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Obama: US Military Engaged in Anti-Terror Operations Across 15 Countries

Sputnik — 13.06.2016

obama-bomb-mid-east48US military personnel are engaged in counterterrorism operations across 15 different countries, President Barack Obama said in a biannual statement to Congress released on Monday.

The letter outlined US military counterrorism operations across the globe in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Somalia, Yemen, Djibouti, Libya, Cuba, Niger, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Egypt, Jordan, and Kosovo. All nations have US combat-equipped personnel deployed for a specific counterterrorism mission.

Obama indicated that that there is no timeline for the war on terrorism, and he will direct “additional measures to protect US citizens and interests” if necessary.

“It is not possible to know at this time the precise scope or the duration of the deployments of US Armed Forces necessary to counter terrorist threats to the United States,” Obama said.

Under the 2001 authorization for use of military force, the US president must update Congress every six months on the military operations against al-Qaeda, the Taliban and associated forces.

June 13, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

US Vaporized Marshall Islands, Performed Human Experimentation on Natives

By Robert Barsocchini | Empire Slayer | April 28, 2015

… we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicines and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe…

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Investigative journalist William Boardman’s findings on US vaporization of Marshall Islands and human experimentation on Marshall Islands native “savages”, as they were classed by US media:

“Nuclear Savage” is a recent documentary film that explores American nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands, 1946-1958, and particularly the secret Project 4.1: an American experiment in exposing Pacific Islanders to overdoses of radiation – deliberate human radiation poisoning – just to get better data on this method of maiming and killing people. The public broadcasting establishment has spent more than two years keeping this story off the air.

The preview reel of “Nuclear Savage” includes a clip with a stentorian newsreel announcer reporting on the American treatment of Marshall Islanders in April 1957, and explaining to his predominantly American audience:

“The Marshallese caught by fallout got 175 roentgens of radiation. These are fishing people, savages by our standards, so a cross-section was brought to Chicago for testing. The first was John, the mayor of Rongelap Atoll…. John, as we said, is a savage, but a happy, amenable savage.”

…

“Some use the term ‘savage’ to refer to people from primitive cultures, but nuclear experimentation pushed savagery to new levels. In the 1950s, the U.S. conducted 67 atomic and hydrogen bomb tests in the Marshall Islands, vaporizing islands and exposing entire populations to fallout. The islanders on Rongelap received near fatal doses of radiation from one test, and were then moved onto a highly contaminated island to serve as human guinea pigs for 30 years.”

Horowitz, the director of Nuclear Savage, notes that the US “bl[e]w up all these islands … purposely contaminated all these people as human experiments.”

Boardman continues:

In 1998, staff from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made a comparison study to compare the amount of radioactive Iodine-131 at four different radiation-polluted sites, measured in curies (1,000 curies of Cesium-137, as found in a radiation therapy machine, could produce serious health effects in a direct exposure of just a few minutes). The CDC team reported its finding that the atmospheric release of curies of Iodine-137 at the Hanford nuclear processing plant was 739,000 curies; at Chernobyl the release was 40 million curies; at the Nevada bomb test site, 150 million curies; and in the Marshall Islands, 6.3 billion curies (more that 30 times as much radiation as the other three sites combined).

Even recently, the US has tried “to re-re-settle some populations back to their home islands that were still dangerously radioactive.” However, the film helped rally the islanders and reduced the US re-re-settlement effort to nothing more than “a bunch of empty houses.”

One year ago, nearly to the day, the Marshall Islands bravely brought a lawsuit to the International Court of Justice and U.S. Federal District Court “against the U.S. and the eight other Nuclear Weapons States (NWS)”, which are refusing “to meet their treaty obligations to disarm.”

Obama, in direct contravention of US word and legal requirement, is devoting 1 to 1.5 trillion dollars to US nuclear weapons development, even as the US, also illegally, cuts off water to some of its own, poor residents.

From 1946-1958, the US conducted 67 nuclear weapons experiments on the Marshall Islands, the equivalent of “one-and-a-half Hiroshima bombs” every day.

On a related note, Obama continues to refuse to give the country of Diego Garcia back to its indigenous inhabitants. The pristine island nation was seized and cleansed of its nationals by the US and Britain, then turned into a US toxic waste dump-site and base for Washington’s global execution and torture racket.

Seven minute trailer for Nuclear Savage:

Reporter focuses on global force dynamics and writes professionally for the film industry.  On twitter @_DirtyTruths with UK-based colleague, Dean Robinson. 

June 13, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Orlando Shootings: Terrorism or False Flag?

By Stephen Lendman | June 13, 2016

It’s too soon to know whether Sunday’s Orlando incident was terrorism or false flag deception.

Yet it has distinct earmarks of the latter, likely the latest example of domestic state terror, another fear-mongering pretext for out-of-control militarism, endless wars of choice, and domestic repression, America more a police state than free society on a slippery slope toward full-blown tyranny.

Muslims are Washington’s target of choice, falsely blamed for numerous state-sponsored domestic crimes – 9/11 the mother of all false flags.

Convincing evidence indicates the alleged Boston bombers, San Bernardino bombers, Sandy Hook shooter, a shoe bomber, an underwear bomber, Times Square bomber, shampoo bombers, synagogue bombers, and numerous other convenient patsies blamed for similar incidents were victims of elaborate hoaxes, state-sponsored false flag deception.

Pre-dawn Sunday, alleged heavily armed gunman Omar Mateen managed to kill or wound over 100 individuals at Orlando’s Pulse LGBT nightclub before city SWAT police killed him.

Dead men tell no tales. All we know is what authorities say and media scoundrels repeat without due diligence checking.

According to official reports, Mateen called 911, declaring his allegiance to ISIS. Following the shootings, the group allegedly claimed responsibility, saying they were “carried out by an Islamic State fighter.”

America created and supports the group. Why would any of its members or supporters want its benefactor harmed?

Sunday’s incident represents the largest domestic mass-casualty event since 9/11. An obvious unanswered question is how could an alleged lone gunman manage to kill or injure so many before SWAT police stopped him?

Were multiple gunmen involved? Mass shootings on this scale seem unlikely for anyone to be able to pull off single-handedly. Was state-sponsored terrorism responsible?

As expected, Obama politicized the incident, calling it “an act of terror and an act of hate” – vowing “to protect our people and defend our nation, (acting) against those who threaten us.”

Hillary Clinton revealed her rage for endless wars, abhorrence of rule of law principles, and antipathy to fundamental freedoms – urging “redouble(d) efforts to defend our country from threats at home and abroad.”

She failed to explain America faces invented ones only, pretexts for waging war on humanity.

The groundwork is being laid for continuing wars of aggression, launching new ones, and eliminating what remains of constitutional rights.

People are being manipulated to believe the price of security requires sacrificing fundamental freedoms – failing to realize they’re losing both.

Stephen Lendman 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.

June 13, 2016 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism | | 5 Comments

Obama, Congress push min wage cut in bailout of US ‘colony’ Puerto Rico

© Wikipedia

© Wikipedia
RT | June 13, 2016

The people of Puerto Rico face strict austerity measures, including a huge cut in the minimum wage, if President Barack Obama and Congress are able to pass their so-called PROMESA bailout package.

Obama urged senators to approve the bill quickly during his weekly radio address this weekend.

Even though the 3.5 million residents of the US territory can’t vote for the president or federal legislators in the general election, they could be forced to swallow the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA), which prioritizes the interests of vulture funds and other bondholders.

Puerto Rico is more than $72 billion in debt, with a poverty rate of 45 percent, thanks to a colonial hangover and years of exploitation by Washington.

Residents are abandoning the island in search of better opportunities, particularly skilled professionals such as doctors, creating a shortage in necessary services.

With a looming July 1 deadline for a $2 billion payment, Obama and Congress are using the opportunity to push the austerity agenda they’ve inflicted on much of the world following the 2008 financial crisis caused by their donors on Wall Street.

Puerto Rico Governor Alejandra Garcia Padilla maintains it is more important to pay teachers than vulture funds, standing by an April decision to pass an emergency law allowing the island to default on its May 1 payment of $422 million.

At a time when hospitals have power blackouts and pensions are under threat, PROMESA (which also means “promise” in Spanish) calls for an oversight board to control its finances and implement a severe cut to the minimum wage for those under 25 years old – from $7.24 to $4.25.

The board would consist of four Republican appointees, two by Congressional Democrats, and one by Obama.

The latter is expected to be from Puerto Rico, but because voters there have yet to become the 51st US state, despite a number of chances in the past, their fate is being decided by officials they aren’t able to vote for – or against (except in the presidential primaries).

The bill is supported by Obama, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, among others.

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is also in favor of the (mostly) bipartisan deal.

“We must move forward with this legislation,” she said, while still maintaining concerns about parts of the bill including the fact that the oversight board could have too much power. “Otherwise, without any means of addressing this crisis, too many Puerto Ricans will continue to suffer.”

The one prominent leader who’s been pushing back on this bill is Clinton’s primary opponent, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

He said he was “proud to stand in strong opposition to this bill” as it “looks to benefit Wall Street vultures first and foremost,” and condemned the bill for treating the island “like a colony.”

Padilla has argued for access to Chapter 9 of the Bankruptcy code and outlined a five-year plan which, Democracy Now reports, includes increasing college tuition, cutting investment in healthcare, and handing roads and ports over to for-profit companies, in exchange for reducing payments to its creditors.

It’s a plan which echoes last year’s Greek bailout – and benefits many of the same investors.

BANKRUPTCY

Puerto Rico is unable to file for bankruptcy, after an amendment made to US law exempted the territory from the Chapter 9 option.

The reasons for this change are unclear.

“There is no legislative history to explain why Puerto Rico was singled out,” Illinois Senator Dick Durbin said.

Padilla, Obama, Sanders, and Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein have all said Congress should grant the island bankruptcy rights, but they have failed to do so.

TAX BREAKS

Back in the 1970s the US introduced corporation tax breaks on goods made in Puerto Rico. This led to a drug-manufacturing boom, but not enough jobs to lift the island out of poverty.

By the time Congress phased out corporate welfare in 2006, the island suffered from lost jobs and revenue.

Puerto Rico passed two laws to attract investment in 2012.

Act 20 “entices hedge funds, family offices, professional service firms, and even software developers to locate there by taxing their corporate profits from exported services at a flat 4 percent rate and allowing those profits to be paid out to the owners free of Puerto Rico income tax,” Forbes reports.

Act 22 gives new residents “a 0 percent rate on locally-sourced interest and dividends as well as all capital gains accrued after they become residents, a particular benefit for active traders.”

BONDS

Municipal bonds in Puerto Rico are “triple tax exempt,” attracting Wall Street investment. Bloomberg reports more than $30 billion of commonwealth securities are held by mutual funds and investment managers.

Puerto Rico sold bonds to help with its debt and cover expenses, according to Bloomberg, and turned to creditors and Washington for help last year when it had trouble paying off those debts.

HEDGE AND VENTURE CAPITAL FUNDS

Puerto Rico’s debt has attracted hedge and vulture funds which stand to profit from the island’s staggering debt. Among the owners of their debt are companies which lobby Washington, including Blue Mountain Capital and Stone Lion Capital according to the Nation, and target other vulnerable economies such as Greece.

An audit found Puerto Rico is spending between 14 to 25 percent of government revenue on debt payments, while the territory’s constitution sets a maximum of 15 percent.

While this may seem like a bad deal for the people of Puerto Rico, a PR firm headed by former Obama staffers, SKD Knickerbocker, has a $3.4 million contract to help push it through and smooth out the island’s image during the crisis, reports Breitbart.

Of course, all of this could be solved if Puerto Rico raised taxes on the corporations who have profited off the back of its people for decades (or centuries, in the case of the sugar industry).

UCLA professor Cesar Ayala told the Nation that US corporations repatriated $313 billion from Puerto Rico between 2004-2013, enough to repay the debt fourfold.

June 13, 2016 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

US ‘has no evidence’ against illegally imprisoned ‘Guantanamo Diary’ author – lawyer

RT | June 13, 2016

Mohamedou Ould Slahi has been locked up in Gitmo without charge for 14 years, but the US government “has no evidence” against him, his attorney told RT. Tortured and beaten, both ordeals exposed in his memoir from behind bars, Slahi is now hoping for release.

On June 2, Slahi appeared in a 17-minute hearing before the prison’s Periodic Review Board (PRB) that essentially holds his fate in its hands. It is the PRB that examines the risk of releasing a detainee and is set to decide whether to clear Slahi. He is the 22nd detainee to go before the board this year.

“There is no reason for him not to be cleared. He has never committed any hostile act to the United States. There is no evidence against him,” Slahi’s attorney, Nancy Hollander, told RT in its GTMO 2016 special report.

Together they have been fighting for Slahi’s freedom since 2005, when Hollander first met him in Guantanamo. She says she spends “probably third of a year” in Guantanamo to be with her client.

A native Mauritanian, Slahi’s story is an unusual one. He did not arrive at Guantanamo the way the majority of detainees did.

The primary reason for his illegal detention is not related to 9/11, but has its roots in the 1990s, when Slahi pledged allegiance to the group that would eventually become known as Al-Qaeda. He stopped his engineering studies in Germany to go fight along with the mujahideen against the communist government in Afghanistan.

At the time, the Islamist group and its leader Osama bin Laden enjoyed the support of the US in its fight against the Soviets.

Slahi claims he had “broken ties” with Al-Qaeda in 1992 to return to his studies in Germany. Nearly ten years after, when Al-Qaeda became Washington’s top enemy, Slahi turned himself in for questioning to Mauritanian authorities.

On November 1, 2001, he was interrogated in relation to the so-called 2000 millennium attack plots, a series of foiled attacks, including the one at a Los Angeles airport planned for late December 1999.

It appeared that when Slahi lived in Canada in 1999, he crossed paths with Ahmed Ressam, a convicted perpetrator of the thwarted attacks. The two prayed in the same mosque in Montreal.

After Ressam’s arrest, Slahi was questioned several times, including by the FBI and each time cleared for release.

That was not the case at his last meeting with Mauritanian authorities. Slahi was detained and then handed over to Jordan, where he spent eight months. After subsequent chain of custody transfers, he was put in Guantanamo.

Now, 14 years later, Slahi is one of the most prominent prisoners among 80 remaining Guantanamo detainees.

“He is a very funny person, a very empathic, very curious and of course as everyone has seen now a very gifted writer,” Nancy Hollander said of Slahi, describing their work together as “a very warm relationship.”

Shali has gone through torture, beatings, death threats and sexual humiliation, all of which he exposed in details in his bestselling book, ‘Guantanamo Diary,’ written in his single cell.

“There is no doubt that he was tortured during early years, 2003-2004,” Hollander told RT. “Finally, they realized that they were not going to learn anything from him they did not already know because he had nothing else to tell him. They began then to rehabilitate him.”

At one point, his captors tried to trick him by showing him a forged letter from his mother, but the ploy failed for two reasons. One is that the forgery misspelled Slahi’s name and, second, because unbeknownst to his jailers, his mother was illiterate.

He eventually became friends with his guards. In April 2016, one of the guards submitted a letter to the PRB, speaking of his very pleasant impression of Slahi.

“Based on my interactions with Mr. Slahi while in Guantanamo, I would be pleased to welcome him into my home,” the guard wrote.

In 2010, federal judge James Robertson reviewed Slahi’s profile, the same one the government submitted to the PRB, and granted him his habeas corpus petition, ordering him released.

However, the decision was appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Now, Slahi has his hopes high for the PRB to rule on his release.

“I believe, I hope that Mohamedou will be cleared, there is no reason for him not to be and then for the State Department to start working with Mauritania. The country of Mauritania has said they would welcome him home. That’s where his family is,” Hollander told RT.

June 13, 2016 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel erases key Muslim, Christian holy sites from al-Quds ‘map’

Press TV | June 13, 2016

The Israeli tourism ministry has published a map of the occupied Old City of al-Quds (Jerusalem), which omits significant Muslim and Christian holy sites and entire neighborhoods in the area.

The so-called Old City map, which is distributed free of charge at tourist information centers across the city, does not refer to the venerated 14-hectare compound that comprises al-Aqsa Mosque — Islam’s third holiest site — and the Dome of the Rock, as “al-Haram al-Sharif,” and simply refers to it by its Jewish name of the Temple Mount, Al Jazeera reported.

Moreover, the map makes no reference to the Church of St. Anne, which is a Roman Catholic church located near the Lions’ Gate and churches of the Flagellation and Condemnation in East al-Quds.

The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, the second Protestant church in Quds, is also shown on the map with a tiny and hard-to-find name.

The map, however, highlights dozens of sites whose historical importance is disputed, and a large number of them are indeed illegal settlements constructed in the Muslim and Christian quarters of the Old City of al-Quds.

Among 57 numbered sites, almost half are buildings occupied by illegal settlers in East Jerusalem and are largely unknown to licensed tour guides.

One such tour guide, requesting anonymity, said the map favors Jewish sites regardless of their touristic value and appears religiously flawed.

“When I saw it, I thought it was a map for only Jewish tour groups. The narrative it shows is quite exclusive to one religious group,” the tour guide said.

Aziz Abu Sarah, a resident of al-Quds, said, “The St. Anne’s Church, which I think is one of the most amazing places, is not on the map. There are many Christians coming to Jerusalem, and they are going to get a map that doesn’t identify their holy sites. It’s not a smart decision.”

361e8c45-9ce5-43a0-a7ca-ec13daf948caHe further suggested that the inclusion of certain sites within the boundaries of the Old City of al-Quds is aimed at promoting a one-sided Jewish representation of East Jerusalem and ignoring its Christian and Muslim identities.

“Politically speaking, it adds sites that are controversial, like the settlements in East Jerusalem, and I think that makes it political and one-sided,” Abu Sarah said.

“There are a bunch of sites that are not only historically unimportant, but that are run by settlers,” said Betty Herschman, the director of international relations at Ir Amim, an Israeli human rights NGO that gives tours of East al-Quds to diplomats and others.

She added, “That is to the detriment of historically relevant Christian and Muslim sites, which you would think would be far more prioritized on a map of the Old City, the hub of the three major monotheistic religions.”

“This map, in addition to erasing important Muslim and Christian holy sites in the Old City, completely erases entire neighborhoods around the historic basin, supplanting them not only with Hebrew names but with the names of settlements,” Herschman argued.

She stressed that the settlements, for example Bet Orot, are built by radical and illegal settlers within the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods.

“The map is legitimizing private settlement around the historic basin,” Herschman said.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories in the West Bank and East al-Quds.

June 13, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Nuland to Congress: We Spend $100 Mil a Year Trying to Destabilize Russia

By Ricky Twistdale | Russia Insider | June 9, 2016

On Tuesday [June 7, 2016], the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations scheduled a two-hour anti-Russian hate-fest. Lies, misinformation and jaw-dropping stupidity were on full display. The star witness of course, was Tricky Vicky Nuland.

These congressional committee meetings crack me up. In theory, they’re supposed to be interviewing witnesses to collect information. In reality it’s a platform for congressmen to make speeches satisfying the special interests who own them and then they read questions from prepared notes provided to them by “experts” or lobbyists (or maybe the witnesses themselves). Then they get the answers they want to hear from the witnesses. It is 100% theater.

Nuland’s opening statement was full of scare mongering about the supposed threat to peaceful civilization from Moscow. She did provide some telling facts. She said the US had already spent $600 million on “security assistance” to Ukraine – so on top of other billions in handouts from the IMF, most of which was stolen by oligarchs, that’s money going directly to killing kids in Donbass. (Warning, the foregoing link is very graphic. And there are many even worse images of Kiev’s terror victims I will not link to.)

Poroshenko was very clear how Kiev intends to win the war. They intend to win it by blockade and terror shelling of Donetsk. Just like Hitler planned to beat Leningrad. So they imagine.

Nuland also said the US had trained 17,000 Ukrainian troops. That’s training going directly to kill kids in Donbass. She said the US had “provided counter-artillery and counter mortar radars” and “over 3,000 secure radios” and “other equipment, to help Ukrainian troops successfully resist further advances.”

As if the “Ukrainian army” (if that’s what they call neo-Nazi private legions) and the assistance provided to them would be enough to stop the Russian army from actually taking over Ukraine, were Moscow so inclined.

No, Vicky, that’s equipment going directly to kill kids in Donbass. How’s that for “Russian propaganda?” How am I doing?

Are my fellow Americans satisfied with how their tax money is being spent?

But the United States is not stopping at simply supporting war and economic destruction in Ukraine. They want to spread the same kind of “freedom” to Russia.

Here’s where Lil’ Marco Rubio comes in. He’s a tough guy. He’d probably nuke the world just to prove he’s a man. (Well, Hillary will probably do it to prove she’s a man as well.)

Lil’ Marco asked Tricky Vicky if the sanctions had changed Putin’s “aggressive behavior.” She said yes, they stopped him from continuing his “invasion” of Ukraine beyond Crimea and Donbass. Then Rubio says he knows they’d hoped Crimea would bankrupt Russia, any sign that’s happening? Vicky says not yet, but Crimea’s really hurting them. Tough Lil’ Marco said good we ought to double up the sanctions. Vicky says they will if they need to, plus even if they lift the Russia sanctions, sanctions on Crimea will never be lifted until Crimea returns to Ukraine.Well Crimea is never returning to Ukraine. So in other words, Crimean sanctions will stay until hell freezes over.

So they were hoping fixing up Crimea would bankrupt Russia, but they expect us to believe Putin wanted all Ukraine? Yeah I’m sure he wanted that trillion dollar black hole.

Next comes in one Sen. Shaheen, who sounds like somebody’s clueless grandmother. She probably cannot find Russia on a map. She keeps glancing at her notes just to get through her opening statement. She has probably never even seen RT, though she condemns it on cue.

It was here that Vicky let us know the extent of US efforts to turn Russia into a smoldering wasteland wrecked by civil war and terror just like they did to Ukraine starting with Maidan. (But I’m sure all Vicky did was hand out pastries.)Nuland claims the US is spending $100 million a year producing Russian-language propaganda in the Baltic states and Ukraine, as well as Russia. They also operate secret training programs for Russian journalists. She also said they provide funding to organizations and programs inside Russia but wouldn’t give details.

Actually, they have access to far more than that, with the total budget of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which runs all official US propaganda directed abroad, being over $700 million. (US government agencies and departments routinely underestimate the amount they spend on programs, in an effort to win more funding.) Meanwhile, Nuland told a bald faced lie that the budget of Russia’s RT was $400 million. It is closer to $300 million. But it would be difficult to count all of Vicky’s and her companion witness’ lies in just this 2 hour time span.

Of all the times the term “Russian” or “Kremlin propaganda” is uttered by the Western apologists, they consistently fail to give any examples. I suppose what they really mean by “Kremlin propaganda” is facts given by people who dare to confront their own politically correct Owellian distortion machine. In the past decades, the United States and its allies have done plenty to propagandize against themselves, doing no good for any country and more often than not leaving conflict and destruction in every country they touch, both economic and physical.

Does Russia in the last 25 years have anything like a comparable record of international violence and expansionism? The plain facts speak for themselves, which does the job of “Kremlin propaganda” on its own without much effort.

June 13, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment