Troubling Gaps in the New MH-17 Report
By Robert Parry | Consortium News | September 28, 2016
The key conclusion of the Dutch-led criminal inquiry implicating Russia in the 2014 shootdown of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 relied heavily on cryptic telephone intercepts that were supplied by the Ukrainian intelligence service and were given incriminating meaning not clearly supported by the words.
The investigators also seemed to ignore other intercepts that conflicted with their conclusions, including one conversation that appeared to be referring to a Ukrainian convoy, not one commanded by ethnic Russian rebels, that was closing in on the Luhansk airport, placing Ukrainian troops deep inside rebel territory.
That conversation was among five that the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) released in seeking the public’s help in identifying persons of interest in the MH-17 shootdown. The callers seemed to discussing information from Moscow regarding the movement of a convoy, but they describe it as a “Ukrops” or Ukrainian troop convoy.
“B: I am saying about the confirmation of the convoy that is going in the direction of the airport… Moscow/Moskva has confirmed… they see it. Is it err… whatsit… Ukrops convoy?
“A: The convoy that is going in the direction of the airport? Yes.
“B: And how did it go through?
“A: Most likely through Sabovka,” which the JIT interprets to be the town of Sabivka, about five miles west of Luhansk and about 92 miles northeast of Donetsk, the two rebel capitals. The Luhansk airport is about 20 miles south of the city center.
In other words, if this intercept from JIT is correct, the Ukrainian military was operating near the highway routes that the alleged Russian Buk missile battery would have been using. The conversation then picks up, referring to a possible battle for the airport:
“B: So, the convoy was confirmed. Where the convoy can be from?
“C: I don’t know where it is going from. It’s from west, isn’t it?
“B: It’s somehow going from west. From west. Fucking one and a half kilometres from the airdrome.
“C: From the airdrome?
“B: Yes.
“C: It can’t be one and a half kilometres from the airdrome because there is a populated locality there, there are positions there. Probably… I don’t know. Will now try to do something. … I think we will be receiving information soon… our groups have left.
“B: Uh-huh.
“C: Ok. Well, if they come in the airport, will fight at the airport. What else can we do?
“B: Ok. I got you.”
Although it’s difficult to know precisely what these callers are discussing, the conversation seems to refer to a potential battle for an airport, not the deployment of a Buk missile system.
Also, if Ukrainian forces had penetrated that deep into rebel territory, it is difficult to exclude that a Ukrainian Buk battery might have traveled along the southerly route H-21, which skirts Donetsk and then heads east toward the JIT’s claimed firing site in a field near the town of Pervomaiskyi. H-21 then bends north toward Luhansk airport and the city of Luhansk.
The Ukrainian Buks
The JIT video report on the MH-17 case, which was released on Wednesday, also didn’t address questions about the location of several Ukrainian Buk missile batteries that Dutch (i.e. NATO) intelligence placed in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, the day that MH-17 was shot down. A finding from the Dutch intelligence service, MIVD, released last October, said the only high-powered anti-aircraft missile systems in eastern Ukraine at that time, capable of bringing down MH-17 at 33,000 feet and killing all 298 people onboard, belonged to the Ukrainian military, not the rebels.
Although the location of the Ukrainian Buk systems would seem to be crucial to the investigation — at least in eliminating other suspects — JIT operates under an agreement with the Ukrainian government that lets it veto the release of information. Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service, which represented the Kiev government in the JIT, also has among its official responsibilities the protection of secret information that could be damaging to Ukraine.
Regarding JIT’s claim that the Buk missile system crossed over from Russian territory, the video report states: “All telecom data and intercepted telephone calls that have been examined by the investigation team demonstrates that the Buk/TELAR (the self-contained operating system) was brought into Ukraine from the Russian Federation.”
But as evidence the JIT cites one phone intercept, which – according to the JIT’s translation – does not use the word Buk though referencing a piece of equipment that can move on its own or be transported by truck. That could be a Buk system but could apply to many other weapons systems as well.
In the intercepted call, one speaker said, “it crossed, crossed the line.” The narrator of the JIT video report then adds, “The Buk/TELAR crossed the line, in other words, it passed the border.” But there are two assumptions here: that the unidentified weapon is a Buk and that the “line” means border. That could be the case but other interpretations are possible.
Another key point, the disputed location of the so-called “getaway” video of a Buk missile system missing one missile, is simply asserted as fact without an explanation as to how the JIT reached its conclusion placing the location near Luhansk.
While the Western mainstream media has given the JIT great credibility, the JIT itself has acknowledged a dependency on Ukraine’s SBU, which shaped the inquiry by supplying its selection of phone intercepts.
Yet, the SBU is far from a neutral party in the investigation, nor does it have clean hands regarding the Ukrainian civil war that followed a U.S.-backed putsch ousting elected President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22, 2014, and sparking an uprising among ethnic Russian Ukrainians who represented Yanukovych’s political base in the east and south.
Since then, the SBU has been on the front lines of crushing the rebellion by using controversial tactics. In late June 2016, the United Nation’s Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic accused the SBU of frustrating U.N. investigations into its alleged role in torture and other war crimes.
Simonovic criticized the SBU for “not always providing access to all places where detainees may be kept. … OHCHR (the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights) also continues to receive accounts about torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary and incommunicado detention by the SBU, especially in the conflict zone.
“Torture and threats to members of the families, including sexual threats, are never justifiable, and perpetrators will be held to account sooner or later. … War crimes, crimes against humanity and grave breaches of human rights cannot be the subject of an amnesty.”
Yet, the SBU strongly influenced the direction of the JIT, which included Ukraine along with the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Malaysia. The JIT agreement gave Ukraine veto power over what would be released – even though Ukrainian military units were among the logical suspects in the MH-17 case,
Relying on Ukrainian Intelligence
Earlier this year, an internal report describing the JIT operation revealed how dependent the investigators had become on information provided by the SBU. According to the report, the SBU helped shape the MH-17 investigation by supplying a selection of phone intercepts and other material that would presumably not include sensitive secrets that would implicate the SBU’s political overseers in Ukraine. But the JIT seemed oblivious to this conflict of interest, saying:
“Since the first week of September 2014, investigating officers from The Netherlands and Australia have worked here [in Kiev]. They work in close cooperation here with the Security and Investigation Service of the Ukraine (SBU). Immediately after the crash, the SBU provided access to large numbers of tapped telephone conversations and other data. …
“At first rather formal, cooperation with the SBU became more and more flexible. ‘In particular because of the data analysis, we were able to prove our added value’, says [Dutch police official Gert] Van Doorn. ‘Since then, we notice in all kinds of ways that they deal with us in an open way. They share their questions with us and think along as much as they can.’”
The internal JIT report continued: “With the tapped telephone conversations from SBU, there are millions of printed lines with metadata, for example, about the cell tower used, the duration of the call and the corresponding telephone numbers. The investigating officers sort out this data and connect it to validate the reliability of the material. …
“By now, the investigators are certain about the reliability of the material. ‘After intensive investigation, the material seems to be very sound’, says Van Doorn, ‘that also contributed to the mutual trust.’”
Another concern about how the SBU could manipulate the JIT investigation is that the long assignments of investigators in Kiev over a period of more than two years could create compromising situations. Kiev has a reputation as a European hotbed for prostitution and sex tourism, and there’s the possibility of other human relationships developing between Australian and Dutch investigators and Ukrainian intelligence officers.
According to the JIT report, four investigating officers from Australia are stationed in Kiev on three-month rotations while Dutch police rotate in two teams of about five people each for a period of a “fortnight,” or two weeks.
The relative isolation of the Australian investigators further adds to their dependence on their Ukrainian hosts. According to the report, “The Australian investigators find themselves a 26 hour flight away from their home country and have to deal with a large time difference. ‘For us Australians, it is more difficult to get into contact with our home base, which is why our operation is quite isolated in Kiev’, says [Andrew] Donoghoe,” a senior investigating officer from the Australian Federal Police.
The SBU’s assistance, however, did not lead to a rapid resolution of the MH-17 mystery, now more than two years old. The Dutch Safety Board report last October placed the spot of the suspected missile launch within a 320-square-kilometer area, including both government and rebel positions.
According to the Dutch intelligence service finding also released last October, the only anti-aircraft missiles in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, capable of hitting a plane flying at 33,000 feet belonged to the Ukrainian military.
There’s also the dog-not-barking mystery of the curious silence from the U.S. intelligence community. Although Secretary of State John Kerry claimed to know the firing location immediately after the shootdown, the U.S. government went silent after CIA analysts had time to evaluate U.S. satellite, electronic and other intelligence data.
A source who was briefed by U.S. intelligence analysts told me that they saw the attack as a rogue Ukrainian operation involving a hard-line oligarch with the possible motive of shooting down Russian President Vladimir Putin’s official plane returning from South America that day, with similar markings as MH-17. But I have been unable to determine if that assessment represented a dissident or consensus view inside the U.S. intelligence community.
For its part, the Russian government has denied supplying the eastern Ukrainian rebels with a Buk system although the rebels did possess shorter-range, shoulder-fired MANPADs.
Moscow says US failed to separate rebels from terrorists in response to US ultimatum over Syria
RT | September 28, 2016
The US holds Russia responsible for the violence in Aleppo and is threatening to break off all cooperation with Moscow in Syria, the State Department said. Russia is asking the US to live up to its obligation to separate US-backed opposition from terrorists.
In a phone conversation with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday morning, the US Secretary of State John Kerry “expressed grave concern” over the “attacks on hospitals, the water supply network, and other civilian infrastructure in Aleppo” by the Russian and Syrian forces, State Department spokesman John Kirby said.
“The Secretary made clear the United States and its partners hold Russia responsible for this situation, including the use of incendiary and bunker buster bombs in an urban environment, a drastic escalation that puts civilians at great risk,” Kirby added.
The Russian foreign minister pointed out that a number of anti-government groups described by Washington as “moderates” refused to follow the ceasefire arranged by Russia and the US on September 9, instead choosing to side with Jabhat Al-Nusra and attack the Syrian Army alongside this Al-Qaeda branch.
Washington is preparing to suspend the “bilateral engagement” on Syria with Moscow, including the establishment of the Joint Implementation Center, unless Russia immediately halts the attack on Aleppo and restores the ceasefire, Kerry told Lavrov.
The US promised long ago to separate the rebels from terrorists and it needs to live up to that obligation, Lavrov told Kerry, bringing up the recent interview of an Al-Nusra commander about how the group is receiving outside support – including American weapons – as well as the statement of a Syrian opposition leader Riyad Hijab that he did not consider Al-Nusra terrorists.
Kerry’s belief that Russia was responsible for the ceasefire’s collapse is “absolutely mistaken” author and journalist Abdel Bari Atwan told RT.
It was Washington that did not follow through on to the deal, failing to separate what it called moderate opposition from terrorist groups, he said.
“I’m really scared about this ultimatum, because it seems like the US administration is going to escalate the [situation] in Aleppo,” Atwan told RT. “Things are really moving into a really dangerous zone here.”
US Outcry over Syria… Tears Followed By NATO Bombs
By Finian CUNNINGHAM | Strategic Culture Foundation | 28.09.2016
The crescendo of US-led condemnations against Syria and Russia over alleged humanitarian crimes in Syria grows louder by the day. The eerie sense is that this «outcry» is being orchestrated as a prelude to a NATO-style intervention in Syria.
Such a NATO maneuver would follow the template for former Yugoslavia and Libya, leading to greater civilian deaths, territorial disintegration, a surge in regional terrorism and more international lawlessness by Western states.
The concerted, emotive appeals over the past week – bordering on hysteria – indicate a propaganda campaign coordinated between Washington and its Western allies, the mass media and the US-led NATO military alliance.
It was US ambassador the United Nations Samantha Power who led the chorus of accusations against Russia and its Syrian ally, using the Security Council emergency meeting last weekend to condemn «barbarism» of renewed violence around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. Britain and France piled in with more unsubstantiated condemnations of war crimes, as did shameless UN officials, Ban Ki-Moon, the secretary general, and Staffan de Mistura, the UN’s special envoy to Syria.
Few people would countenance war, but surely Syria has the sovereign right to defend its nation from a foreign-fueled war on its territory. In all the lachrymose lecturing from the likes of Samantha Power, the pertinent question of who started this war in the first place gets lost in rhetorical fog.
Days later, NATO civilian chief Jens Stoltenberg issued a statement denouncing Russia and Syria for «blatant violation of international laws» in Aleppo, adding that the military actions by both were «morally totally unacceptable».
All the while, Western news media outlets have run saturation coverage of what they depict as a humanitarian hell in Aleppo, the strategic Syrian city where the final throes of the country’s nearly six-year war seem to be playing out.
The New York Times published an article with the gut-wrenching headline: ‘The Children of Aleppo, Syria, Trapped in a Killing Zone’.
It goes on to say: «Among the roughly 250,000 people trapped in the insurgent redoubt of the divided northern Syrian city are 100,000 children, the most vulnerable victims of intensified bombings by Syrian forces and their Russian allies.»
In a separate article, euronews.com reports: ‘Nowhere to hide’ – volunteer describes conditions inside Aleppo’.
The implication in the Western mass media is that Syrian and Russian air forces are bombarding indiscriminately across civilian districts of the city. The same desperate tone and bias is ubiquitous in all Western media outlets.
However, if we ascertain the sources for this saturation information, it turns out to be a limited range of anonymous «activists», or the Western-funded group known as the White Helmets, which purports to be a humanitarian response network, but which in actual fact is integrated with illegally armed insurgents, including the al Qaeda terror organization Jabhat al Fatah al Sham (al Nusra Front), as writer Rick Sterling details.
Western TV news outlets are routinely using video footage from the White Helmets, supposedly taken in the aftermath of air strikes on Aleppo. This is an astounding abdication of any journalistic ethics of independence and impartiality.
These same media outlets rarely, if ever, carry reports from the western side of Aleppo where a six-fold greater population – 1.5 million – live in government-held districts, compared with the «rebel-held» eastern quarter.
As independent writer Vanessa Beeley recently reported, some 600,000 people fled to the western side of Aleppo from the al Nusra-dominant stronghold on the eastern side. According to medics quoted by Beeley, the majority of the population in the eastern quarter are being held hostage as human shields by the insurgents, or as the Western governments and media call them «moderate rebels» and «activists». There are also credible witness reports of terrorists shooting at people fleeing from the east through humanitarian corridors set up by the Syrian government.
In recent weeks, hundreds of civilians in the western districts of Aleppo have been killed from indiscriminate shelling and sniping by militants from the eastern side.
When do you ever hear or read the Western media reporting on those crimes? You don’t, because that would unravel the propaganda narrative aimed at demonizing, criminalizing and delegitimizing the Syrian government and its Russia ally.
And a key leitmotif of the official Western narrative is to create the perception that innocent civilians in Aleppo are being slaughtered by Syria and Russian forces. Both Damascus and Moscow reject claims that they are targeting civilian areas. Moscow has vehemently refuted Western claims that it is committing war crimes. Even the normally jingoistic US outlet Radio Free Europe quotes a legal expert from Amnesty International as saying that there is no evidence to indict Russia of such crimes.
And because the anti-government militants restrict access to their stronghold, including for UN aid agencies, it is hard to verify the claims and footage coming out of there. Which notwithstanding has not restrained Western media from broadcasting the information verbatim.
The Western mantra of «humanitarian crisis» and «war crimes» has the unmistakable connotation of contriving a public acceptance of certain policy objectives that Washington and its allies are striving for. At the very least, one of those objectives is to create a political atmosphere whereby Syria and Russia are obliged to comply with calls for no-fly zones, as recently demanded by US Secretary of State John Kerry. So far, Syria and Russia have rebuffed any such initiative, saying that it would give succor to the illegally armed groups who are now decisively in retreat.
Still, a more far-reaching objective could be Washington and its allies fostering a public mandate for military intervention by the NATO alliance. The outcry over «humanitarian suffering» in eastern Aleppo is a repeat of the «responsibility to protect» (R2P) ploy which NATO invoked to previously intervene and dismember former Yugoslavia in the late 1990s, and a decade later in Libya in 2011.
The US official inimitably qualified for such a political objective is Washington’s ambassador at the UN – Samantha Power. Her recent diatribes against Russia show a total disregard for diplomatic or legal protocol. Suffused with self-righteousness and selective «humanitarian» concern, Power is evidently leading a media campaign to mandate a NATO force being deployed to Syria’s Aleppo in order to «protect the children trapped in a killing zone» as the New York Times might put it.
Forty-six-year-old Power has made her entire professional career out of formulating the «R2P» doctrine that has in the past well-served Washington’s imperialist goals.
As a young reporter in the 1990s, Power wrote one-sided screeds about ethnic cleansing and genocide in the Balkans, which conveniently demonized Serbia, culminating in the NATO bombing of Belgrade in 1999 and the subsequent carve up of Kosovo to become a NATO base. For this service to imperial interests, she was subsequently rewarded with a professorship at Harvard University and a Pulitzer-prize-winning book about genocide, a book which eminent scholars like Edward Herman have debunked as a load of plagiarism and self-serving historical distortions.
The fiery, Irish-born Power was later promoted by President Barack Obama as an advisor on his National Security Council. It was in this position that she pushed the policy of NATO bombing Libya in 2011 with a reprise of her «R2P» doctrine.
These NATO military assaults facilitated by emotive appeals to «humanitarian values» have since been shown to be reckless violations of international law amounting to foreign aggression. Earlier this year, the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was officially exonerated over war crimes allegations, charges that NATO had leveled to justify its bombardment of his country. Also, earlier this month a British parliamentary committee denounced former prime minister David Cameron for his involvement in the NATO intervention in Libya as being unfounded on claims that then Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was preparing to slaughter residents in the city of Benghazi.
But it was s0-called «liberal hawks» like Samantha Power who were instrumental in providing political and moral cover for Washington and the NATO military to conduct these illegal foreign invasions and regime changes under the pretext of protecting human rights and civilian lives.
Obama assigned his useful apparatchik Samantha Power to the United Nations in August 2013, where she has proven to be completely out of her depth in terms of diplomatic finesse. She has infused her position on the Security Council with anti-Russian vitriol in the pursuit of Washington’s hegemonic interests, regardless of international law or objective historical analysis.
The «humanitarian» propaganda drumbeat over Aleppo belies the facts and circumstances of Washington’s covert war for regime change in Syria. A dirty war in which it and its NATO allies have colluded with a proxy army of terrorist gangs, as this recent German media report by Jurgen Todenhofer confirms.
Faced with a losing covert war in Syria, through the defeat of its terror proxy forces, it appears that Washington is striving for a more robust intervention in the guise of NATO military deployment, perhaps as «peacekeepers» overseeing a no-fly zone, as seen previously in Libya with disastrous results.
Emoting about humanitarian concerns is a well-worn prelude for NATO barbarism on behalf of Washington’s geopolitical interests. Crocodile tears followed by bombs. And no better person to carry out this subterfuge than UN ambassador Samantha Power.
DHS Secretary Refuses to Comment on Clinton Claims Russia Behind Election Hack
Sputnik — 27.09.2016
US Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson refused to discuss Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s attribution of recent election cyberattacks in the United States to Russia in a brief conversation with Sputnik on Tuesday.
During the Monday presidential debate, Clinton asserted “there is no doubt” that Russia organized the July hack against the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and other election-cycle cyberattacks.
“I have no comment on that, sorry,” Johnson told Sputnik when asked about Clinton’s statement during the Monday night US presidential debate claiming that Russia was behind recent election-cycle hacks in the United States.
Clinton’s allegations do not match the official statements by the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Department of Homeland Security, which have not yet made any attribution for the DNC hack or recent cyber breaches of US state election systems.
Russia has also rejected the claims of interfering in the US election as absurd.
International investigators allowed Ukraine to fabricate MH17 evidence – Russia
RT | September 28, 2016
The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that investigators probing the MH17 crash allowed Ukraine to fabricate evidence, turning the case to its advantage, while denying Moscow any comprehensive role in the inquiry.
“Russia suggested working together from the start and relying on the facts only,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a statement for the media on Wednesday, commenting on the findings in the criminal probe into the MH17 crash by a Dutch-led team of international investigators.
“Instead of [working together], international investigators suspended Moscow from comprehensive participation in the investigative process, allowing our efforts only a minor role. It sounds like a bad joke, but at the same time they made Ukraine a full member of the JIT [Joint Investigation Team], giving it the opportunity to forge evidence and turn the case to its advantage,” Zakharova added.
The spokesperson also noted that the JIT bases its findings on evidence provided by Ukrainian power structures, which are “undoubtedly a party with a vested interest.”
“To this day, the investigators continue to ignore the overwhelming evidence provided by the Russian side, despite the fact that Russia is the only side that submits accurate information and constantly discloses new data,” Zakharova said.
“Russia is disappointed that the situation surrounding the investigation into the Boeing crash is not changing. The findings of the Dutch prosecutor’s office confirm that the investigation is biased and politically motivated.
“To arbitrarily designate a guilty party and dream up the desired results has become the norm for our Western colleagues,” the spokesperson said.
Read more:
Canadian professor libelously targeted as “anti-semite” in coordinated attack
By Rafiq | American Herald Tribune | September 28, 2016
In his Now Magazine article “Facebook Removes Anti-Semitic Post after Online Blowback,” Bernie Farber explains that “the Facebook ravings on the social media site of Anthony Hall,” a tenured professor at the University of Lethbridge in Alberta, have been identified as anti-Semitic. This statement might lead readers to believe that there were anti-Semitic ravings by Dr. Hall on his Facebook page, but as the article makes clear, there are no examples of such ravings by Dr. Hall, only by “one Glen Davidson,” who we are told posted these ravings on Dr. Hall’s page.
Farber goes on to state that Dr. Hall “has publicly embraced the ridiculous and obnoxious notions of Gerard Menuhin, who has purported to have proof that the Holocaust is a myth.” Farber does not attempt to dismiss any of this proof, as one might expect an objective journalist to do, but instead takes the position that such proof can be dismissed out of hand as false without any investigation.
By comparison, Dr. Hall sounds like the more reasonable person for having actually looked at Menuhin’s book Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil. Note, too, that when Hall says “I’m reading that text and having to reassess a lot of ideas,” he does not say that he has changed his ideas, only that he is reassessing his ideas. Again, Hall sounds like the more courageous thinker for his willingness to reassess his thinking on a narrative as seemingly sacrosanct as the Jewish holocaust.
Having not yet said anything that convinces me Dr. Hall is an anti-Semite, Farber adds, “Hall reportedly linked Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad, with 9/11.” The role of Mossad, along with the CIA, in the 9/11 attacks is a fact well documented by credible journalists and scholars and widely disseminated online and in books. It is public knowledge and in the public domain. To admit the role of Mossad and the CIA in 9/11 is to admit the villainy of national governments and their foreign policies. Jewish identity and anti-Semitism have nothing to do with it.
Regarding the anti-Semitic Facebook post that did not even originate with Dr. Hall, Farber writes, “To the best of my knowledge, Hall was never moved to delete this post himself.” An unbiased journalist would have contacted Dr. Hall and asked him about this matter. Well, I did contact Dr. Hall, and he informed me that he didn’t even know that the post was up on the “wall” of his Facebook page until after it had been taken down and after he had learned of the resulting controversy. So, here again, Farber offers no proof that Dr. Hall is even remotely anti-Semitic.
Not only that, but Dr. Hall’s award-winning two-volume book The Bowl with One Spoon, published by respected arbiter of scholarly history McGill-Queen’s University Press, gives every indication that Dr. Hall is the opposite of a racist, particularly in light of his deep commitment to exposing the plight of Indigenous peoples. Indeed, renowned Canadian scholar Naomi Klein, who happens to be Jewish, doesn’t seem to think that Dr. Hall is a racist either. On the cover of Dr. Hall’s book, she writes, “I cannot overstate the importance of this book. If used properly, it could change the world.”
Nonetheless, Farber goes on to bemoan that “the combined efforts of B’nai B’rith Canada and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs were unable to move the University of Lethbridge to take action against Hall.” I would like to believe that this unwillingness on the part of the University of Lethbridge to help B’nai B’rith destroy Dr. Hall’s career is due to the university’s professed commitment to liberal education and liberal values, even if Farber does portray Lethbridge as a racist backwater in conservative Alberta, where Hall is said to have “found a comfortable home amongst Holocaust deniers.”
I would like to believe that the unwillingness of the University of Lethbridge to help B’nai B’rith destroy Dr. Hall’s career is due to the fact that, as a nation, Canada has shown itself willing to reconsider history when there is good cause. Notably, Canadians have recently begun the hard process of re-evaluating our own history with respect to our nation’s cultural and physical genocide against our Indigenous peoples. Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Indian Residential Schools has just published a six-volume final report on its findings, and in the tradition of scholars like Dr. Hall, this report shows fearlessness in confronting past lies so that history can better reflect the truth, however uncomfortable that truth may be.
I would like to believe that the unwillingness of the University of Lethbridge to help B’nai B’rith destroy Dr. Hall’s career is due to the university’s high ideals and Canadian bearing, but when I contacted Dr. Hall, he informed me that the University of Lethbridge has indeed asked him to step down from his tenured position after twenty-six years as a professor. It seems that the university is ready to bow to outside pressure and to sacrifice Dr. Hall. I’m sure that Farber’s biased account of the anti-Semitic posting on Dr. Hall’s Facebook page did little to help Dr. Hall’s chances of staving off B’nai B’rith’s attack.
Farber’s misrepresentation of Dr. Hall is no less offensive than the crime of which Dr. Hall is accused, namely misrepresentation of the Jewish holocaust. The difference between the two is that, in the case of Farber, his accusation that Dr. Hall is an anti-Semite is clearly baseless, whereas Dr. Hall’s willingness “to reassess a lot of ideas” about the history of the Second World War seems to be well thought out given his reputation as a respected historian.
Israeli Nuke-Washing on the World Stage
By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | September 28, 2016
There are oh so many varieties of Zio-washing: pink-washing, green-washing, Black-washing, even Muslim-washing. Now, there’s another to add to the treasury of hasbara promoted by Israel to the world: nuke-washing. I wrote about a similar domestic effort at cleansing Israel’s nuclear warheads of the stench of potential mass murder.
The IAEA celebrated its 60th anniversary in Vienna, its headquarters, recently. And Israel was there with its very own exhibit featuring the innovations and contributions which Israel’s nuclear program has bestowed on humanity. No mention, of course, of Israel’s 200 nuclear weapons and the legacy that they’ve given the world. No mention, of course, that Israel has refused to join the only international agreement limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the NPT. No mention of the fact that Israel has torpedoed a U.S. and Arab effort to hold a regional conference leading to declaring the Mideast a nuclear-free zone.
Instead, we have Rays of Hope (get it? radiation=rays), Israel’s latest marketing effort to persuade the world to ignore its worst deeds and focus instead on deeds that are marginal at best in their overall impact on Israel or the world. A press release from the prime minister’s office hails this as Israel’s first international exhibit of its accomplishments in the field. Here’s some of the marketing jargon, which is about as revoltingly hypocritical as any political statement can be:
The Israeli pavilion highlights Israel as a master of research innovation in the areas of nuclear use for educational, scientific, and agricultural purposes, and for production of clean energy. Director of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, Brig. Gen. (res.) Zeev Snir told the attendees:
“Israeli developments in the nuclear field have spread Rays of Hope and inspiration to many people. Our scientific achievements permit us to manufacture critical equipment for medical treatment, agriculture, security, and safety throughout the world. Our future in the Middle East must include cooperation and joint responsibility for the health and well-being of the people’s of the region. In the spirit of the IAEA, I call upon our neighbors to join to join us and transform a dream into reality.”
Really? Cooperation? Like Israel’s rejection of the NPT? Responsibility for the health and well-being of the region? Does that include the massive poisoning of the environment surrounding the Dimona nuclear reactor and the hundreds, if not thousands of workers who’ve died of lethal doses of radiation? Does it include the impact that Israel’s 200 warheads might have on the region if even one of them was used, as Moshe Dayan advocated during a bleak moment at the outset of the 1973 War?
More nuke-washing: happy shiny Dimona’s website home page
Silenced: Flight 800 And The Subversion Of Justice
What really happened to TWA flight 800? This documentary displays that truth concerning the mysterious crash of TWA Flight 800 on July 17, 1996. As you will see, Flight 800 was actually destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Every allegation made in this film is backed up with facts-none more dramatic than those that come from the Federal government itself. You’ll learn what the 736 official eyewitnesses actually saw; why aviators reject the CIA “cartoon” explanation; how the Feds criminally suppressed reporting; the critical witness drawings; the rigged NTSB hearings; the damning radar data and documentation; the altered physical evidence; undeniable proof of explosive residue proving a missile strike; the stinging report from the machinist union; and much more!
Producer: pastor Don producer, host, tech., jd.consultants@live.com 206-440-1938
See also:
American Pravda: The Destruction of TWA Flight 800
By Ron Unz • Unz Review • September 26, 2016
… When naive individuals suggest that maintaining a large government conspiracy in America is simply impossible because “somebody would have talked” perhaps they should consider the implications of this incident, which occurred so close to the media capital of the world.
And if they ever decide to trust Wikipedia on any remotely controversial topic, they should consult the 10,000 word Wikipedia article on TWA Flight 800, comparing that exhaustive presentation with the simple facts provided in this article, or the wealth of additional information in the numerous books and documentaries upon which my treatment was based. … Read full article
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Book Excerpt
World War Two Was Not a Just War
By David Swanson | September 20, 2016
Excerpted from the just released book War Is Never Just.
World War II is often called “the good war,” and has been since the U.S. war on Vietnam to which it was then contrasted. World War II so dominates U.S. and therefore Western entertainment and education, that “good” often comes to mean something more than “just.” The winner of the “Miss Italy” beauty pageant earlier this year got herself into a bit of a scandal by declaring that she would have liked to live through World War II. While she was mocked, she was clearly not alone. Many would like to be part of something widely depicted as noble, heroic, and exciting. Should they actually find a time machine, I recommend they read the statements of some actual WWII veterans and survivors before they head back to join the fun.[i] For purposes of this book, however, I am going to look only at the claim that WWII was morally just. … continue
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