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.
Obama, Congress push min wage cut in bailout of US ‘colony’ Puerto Rico
© 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.
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.”
He 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.
Sweden abolishes nuclear tax
World Nuclear News – June 10, 2016
The Swedish parliament has today agreed to abolish a tax on nuclear power as it recognizes nuclear’s role in helping it to eventually achieve a goal of 100% renewable generation.
The framework agreement announced by the Social Democrats, the Moderate Party, the Green Party, the Centre Party and the Christian Democrats, will see the tax phased out over two years. It also allows for the construction of up to ten new nuclear reactors at existing sites, to replace plants as they retire. Setting 2040 as the date at which Sweden should have a 100% renewable electricity system, the document stresses that 2040 is a ‘goal’ and not a cut-off date for nuclear generation.
A variable production tax on nuclear power introduced in 1984 was replaced by a tax on installed capacity in 2000. Since its introduction this tax has gradually increased and today corresponds to about 7 öre (0.8 US cents) per kilowatt-hour. In February this year, utility Vattenfall said that the capacity tax had brought its nuclear operating costs to around 32 öre (3.8 US cents) per kWh. However, its revenue from nuclear power generation is only about 22 öre (2.6 US cents) per kWh.
Swedish utilities had sought redress against the tax through the courts, but the European Court of Justice ruled last October that Sweden could continue to tax nuclear power, deciding the tax is a national, rather than European Commission, matter.
Vattenfall CEO Magnus Hall welcomed the agreement, which he said gave the utility the predictability it needed. “The abolishment of the nuclear capacity tax is an important precondition for us to be able to consider the investments needed to secure the long-term operation of our nuclear reactors from the 1980s,” he said. Vattenfall’s reactors at Forsmark and Ringhals have undergone a comprehensive modernisation programme to allow them to operate until the mid-2040s. However, to continue operating beyond 2020 they must meet stricter safety requirements through the installation of independent core cooling. Investing in those upgrades was economically impossible with the tax in place.
“Even with the abolishment of the capacity tax, profitability will be a challenge,” Hall concluded. “Low electricity prices put all energy producers under pressure and we will continue to focus on reducing production costs. Naturally, investment decisions must be taken on commercial grounds, taking all cost factors and expected long-term market developments that the agreement implies into account,” Hall said.
The director general of the World Nuclear Association, Agneta Rising, said: “Today’s announcement is a positive development. It is vital that there is now consistent policy to give operators the confidence to make the investments needed in their plant to allow for their long term continued operation. Other countries should follow Sweden’s example and ensure that their energy policies provide a level playing field that treats all forms of generation equally on their merits.”
Real ‘aid’ means ending exploitation of Africa
By Yves Engler · June 10, 2016
What is wrong here? While Canadian companies exploit African resources for their own benefit this country’s charities call on us to join Africa “hope” walks.
Last week Toronto-based Lundin Mining hired the Bank of Montreal to help it decide what to do with its stake in the massive Tenke Fungurume copper-cobalt mine in Eastern Congo (Kinshasa). Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for Toronto firms to make economic decisions that affect hundreds of thousands of Africans and for Canadian companies to exchange African mineral assets among themselves.
A number of companies based and traded here have even taken African names. African Queen Mines, Tanzanian Royalty Exploration, Lake Victoria Mining Company, African Aura Resources, Katanga Mining, Société d’Exploitation Minière d’Afrique de l’Ouest (SEMAFO), Uganda Gold Mining, East Africa Metals, Timbuktu Gold, Sahelian Goldfields, African Gold Group and International African Mining Gold (IAMGOLD) are all Canadian. With a mere 0.5 percent of the world’s population, Canada is home to half of all internationally listed mining companies operating in Africa.
Active in 43 different African countries, Canadian mining firms have been responsible for dispossessing farmers, displacing communities, employing forced labour, devastating ecosystems and spurring human rights violations. And, as I detail in Canada in Africa: 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation, numerous Canadian mining companies have been accused of bribing officials and evading taxes. Last year TSX-listed MagIndustries was accused of paying$100,000 to tax officials in a bid to avoid paying taxes on its $1.5-billion potash mine and processing facility in Congo (Brazzaville). In April a Tanzanian tribunal ruled that Barrick Gold organized a “sophisticated scheme of tax evasion” in the East African country. As its Tanzanian operations delivered over US$400-million profit to shareholders between 2010 and 2013, the Toronto company failed to pay any corporate taxes, bilking the country out of $41.25 million.
While Canadian companies loot (legally and illegally) African resources, government-funded “charities” (aka NGOs) and the dominant media call on Canadians to walk for “hope” in Africa. Last weekend the Aga Khan Foundation Canada organized the World Partnership Walk in 10 cities across the country. In an article titled “How the World Partnership Walk” lets Canadians bring hope to African communities the organization’s International Development Champion, Attiya Hirj, writes about visiting Aga Khan Foundation and Global Affairs Canada sponsored projects in Tanzania and Mozambique. Hirj says her “trip really opened my eyes to what rural communities truly need, which is a sense of hope.” She suggests the situation can be remedied if enough Canadians come “together to fundraise and generate awareness through activities such as the World Partnership Walk.” There is no mention of the need for African resources to be controlled by and for Africans.
Hirj’s article reflects an extreme example of Canadian paternalism towards Africans. But it’s deeply rooted in our political culture. Gripped by a desire to rid “darkest Africa” of “nakedness” and “heathenism”, Canadian missionaries helped the European colonial powers penetrate African society. In 1893 a couple of Torontonians founded what later became the largest interdenominational Protestant mission on the continent and by the end of the colonial period as many as 2,500 Canadians were proselytizing across Africa.
Today, all the media-anointed Africa “experts” promote a similarly paternalistic version of ‘aid’ and largely ignore Canadian companies’ role in pillaging the continent’s wealth. But, Canadians concerned about African impoverishment should point their fingers at the Canadian firms controlling the continent’s resources and offer solidarity to those sisters and brothers fighting for African resources to be controlled by and for Africans.
‘US govt, MSM give no evidence to confirm ex-Gitmo detainees reengage in terrorist activities’
RT | June 12, 2016
The US government isn’t providing any evidence to confirm reengagement of former Guantanamo detainees in terrorist activities. They give numbers they allege are accurate but provide no facts, said Andy Worthington of the Close Guantanamo group.
The US government’s greatest fears about releasing Guantanamo Bay prisoners are that inmates might re-emerge on the ‘battlefield’ and re-engage in terrorist activities. Seventeen percent of former detainees, or 118, are confirmed to have re-engaged in militant activity, while 13 percent, or 86, are suspected of re-engaging.
Author of “The Guantanamo Files” and co-founder of the group Close Guantanamo, Andy Worthington, told RT America’s Simone Del Rosario that the US government isn’t supplying any evidence to confirm their fears.
RT: You’ve dedicated a chunk of your life to documenting files and stories from Guantanamo not as an attorney, but as an investigative journalist. After all of your research, what do you consider to be the most pressing reason to close Guantanamo for good?
Andy Worthington: From the very beginning it’s been a bad idea. If you’re going to deprive people of liberty, there are only two ways to do that, if you claim to respect the rule of law. That is that you either charge them with a criminal offence and put them on trial in a Federal court – that would be in the US; or they’re soldiers protected by the Geneva conventions and you can hold them until the end of hostilities.
But after 9/11 the US did neither of those things. So the men held in Guantanamo were held initially without any rights whatsoever. Human beings deprived of all rights, which is a really shocking thing. Although, over the years there have been various efforts to give them legal rights – going up to the Supreme Court, the situation still is that the people held in Guantanamo are effectively prisoners of the political system – we can almost describe them as political prisoners. There is no recognizable justice in their cases. The releases from Guantanamo end up being down to a political process. That is just an unfair way for a country like the US, which claims to be founded on the rule of law and to respect the rule of law, to behave.
RT: As Obama’s term comes to a close are you finding yourself more or less hopeful that he will fulfill his promise to close Guantanamo Bay?
AW: I am certainly more hopeful than I was a few years ago. There was a period in the middle of Obama’s presidency when he’d faced a lot of abstraction from Congress; he was unwilling to spend political capital overcoming that. And for a period of nearly three years only five men were released from Guantanamo.
In 2013, a massive prison-wide hunger strike brought Guantanamo back into sharp focus and put pressure on President Obama to do something about it. Since then he has been releasing many prisoners. We are now in the best position that we’ve been in during his presidency – only one tenth of the men held in Guantanamo is still held there – just 80 men. Thirty of those men have been approved for release by a variety of review processes under President Obama. We have a promise from the administration that they will be released by the end of the summer. Of the rest of the men – so the other 50 – just 10 are facing trials, or have had trials. The other 40 are undergoing this latest review process called the periodic review boards. We don’t know how many of those are going to be approved for release, but at the current rate of the reviews three out of four of the men have been recommended for release – there are currently 24 out of 33 men recommended for release.
Now these are men who were initially described as “too dangerous to release,” but the Task Force that looked at their cases said there was insufficient evidence to put them on trial; or they are men who were initially put forward for prosecution by a Task Force that President Obama set up in his first year in office. But the basis for prosecution has since collapsed. Appeals Court judges ruled that the war crimes for which the majority of the men were being convicted had actually been invented by Congress and were not internationally recognized. That is just a little summing up of the extraordinary ways in which Guantanamo is a shame and embarrassment on every level.
RT: A Washington Post article came out citing the Obama administration and the Pentagon saying that at least 12 released Guantanamo detainees are implicated in attacks on Americans that have resulted in American deaths. Do some of those Congressional members, who are against the closure, have a point in wanting to keep some of these men locked up?
AW: I think, first of all, they would have to provide us with evidence and they never do. In the early days of the defense department providing information on prisoners who they said have returned to the battlefield, or … have engaged in some kind of anti-American activity. They would provide information about who these men were. For around five years now they have provided nothing. They tell us numbers that they allege accurate, but they don’t provide any further information so that people can do some investigation to judge whether the information is correct or not. They have people that they say are confirmed of engaging in anti-American activities and ones that are suspected. Those figures generally get lumped together by the right-wing lawmakers and by most parts of the mainstream media – very irresponsibly… But, as I said, they don’t provide the information. This latest article in the Washington Post is unfortunately yet another lazy example of propaganda masquerading as journalism, without giving us the facts how are we supposed to accept that there is any truth to this.
Signal from Russian sub lurking near Sweden in 2014 ‘came from Swedish object’
RT | June 12, 2016
A sonar signature, which Swedish military claimed to be crucial evidence of a foreign submarine’s presence near Stockholm during the 2014 hunt, came from a “Swedish object,” the country’s defense minister has admitted.
Peter Hultqvist would not go into details about the source of the signal, but said the military reconsidered their assessment of its nature in September 2015, he told Sveriges Radio.
The hunt for a foreign submarine, presumed to be Russian by the Swedish media, was launched off Stockholm in October 2014. The media reported that an emergency hail on a frequency used by the Russian Navy prompted the hunt. An amateur photo of the supposed boat was widely circulated. Hultqvist took up office earlier the same month.
At the time of the search Swedish military reported having crucial evidence of the presence of a foreign submarine in the country’s waters. The perceived threat to national security was used to justify a multimillion-dollar boost to military spending.
In April 2015, the supposed intruder was revealed to have been a workboat by Swedish media.
Sweden is not the only nation where Russian submarines have been blamed for things they didn’t do. In April last year, a fishing vessel collided with an unidentified submarine off Scotland, with British media speculating that it must have been Russian. The Royal Navy admitted in September that the boat was actually theirs.
Western media blame Russia sometimes bizarrely for various incidents, including the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 in 2014 to the vandalizing of a Swedish TV mast last month.
READ MORE: ‘Oops, it was us’: Military concedes British sub, not Russian, damaged UK trawler in April
PLC member Dr. Samir al-Qadi among at least nine Palestinians arrested by Israeli occupation forces
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – June 12, 2016
Dr. Samir al-Qadi, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, was among one of at least nine Palestinians arrested by the Israeli occupation forces early Sunday, 12 June, in armed night raids in Jerusalem and throughout the West Bank.
Al-Qadi, 60, was arrested in an early-morning military raid on his home in Surif, northeast of Al-Khalil. He is a member of the Change and Reform Bloc in the PLC, associated with Hamas.
Al-Qadi was among at least four Palestinians arrested in al-Khalil district, alongside Ahmed Abdelfattah Hudoush, 30; Izz al-Ghaith; and Shaher Daoud, 40; as well as three in Jerusalem, Mohammed Ruweidi, Hamza al-Nimr and Musa Dabbagh, all working in the Islamic Waqf; Amer Samih Hamdan, 17, of Bethlehem; and Thaer Abu Zaher, 25, of Deir Bzeigh near Ramallah, reported the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
He has been arrested and imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces on multiple occasions in the past, in 1997, 2006, 201 and 2014, generally under administrative detention without charge or trial. He joins 6 more PLC members in Israeli prisons: 4 fellow Change and Reform Bloc PLC members, Hassan Yousef, Hatem Kufaisheh, Mohammed Abu Teir, and Abdel Jaber Fuquha; Ahmad Sa’adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, elected on the Abu Ali Mustafa slate; and Marwan Barghouthi of Fateh.
Testimony of one of the latest attacks against Gaza’s fishermen
International Solidarity Movement | June 12, 2016
Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine – Last Wednesday Rajab Khaled Abu Riela, 30 years old, his brother and two cousins left Gaza’s port at 12 pm. They stayed out fishing until 1:30 am. “When we started our way back to the port one Israeli warship approached, the soldiers started insulting us through the microphone and immediately after started shooting against our two small boats with live ammunition”. “Then their warship crashed against us. In that moment I decided to try to escape, but I was immediately shot in the leg with live ammunition”. They took Rajab and his brother to Ashdod port, where they wouldn’t give him any medicine or treatment for the injury he sustained by the Israeli forces. “I was left bleeding until 9:30am”. Finally they were sent back to Gaza, where an ambulance took him directly from Erez border to the hospital, where he had to undergo surgery.
When he finally reached Shifa Hospital, doctors managed to remove the biggest pieces of the bullet – but many small pieces still remain in his leg.
Rajab’s mother shows the bullet removed from his leg
“Our future [for the fishermen] is uncertain; we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Israel assaults us every day, takes our boats, shoots at us… Since 2005 I have pain in my chest due to an attack of the occupation, and as well my brother was injured while fishing in 2008. I’m responsible for providing for my family, we are 21 members… Now no one is providing for us, as I’m injured and they took our boat and motor. How I can work now without a boat?”
Featured Video
John Mearsheimer: US Already lost Iran war – No off-ramp in sight
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
Frlom the Archives
With apparently fabricated nuclear documents, Netanyahu pushed the US towards war with Iran
By Gareth Porter | The Grayzone | April 29, 2020
President Donald Trump scrapped the nuclear deal with Iran and continued to risk war with Iran based on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim to have proven definitively that Iran was determined to manufacture nuclear weapons. Netanyahu not only spun Trump but much of the corporate media as well, duping them with the public unveiling of what he claimed was the entire secret Iranian “nuclear archive.”
In early April 2018, Netanyahu briefed Trump privately on the supposed Iranian nuclear archive and secured his promise to leave the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). That April 30, Netanyahu took the briefing to the public in a characteristically dramatic live performance in which he claimed Israel’s Mossad intelligence services had stolen Iran’s entire nuclear archive from Tehran. “You may well know that Iran’s leaders repeatedly deny ever pursuing nuclear weapons…” Netanyahu declared. “Well, tonight, I’m here to tell you one thing: Iran lied. Big time.”
However, an investigation of the supposed Iranian nuclear documents by The Grayzone reveals them to be the product of an Israeli disinformation operation that helped trigger the most serious threat of war since the conflict with Iran began nearly four decades ago. This investigation found multiple indications that the story of Mossad’s heist of 50,000 pages of secret nuclear files from Tehran was very likely an elaborate fiction and that the documents were fabricated by the Mossad itself. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- US failures in Iran reveal Russia is key to South Korea’s strategic security
- ‘All ports in Persian Gulf will be legitimate targets if Iranian ports are attacked’
- 40 Years of Endless War, Data Point by Data Point
- Department of War Using Palantir AI to Pick Targets in Iran
- American bases do not protect – they attack the peoples of the Persian Gulf
- ‘We’ve Obliterated Their Missiles’
- Syrian president vows ‘absolute support’ to disarm Hezbollah
- Ukraine attacking Russian gas pipeline to stop deliveries to Europe – Defense Ministry
- ‘Heinous crime’: Iran denounces Israeli assassination of 4 Iranian diplomats in Lebanon
- John Mearsheimer: U.S. Already Lost Iran War – No Off-Ramp in Sight
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli strategic plans to “remake the Middle East” from the 1950s and since
- Honoring Gaza’s women who refused to let the world look away
- 97% of victims of war on Iran are Iranian, 98% of victims in war on Gaza are Gazans – Not a ceasefire Day 152
- Early Iran strikes cost $5.6 billion in munitions, Pentagon estimates
- Israel Decided the War, But Trump’s America Fights and Pays the Bill
- Conscientious Objector Group: Phone ‘Ringing Off Hook’ As Huge Mobilization Underway
- U.S. support for Israel continues to plummet, despite media’s best efforts
- Threats and missiles fly, death tolls soar in Iran, Lebanon, Gaza – Not a ceasefire Day 151
- Lebanon: Israel’s White Phosphorous Use Risks Civilian Harm
- Corporate Media Go All Out To Support The US-Israeli War On Iran
- No Tricks Zone
- Destructive Green New Deal: German Energy And Metal Group Warns Of Drastic Crisis
- New Study Documents A 20-Year Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Decline – Driven By Internal Variability
- Wake-up Call: Survey Shows Majority Of Germans Now Favor Postponing Climate Targets!
- Televised! Leading German Political Candidate Tells Schoolchildren CO2 Makes Sun Hotter!
- New Study: A Century Warming Of 1.1°C Is ‘Commonplace’ And ‘Not Unusual’ During This Interglacial
- New Study: ‘Internal Noise’ And Volcanic Forcing Can Trigger 10-15°C Warming Within Decades
- Glaciers Worldwide Are Suddendly Surging, Experts Blame Warming!
- Surprising Discovery: Sahara Is Greening…Billions Of Trees Where Once Thought To Be Barren
- New Research Reaffirms Clouds, Aerosols, And Surface Solar Radiation Are ‘Driving The Climate System’
- Germany: Electric Car Catches Fire At Charging Station, Sets Off Local “Inferno”, Widespread Damage
Aletho News 