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Western leaders support terror groups in Syria, get extremism at home – Assad

RT | July 10, 2016

Terrorist attacks, an unprecedented refugee influx and other problems with which Europe is struggling to cope are the result of wrong decisions made by European leaders, Syria’s president Bashar Assad told a European Parliament delegation.

“The situation in Syria and the whole region naturally affects Europe a lot due to its location and social ties. The problems Europe faces today of terrorism, extremism and waves of refugees are caused by some western leaders’ adoption of policies which do not serve their people,” Assad told the delegation headed by Javier Couso, Vice Chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the European Parliament, who had been visiting Damascus, Syrian state news agency SANA reported.

This is especially true “when those leaders give support and political cover to terrorist groups inside Syria,” the president added.

He stressed the role that the European Parliament should play in fixing the policies of some of European countries which had let terrorism evolve. Economic sanctions imposed against Damascus have impacted the Syrian people, who were forced to leave their homeland, Assad also said.

Couso noted that the delegation is planning to take steps that would help change western countries’ rhetoric and will call for the lifting of sanctions, which he described as “unfair”.

He promised to “inform the Europeans on the real state of affairs in Syria and on how people suffer from terrorism,” the report said.

Syria plunged into chaos in 2011, when public protests escalated into an armed uprising as foreign powers warned the Assad government against cracking down on the protest. As violence expanded, radical groups and criminal gangs hijacked the process, turning Syria into the bloodiest battle zone of the modern world.

Foreign nations opposing Damascus, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United States and the United Kingdom, have been providing various Syrian opposition groups with aid, saying that only by supporting armed groups trying to topple the Syrian government can the conflict be stopped.

The US and other western countries aided so-called ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria with weapons and training, saying this would help them defeat both the Syrian army and terrorist organizations, which capitalized on the turmoil in Syria. The effort led to some embarrassing moments, for instance when the initial training program for the moderates produced only a handful of fighters after months of recruiting.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among the key providers of Syrian rebel groups with military and financial assistance, including some powerful Islamist groups seeking to turn Syria into a country governed by the Sharia law.

Turkey, which was hit most among Syria’s neighbors by the refugee crisis, hosting almost two million asylum seekers, is among the vocal opponents of Damascus too. Critics accuse Ankara of turning a blind eye on rebel activities in its territory, including recruiting, arms shipments and getting medical assistance.

Jihadists from terrorist groups like Islamic State and Al-Nusra Front are among those benefiting from such policies. IS staged a number of bloody terrorist attacks in Turkey since its rise to power in Iraq and Syria, killing hundreds of people. The organization also claimed responsibility for several high-profile attacks in Europe and the US.

The European delegation arrived in Damascus on Saturday. The group visited refugee center in the Syrian capital and met soldiers undergoing treatment in the Hamish hospital.

Read more:

Jihadists that US kept off terror list attack UN humanitarian convoy in Syria – MoD

Al-Nusra Front in Syria gets daily weapons supplies from Turkey – Russian military

Western officials criticize Damascus in public but secretly deal in private not to upset US – Assad

July 10, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , | 1 Comment

SAS False Flag in Basra

July 10, 2016 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, Video | 1 Comment

Catastrophe Unmasked: Prescription for Addiction

By Nayvin Gordon, MD | CounterPunch | July 8, 2016

The “Opium Wars” were fought by the British Government to legalize their control of the opium trade to China in the mid 17th Century. Reports estimated that 25% of the Chinese people were addicted to opium by 1905. That same year in the US, heroin addiction had risen to alarming rates, and the US Congress passed a ban on opium. Another American heroin epidemic began again in 1967 in Chicago and New York, and then spread widely through the early 1980’s. The son of the US Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, died of a heroin overdose in New York City on April 24, 1984. Physicians in medical school were taught that opioids were dangerously addicting substances that should be used only for short term severe pain and terminal cancer.

Despite this teaching and the raging Heroin epidemic in America, a letter was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1980. The author reported that of the patients in their hospital who were treated with narcotics, less than one percent became addicted. In 1986 the journal Pain,   reported on a study of only 38 patients who were treated with narcotics for several years. The authors concluded that there was little risk of addiction. There were no other significant addiction studies reported. Shortly after the study in Pain, one of the co-authors went on to head the American Pain Society. This organization was one of several similar nonprofit groups funded by the Pharmaceutical Industry like Purdue Pharma the producers of the narcotic Oxycontin.

These opioid producers also funded medical education programs and advocacy groups. Within a short time the pharmaceutical companies began an aggressive nationwide campaign to market opioids for long term non cancer pains such as back and neck pain. During the 1990’s the incidence of opioid misuse rose markedly, fueled by the number of opioid prescriptions written by many physicians and nurses. Where were the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) and the American Medical Association (A.M.A.) when they were presented with blatant disregard for the truth about opioid addiction? What evidence did they demand before they abandoned 150 years of knowledge about the dangers of opioids? Where were the evidence based studies needed to refute what was known around the world about the risks of opioids?

As of February 2009, Dr Zee, writing in the Journal of Public Health, revealed that “we lack any large…rigorous prospective study addressing the issue of … addiction, during long term opioid use for chronic non cancer pain.”

The medical schools and physician training programs did not publicly denounce this unscientific pharmaceutical propaganda. Why? The F.D.A., the organization responsible for ensuring that prescription drug promotion is truthful, continued to authorize more and more forms of opioids over the years. Why? To this day, the F.D.A. and the A.M.A., have refused to demand mandatory education for opioid prescribers. Why? Furthermore, the Federation of State Medical Boards accepted money from pharmaceutical firms to produce prescribing guidelines. Why did physicians not sound the alarm to expose the fact that the pharmaceutical industry was establishing treatment guidelines for the medical profession?

Dr David A Kessler, the past commissioner of the F.D.A., from 1990-1997, the very years the epidemic was accelerating, stated in an article in the New York Times on May 7, 2016: “It has proved to be one of the biggest mistakes in modern medicine”. Doctors, regulators and drug makers “missed one fundamental: The more opioids prescribed, the more opioid abuse there will be.”

We beg to differ. This was no mistake.   The reality is that physicians in the leadership of the F.D.A., A.M.A., and The Federation of State Medical Boards, willfully abandoned their scientific integrity and over 150 years of wisdom regarding the dangers of opioids. This was simply a catastrophic violation of their duty to “do no harm”.

In their complicity with the Pharmaceutical Companies, many physicians and nurses abandoned their responsibility to their patients by writing prescriptions for addiction. The consequences are now staring us in the face. Well over a hundred thousand people have overdosed and died, and there are now 3 million addicts as the epidemic continues to devastate families across the nation.

Let’s set the record straight.

July 10, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

Death toll from Kashmir clashes rises to 16

Press TV – July 10, 2016

Indian officials have updated the death toll from the ongoing unrest in the Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir, saying that 16 people are now confirmed dead following the clashes between protesters and riot police over the killing of a popular rebel leader.

One protester was shot dead on Sunday after riot police fired on infuriated and stone-hurling demonstrators, who defied a curfew aimed at suppressing the public uproar in the southern area of Pulwama, and six others succumbed to their wounds overnight, AP quoted an unnamed security official as saying.

A police officer also lost his life in the southern area of Anantnag, where angry demonstrators pushed his armored vehicle into a river.

Indian authorities have for the second day extended the curfew to the whole Kashmir valley, including the major city of Srinagar.

The clashes came after residents of Kashmir held a funeral for separatist Burhan Wani, the young leader of Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), who was killed on July 8 along with two other people during a brief gun battle with government forces.

During the past five years, Wani had become the iconic face of militancy in Kashmir, using social media to reach out to young people in the region.

Wani’s body was handed over to his family earlier on Saturday and the locals, who see the slain 22-year old as a hero, turned the mass funeral into a full-scale protest.

According to Indian police, anti-riot troops used live ammunition, pellet guns and tear gas to disperse the crowds and calm down the outrage. Authorities have also suspended mobile networks and the internet to prevent massive demonstrations.

Reports say that at least 200 people, including 90 government forces, were injured during the clashes.

The death of Wani sparked street protests across Kashmir throughout the night Friday. In a rare incident, mosques’ loudspeakers blared with “Azadi” (freedom from Indian rule) in most areas, including Srinagar, where people were ordered to remain indoors.

Major groups known for their resistance against Indian rule have declared three days of mourning.

Kashmir, a Himalayan region known for its beautiful landscapes, lies at the heart of more than 69 years of hostility between India and Pakistan. Both neighbors claim the region in full but have partial control over it. India controls two thirds of Kashmir while the remaining one third is under the Pakistani rule.

The neighbors agreed on a ceasefire in 2003, and launched a peace process the following year. Since then, there have been sporadic clashes, with both sides accusing the other of violating the ceasefire.

Thousands of people have been killed in the violence in Kashmir over the past two decades.

July 10, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Lies, spies and the story Chilcot missed

By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | July 10, 2016

Sir John Chilcot’s report into the war in Iraq contains 2.6 million words and took seven years to complete yet there is one story which was untold in the dossier. It is the story of how two heroic GCHQ (Government Communications HQ) staff sacrificed their careers and ambitions in order to try and stop the most powerful country in the world from invading Iraq, and thereby preventing the slaughter of innocents.

One of the women, whom I called “Isobel”, came to see me after an anti-war gathering I addressed at Bristol University. It was towards the end of 2002 and I had recently returned from an investigative assignment in Iraq, convinced more than ever that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction (WMD). However, as an anti-war journalist, very few of my colleagues in Fleet Street’s mainstream media wanted to run a story saying there were no WMD in Iraq, even though this was also the conclusion of the UN’s chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, and his team of experts.

“Isobel” gave me a top secret document which turned out to be the biggest and most damning intelligence leak since World War II. I wondered how I could get the story out to the wider world that America was so desperate to push for war in Iraq that it was prepared to use blackmail against individuals sitting on the UN Security Council to get its wish.

The document made it quite clear that Britain’s spy agencies would do the spade work to seek out and dig dirt on council members which could then be used against them to secure their votes for war. It was sensational.

All of the information was contained in an email from America’s National Security Agency (NSA) to Britain’s GCHQ. British spy agencies were “ordered” by their American counterparts to spy on all members of the Security Council to try to ascertain how they would vote in the event of Bush and Blair seeking UN approval for the war in Iraq.

When “Isobel” handed me the document I was working as a freelance journalist and automatically thought the best way to place it would be at the Daily Mirror which, under editor Piers Morgan, was one of the few Fleet Street titles to adopt an anti-war position. Intelligence stories are always difficult to prove and, without compromising my contacts at GCHQ, I was unable to supply the Mirror with anything other than the original email, although I had used an intelligence contact to verify its authenticity.

The war drums were beating ever louder when it was returned to me with disappointing news; it would not be used by the Mirror. In hindsight, the story was so massive that I should have gone straight to Morgan to try and persuade him to run it.

By this time it was early February and, realising that it had a limited shelf life, I contacted a former colleague at the Observer and told him what I had. I met with Martin Bright in a small cafe in London’s West End and knew straight away that he would give it his best shot as he realised the importance of the document.

It took a full three weeks for Bright, assisted by the Observer’s then defence correspondent Peter Beaumont and US editor Ed Vulliamy, to stand up the story and persuade the editor, Roger Alton, to run with it. It was years later before I discovered that political editor Kamal Ahmed did his best to persuade Alton to dump the exclusive.

There were even attempts to trash my personal reputation as a journalist and reminders bordering on hysteria about the Sunday Times’ embarrassing faux pas over the 1980s hoax “Hitler Diaries”; it was a desperate attempt to dissuade Alton not to use the story but it went ahead and the scoop soon travelled around the world. Sadly, days later, Iraq was invaded and the story was swamped by “Shock and Awe” headlines. Now it is virtually forgotten, but I often wonder if it would or could have altered the course of events had we been able to get the story published in early February 2003.

The woman who handed me the document – “Isobel” – and her colleague Katharine Gun, a 29-year-old Mandarin translator who also worked at GCHQ in Cheltenham, were arrested. When their homes were raided and searched by police, “Isobel” got a message to me; I was in Bahrain at the time and sent Bright a text message saying simply, “Shit, hit & fan”.

Recalling events some five years later, Martin Bright wrote in the New Statesman : “The email was sent by a man with a name straight out of a Hollywood thriller, Frank Koza, who headed up the ‘regional targets’ section of the National Security Agency, the US equivalent of GCHQ. It named six nations to be targeted in the operation: Chile, Pakistan, Guinea, Angola, Cameroon and Bulgaria. These six so-called ‘swing nations’ were non-permanent members of the Security Council whose votes were crucial to getting the resolution through.”

According to Bright, “It later emerged that Mexico was also targeted because of its influence with Chile and other countries in Latin America, though it was not mentioned in the memo. But the operation went far wider – in fact, only Britain was specifically named as a country to be exempt from the ‘surge’.”

Verifying the document as genuine proved the most difficult task and Blairite journalists embedded in the Observer newsroom continued to whisper in the editor’s ear about conspiracy theories, Russian forgeries and even a double bluff scenario by GCHQ spy chiefs to flush out traitors.

In the end, Vulliamy simply telephoned the NSA’s Maryland HQ and asked to speak to the author of the email. Within seconds he was put through to Frank Koza’s office and the man himself answered the phone. Although he refused to comment on the story, the call proved that Koza did indeed exist and was not some invention of the Kremlin’s spooks.

The story was published on 2 March 2003 but it became clear that the US president was going to go to war come what may and that he wasn’t going to rely on UN support. Thanks to Chilcot, we now know that Blair had already given his unconditional support to Bush in September 2002.

Gun and “Isobel” were arrested for alleged offences under the Official Secrets Act, but the attorney general at the time, Lord Goldsmith, dropped the case at the 11th hour on 26 February 2004. Had the case gone ahead, it would have been both sensational and embarrassing for the US and Britain. Today I wonder if that is why Chilcot chose to ignore the story, which has been recounted in part by Bright. The shenanigans of what went on inside the Observer newsroom were provided in more detail by award-winning journalist Nick Davies. He decided to break Fleet Street’s unwritten rule by investigating his own colleagues, in order to expose how the mainstream media subverts the truth.

In his book “Flat Earth News”, Davies gave us a scathing critique of the media; not just some of it, but all of it. Davies’ most damaging dirt is reserved for Kamal Ahmed, the man who – with no prior experience – was appointed as political editor of the Observer after Patrick Wintour moved to the Guardian. The more obviously qualified Andy McSmith was overlooked by the new editor, Roger Alton, whose sympathies were generally right-wing. According to Davies, both Alton and Ahmed were open to endless manipulation by Downing Street, which resulted in uncritical stories about the “findings” of the now notorious “dodgy dossier”.

There were other blatant lies published about Saddam’s alleged connections to Al-Qaida and his arsenal of WMD. Journalists like myself who supported the anti-war movement and individuals like Blix and the US’ Scott Ritter were demonised and ridiculed for holding to a narrative which differed from that of the pro-war lobby.

The British and American media ware manipulated by people inside newsrooms who were under the influence of the Bush and Blair camps, manipulation the like of which we can see continuing today in the attacks against anti-war Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. The pro-war lobby appears to be infecting all walks of life, including the media and government.

I don’t know if Chilcot was persuaded to ignore the story of the GCHQ leak or if he simply over-looked it, but as whistle-blower Kathryn Gun writes here, it was a missed opportunity. If nothing else, this is a cautionary tale which serves as a warning about the kind of desperate measures that the US and British governments are prepared to take to get their own way, especially on matters relating to the Middle East. If that means blackmailing, eavesdropping and intercepting the private communications of UN Security Council members, there are those in Washington and London ready, willing and able to do it.

July 10, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fraud probe against Netanyahu to go public: Israeli official

Press TV – July 10, 2016

An Israeli official says the details of an investigation into allegations of large-scale money laundering by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be made public soon.

The official, whose name was not mentioned in reports, said on Saturday that police believe that they have adequate evidence to make the probe public this week or early next week.

Some of the inquiry materials had originated in other, unrelated investigations, but they have now been linked to the money laundering case involving the Israeli prime minister.

The police and the attorney general’s office think it is untenable to keep the investigation secret anymore due to its sensitivity, he said, adding that a decision was made to make an official announcement about the case.

Police have so far prevented leaks to the media concerning the probe, but there were reports of people being summoned for questioning by the police’s anti-fraud unit.

Recently, Israeli media said the investigation against Netanyahu focuses on foreign funds he received after resuming office in 2009. The premier has dismissed the allegations.

Netanyahu is also implicated in a separate fraud case involving French tycoon Arnaud Mimran, who is said to have previously made unrelated donations to the Israeli premier.

Earlier this week, a French court convicted Mimran of fraud and sentenced him to eight years in prison and one million euros in fines in a 2008-2009 fraud case.

On Friday, Channel 10 reported that the latest police investigation into Netanyahu’s affairs involves suspicions of money laundering on a wide-scale.

The suspicion pertains to the alleged transfer of “large sums” to either Netanyahu or one of his family members and is not linked to campaign or political funding, it said.

The television said the investigation may require questioning abroad, but no investigators have yet been sent out of Israel.

July 10, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | | Leave a comment

Jewish and Zionist Influence at the BBC

By Karl Radl | Semitic Controversies | October 4, 2015

Jewish influence, or power if you like, in mainstream media is one of those pink elephants in the room that everyone at some level realizes, but which badly needs to be openly discussed. This is happening more and more today due to, to their infinite credit, the efforts of the anti-Zionist left, which has found itself stymied by this influence and has spent some time documenting it. (1)

In order to contribute broadly to this discussion I thought it would be appropriate to explore the influence that Jews, be they pro or anti-Zionist, have in British state broadcaster; the BBC. This is important because the BBC has long been viewed, although less so today, as a relatively impartial broadcaster around the world and has been the subject of the umbrage of many a Zionist over the years.

The fact that Jews, as a minuscule part of the population of the British Isles, have so many members of their community in positions of power and influence in a state broadcaster committed to journalistic impartiality is obviously extremely concerning to any individual in their right mind. After all Jews, like any other group, are always going to promote their interests or push their particular perspective as a group and as such will knowingly or not distort the narrative to favour their perspective and interests.

When we look at the Executive Board we find the following individuals: (2)

Tony Hall (Director General, BBC)
Helen Boaden (Director, Radio)
Danny Cohen (Director, Television)
James Harding (Director of News and Current Affairs)
James Purnell (Director, Strategy and Digital)
Annie Bulford (Managing Director, Finance and Operations)
Tim Davie (CEO, BBC Worldwide and Director, Global)
Simon Burke (Non-Executive Director)
Sir Howard Stringer (Non-Executive Director)
Dame Fiona Reynolds (Non-Executive Director)
Sir Nicholas Hytner (Non-Executive Director)
Alice Perkins (Non-Executive Director)
Dharmash Mistry (Non-Executive Director)

Of these thirteen executives; three are jewish.

The executives who have jewish backgrounds are Danny Cohen, (3) James Harding (4) and Sir Nicholas Hytner. (5) This seems superficially reasonable until we note that, according to the 2011 census, jews are 0.5% of the British population. (6) Comparatively those of Jewish origin are 23% of the membership of the Executive Board of the BBC.

When we compare that to Indians who are a similar minority group in the United Kingdom; we note that while in the 2011 census they made up 2.3% of the British population. (7) They only have one representative (Dharmash Mistry) on the Executive Board of the BBC.

Therefore we can see that jews are both significantly over-represented among the individuals who are members of the Executive Board as well in them of themselves. In addition to being significantly over-represented relative to more populous ethnic minority groups such as those of Indian origin.

This situation becomes more concerning when we note that James Harding, one of the Jewish members, has made it explicitly clear that, after making the British daily The Times newsroom pro-Israel, he wants to do precisely the same at the BBC. (8)

This obviously already a violation of the BBC’s neutrality, which is explicitly required in its periodically renewed charter, since Harding is explicitly setting out to modify the BBC’s relative objectivity to a partisan pro-Israel stance.

Naturally Harding claims it is ‘injecting balance’ into the BBC newsroom, but such verbiage is a common linguistic trick (9) and is explicitly how Israel projects ‘soft power’ to attempt to create a pro-Israeli narrative (i.e. Hasbara). (10)

Even more concerning is the backgrounds of some of the other non-Jewish members of the Executive Board.

James Purnell is the former Chairman of the pro-Israel lobby group ‘Labour Friends of Israel’. (11) This group explicitly exist to influence the members and policy making of the Labour Party in Britain and has a substantial membership among Labour party Members of Parliament. (12)

Combined with James Harding this is enough cause for serious concern about jewish and Zionist influence within the Executive Board of the BBC.

However Sir Howard Stringer also has a strong Zionist connection given that he was the honorary chairman of the ‘American Jewish Committee’, a powerful Jewish communal organization dedicated to promoting Zionism in the United States, in 2004. (13)

That he has not repudiated his pro-Zionist views since this time is suggestive of the fact that Sir Howard continues to support the objectives and methods of the ‘American Jewish Committee’.

While Sir Nicolas Hytner, a Jewish member of the Executive Board, has often abused his positions in the world of acting and theatre to oppose the BDS (Boycott Divest Sanctions) movement against Israel. (14)

It is unlikely that Sir Nicholas will act any differently while he is part of the BBC’s Executive Board than he has when he was at the National Theatre. Indeed he has given us absolutely no reason to think he will do an about face on his track record of running political interference on behalf of Israel.

Danny Cohen, a jewish member of the Executive Board, has also publicly endorsed the Zionist cause only a year ago. (15) Since he has not given us reason to think otherwise; we may be confident that he will continue in his support for Israel and the pro-Zionist narrative.

Once we take the political affiliations of the Executive Board of the BBC into account we can see that all three of the Jewish members are openly pro-Israel/pro-Zionist, while two of the non-Jewish members are also pro-Israel/pro-Zionist.

This takes the pro-Israel/pro-Zionist bloc in the BBC’s Executive Board to five members, while none of the other members have any known anti-Israel/anti-Zionist convictions.

This means that 38% of the BBC’s Executive Board is pro-Israel/pro-Zionist. When added to the fact that three of those five members (James Harding, James Purnell and Sir Nicholas Hytner) have a track record of political interference on behalf of Israel in organizations then it becomes even more sinister.

When we further note that Harding is in charge of the BBC’s newsroom it suggests that the narrative the BBC will produce going forward will be pro-Israel/pro-Zionist and not in any way neutral.

James Purnell’s role as the head of Strategy and Digital makes him an invaluable ally for Harding in manipulating the pro-Israel/pro-Zionist narrative in such a way as to promote it as the ‘wave of the future’ for the BBC.

Danny Cohen’s role as the head of television, the BBC’s most powerful arm, is even more subversive given that it is by news, documentary/factual and entertainment television programming that many people, in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, get their informational prism with which they view the world.

We get an absolutely intolerable situation where the neutral BBC has been/is being progressively hijacked by avowed pro-Israel/pro-Zionist activists with the stated aim of abusing its reputation for neutrality in order to promote Israel politically and neutralize dissenting views/unflattering coverage.

When we look at the next organizational layer down, the BBC’s Executive Team, we find the following individuals: (16)

Ken MacQuarrie (Director, BBC Scotland)
Rhodri Talfan Davies (Director, BBC Cymru Wales)
Peter Johnston (Director, BBC Northern Ireland)
Peter Salmon (Director, England)
Ralph Rivera (Director, BBC Digital)
Valerie Hughes-D’Aeth (Director, HR)
David Jordan (Director, Editorial Policy and Standards)
Philip Almond (Director, Marketing and Audiences)
Alan Yentob (Creative Director)
Francesca Unsworth (Director, BBC World Service Group)

Of the ten members of the Executive Team; one is Jewish.

The member of the Executive Team with a Jewish background is Alan Yentob. (17)

Peter Salmon is sometimes listed as being Jewish, (18) but while ‘Salmon’ could well be a contraction of the common Ashkenazi surname ‘Salomon’ there is no evidence I can find of such occurring here. Indeed ‘Salmon’ is a perfectly English surname to have (19) and without evidence to the contrary we can only assume that Peter Salmon is not Jewish.

While Yentob’s presence in the Executive Team takes the Jewish representation on it to 10%. The fact that it is only one individual that is Jewish suggests that the numbers alone here relative to the Jewish representation in the population of the British Isles (i.e. 0.5%) are in some-way reasonable (as you cannot get less than 10% of the membership of the Executive Team with representation).

It is worth noting however that the Indian population in the United Kingdom (i.e. 2.3%) are not represented at all, while no other ethnic or religious minorities are represented either.

This makes Yentob’s presence rather concerning given the general lack of diversity among the BBC’s Executive Team since Jews are a tiny minority even by ethnic minority standards and their having a voice on the Executive Team while no others do is inconsistent with the BBC’s fervent support for racial diversity and propagation of an anti-nativist narrative. (20)

We also need remember that there are internal politics in every organization and while Yentob seems rather innocuous as the ‘Creative Director’; he has recently openly boasted that he is very closely involved in the running of the BBC in general. (21)

Some would dismiss this as merely hot air, but we know that Yentob has long been tipped as a potential future Director-General of the BBC. (22) It was also Yentob who lead the charge against those BBC journalists who dared to doubt the BBC party line on the Jimmy Savile paedophile scandal and branded them ‘traitors’. (23)

One wonders why the BBC’s ‘Creative Director’ would get so closely involved in such things if he was not a significant political force within the BBC’s internal political world?

Contrast that with the fact that no other members of the BBC’s Executive Team have been named as behaving in a similar manner or censoring their own employees on said scandal and we can see that Yentob, in spite of being only one man, is a political force to be reckoned with within the world of organizational politics in the BBC.

Yentob is also quite active in the Jewish community (24) and is known to produce programming that lionizes said community. (25)

While I cannot link him directly to Zionist activity; given his background and lionization of the Iraqi Jews (who immigrated to Israel). It is reasonable to assume that, while not an open political partisan, Yentob is at least willing to allow a pro-Israel/pro-Zionist narrative on the BBC. Therefore while Jewish and Zionist influence in the BBC’s Executive Team is seemingly small; the fact that its only known representation is an obvious key political player in the BBC is suggestive that at the very least there would be no significant resistance to a pro-Israel/anti-Zionist, as opposed to a neutral, narrative from the Executive Team.

When we move on to the BBC’s editors and correspondents we find the following individuals listed: (26)

Mark Easton (Home [UK] Editor)
Bridget Kendall (Diplomatic Correspondent)
Andrew Harding (Africa Correspondent)
Carrie Gracie (China Editor)
Soutik Biswas (Delhi Correspondent)
Katya Adler (Europe Editor)
Anthony Zurcher (North American Reporter)
Robert Peston (Economics Editor)
Kamal Ahmed (Business Editor)
Mark D’Arcy (Parliamentary Correspondent)
Laura Kuenssberg (Political Editor)
James Landale (Deputy Political Editor)
Rory Cellan-Jones (Technology Editor)
David Lee (North American Technology Reporter)
David Shukman (Science Editor)
Jonathan Amos (Science Correspondent)
Nick Triggle (Health Correspondent)
Fergus Walsh (Medical Correspondent)
Hugh Pym (Health Editor)
Branwen Jeffreys (Education Editor)
Sean Coughlan (Education Correspondent)
Will Gompertz (Arts Editor)

Of these twenty-two editors and correspondents; six are Jewish.

Those with a Jewish background are: Katya Adler, (27) Robert Peston, (28), Laura Kuenssberg, (29), David Shukman, (30) Jonathan Amos and Will Gompertz. (31)

This means that the representation of Jews among the BBC editors and correspondents is currently running at a frankly frightening 27%. Compare this with their representation in the British population (0.5%) and it becomes obviously a matter of likely pro-Jewish/pro-Israel/pro-Zionist bias.

It is more difficult to prove sympathies (one way or another) with the BBC’s editor and correspondents than with the BBC’s Executive Board and Executive Team. Since editors and correspondents by the nature of their profession are very aware of the need to carefully manage any statements they make outside of a professional context as they are aware of how closely scrutinized they will be once they pass into the public domain.

However something of the pro-Jewish/pro-Israel/pro-Zionist views of some of the editors and correspondents can be gleaned from the fact that both David Shukman (32) and Will Gompertz (33) have abused their positions to insert an unbalanced historical narrative of Jewish suffering into the content they have produced for the BBC.

Meanwhile Rory Cellan-Jones, the non-Jewish Technology Editor, has been a major figure in the anti-BDS/pro-Israel movement since early 2007 (34) and has abused, like James Harding and Sir Nicholas Hytner have done in the past, his position as a BBC editor to give credence to his pro-Israel views (which was regarded as a significant contribution to the Zionist cause by the website ‘Totally Jewish’). (35)

Then we have Robert Peston, the Jewish Economics Editor, who believes that his Jewish heritage has provided him with superior genes compared to non-Jewish heritage. (36)

This clearly suggests that Peston holds to some form of Jewish nationalism (i.e. Zionism) given these, essentially, Jewish supremacist sentiments that necessarily label non-Jews as inferior beings when compared to Jews.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention that Laura Kuenssberg is a very recent appointment to the position of Political Editor; previously the position was held, for several years, by Nick Robinson. He is, like Kuenssberg, Jewish. (37)

Interestingly Kuenssberg was promoted to the position of political editor over Robinson’s non-Jewish deputy James Landale, (38) which suggests that Kuenssberg may have been promoted (she was formerly merely a guest blogger) (39) merely because she is Jewish and Landale is not.

I cannot prove it one way or the other, but the otherwise inexplicable appointment of Kuenssberg over Landale would then explicable.

Given all this information we can see there at least four of BBC’s editors and correspondents (David Shukman, Will Gompertz, Robert Peston and Rory Cellan-Jones) who are pro-Jewish/pro-Israel/pro-Zionist activists, while three others (Katya Adler, Laura Kuenssberg and Jonathan Amos) are likely to be such.

This then suggests that the pro-Jewish/pro-Israel/pro-Zionist narrative that seems to be part of James Harding’s overt plan for the BBC would find at least seven supporters out of the twenty-two current editors and correspondents at the BBC (i.e. 32% of all those concerned).

What we can see from the foregoing analysis is that the BBC has a disproportionate number of Jewish ethnic and non-Jewish pro-Zionist activists, particularly on its Executive Board and among its editors and correspondents to seriously impede the BBC charter’s requirement for neutrality.

In essence the bald way of putting it is that the BBC has been all but captured by Jewish ethic and non-Jewish pro-Zionist activists. We should therefore reasonably expect the BBC, a-la James Harding’s explicit plan, to become a particularly insidious weapon in the Israeli Hasbara arsenal.

References

(1) Notably Grant Smith, 2006, ‘Deadly Dogma: How Neoconservatives Broke the Law to Deceive America’, 1st Edition, Institute for Research: Middle East Policy: Washington D.C.; James Petras, 2007, ‘Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire: Bankers, Zionists, Militants’, 1st Edition, Clarity: Atlanta; James Petras, 2014, ‘The Politics of Empire: The US, Israel and the Middle East’, 1st Edition, Clarity: Atlanta
(2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/managementstructure/seniormanagement/
(3) http://www.thejc.com/articles/interview-danny-cohen
(4) http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/94037/jewish-editor-the-times-resigns
(5) http://www.thejc.com/arts/theatre/59361/how-nicholas-hytner-made-national-a-jewish-theatre
(6) http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/94111/census-2011-the-jewish-breakdown
(7) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Indian#Population
(8) http://www.thejc.com/community/community-life/47916/signs-the-times-jcc
(9) See: http://www.sott.net/signs/hasbara.pdf
(10) http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Hasbara-public-diplomacy-and-propaganda-358211
(11) http://www.palestinecampaign.org/tony-hall-defends-new-bbc-appointees/
(12) http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Labour_Friends_of_Israel#Membership_and_Funding
(13) http://www.jewishjournal.com/circuit/article/the_circuit_20040430
(14) http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/dec/15/israel.booksnews
(15) http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/2014/12/22/redress-online-bbc-executive-danny-cohen-publicly-endorses-key-zionist-mantra
(16) http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/managementstructure/seniormanagement/
(17) http://www.jewishrenaissance.org.uk/jr-outloud/94-iraqi-and-jewish-in-london-today.html
(18) For example: http://radioislam.org/islam/english/jewishp/gbmedia/update.htm
(19) http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Salmon
(20) http://biasedbbc.org/blog/category/anti-british/; http://whitegenocideproject.com/the-bbcs-white-problem/
(21) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/alan-yentob-im-more-involved-in-running-the-bbc-than-people-think-8349048.html
(22) http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/profile-alan-yentob-the-insiders-extrovert-1096476.html ; http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/jun/13/alan-yentob-bbc-creative-director-imagine
(23) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/11887548/Alan-Yentob-branded-BBC-journalists-traitors-over-Savile-expose.html
(24) For example: http://www.thejc.com/community/community-life/57205/bbc-yentob-gets-role-young-norwood
(25) For example: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2011/48/the-last-jews-of-iraq.html and http://www.thejc.com/news/the-diary/yentobs-expensive-account
(26) Compiled through the BBC’s online news portal: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news
(27) http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/authors.php?auid=15280
(28) http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jan/29/business-economics-journalists-reporting-celebrities
(29) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekkehard_von_Kuenssberg
(30) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18440223
(31) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18262621
(32) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18440223
(33) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18262621
(34) http://www.jta.org/2007/05/30/archive/a-prominent-british-television-journalist-started-a-blog
(35) http://archive.totallyjewish.com/news/nuj-drops-boycott
(36) http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/jan/29/business-economics-journalists-reporting-celebrities
(37) http://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/sep/26/diane-abbott-interviews-nick-robinson
(38) http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/steerpike/2015/07/bbc-twitter-gaffe-is-laura-kuenssberg-the-new-political-editor/
(39) http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2009/06/a_call_for_deba.html ; http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2009/08/prospective_mps_selection.html

July 10, 2016 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 10 Comments

The Media Against Jeremy Corbyn

The British media has launched an unprecedented campaign of disinformation against Jeremy Corbyn

By Ronan Burtenshaw | Jacobin | July 9, 2016

The British media has never had much time for Jeremy Corbyn.

Within a week of his election as Labour Party leader in September, it was engaging in a campaign the Media Reform Coalition characterized as an attempt to “systematically undermine” his position. In an avalanche of negative coverage 60 percent of all articles which appeared in the mainstream press about Corbyn were negative with only 13 percent positive. The newsroom, ostensibly the objective arm of the media, had an even worse record: 62 percent negative with only 9 percent positive.

This sustained attack had itself followed a month of wildly misleading headlines about Corbyn and his policies in these same outlets. Concerns about sexual assaults on public transport were construed as campaigning for women-only trains. Advocacy for Keynesian fiscal and monetary policies was presented as a plan to “turn Britain into Zimbabwe.” An appeal to reconsider the foreign policy approach of the last decade was presented as an association with Putin’s Russia.

In the months which followed the attacks continued. Particularly egregious examples, such as the criticism of Corbyn for refusing to “bow deeply enough” while paying his respects on Remembrance Day, stick in the memory. But it is the insidious rather than the ridiculous which best characterizes the British media’s approach to Corbyn.

One example of this occurred in January when it was revealed that the BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg had coordinated the resignation of a member of Corbyn’s shadow cabinet so that it would occur live on television. Planned for minutes before Corbyn was due to engage in Prime Minister’s Questions, it was a transparent attempt to inflict the maximum damage possible to his leadership.

The bias at Britain’s public broadcaster has become so blatant that it has drawn criticism from prominent former employees. Kuenssberg’s predecessor, Nick Robinson, described himself as “shocked” at the regularity of the attacks, and the former chair of the BBC Trust Sir Michael Lyons, made comments earlier this year condemning the “quite extraordinary attacks on the elected leader of the Labour Party.”

But perhaps the most extraordinary episode has been the accusations of antisemitism levelled at Corbyn and the Labour leadership in the run up to May’s local elections. As Jamie Stern-Weiner demonstrated in this excellent article in OpenDemocracy, “the chasm between the evidence and the sweeping condemnations which have appeared in the press is truly vast.”

In the week-long controversy only one allegation of antisemitism was made against an MP. The rest were based on social media comments made by eight junior party members in a party of hundreds of thousands. Some of these, as in the case of the dispute in Oxford, were even proven to be fabricated. Despite this, media headlines described Labour as a “cold house for Jews,” a “cesspit” and a “racist party.”

Coup Collaboration

The British media’s bias against Corbyn made it a useful weapon in the coup attempt against his leadership orchestrated by right-wing Labour MPs.

In the days after the Brexit vote forty-six MPs resigned from Corbyn’s shadow cabinet in forty-eight hours, spacing out their announcements to allow them to occur on an hourly basis live on air. The narrative for these resignations was set up in a BBC article on June 26th by Kuenssberg which accused Corbyn of having “deliberately sabotaged” the Remain campaign despite providing no evidence of such a plot.

This was to be only the beginning of the inaccuracies about Corbyn in the mainstream press.

On June 29, the Guardian reported that Thomas Piketty had resigned as an advisor to Corbyn citing his “weak” leadership of the Remain campaign. This prompted another economic advisor, Anne Pettifor, to release an email sent more than two weeks before the result from Piketty explaining that his resignation was due to “time commitments” and “making clear that I do support Jeremy and his attempt to bring Labour more to the left.”

The next day the Guardian caused a stir at the launch of a report into antisemitism in the Labour Party when it misquoted Corbyn as having compared Israel to ISIS. In fact, as it later had to admit in a correction, he had done no such thing.

This prompted the author of Labour’s antisemitism report, Shami Chakrabarti, to condemn the “deliberate misrepresentation” of Corbyn’s speech, while Daily Mirror journalist Kevin Maguire said that “facts, fairness, rationality and proportionality” had been “lost in a frenzy to destroy Corbyn.”

But it was too late — the controversy had already seen “ISIS Israel” trending on Twitter for most of the day.

On July 1, the Guardian again misreported a crucial detail in relation to Corbyn when it implied that John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, had come out against freedom of movement after Brexit. This drew criticism from many on the Left before McDonnell had to step in to correct the record.

The next day the media had contrived another controversy relating to Corbyn, this time what the Telegraph described as a “furious confrontation” with a journalist at an anti-racism rally. Articles initially reported that Corbyn had “lunged” at a “female journalist.” However, when video of the incident was released, it became clear that he had simply turned around and said “if you want to arrange an interview speak to my press office. Thank you.” The journalist in question later came out to say that she had, in fact, not been “lunged at.”

Media Monopoly

It can be tempting, when examining the media’s response to Jeremy Corbyn, to be drawn to the ridiculous excess of the right-wing press when it criticizes his gardening skills or accuses him of eating noodles, but the problem in the British press runs much deeper than this.

The BBC’s willingness to offer its live broadcasting as a venue for transparent media manipulation by establishment Labour MPs are a timely reminder of its inability to be relied on as a public service broadcaster.

Even the traditionally left-wing media — not only the Guardian and Observer, but also the Daily Mirror — have been more than willing to join the chorus of voices calling for Corbyn to step down. This is not a response to the market but rather a political decision, as their own research demonstrates that their readerships do not agree with this editorial line.

At the time of writing there is not a single mainstream media outlet in Britain with an editorial line supporting Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. This is despite the fact that, under Corbyn, Labour this week became the largest social-democratic party in the Western world with 600,000 members.

A representative media environment, even one that was responding to market pressures, could be expected to reflect this groundswell of support. But Britain does not have such an environment.

Around 70 percent of Britain’s newspapers are owned by just three companies: Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, the Daily Mail’s General Trust, and Trinity Mirror. In broadcast media over 80 percent of the national audience share goes to Murdoch or to the BBC. This concentration of media ownership allows for a tiny clique in Britain to effectively control the flow of information to 65 million people. Their power to do so is not held to any meaningful account, and their willingness to use their position to subvert the democratic will should not be doubted.

Jeremy Corbyn’s rise to the leadership of the Labour Party was an earthquake in politics which reflected a deep disillusionment in the political and economic system. His tenure in that position has been shaped by a media environment which is no less in need of such an earthquake.

July 10, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Chilcot condemns Blair’s behaviour, but declines to accuse him of lying

By Scot Lucas | The Conversation | July 6, 2016

Seven years after it was commissioned and 13 years after the Iraq War began, the Iraq Inquiry’s report on Britain’s part in the invasion has been published – and the fallout has begun.

The headlines are already an excoriating verdict on Tony Blair’s actions before, during, and after the invasion: Crushing Verdict on Blair and the Iraq War, Iraq Invasion “Not Last Resort”. And yet, in a most British way, an upper limit has still been imposed on the criticism, first and foremost by Sir John Chilcot and his committee.

Faced with the politics as well as the evidence – dare anyone put Blair in a position to face war crimes charges, or even dare to accuse him of abusing his power? – Chilcot steered clear of the L-word.

In fact, the word “lie” does not appear once in the Executive Summary. The only time that “lying” is used refers not to Blair, but to Saddam Hussein: “When Iraq denied that it had retained any WMD capabilities, the UK Government accused it of lying.” Nowhere does the report invoke a more colourful, if politer, formulation of the conclusion: that the intelligence for the invasion was “sexed up” on the orders of the prime minister’s office.

As David Cameron said of the report after its release: “Deliberate deceit? I can’t find a reference to it.”

So how does Chilcot manage to pull off this balancing act, going just far enough in the criticism to chide Blair while not opening up the full extent of the former prime minister’s actions?

The “lessons” of the report’s Executive Summary are a demonstration of the inquiry’s agility and care. Here’s the opener:

The decision to join the US‑led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the product of a particular set of circumstances which are unlikely to be repeated. Unlike other instances in which military force has been used, the invasion was not prompted by the aggression of another country or an unfolding humanitarian disaster. The lessons drawn by the Inquiry on the pre‑conflict element of this Report are therefore largely context‑specific and embedded in its conclusions. Lessons on collective Ministerial decision‑making, where the principles identified are enduring ones, are an exception.

“Unlikely to be repeated”. Given that assurance, we do not need to draw out the specific consideration of the extent of the Blair Government’s manipulations – apparently because we will not face another situation in which a prime minister might dare to go so far.

Which, of course, pushes aside the essential point. The point of Blair’s accountability is that his conduct, which arguably could be held responsible for the deaths of 179 British personnel and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, was exceptional.

Don’t lie

Releasing itself from the unwelcome burden of judgement, the report is free to set out a series of general recommendations, all of which implicitly say “don’t lie” without actually using those words.

Here is the report’s cautious framing of the September 2002 order from Blair and his advisor Alastair Campbell:

It was a mistake not to see the risk of combining in the September dossier the JIC’s [Joint Intelligence Committee’s] assessment of intelligence and other evidence with the interpretation and presentation of the evidence in order to make the case for policy action.

As can be seen from the JIC Assessments quoted in, and published with, this report, they contain careful language intended to ensure that no more weight is put on the evidence than it can bear …

Organising the evidence in order to present an argument in the language of Ministerial statements produces a quite different type of document.

To be fair to Chilcot, the Lessons cite “a damaging legacy, including undermining trust and confidence in Government statements” from the episode. But the report’s Executive Summary declines to address the question of whether Blair is culpable, much less of what crime. It merely says that, because of the manipulation of the intelligence, “it may be more difficult [in the future] to secure support for the Government’s position and agreement to action”.

Holding back

And so it goes throughout the lessons, with damning phrases appropriately reined in:

Constant use of the term “weapons of mass destruction” without further clarification obscured the differences between the potential impact of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and the ability to deliver them effectively …

There may be evidence which is “authoritative” or which puts an issue “beyond doubt”; but there are unlikely to be many circumstances when those descriptions could properly be applied to inferential judgements relying on intelligence …

The need to be scrupulous in discriminating between facts and knowledge on the one hand and opinion, judgement or belief on the other …

The need for vigilance to avoid unwittingly crossing the line from supposition to certainty, including by constant repetition of received wisdom.

And so Tony Blair, free from a full reckoning for his words and actions, can posture, as he did within an hour of the report’s release, that there was “no falsification or improper use of intelligence”, “no deception of Cabinet”, and “no secret commitment to war”.

Let the Stop the War movement’s protesters wave their “Bliar” signs all they want; they have yet to be officially vindicated. A few minutes after his predecessor’s response to the report, David Cameron told parliament that “at no stage does [Chilcot] explicitly say that there was a deliberate attempt to mislead people”.

And that, after 13 years, is that.

July 10, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

NATO ‘speaks of defense, prepares offensive’, says Gorbachev

RT | July 10, 2016

Despite NATO assurances that it seeks deterrence and dialogue with Russia, the alliance seems to be preparing to escalate conflict, says Mikhail Gorbachev, the man praised for ending the Cold War after the alliance convened at a summit in Warsaw.

“The rhetoric in Warsaw screams of an intention to practically declare war on Russia. They only talk about defense, but in fact they are preparing an offensive,” the former Soviet leader told Interfax.

Gorbachev, who played a key part in deescalating tensions between the Soviet Union and the West in the 1980s and eventually withdrew soviet troops from eastern Europe, was commenting on the two-day NATO summit in the Polish capital. Ironically, the city once lent its name to NATO’s communist counterpart, the Warsaw Pact, but has now seen leaders of the US-led alliance negotiating increased pressure on Russia.

In its final communique NATO accused Russia of “provocative military activities in the periphery of NATO territory” and “willingness to attain political goals by the threat and use of force”. The alliance said Moscow’s actions “are a source of regional instability, fundamentally challenge the alliance, have damaged Euro-Atlantic security, and threaten our long-standing goal of a Europe whole, free, and at peace.”

The key result of the Warsaw summit was the long-promised deployment of additional NATO troops at Russia’s border, namely in host nation Poland and the Baltic States. NATO claims that the deployment is necessary to prevent a possible attack from Russia and reassure the eastern European nations that other members are committed to defend them.

The anticipated decision and the entire event is perceived by many people as anti-Russian, Brian Becker from the anti-war ‘Answer Coalition’ told RT.

“It is a big show: you have 2,500 officials; you have 2,000 media, and you have the 28 members of NATO plus 26 partnering countries […] almost a quarter of the countries in the world under a US-led military alliance threatening Russia,” he said. “It is perceived as such in Russia, and it should be perceived as such.”

Russia believes that NATO’s new troop deployments as well as an increased number of military trainings near Russia’s territory, the creation of anti-ballistic missile sites in Europe and other moves are a threat to Russia’s national security. Its response was to increase its own troops in the west, saying it’s necessary to counter NATO’s new capabilities.

The alliance, Moscow says, plays the card of perceived Russian aggression to justify its overdue existence and push European nations into increasing defense spending. Improving budget discipline was praised by the alliance at the summit, even though the majority of members are still below NATO’s 2 percent GDP benchmark for military spending.

Critics of NATO like Gorbachev say it is taking risks by alienating Russia to secure its own goals.

“The world should realize that it can’t pretend that nothing concerning is happening. Russia cannot but keep its defense line, and this horrifying process must be stopped,” he said. “World peoples should stop this slide towards war so that nobody dared gamble with escalating the global tension and push the world to a new shooting war.”

The concern seems to be shared by some NATO members, which amid the summit reiterated on numerous occasions that the alliance is not seeking confrontation with Russia.

“We must ask if the world would be a better place when both sides conduct military exercises on the borders and arm themselves,” German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told Passauer Neue Presse on Thursday.

French President Francois Hollande said that the defensive block “has no role at all to be saying what Europe’s relations with Russia should be,” adding that France doesn’t see Russia as a threat.

NATO’s official stance on Russia is that it wants to deter it while keeping channels open “when Russia’s actions make that possible”. But it also condemned Russia’s military presence in Syria and its support of the Syrian government, even though in Syria, Russia and NATO members have a rare moment of limited cooperation in fighting against terrorist groups.

Practically all ties with Russia were suspended by NATO after the Ukrainian political crisis escalated tension between the two. The NATO-Russia Council, a body that is supposed to tackle the differences, was reconvened after a two-year break and is to hold a meeting next week in Brussels.

Other decisions taken by NATO members at the Warsaw summit included the continued training of Iraqi troops, which will be moved from Jordan to Iraq proper, closer cooperation with the European Union on issues like opposing Russia and tackling the refugee crisis and deploying AWACS aircraft to monitor airspace over Syria and Iraq, “raising situational awareness” for the anti-IS operation led by the US.

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Unity, but not unanimity? NATO split on countering Russia amid Warsaw summit

July 10, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 2 Comments