only three days after al-Ikhbariyah Syria satellite television network reported that Daesh had fired a barrage of rockets, carrying mustard gas, at a Syrian military airport in the eastern city of Dayr al-Zawr.

According to a report by the Syrian-American Medical Society, Daesh has carried out more than 160 attacks involving “poisonous or asphyxiating agents, such as sarin, chlorine, and mustard gas” since the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011.

At least 1,491 people have been killed in the chemical attacks.

In August 2013, hundreds of people were also killed in a chemical attack in the Ghouta suburb of Damascus. According to reports, the rockets used in the assault were handmade and contained sarin.

May 19, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

US Media as Conduits of Propaganda

By Robert Parry | Consortium News  | May 18, 2016

Nothing disturbs me more about the modern mainstream U.S. news media than its failure to test what the U.S. government says against what can be determined through serious and impartial investigation to be true. And this is not just some question of my professional vanity; it can be a matter of life or death.

For instance, did Syrian President Bashar al-Assad cross President Barack Obama’s supposed “red line” against using chemical weapons, specifically in the sarin gas attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013, or not?

Upon this question rests the possibility that a future President Hillary Clinton will invade Syria under the guise of establishing a “safe zone,” a project that would surely expand into another bloody “regime change,” as occurred in Iraq and Libya amid similar U.S. claims about protecting “human rights.”

Yet, there is substantial evidence that Assad was not responsible for the sarin attack – that it was perpetrated by jihadist rebels as a provocation to draw the U.S. military directly into the war on their side. But it remains conventional wisdom that Assad ignored Obama’s “red line” and that Obama then flinched from enforcing it.

The New York Times and other major U.S. publications cite this “group think” about the “red line” as flat fact, much as many of them reported without doubt that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was hiding WMD, reinforcing the pretext for the U.S. invasion of that country in 2003.

On Wednesday, Times correspondent David E. Sanger wrote an article about the need for a coercive “Plan B” to force Assad from power and added that “president [Obama] has repeatedly defended his decision not to authorize a military strike against Mr. Assad after he crossed what Mr. Obama had described as a ‘red line’ against using chemical weapons.”

Note that there is no attribution to that claim about Assad crossing the “red line,” no “allegedly” or “widely believed” or any modifier. Assad is simply judged guilty by The New York Times, which — in doing so — asserts this dubious narrative as flat fact.

Yet, the Times hasn’t conducted a serious investigation into whether Assad is, in fact, guilty. Their last stab at proving Assad’s guilt in late 2013 collapsed when it turned out that the one missile found to have carried sarin had a range of only two kilometers, less than a quarter of the distance from which the Times had alleged that Assad’s military had fired the rocket.

Faced with that evidence, the Times essentially retracted its findings in a little-noticed article buried deep inside the paper during the Christmas-New Year holidays. So, even as the case collapsed, the Times maintained its phony narrative, which it reprises regularly as happened in Sanger’s article on Wednesday.

Misleading Readers

But what does that do to the Times’ readers? They are essentially being propagandized by the “paper of record,” with a questionable assertion slipped past them as an incontrovertible “fact.” How are they supposed to evaluate whether the U.S. government should launch another war in the Middle East when they have been told that a dubious claim is now enshrined as a basic truth in the Times’ narrative?

We saw something similar earlier this year when Jeff Goldberg of The Atlantic wrote a lengthy article on Obama’s foreign policy focusing on his 2013 decision not to launch punitive airstrikes against the Syrian military for the sarin attack.

The opus contained the remarkable disclosure that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had told Obama that U.S. intelligence lacked “slam dunk” evidence that Assad was guilty. In other words, Obama pulled back in part because he was informed that Assad might well be innocent.

Later in the same article, however, Goldberg reverted to Official Washington’s “group think” that held as a matter of faith that Assad had crossed Obama’s “red line.” That false certainty has proved so powerful that it defies any contrary evidence and keeps popping up as it did in Sanger’s article.

Which gets me to one of my pet peeves about modern America: we almost never get to the bottom of anything, whether significant or trivial. Often there’s “a conventional wisdom” about some issue but almost never is there a careful assessment of the facts and an unbiased judgment of what happened.

On the trivial side, we have the NFL accusing New England Patriot quarterback Tom Brady of participating in some scheme to deflate footballs, even though the scientific and testimonial evidence doesn’t support the claim. But lots of people, including The New York Times, assume the allegations to be true even though they come from one of the most disreputable and dishonest corporations in America, the National Football League, which has recently been exposed for covering up the dangers of concussions.

On more substantive matters, we never see serious investigations into U.S. government claims especially when they’re aimed at “enemies.” The failure to test President George W. Bush’s claims about Iraq’s WMD cost hundreds of thousands of lives, including those of nearly 4,500 American soldiers, and has spread chaos through much of the region and now into Europe.

A Pattern of Neglect

We’ve seen similar neglect regarding Syria’s sarin case and events in Ukraine, from the mysterious sniper attacks that touched off the coup in February 2014 to the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014.

Arguably, the fate of humankind rests on the events in Ukraine where U.S. propagandists are stirring up the West to engage in a military conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.

So, shouldn’t The New York Times and other major publications take special care not to feed a war fever that could exterminate life on the planet? Can’t they find the time to undertake serious examinations of these issues and present the evidence without fear or favor?

But that apparently isn’t how the editors of the Times or The Washington Post or any number of other major U.S. news outlets view matters. Instead of questioning the stories coming from the U.S. government’s propaganda shops, the mainstream media simply amplifies them, all the better to look “patriotic.”

If instead these outlets joined some independent journalists and concerned citizens in demanding that the U.S. government provide verifiable evidence to support its claims, that might force many of these “artificial secrets” out into the open.

For instance, we don’t know what the current U.S. intelligence assessments are about the Syria-sarin attack or the MH-17 shoot-down. Regarding the MH-17 case, the U.S. government has refused to divulge its overhead surveillance, radar and other technical evidence about this tragedy in which 298 people were killed.

If there was some journalistic unity – refusing to simply blame the Russians and instead highlighting the lack of U.S. cooperation in the investigation – the U.S. government might feel enough heat to declassify its information and help bring whoever shot down the plane to justice.

As it stands now on these issues, why should the U.S. government reveal what it actually knows when all the major news outlets are accepting its dubious propaganda themes as flat fact?

The Times and other big media outlets could contribute to the cause of truth by simply refusing to serve as conduits for unsubstantiated claims just because they come from senior U.S. government officials. If the mainstream media did, the American people and the world public might be much better informed — and a lot safer.

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.

May 19, 2016 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 2 Comments

Macri Gives Go Ahead to US Military Installations in Argentina

teleSUR – May 18, 2016

According to a report among the plans is also the negotiation of another military base in the border with Paraguay and Brazil.

A military delegation sent by Argentine President Mauricio Macri on Wednesday signed an agreement on military cooperation with the United States, which entails the establishment of a U.S. military base in Ushuaia, the southernmost tip of the South American nation.

Ushuaia is the capital of Tierra del Fuego, whose boundaries extend to Antarctica. The Argentine government has justified the installation by saying scientific work” will be performed there.

Earlier this week Vice Defense Minister Angel Tello began a five-day visit to the U.S. aimed at reestablishing bilateral defense relations between the two countries after a freeze in military ties in recent years.

Among the plans reportedly being discussed is the negotiation of another military base in Argentina’s Misiones Province, located in the northeastern corner of the country at the border between Paraguay and Brazil.

Bilateral ties between Argentina and the U.S. had been tense in recent years as the leftist governments of presidents Fernandez and Nestor Kirchner reoriented foreign policy away from the U.S. and toward Latin America in the name of fighting imperialism and strengthening regional integration.

But Macri came to office last year based in part on a promise to rekindle relations with the U.S. while giving the cold shoulder to allies of Argentina’s left-wing Kirchner governments, such as Venezuela. The president has said he wants a “pragmatic and intelligent” relationship with Washington.

May 19, 2016 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

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

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