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NYT Praises Obama’s Phony War on Terror, Lauds Clinton, Blasts Trump

By Stephen Lendman | June 15, 2016

New York Times editors never let facts interfere with their worldview, consistently misinforming readers, willfully lying.

On Tuesday, they ignored Obama’s imperial madness, his high crimes against peace, his rage for wars, waging them in multiple theaters, using ISIS and other terrorist groups as US foot soldiers.

Instead they praised what demands universal condemnation and accountability, saying in a Tuesday speech, Obama “listed the ways in which his administration has worked to subdue the threat of terrorism abroad and home” – at the same time denouncing what he called Trump’s “dangerous” mindset.

Fact: America created ISIS and likeminded terrorist groups.

Fact: It uses them in Syria, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere, providing their fighters with arms and other material support, waging wars on sovereign independent states, wanting US-controlled puppet regimes replacing them.

What’s ongoing is longstanding imperial policy, wanting all nations transformed into US vassal states. Instead of denouncing America’s war on humanity, The Times supports it.

As part of its pro-Clinton, anti-Trump campaign, it quoted Obama’s Big Lie about nonexistent US “pluralism and… openness, our rule of law, our civil liberties, the very things that make this country great.”

“The very things that make us exceptional.” The very things neocon infested Washington rejects.

On Thursday, Obama heads for Orlando – not “to bring solace to grieving families and a stricken city” as The Times suggests – solely to exploit last Sunday’s shootings for political advantage, ignoring a likely state-sponsored false flag, his administration responsible for what happened.

He’s been at war with Islam throughout his tenure, Hillary Clinton its lead orchestrator as secretary of state, an unindicted war criminal/racketeer The Times endorses.

Ignoring her rage for escalated war on humanity and increased crackdowns on fundamental homeland freedoms in the wake of Orlando, it praised her for “echo(ing) many of (Obama’s) points and even some of his language” – quoting her saying “(h)istory will remember what we do in this moment.”

“History” documents millions of US imperial victims at home and abroad, its contempt for rule of law principles, its rage for unchallenged dominance, its threat to world peace.

Neocon infested Democrat and Republican parties represent pure evil. World peace hangs in the balance.

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 15, 2016 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , | 1 Comment

Israeli military decides that order to attack Palestinian clinic in ‘revenge’ was acceptable

By Celine Hagbard | IMEMC | June 15, 2016

In a precedent-setting decision Tuesday, the Israeli military decided not to press charges against a senior officer who ordered his troops to bombard a hospital in Gaza in 2014 to reportedly “raise their morale” with a “revenge attack” after another officer was killed.

The officer, Lieutenant Colonel Neria Yeshurun, told military investigators that he was mad that he and the soldiers were unable to attend the funeral of an officer who was killed a few days before, so “we decided to fire a volley of shells toward the point from which he lost his life.”

According to the Israeli paper Ha’aretz, Major Amihai Harch, Yeshurun’s commander, said at the time, “The only unusual thing [Yeshurun] did was that he put the incident on top of the eulogy to Dima, the company commander who was killed. That was certainly to raise [morale]. And I say to you on the level of facts — that raised morale and encouraged the soldiers to continue the mission.”

These admissions were made directly to the military investigators in Yeshurun’s case, but were not deemed sufficient to place any charges on the officer.

Although Israeli military policy says that revenge attacks are not allowed, former soldiers have reported that they are common practice in Israeli military units.

The shelling of the clinic was part of a larger attack on the Sheja’eyya neighborhood in eastern Gaza, in which more than 120 Palestinian civilians were killed in a single night during the Israeli invasion of Gaza in 2014. The 50-day long invasion resulted in more than 1400 Palestinians killed, including more than 400 children, and 91 Israelis, mainly soldiers killed during the invasion of Gaza.

The night of killings in Sheja’eyya became known to Palestinians as the Sheja’eyya massacre. Throughout the night, the shelling of the neighborhood was continuous, affecting every home – most of the neighborhood was completely destroyed, and many of those killed were crushed in the rubble of their own homes. Survivors ran through the streets carrying babies and children, desperate to escape the continuous Israeli assault.

The attack took place on July 31st, 2014, just a day after the bombing of a school where families had taken refuge. About the attack on the school, UN Secretary General stated, “I condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms. It is outrageous. It is unjustifiable, and it demands accountability and justice. Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children.” Since the time of the attack, there has been no accountability for the soldiers involved, and no charges.

Former Israeli soldier turned whistleblower Eran Efrati published accounts at the time, in August 2014, from soldiers in two different units reporting that their commanding officers had ordered them to carry out attacks against civilians in order to ‘revenge’ for soldiers who had been killed.

June 15, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | 4 Comments

UN Warns 30 Million Latin Americans May End Up Back in Poverty

teleSUR | June 15, 2016

A new report says governments must continue to make social investments and place focus on marginalized populations.

As many as 30 million people in Latin America, who were recently lifted out of poverty, could go back to being poor, a report from the United Nations Development Programme warned Tuesday.

Thanks to investments in social programs and wealth redistribution policies over the past 15 years, approximately 72 million Latin Americans were lifted out of poverty and a further 94 million moved into the middle class.

However, according to the UNDP, 2015 and 2016 saw a rise in the number of people living in poverty in the region for the first time in decades.

The report, entitled “Multidimensional Progress: Well-Being Beyond Income,” says more than a third of those who left poverty since 2003 are now at risk of becoming poor again.

The UNDP report stressed that the economic slowdown being experienced throughout the region is only one factor.

“Every Latin American generation decides which structural changes to pursue: there are pending citizenship and resilience challenges that will not be solved with economic growth alone,” said George Gray Molina, lead author and UNDP chief economist for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Molina specified that recent achievements were not attributable to free market policies, but rather direct government intervention.

The UNDP is calling on governments to support vulnerable or marginalized groups through social investment and subsidies.

“Right now, on the one hand, we must protect the region’s past achievements, including preventing millions from of people from falling back into poverty; on the other hand, we must also promote inclusive policies and comprehensive strategies for populations suffering from historical discrimination and exclusion,” said United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean Jessica Faieta.

Left-wing governments, such as Ecuador and Bolivia, have pledged to maintain social investment, despite the downturn in the economy.

However, right-wing governments, such Mauricio Macri’s in Argentina, have pursued policies that have made living more expensive for the poor. According to an April report by the Social Debt Observatory of the Argentine Catholic Church, in only a few months over 2 million Argentines have been pushed into poverty.

The report also suggested that reforms to tax codes to make them more progressive could lessen the burden on low-income people. Governments throughout Latin America largely depend on revenue from resource extraction and value-added taxes, which tend to be regressive.

A 2015 report by the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean called for a reform of tax codes to reduce inequality and improve tax collection on high-income earners.

ANALYSIS:

Taxing the Wealthy – Why It’s Important

June 15, 2016 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Industry-Dominated Group Writes Drone Privacy “Best Practices” That Don’t Deserve the Name

By Jay Stanley | ACLU | June 15, 2016

An industry-dominated “multistakeholder process” convened by the Commerce Department recently produced a set of voluntary privacy “best practices” for commercial drones that are so riddled with exceptions and vague language that companies could engage in all sorts of practices that would violate the public’s privacy expectations, while still claiming to comply with these guidelines.

The idea of the process was to produce a set of voluntary best practices to ensure that commercial drone use protects privacy rights. It was convened at the direction of President Obama in an executive order on drone privacy that he issued in February 2015.

Last month, before the document was finalized, we, along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Access Now, urged the corporate participants to make a clear commitment to actual best practices, rather than a weak document designed primarily to ensure maximum flexibility in what companies can do with drones. We proposed a set of changes to the document’s language that would have strengthened it enough to allow us to endorse it. Unfortunately, these changes were rejected.

Why won’t Amazon and other industry players in the drone space make a clean commitment to good privacy practices when it comes to drones? To take just one example, I think one thing most Americans would definitely not want to see companies doing with their drones is engaging in persistent and continuous surveillance of people without their consent. Yet this industry-led draft says the best practice is to avoid doing that “in the absence of a compelling need to do otherwise.” A compelling need? What is that? Is Amazon planning to engage in such surveillance with its delivery drones? If not, why wouldn’t it agree to a more straightforward statement? There were a lot of industry players, so I don’t mean to pick on Amazon. Except actually I do, because apparently that company led the meeting negotiations for industry on what turned into the final product.

Perhaps one could dream up scenarios where a company engages in persistent, continuous surveillance of people without their consent, in a way that nobody would find objectionable. I’m not sure what that scenario would look like, but that certainly wouldn’t be a best practice, and the inclusion of such language is far more likely to be abused than to cover such a remote eventuality.

Other areas where we thought the documents language was too weak were around issues such as consent, the collection of data where people have a reasonable expectation of privacy, the sharing of data with third parties, and data retention. We spell out these and other problems in our letter. As it now stands, the document shows more promise as a corporate consciousness-raising document than an assurance that any complying company isn’t doing anything objectionable.

Any company that is operating drones should certainly comply with the practices laid out in this document. But doing so represents the very bare minimum of what companies should do on privacy, not best practices. The NTIA should reject this document, and discussions in the multi-stakeholder process should continue until adequate privacy protections can be included.

June 15, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Arms Control and Non-Proliferation: Looming Crisis Slipping Through the Cracks of Public Attention

By Andrei AKULOV | Strategic Culture Foundation | 15.06.2016

The missile defense capable USS Porter is in the Black Sea to trigger discussions on the state of European and global security. This month experts mark the 28th anniversary of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) that came into force on June 1, 1988. Those were the days of great hopes and expectations.

Today Ukraine’s drama, the EU’s migrants’ crisis, China’s economic slowdown and the fight against the Islamic State group hit headlines while another crisis is looming in the background – the unraveling of nuclear arms control and the related problem of non-proliferation. The prospect of losing the legal regime for managing the instruments of devastation is very much real.

It is true that the two key treaties – the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) and the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty – are still in force. However, their future is not assured. The 2010 New START (also known as the Prague Treaty) was an important achievement in preventing the collapse of arms control. But it expires in 2020 without any prospects for a new agreement coming into force. There are no signs that the parties are planning to launch talks on the subject. The future of the INF is also in doubt. The Treaty is threatened by ballistic missile defense (BMD) deployment. Aegis Ashore uses the naval Mk-41 launching system, which is capable of firing long-range cruise missile. This is a blatant violation of the INF Treaty provisions.

The countries which host BMD sites inevitably become targets for Russia’s Iskander surface-to-surface missiles and aviation.

Actually, the United States launched the arms control erosion by withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to no longer accept any restrictions on its missile defense deployments. Washington still has not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) 20 years after it was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1996.

Russia refuses any limitations on its sub-strategic nuclear arms while the US enjoys advantage in conventional long-range precision guided weapons, and NATO is implementing the program of stationing missile defense Aegis sites in Romania and Poland – in the vicinity of Russia’s borders. European security is weakened by the Russia-NATO stand-off. Nowadays, the plans to establish nuclear-weapons-free zones in Europe are, to large extent, forgotten. Measures that might include steps to prevent nuclear weapons being stationed outside the borders of the nuclear-weapon states are not on the Russia-NATO Council’s agenda. There is no accord between Russian and NATO on nuclear incidents prevention. Currently around 200 B61 bombs are deployed in underground vaults inside around 90 protective aircraft shelters at six bases in five NATO countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey). About half of the munitions are earmarked for delivery by national aircraft of these non-nuclear states, although they all are parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) of 1968 that envisions certain obligations.

Article I of the treaty prohibits the transfer of nuclear weapons from nuclear-weapons states to other countries. Its Article II requires non-nuclear weapons states not to receive nuclear weapons. The US and NATO breach a major international treaty.

Russia considers US forward-based tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe to be an addition to the US strategic arsenal that is capable of striking deep into Russian national territory. Moscow has, therefore, demanded that the United States withdraw these weapons (which amount to about 200 air-dropped gravity bombs in the process of being upgraded) from Europe as a precondition to any possible talks on the issue. The process is stalled.

In addition, developments in non-nuclear BMD systems and long-range, precision-guided offensive weapons, as well as their proliferation, have complicated nuclear arms control.

The United States is in violation of the 2000 Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA). Russia and the US agreed to transparently dispose of weapons-grade plutonium, thereby preventing it from being reused for military purposes. The agreement specifies that the United States will dispose of its plutonium by burning it in light water reactors (Article III.2).

In 2016 the US Energy Department changed the plans in favor of “a cheaper, faster alternative”.

Changing the disposition method requires formally amending the agreement, which cannot be done without Russia’s consent.

Despite that, the US administration’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget proposal calls for the termination of the MOX (mixed oxide) project.

The violation was one of the reasons the Russian President skipped the Nuclear Security Summit held in Washington, DC on March 31-April 1, 2016.

The seven nuclear-armed states besides Russia and the United States have refused to join the discussions on any limitations till Russia and the US get closer to their numerical levels. In fact, it implies another substantial reduction on top of cuts already undertaken by the “Big Two”. Global and regional powers with quite different points of view, ambitions, and political and military experiences from Russia and the United States are now important international players. Nuclear-arms limitations are no longer in the foreground of international security giving place to local conflicts, the fight against terrorism, and nuclear proliferation – the issue greatly exacerbated by the recent North Korean activities.

Nuclear nonproliferation is also in trouble. Nothing has been done in real terms. For instance, a conference on the establishment of weapons of mass destruction–free zone in the Middle East (agreed on at the 2010 Nuclear Summit) has never materialized. 2016 Washington Nuclear Summit ended without producing any tangible results with Russia skipping the event. Negotiations with North Korea have been in limbo for many years and there is no prospect for their revival. This is confirmed by the recent events.

The talks on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty have been deadlocked for many years with the US-Russian cooperation on the safety and security of nuclear sites and materials ended in 2014.

The 2015 Iran deal is the only silver lining, but it still has a long way to go to become a long-term, comprehensive process. All other negotiations on nuclear arms reduction and nonproliferation have come to a dead end. Russia and the United States still retain their leading roles in the nonproliferation regime, but they can use this advantage effectively only joining together. The history of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program provides a telling example.

Today the world is facing the most serious and comprehensive crisis in the fifty-year history of nuclear arms control with almost every channel of negotiation deadlocked and the entire system of existing arms control agreements in jeopardy. One can see the US taking one decision after another to undermine the arms control regime that has served as a pillar of international security for dozens of years. This crisis may quite possibly result in the total disintegration of the existing framework of treaties and regimes followed by probable resumption of the arms race with dire consequences for humanity. Further proliferation of nuclear weapons may lead to the deliberate or accidental use of nuclear weapons in local wars. Only political unity among the major global powers and alliances, coupled with urgent and effective action, can reverse this trend.

Inventiveness and an aggressive search for new approaches can adapt nuclear arms control to the new realities, including disentangling further strategic arms reductions from the present knot of problems, binding agreements on the capabilities of BMD systems, limitations on existing and emerging long-range, precision-guided conventional offensive weapons and reductions in substrategic nuclear arms. Cooperative relations among key global and regional powers and alliances could be adapted to the emerging new post–Cold War world order molded through patient negotiations launched upon a joint Russia-US initiative. Nuclear arms control – the central pillar of the process – should be restored and modernized.

Hopefully, the next President of the United States will realize that the problems can be resolved if the leaders of the great powers are willing to work them out, and if experts approach them creatively.

June 15, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

America’s Fatal Fallacy

By Jakob Reimann | teleSUR | June 14, 2016

Obama praises the execution of Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour as an “important milestone” to peace, but his successor promises to become far more brutal.

“The terrorists are fighting freedom with all their cunning and cruelty
because freedom is their greatest fear – and they should be afraid,
because freedom is on the march.” – George W. Bush

Endless hopes were pinned on Barack Obama when he entered the Oval Office in 2009. Hardly anyone back then had seriously considered it possible that Obama would trump the belligerence even of George W. Bush, who was seemingly hated by the world over (and by whom the opening quotation was uttered) and would bomb nearly twice as many Muslim countries as his unspeakable predecessor.

Killing for Peace and Prosperity

On May 23, President Obama announced the killing of Taliban leader Akhtar Mansour through a drone strike in the Afghan-Pakistani border region. “Today marks an important milestone in our longstanding effort to bring peace and prosperity to Afghanistan,” Obama said bizarrely praising the extrajudicial execution of Mansour.

“This is a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said condemning Obama’s “important milestone” in the strongest terms. The attack took place on Pakistani soil, and Islamabad was neither involved in the planning nor informed about it in advance—which is why the U.S. drone attack, in fact, must be considered illegal.

In an Orwellian manner, Obama further mocked the Afghan people: “After so many years of conflict, today gives the people of Afghanistan and the region a chance at a different, better future.” As if out of the blue the Taliban would lay down their arms now.

Although Mansour’s execution was the first time in history that a head of the Taliban could be taken out, its positive impacts must be heavily contested. Even a U.S. official told Voice of America that “there will be little battlefield impact” as a result of Mansour’s death.

‘Fasten Your Seat Belts, We Will Take Our Revenge!’

Just two days after Obama’s “milestone” statement, the Taliban announced their new leader: the cleric Haibatullah Akhundzada, who belongs to the old guard with his two decades of service and represents the utmost extremist wing of the Taliban (although such a distinction may sound grotesque to Western ears).

While his murdered predecessor Mansour has been described as “reclusive,” “softly-spoken,” “smart and composed,” a “man of quiet words” and as a “strong proponent of peace talks,” the rather unknown Akhundzada is deemed “extremely hardline,” a former Taliban official reports—”even by their standards.”

Akhundzada is a disciple of the radically puristic Islamic school of Wahhabism, which the Royal House of Saud and the Islamic State also adhere to. “That is where the danger is,” the former Taliban official continues, “that he can take the movement closer to the ideology of Islamic State militant group.”

Akhundzada was Chief Justice of the Shariah Courts during the Taliban rule between 1995-2001, issuing countless fatāwā, he gave his blessings to almost as many atrocities. Likewise, he is deemed the secret mastermind of the blowing up of the 1,500 year-old Buddha statues by the Taliban in 2001, which were condemned as “idolatrous images.” Thus, Akhundzada is certainly an extreme radical who will most likely dwarf his predecessor in terms of brutality.

For a demonstration of power and Akhundzada’s own profiling, analysts expect a massive wave of violence in his initial period of leadership. Likewise, an anonymous Taliban source told Al-Jazeera that under the new leader the terrorist group has pledged to take bloody revenge for Mansour’s killing. The foreign forces and Afghan government “should now fasten their seat belts as the attacks will continue (and) we come out stronger than before.”

The appointment of their new boss, in fact, was accompanied by an attack in Kabul, for which the Taliban immediately claimed responsibility. A suicide bomber blew a bus with court employees to pieces and claimed the lives of ten people.

Without the senseless—and first and foremost illegal—drone murder of Mansour, a comparatively halfway-moderate and not an ultra-radical “Stone Age mullah” would still be at the head of the Taliban today, and 10 court employees and random civilians in Kabul would still be alive.

Given the outlined developments only of the three days following Mansour’s execution, Obama’s ramblings of an “important milestone” are nothing but pure mockery and a slap in the face to the Afghan population, which he had promised “a different, better future” only a few days earlier.

A Dead Leader at the Head

The original Taliban leader—and close ally of the recently killed Mansour—Mullah Mohammed Omar was on the U.S.’s Most Wanted list for 15 long years. In 2013, he finally died—whether he was killed by a U.S. drone strike or passed away due to tuberculosis has not yet been determined with certainty.

The remarkable trait with regard to Mullah Omar’s case, however, is that it took two full years before his death came to light. Not only were the U.S. intelligence community and the world public at large kept in the dark until 2015, with the exception of a handful of individual leaders, but not even any single fighter among the Taliban foot soldiers had any ideas about the death of their longtime chief.

Despite a dead leader at their head, the renowned Brookings Institution noted that “the 2015 fighting season between the Taliban and Afghan security forces is turning out to be the bloodiest on record since 2001.”

Apparently, the only real consequence of decades-long leader Mullah Omar’s death is that the U.S. government can strike off his name from its Most Wanted list and luckily save the US$10 million of bounty on Omar’s head.

If Mullah Omar—the legendary one-eyed founder of the Taliban, the ruler of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the “Commander of the Faithful“—can be dead for two whole years unnoticed by the international community and even by his fellow brethren, it is quite a strong clue for the second possible scenario that can occur when a terrorist leader is executed: it makes, quite simply, no practical odds whether a terrorist leader is dead or alive.

A Naïve Wishful Thinking

Something similar applies to the former public enemy No. 1. The supposed death of Osama bin Laden in 2011 (who was, by the way, never officially accused of the September 11 attacks by the U.S. government, due to the absence of evidence) is shrouded in countless myths.

Only a few hours after the assassination of bin Laden by Navy SEALs special forces in north Pakistani Abbottabad—which was no less shrouded in myths—in social sciences the debate on the question commenced regarding whether the death of the terrorist godfather bin Laden will have any appreciable impact on the al-Qaida network at all. Massive doubts about the U.S. government’s quasi-religious dogma of ‘leadership decapitation weakens the whole group’ dominated the debate from its outset.

Bin Laden’s death “won’t cause those who espouse extremism to suddenly change their minds,” even a high US Colonel concedes the strategical nonsense of this kind of operations on the day of the execution. “Those who were committed to violence yesterday remain committed to violence today,” Col. Maraia concludes.

The much hoped-for weakening of global terrorism by bin Laden’s death remained only little more than a naïve, wishful thinking. The subsequent massive strengthening of regional al-Qaida offshoots – Jabhat al-Nusrah in Syria, Al-Shabaab in Somalia and especially AQAP in Yemen – decentralized and decreased the power of Al-Qaida headquarters in the heartland of Afghanistan-Pakistan, however, this represented by no means an overall weakening of the network. It was rather a fatal terrorist export to the entire Middle East.

The Execution of Terrorist Leaders: ‘Highly Counterproductive’

The question remains whether the senselessness of executing terrorist leaders—as previously outlined with three cases—is merely an accumulation of individual examples, or whether they might yet follow a general pattern?

The endless list of executed leaders of Al-Qaida, Taliban & Co.—whose executions certainly every time were a “milestone”—however, casts doubt on whether the strategy of the U.S. government proved to be successful and if global terrorism declined as a consequence of “leadership decapitation”.

In addition to a variety of indicators—that all know only one direction—it is mainly the bare number of people killed by terrorism that mercilessly crushes this assumption: between 2002 and 2014, the annual number rose by an unspeakable 4500 percent. Thus, in the glorious years of the “War on Terror” a 45-fold increase of terror fatalities occurred, despite killing countless terrorist leaders one after another.

In a remarkable study of the University of Chicago from 2009, the PhD student Jenna Jordon explored the same issues. Jordan studied 298 cases since 1945, and examined the impact on the structure and the overall future of terrorist organizations after their leaders were executed.

Jordan’s research suggests that small and young terrorist groups, indeed, seem to be negatively affected by and are more likely to collapse after the liquidation of their leaders. But for decades-old groups counting thousands of members such as the Taliban the exact opposite case is true. Extrajudicial executions as the recent one of Mansour are “highly counterproductive,” Jordan concludes.

As an explanation the by now graduated scientist states that “going after the leader may strengthen a group’s resolve, result in retaliatory attacks, increase public sympathy for the organization, or produce more lethal attacks.” In other words: the execution of their leaders strengthens the terrorist group at all different levels.

Jordan closes in an unambiguously clear manner: “Overall, this study shows that we need to rethink current counterterrorism policies.”

In Foreign Policy, the renowned law professor Rosa Brooks addresses the question of why the U.S. government adheres so relentlessly to the policy of executing terrorist leaders that is so obviously doomed to failure. She’s seeking answers in the anthropological school of thought.

Since the dawn of human societies, their members performed certain rituals—so-called apotropaic magic—by which the gods should be appeased and misfortune averted: ritual offerings, the noise magic of New Year’s Eve, the use of holy water during baptism, exorcisms, rain dances, grotesque faces carved into pumpkins at Halloween.

Due to lack of rational explanations Brooks is now putting the U.S. policy of “terrorist leadership decapitation” in this very line of ritual pacification of the societal psyche:

“We modern Americans don’t believe in demons, rain dances, or the efficacy of sacrificing children or goats. We’ve developed our very own 21st-century magic rituals—and we call them ‘counterterrorism programs.’”

America’s Fatal Fallacy

When the head of Yemen’s al-Qaida offshoot al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP, was killed by a U.S. drone in summer 2015, Obama’s spokesman praised the murder with the words, Wuhayshi’s death “brings us closer to degrading and ultimately defeating these groups.”

The question arises whether the Obama administration actually believes this baloney when even a first-class hawk like Juan Zarate—top counterterrorism advisor to former President George W. Bush—concedes that the murder of AQAP chief Wuhayshi has “little relevance”, and on the contrary, would rather strengthen the terrorist groups in Yemen.

The “War on Terror” is an endless fatal fallacy, a logical circularity. It feeds on itself.

Due to its medial omnipresence, we probably might be no longer aware of the fact that the term “War on Terror” itself is an oxymoron: violence ludicrously should be erased by more violence.

The way is the goal, and the actual goal of defeating the terror, however, has become so abstract. It continues to play a fundamentally important role for the moral legitimacy of the whole adventure, but a practical relevance has long been gone.

The United States as the self-proclaimed terrorist hunter No. 1 went astray a long time ago, far away from any reason.

The question may appear extremely naïve, but: Why does the U.S. carry on and on, and kill one alleged terrorist leader after another, although this approach evidentially is either not effective at all, or has time and again extremely adverse, bloody effects?

June 15, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Law Enforcement Misrepresentation of Orlando Killer’s 911 Call Ignores U.S. Foreign Policy Motivation

By Matt Peppe | Just the Facts | June 14, 2016

In the aftermath of the horrific mass murder at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando over the weekend in which 50 people were killed, media including CNN, USA Today, NPR, NBC News, and CBS News, all reported that the gunman called 911 during his murderous rampage and pledged allegiance to ISIS. None of the journalists writing for any of these news outlets heard the call themselves; they all cite the FBI as their source.

The U.S. government has been engaged in a war against the self-professed Islamic State for the last two years. Their military intervention consists of a bombing campaign against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria. Hyping the threat members connected to the terror group – or spiritually loyal to it – pose to American citizens is supportive of U.S. foreign policy. If ISIS, or people claiming to act on behalf of ISIS, are a real danger to Americans, it bolsters the notion that the group is a threat to national security and helps justify the government’s military response.

The FBI seems eager to show itself as disrupting ISIS plots in the States. As Adam Johnson has written in FAIR, the FBI has put Americans in contact with informants who claim to represent ISIS and then led the targets to believe they would help the targets join the terrorist organization. The media have then conflated this with an “ISIS Plot” and “ISIS Support,” when no members of ISIS were ever involved in any way.

The FBI’s motivation to portray events in a way that supports U.S. foreign policy, and its history of portraying its actions in a way that has served to hype an ISIS threat should make journalists cautious about taking officials’ words at face value. Especially in the case of a 911 call, which is a public record in Florida, proper journalistic due diligence would be to consult the actual source of the claims being disseminated.

Instead, not a single journalist appears to have done this with Orlando killer Omar Mateen’s 911 call.

On Tuesday, CNN aired interviews of eyewitnesses to the shooting spree who described their harrowing encounters with the gunman inside the club. Patience Carter, who was inside a bathroom stall feet from the gunman when he called 911, said he told the dispatcher that “the reason why he was doing this is because he wants America to stop bombing his country.” (Mateen is a native of the United States, but he was presumably referring to Afghanistan, where both of his parents are from.) She said he then declared that “from now on he pledges his loyalty to ISIS.”

This demonstrates that his primary motive for his terror attack was retaliation for the U.S. aggression in Afghanistan, where nearly 100,000 people have been killed since the illegal U.S. invasion in 2001. His mention of ISIS seems merely adjunct to what he admits was his justification for the attack. His motivation precedes his ideological alignment with ISIS, not the other way around.

Anti-war activists have long argued that overseas military operations endanger not only the populations whose countries are invaded, occupied and bombed, but Americans in the United States who are at risk of terrorist retaliation from people outraged by the death and destruction war inevitably produces to the point of being willing to resort to violence themselves.

Carter’s version of the 911 call reveals a very different picture than the partial one revealed by the FBI and reprinted by each of the largest news organizations. The complete conversation depicts Mateen as indicating that he considered his actions a response to U.S. foreign policy. Of course, the murder of innocent civilians is always reprehensible and can never be justified by claiming they are a response to a state’s military aggression, regardless of how deadly and devastating such military operations are. But it should be predictable that some people will use this rationalization regardless and seek out soft targets in the country whose government they claim to be retaliating against.

The FBI chose to omit Mateen’s professed motive entirely when recounting the 911 call to the media, and merely state that he professed allegiance to ISIS. Perhaps they recognized how putting Mateen’s call in context may lead people to question whether U.S. wars in Afghanistan (and Iraq) raise the terrorist threat at home.

After all, this is not the first time this has happened. The surviving Boston Marathon bomber cited the U.S. wars abroad as his motivation for committing the attack that killed three people and maimed dozens more.

It is not clear whether any journalist even asked to hear the 911 call themselves. But it is clear that they chose to disseminate second-hand information when the primary source should have been easily accessible. If it was not made available (as required by law), the public deserves to know that it was suppressed and be given an explanation why.

Media stenographers parroted government officials’ descriptions of the call, which left out the killer’s professed motivation for his politically motivated attack and failed to put the ISIS claim in any context. Unsurprisingly, their misrepresentation served the government’s policy agenda and avoided having the incident serve as an example of a negative consequence of U.S. foreign policy – one that anti-war dissenters have used in arguing against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq since the War on Terror was launched more than a decade and a half ago.

June 15, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Alison Weir: Israel has long been a major threat to peace

Interview with Alison Weir by Mohsen Abdelmoumen

American Herald Tribune | June 15,  2016

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: Can we say that the United States is a sovereign State when we see the historical weight of the Zionist lobby on its policy decision?

Alison Weir: Adherents of political Zionism have influenced U.S. policies for decades and have often played a central role in elections. Despite this, Americans will be able to forge independent policies when enough people become aware of the facts and demand different policies.

You cite the staggering US aid to Israel, either $ 10 million per day or 7,000 times more per capita than other countries. What justifies such help to Israel from the United States?

I personally don’t feel it is rational or justified. It is the result of political lobbying by well-funded organizations and obfuscation by the American media. Most Americans have no idea that our government gives such an enormous amount of money to Israel. For this reason, our organization is placing billboards around the U.S. informing people of this fact.

You are threatened with death, you undergo pressures, because of your commitment to the Palestinian cause. Where are the Western values such as “democracy” and “freedom of speech” in all this?

Zionists have little attachment to principles such as democracy or freedom of speech. However, I believe that the majority of Americans believe in these and are disturbed when they are violated. Again, however, most are unaware of how deeply these principles are being damaged by Israel partisans.

As an intellectual committed to the Palestinian cause, how can you explain that when people like you are disparaged, defamed and threatened, some leaders of the Arab-Muslim world collaborate actively with Israel, including some Palestinians themselves? Is not the Palestinian cause the cause of all the humanity?

A group in Malaysia has a wonderful name: “the Movement for a Just World.” I feel that the Palestinian cause is part of that. All people should work for justice for all people, without exceptions.

You were supported in 2015 by 2000 activists and world-famous personalities, among them the Professor Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied, Hedy Epstein, Ann Wright, Arun Gandhi, Ray McGovern, Cindy Sheehan, and James Abourezk former Senator and founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Can you tell us about this open letter they signed?

Some individuals who say they are “pro-Palestinian” seem to wish to control the discourse on this issue and keep aspects of it, such as the power of the Israel lobby, hidden. A group called “Jewish voice for peace” that was formed about the same time that I began “If Americans Knew” has always contained Zionists among its members and, while its stances have evolved as more people have become involved in the Palestine solidarity movement, it has a history of taking weak stands on some fundamental aspects of this issue and failing to support full justice for Palestinians; it refuses to consider Zionism racist. This group has become quite powerful and currently has a budget of over $2 million. While the organization has done much valuable work and worked to build relationships with many groups and individuals, it has also used its power to try to control the movement and marginalize committed activists who support full justice for Palestinians. When JVP’s actions against me became public, many people opposed them and called for such attacks to end. Some created an Open Letter supporting me and opposing the divisive attacks, and over 2,000 people signed it, including many members of JVP. It appears that the majority of activists support me and If Americans Knew. Some, however, taken in by JVP’s accusations, or who themselves wish to dominate the movement, support what JVP is doing.

Why do the Zionist lobbies persecute Mrs. Alison Weir? Are they afraid of a Righteous bringer of light?

I think that Zionists of all stripes fear exposure of the full facts on this issue. While open Zionists, soft Zionists (people who only oppose the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank but support Israel’s core, discriminatory identity), and many people who say they are no longer Zionists but who still seem to have an emotional attachment to Israel have long opposed If Americans Knew, my book seems to have particularly triggered escalated attacks on me. This book, which is thoroughly cited, exposes the fact that Zionists have worked to manipulate the U.S. since the late 1800s and contains facts that Israel partisans clearly wish to keep hidden. Fortunately, despite their attempts to bury the book and to prevent my speaking engagements, the book is enjoying considerable popularity and we have now sold over 25,000 copies. It is now listed on Amazon as a bestseller in several categories. I expect its success will lead to even more attacks on me of all sorts ; some of the most insidious, sadly, will quite likely continue to be from those who claim to be part of the Palestine solidarity movement.

How is it that we saw Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to terrorist Al Nusra treated in Israeli field hospitals? Do Daesh and Al-Qaeda come from the same terrorist matrix as the State of Israel?

From its earliest beginnings, the Israeli strategy has been one of “divide and conquer.” Israeli leaders feel that any and all actions that cause strife within and among its neighbors benefits Israel, and Israel has often played a role in creating and/or nurturing such strife. This tactic has been discussed in a number of Israeli strategy papers.

You lived with Palestinians in the occupied territories, what is your testimony about their daily life under Israeli occupation?

In some areas they are shelled and invaded frequently, people killed and injured routinely. Even in the areas that are usually free of this outright violence, Palestinians are living in prisons in which Israel controls their lives and prevents their ability to protect their children – Israel decides where and whether they can travel and takes any action against Palestinians it wishes, strip searching women and children; abducting men, women, and children at will; imprisoning them without trial; perpetrating physical and psychological torture against them with impunity; preventing them from free contact with the rest of the world.

Does not Israel constitute a threat for peace in the world notably with its nuclear power?

Israel has long been a major threat to peace. It has caused numerous wars and encouraged still more. Its possession of nuclear weapons threatens the region and beyond and its actions could trigger a global conflagration.

More and more voices in the world are protesting against Israeli domination, as we saw it during the last open-air massacre in Gaza. How do you explain this change in favor of the Palestinian cause?

With the Internet, more and more people are learning the facts. People are increasingly seeing Israeli violence that used to be hidden from the world.

How do you explain that the Zionist state of Israel is called the Jewish state by referring to the Hebrew religion; and why are those who are against the Israeli criminal policy or the Zionist lobbies qualified anti-Semitic?

Israel does not define “Jewish” as a religious designation, it defines it as an ethnic identity. Israel claims that anyone who exposes or opposes its human rights violations is “anti-Semitic” as a tactic to prevent such opposition and to marginalize those whose facts they wish to hide. As a former Israeli Knesset member said a while ago, “It’s a trick; we always use it.”

Is not the Christian fundamentalism the real creator of the Zionist State of Israel, as it is found in some ancient texts either in Britain or the United States?

No, this isn’t what led to the creation of Israel. While there are some passages within Hebrew and Christian texts that some individuals have long interpreted as meaning that all Jews are meant to go to Israel (these interpretations are contested by most respected theologians, including fundamentalist theologians), such groups never brought this about. It was the political Zionist movement largely begun by Theodor Herzl in the late 1800s that Israel and others accurately consider the movement that founded Israel. This movement worked to propagandize every sector of the United States, including both Christians and Jews. There is quite a bit of information about this in my book. Today, while many Christian fundamentalists support Israel because of the manipulation that occurred and still occurs in the U.S., more and more of these individuals are changing their views when they learn the facts. There are now many Christian fundamentalists (and Jews) who are working fervently for justice for Palestinians.

You founded If America Knew and you are President of the Council for the National Interest, can you explain to us what is the role of these two organizations?

I founded If Americans Knew to give Americans the full facts on Palestine and on the role of the United States in this conflict. Most Americans have no idea that the U.S. government gives massive amounts of money to Israel and shields it from deserved international condemnation. Similarly, most Americans have no idea of the history of this issue, and of the ongoing oppression of Palestinians. Finally, most Americans have no idea of the size, history, and significance of the Zionist lobby in the U.S. and the degree to which it influences policies that are immoral, irrational, and that cause great harm to people throughout the world, including Americans.

The Council for the National Interest was founded in 1989 to counter the Israel lobby. Its goal was to work for policies that would be in the interests of all Americans, an extremely diverse population, rather than for one tiny interest group. Its two main founders, former Congressmen Paul Findley and Pete McCloskey were both pushed out of office by Israel partisans when these men began to advocate for justice for Palestinians. Both are deeply principled individuals who had also opposed the Vietnam War and racism.

What can a world scale activist as you are say to all resistants worldwide against Zionism and the fascist State of Israel?

I’m very surprised, but honored, to see you refer to me as a “world scale activist.” I’m just one of a multitude of people who are joining together to work for justice for Palestinians and to oppose violence, racism, and oppression. I have no doubt that we will eventually succeed. The main point is to continue our work, to refuse to be divided from one another, and not to give up. We are an extremely diverse movement and I believe that is part of our strength, along with the worthiness of our cause and the nobility and courage of those who came before us. We are of all different faiths and backgrounds, of all ages and races, and we won’t be stopped.

Who is Alison Weir?

Alison Weir is an American writer and an activist for the Palestinian cause. She is the founder and director of the non-profit organization If Americans Knew and president of the Council for the National Interest. In 2001, Alison Weir left her job as editor of a weekly newspaper and traveled alone to the Palestinian territories during the Second Intifada. She visited the West Bank and Gaza and witnessed the scenes of violence, seeing the truth of the conflict on the ground, and from where she wrote about her encounters with Palestinian suffering and with the “incredible arrogance, cruelty, selfishness” of Israelis. She was amazed by what she learned: That the truth of the conflict, on the ground, bore almost no resemblance to the stories told in US media. She returned to the US determined to change that. She began to speak and write on the topic and founded If Americans Knew, a nonprofit dedicated to accurately informing Americans. More recently, she also accepted a position as president of the Council for the National Interest.

Alison Weir was a civil rights activist and Peace Corps volunteer. Alison Weir has spoken all over the United States, including two briefings on Capitol Hill, presentations at the National Press Club in Washington DC (broadcast nationally on C-Span), Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine (one also broadcast on C-Span), at World Affairs Councils, and at numerous universities including Harvard Law School, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, Yale, Georgetown, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Vassar, the Naval Postgraduate Institute, Purdue, Northwestern, and the University of Virginia.She has given papers at various international conferences, lectured in Ramallah and at the University of Qatar, presented at the Asia Media Summits in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, and given speaking tours in England, Wales, Iran and Qatar.

Alison Weir has also written widely on Israel-Palestine, the US connection, and media coverage. Her first book, Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel, was published in February 2014 and has received high praise. Her essays and articles have appeared in a number of books and magazines, among them The New Intifada (Verso), Censored 2005 (Seven Stories Press), Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Rienner), The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, San Francisco Bay View newspaper, CounterPunch, and The Link.

Alison Weir has received various awards and in 2004 was inducted into honorary membership of Phi Alpha Literary Society, founded in 1845 at Illinois College. The award cited her as a “Courageous journalist-lecturer on behalf of human rights, the first woman to receive an honorary membership in Phi Alpha history.”

June 15, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | 2 Comments

An Armenian American Group Caves in to the Anti-Defamation League

By David Boyajian | Dissident Voice | June 14, 2016

For several decades the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other leading Jewish American organizations (AIPAC, AJC, B’nai B’rith, and JINSA) have deliberately colluded with Turkey and Israel to defeat U.S. Congressional resolutions on the Christian Armenian Genocide and to diminish the factuality of that genocide.

Yola Habif Johnston, a director at JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs), once admitted that “the Jewish lobby has quite actively supported Turkey in their efforts to prevent the so-called Armenian genocide resolution from passing.”

The hypocrisy is breathtaking given these organizations’ loud, endless demands for recognition of, and legislation on, the Jewish Holocaust.

455px-Lucine-kasbarian-no-place-for-hate-adlStarting in 2007, Armenian Americans in Massachusetts and elsewhere made international news by exposing the national ADL’s hypocrisy.  In disgust, 13 Massachusetts cities and the umbrella Massachusetts Municipal Association kicked out the ADL’s alleged anti-bias program, “No Place for Hate.” Human rights advocates and many honest Jews supported those efforts.  The Turkish government raged that its collaboration with Israel, the ADL, and other Holocaust hypocrites had been blown wide-open.

But in mid-May, a small group of Armenian Americans in Massachusetts — including the politically ambitious Sheriff of Middlesex County Peter Koutoujian and a few members of the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA) and the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) — struck a horrible “deal” with the two-faced ADL.

For his part of the “deal,” ADL National Director Jonathan Greenblatt casually “blogged” that his organization now “unequivocally” acknowledges the Armenian Genocide and “would support” (not “do support”) American recognition of that genocide.

Even Andrew Tarsy, former Director of the New England ADL, termed the pact “inadequate“. The ADL “ought to lead the conversation about reparations for these [Armenian] families … assets, land … everything that Holocaust reparations … has represented should be on the table.”

Of the many things wrong with this “deal,” let’s list a few.

The Horrible “Deal”

  • The “deal” was concocted behind the backs of the Armenian American community and the hundreds of activists — Armenian and non-Armenian — who started the campaign in 2007 and have battled the ADL since. Why haven’t the verbal or written details of the negotiations and “deal” been made public? Why the lack of transparency?
  • Greenblatt (former Starbucks VP and Special Assistant to Pres. Obama) isn’t the ADL’s highest official and may not have the authority to set policy. Have the ADL’s National Commission and National Executive Committee (its “highest policymaking bodies”) formally approved of Greenblatt’s “blog” post? We don’t know.
  • The ADL has long played word games with the Armenian Genocide. In 2007, for example, it disingenuously dubbed it “tantamount to genocide” but not genocide. Greenblatt’s conditional claim that “we would support U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide” is similarly suspect. Why not just “we support”?
  • The Armenian American activist website “NoPlaceForDenial.com” demands that the ADL “support U.S. affirmation of the Armenian Genocide, as it does with the Holocaust.” I authored those last six words years ago.  They mean that as partial atonement the ADL must work as hard for acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide as it has for the Holocaust.  Nothing in Greenblatt’s statement remotely suggests that the ADL would do that.
  • For three decades or more, the ADL has attacked Armenian Americans and worked with Turkey and Israel to defeat U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Yet the ADL has never apologized for its atrocious conduct.  Ironically, the only ADL apology came in 2007 when National Director Abe Foxman apologized to Turkey because publicity surrounding the Armenian issue had embarrassed that country.  The failure to obtain an apology from the ADL is scandalous.
  • Americans deserve to know the details of the ADL’s longtime Genocide-denial pact with Turkey and Israel. Where are the documents, and why was their release not part of the “deal”?

The Berman Affair

Armenian Americans won a major victory in 2014 when Attorney Joseph Berman, an ADL National Commissioner, lost his bid to become a Massachusetts Superior Court judge. Governor Deval Patrick had nominated him in 2013. I testified against Berman.

Following a widely publicized fight, the eight elected Governor’s Councilors refused to confirm Berman. His leadership position in the hypocritical ADL was one reason why Councilors opposed him.

While I was in close touch with several Councilors, an incident occurred that has never before been made public.

A Councilor who opposed Berman told me of receiving several calls asking that the Councilor vote for Berman. One such caller was Sheriff Peter Koutoujian, an Armenian American prominent in the recent ADL “deal.” I remain deeply troubled by that call.  Why would Koutoujian do such a thing?  I think I know, but only Koutoujian can answer that question. He did not return my recent call asking about his past activities in the campaign against the ADL.

The final Council vote on Berman was 4 to 4.  Had the Councilor voted as Koutoujian asked, the ADL’s candidate and the ADL would have triumphed, and Armenian activists would have been defeated.

That and other significant incidents raise questions as to whether the recent ADL “deal” was negotiated in the tough, adversarial way required to defend Armenian interests.

Failing to Confront

When a few activists and I launched the battle against the ADL in July 2007 and events were moving quickly, AAA and ANCA initially delayed even issuing a statement. Perhaps they were concerned about retaliation or being called anti-Jewish.

The following year, moreover, several activists and I became convinced that these organizations were not fully committed to the ADL fight.  At one point, we were told that at least one of the organizations would no longer try to convince cities to sever ties with the ADL.

In 2015, even the NoPlaceForDenial.com website, an essential news resource maintained by ANCA persons, disappeared. It reappeared after I persisted in complaining about its removal.

Indeed, the ADL came under renewed pressure months ago only because I informed ANCA and a pro-AAA person that Newton, MA had, perhaps unintentionally, invited in the ADL after having booted it out in 2007.

Sheriff Koutoujian himself has long been very close to various Jewish organizations. He once received an award from the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston. He has taken two trips to Israel.  The second one, last year, concerned “counter-terrorism.” It was organized by the ADL and funded by Israel’s Gal Foundation, which sponsors ADL programs. Of the 14 Massachusetts law enforcement personnel on the trip, Koutoujian was the only sheriff. Koutoujian later co-narrated a slideshow of the trip at a synagogue in Burlington, MA. Koutoujian has also spoken at other Jewish venues.

He recently wrote this on his Facebook page: “Thank you to the ADL and the Boston Globe for recognizing this terrible moment [Armenian Genocide] for what it is.” So after three decades of the ADL’s conspiring with Turkey to abuse Armenians, defeat Armenian Genocide resolutions, and damage the cause of genocide prevention, the ADL is thanked and all is forgiven, while hundreds of Armenian American activists get no thanks whatsoever? Incredible.

It’s well-known that Americans often interact with powerful Jewish American political organizations in two related ways. First, a person may hesitate to publicly disagree with such organizations due to concern about retaliation and being labeled anti-Jewish. On the other hand, being friendly and deferential to these organizations may advance one’s career in politics, academia, business, and other endeavors.

This question must be asked: Could these two types of interactions have adversely affected the post-2007 Armenian American campaign against, and the recent “deal” with, the ADL?

The Anti-Human Rights ADL

The ADL has an appalling anti-Armenian record.  Despite this, recent stories about the “deal” in the Boston Globe and an Armenian American newspaper depicted the ADL as now somehow virtuous. Neither told readers about the ADL’s three decades of hypocrisy and collusion with Turkey.

The ADL claims to be “the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency [which] protects civil rights for all.” What nonsense! If that were so, it would never have been in the business of covering up genocide. Nor can acknowledging the Armenian Genocide magically now make the ADL a human rights organization. Indeed, the Armenian issue is just one of many that have unmasked the ADL.

The ADL, therefore, is not about civil or human rights.  It’s just a Jewish political organization. For instance, it lobbied for an oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey. Human rights organizations don’t do that sort of thing.

What about nice-sounding ADL programs such as “No Place for Hate,” “World of Difference,” and “Combatting Bullying”?  They’re covers.  The ADL uses them to penetrate schools, colleges, corporations, and communities to enhance its visibility and political influence.

So that’s the organization that some Armenian Americans just made a “deal” with – a deal that was fatally flawed from the day it was conceived. True human rights advocates and perceptive Armenians reject it.

June 15, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment