NATO is making up Russian threat to justify its own existence – former French intel chief
RT | May 16, 2017
NATO became obsolete after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the bloc is purposefully representing Russia as a security threat to justify its own existence, Yves Bonnet, former head of French counter-intelligence, told RT.
The Russians “are no longer ‘villains,’ the Soviet threat has vanished – primarily because the USSR doesn’t exist anymore,” Bonnet said.
The claims of Moscow’s aggressive behavior coming from the US-led military bloc’s officials are “exaggerated,” the former head of Directorate of Territorial Surveillance, or DST as its French abbreviation goes, which was dissolved in 2008, added.
“I believe that NATO intentionally fuels the perception of Russia as a threat… Like any organization, the North Atlantic Alliance wants to continue existing and the only reason for prolonging its existence is you… the Russians,” he said.
Picturing Russia as in international menace “doesn’t work anymore. I can assure you that the French people, fortunately, no longer believe it,” Bonnet added.
The former intelligence chief told French-language media outlet RT en Français that he was “very sad that France has again joined NATO.”
Paris withdrew from NATO in 1966 due to questioning its ability to resist the Soviet Union and developing its own nuclear deterrent, and only returned to the bloc 30 years later.
In the current historic moment, NATO “isn’t a useful organization, but a dangerous one,” Bonnet said, adding that “the North Atlantic Alliance should be disbanded altogether.”
“I saw what NATO did in Yugoslavia [in 1999], waging a war there without an international warrant… Now NATO is invading Afghanistan, although this country isn’t in the North Atlantic,” he said.
The intelligence veteran slammed the bloc’s policies towards Russia, saying that “it makes no sense to make the Russians worry. It’s completely pointless to make [the Russians] nervous. Don’t tease the ‘Russian bear.’”
He also dismissed claims that Russia tried to meddle with the French presidential elections, voiced shortly before the April 23 vote by the candidate of successful candidate Emmanuel Macron.
“I think that it’s exactly the opposite. The Russians didn’t interfere in the French election. But there was an open influence on the presidential campaign from numerous financial interests, both French and international, in particular Israeli, who supported the presidential campaign of Emmanuel Macron,” Bonnet said.
He expressed regret that “for political reasons” Paris is neglecting cooperation with intelligence services of Russia, Syria and other countries that are “directly fighting against terrorism.”
Such international cooperation would be more effective in tackling extremism in France than the emergencies law and other measures currently imposed by the country’s’ authorities, the former intelligence chief said.
Imaginary interior of Saydnaya now has imaginary crematorium – State Dept.
By Catte | OffGuardian | May 16, 2017
Remember “Saydnaya Military Prison”? It was the subject of enormous media attention a while back on the basis of a “report” from Amnesty International that turned out to have been fabricated in the UK by a virtual reality company “using 3D models, animations, and audio software, based on the admittedly baseless accounts of alleged witnesses who claim to have been in or otherwise associated with the prison.”
Well, the totally imaginary interior of Saydnaya now – according to US State Dept – has a totally imaginary “crematorium” added to it in which to dispose of all the totally theoretical corpses being generated by the completely unsubstantiated mass-murders. Here is the impressive and plausible Stuart Jones telling us all about it.
Yes, he lies about the “well-documented” chemical attacks. Yes, he manipulates and exaggerates and omits to the point of fraudulence in his summary of the “civil war.” Yes almost every detail of his claims about the goings-on in Saydnaya is based on Amnesty’s invented “report” and the completely unverified testimony of alleged inmates…
… but, but… they have satellite images! :
In case you’re not getting the message WaPo kindly enhanced and simplified things:
See? That thing on the right that could be absolutely anything is actually a crematorium. The State Department “believes” it with all its heart and wants us to believe it too. As do the Guardian the WaPo and the BBC and every other mainstream outlet. They want us to ignore the total absence of any evidence whatsoever for any part of their narrative and simply take their word.
That’s a “crematorium”. And it’s being used to burn masses of bodies. Just like in the Holocaust.
Because Assad (and Russia) = Hitler.
We need to tear up the ceasefires and ignore the de-escalation zones and invade Syria.
Everyone got that?
NATO returning to ‘historic role as war fighting command’ to counter Russia – top US general
RT | May 4, 2017
The commander of NATO and US forces in Europe has called for yet more armored vehicles and troops to be deployed on the continent to counter what he calls “a resurgent Russia.”
Testifying before a Senate appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday, General Curtis M. Scaparrotti, head of United States European Command (EUCOM) – in charge of all US forces in Europe, as well as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander – accused Russia of threatening regional and global security.
“Today we face the most dynamic European strategic environment in recent history,” he said in his testimony. “In the east, a resurgent Russia had turned from partner to antagonist as it seeks to undermine the Western-led international order and reassert itself as a global power.”
“Accordingly, we are adjusting our plans, our posture, our readiness to remain relevant to combat the threats we face,” he added. “In short, we are returning to our historic role as a war fighting command.”
Two American combat brigades are permanently stationed in Europe: the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Germany and the 173rd Airborne in Italy, which make up around 10,000 of the 60,000-strong American troop presence in Europe. Scaparrotti says more troops are needed – specifically more armored and infantry divisions to counter Russia’s western flank, as well “enablers” like engineers, aviation and fire support staff for the European Reassurance Initiative.
“Russia’s posture is not a light force, it’s a heavy force,” he continued.
“In order to have the posture that is both credible and of the right composition, we need more armored forces… to make sure that we do have a force of enough size that enables us to deter Russia.”
“Five or six years ago, we weren’t concerned about being ready [to fight] today,” Scaparrotti added. “That has changed.”
During the Senate hearing, Scaparrotti also called for more funding to improve local capabilities for infrastructure capable of moving and housing troops.
The European Reassurance Initiative was launched in 2014 in the wake of the political crisis in Ukraine and the perceived Russian intervention there, leading to the most vocal members of NATO – Poland and the Baltic states – claiming that they would be Moscow’s next target. This prompted leading members of the alliance to agree on troop deployments. In March, 800 British soldiers began arriving in Estonia, while Germany sent troops and tanks to Lithuania. Earlier in April, 1,350 NATO soldiers arrived in northeastern Poland in line with the planned buildup.
Russia has consistently criticized the NATO buildup on its doorstep, describing it as a threat to regional security.
“We deplore that deployment, for it raises tensions in Europe along the border between NATO and Russia. Russia doesn’t pose any threat to Estonia nor any other NATO member state,” Russian Ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko recently told the Daily Mail.
Israeli settlers reportedly destroy Palestinian-owned water well near Bethlehem
Ma’an – May 3, 2017
BETHLEHEM – Israeli settlers destroyed a Palestinian-owned water well on Tuesday in the town of al-Khader south of Bethlehem in the southern occupied West Bank, according to official Palestinians news agency Wafa.
Hasan Brijiyeh, a local activist from the separation wall and settlements’ committee in Bethlehem, told Wafa that a group of Israeli settlers destroyed the well under the protection of Israeli forces, identifying the owner of the well as Ahmad Ghnaim.
The 100-square-meter well was built almost 250 years ago, according to the report, and is located near the illegal settlement outpost of Sde Boaz, built on Palestinian-owned land.
Two weeks ago, Wafa reported that Israeli settlers from Sde Boaz razed privately-owned Palestinian land in the Wadi al-Ghawit area in the western outskirts of al-Khader, and physically assaulted the Palestinian landowner.
Sde Boaz, also known as Nevi Daniel North, was established in 2002 when settlers from the established illegal Nevi Daniel settlement took over a hilltop about 1.5 kilometers north of Nevi Daniel.
Israeli settlers from Sde Boaz destroyed over 300 newly planted grape vines belonging to the Sbeihs in 2014.
Some 600,000 Israeli settlers live in settlements across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.
The international community regards all settlements built on occupied Palestinian land to be illegal, though the Israeli government distinguishes between the state-sponsored settlements and dozens of unauthorized outposts like Sde Boaz.
Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed the outpost “Regularization law” in February, which could grant official Israeli governmental recognition to more than a dozen illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank established on private Palestinian lands.
Israeli terrorists incite murder of Arabs south of Nablus
Palestine Information Center – May 3, 2017
NABLUS – Israeli settlers at predawn Wednesday preformed sacrilegious rituals and yelled “death to Arabs” at Yitzhar crossroads, south of Nablus.
Palestinians driving in the area said over 100 Israeli settlers, escorted by heavily-armed soldiers, flocked to the northern entrance to Hawara town, south of Nablus, and yelled anti-Arab chants.
The Israeli settlers further called for revenge against the Palestinians, shouting “Death to Arabs and Muslims.”
On Tuesday evening, a horde of Israeli fanatics showed up at Hawara checkpoint and on the access road to Bracha settlement, illegally built on Palestinian land in Kafr Kalil and Irak Burin, to mark Israel’s establishment anniversary on the land of Palestine.
Iran calls on international community to force Israel to join NPT
Press TV – May 3, 2017
A senior Iranian Foreign Ministry official says the international community must mount pressure on Israel to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) unconditionally and put its nuclear activities under the surveillance of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Gholam-Hossein Dehqani, the director-general for political and international security affairs at Iran’s Foreign Ministry, made the remarks while addressing the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in the Austrian capital city of Vienna on Wednesday.
The Iranian official expressed concern about Israel’s nuclear arsenal, saying the Tel Aviv regime’s nuclear weapons posed a threat to peace and security in the region and the world.
Israel, which pursues a policy of deliberate ambiguity about its nuclear weapons, is estimated to have 200 to 400 nuclear warheads in its arsenal. The regime has refused to allow inspections of its military nuclear facilities or sign the NPT.
Dehqani also criticized nuclear-armed countries for their failure to comply with their commitments to dismantle their nuclear arsenals.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry official described nuclear-armed countries’ refusal to “fulfill their nuclear disarmament commitments over the past 47 years” as “the main challenge to the implementation of the NPT.”
He underlined the need for countries to meet their obligations under Article VI of the NPT, saying the fulfillment of countries’ nuclear commitments was neither arbitrary nor conditional.
Under Article VI of the NPT, all parties to the treaty undertake to pursue good-faith negotiations on effective measures related to nuclear disarmament and the cessation of nuclear arms race.
The preparatory committee, which opened in Austria on May 2 and will conclude on May 12, is responsible for addressing substantive and procedural issues related to the NPT.
Nye’s Quadrant
By Judith Curry | Climate Etc. | May 2, 2017
The scary emergence of Nye’s Quadrant in dominating the public discourse on climate change.
If you are unfamiliar with Pasteur’s Quadrant, read my previous post [link]. The focus of my previous post was on use-inspired basic research. I struggled with the 4th quadrant (lower left), which is sometimes referred to as ‘taxonomy’. In the context of climate science, I interpreted this as climate model taxonomy, which analyzed the results of climate model simulations to identify alarming future possibilities.
Nye’s Quadrant
In response to my previous post on the Science March, which mentioned Pasteur’s Quadrant, Peter Deeble tweeted this version of the Quadrant diagram:
Besides being hysterically funny, the more I thought about it, I realized how profound this is.
Apart from the twitter aspect, here are other attributes of this quadrant:
- Second order belief – allegiance to consensus. Individual has not done primary research on the relevant topic or has not conducted an independent assessment of the evidence and research.
- Shutting down scientific debate; science as dogma
- Alarmism as a tactic to influence the public debate
- Political activism and advocacy for particular policy solutions
- Scientism: a demand that science dictate public policy
- Advocacy research
Some recent articles on Bill Nye’s pernicious influence on the scientific debate:
- Bill Nye not the right guy to lead the climate fight
- Bill Nye: perfect talking head for the March for Science
And then there is Neil DeGrasse Tyson (sorry Neil, you don’t get a Quadrant named after you)
The scariest thing about this quadrant is that this is the quadrant of science that is driving the media and public debate.
Within the field of climate research itself, the quickest litmus test for the Nye Quadrant is twitter addiction (~100 tweets per day)
The group of scientists operating in the Nye Quadrant are getting really political. Unfortunately (or fortunately), they are lousy at politics.
Blair King has a very good post on this: The climate crew: alienating allies and fighting the wrong fights.
See also: Climate change activists are the real science deniers.
Litmus test: Bret Stephen’s recent op-ed
NYTimes recently hired an op-ed writer by the name of Bret Stephens. Mr. Stephens is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who specializes in international affairs but has also written some controversial articles about climate change.
His first op-ed was Climate of Complete Certainty. Its actually very good. Blair King’s article provides the following summary:
Any reasonable read of Mr. Stephen’s first piece identifies some very important arguments that the climate activists have failed to address. The unrealistic confidence the climate activists have placed in their models even though those models are barely able to hindcast, let alone forecast. The growing divide between what climate scientists are saying about climate change and what the climate activists claim they are saying. Most importantly the growing disconnect between what the scientists are saying about the risks of climate change and public sentiment about the topic.
The Climatariat was not pleased. From an article by Julie Kelly:
Gavin Schmidt, a leading climate scientist and head of realclimate.org, has been on a Twitter bender since Friday, calling the column “pathetic. If you want ‘real conversations’ have it w/real people (& scientists) instead of cardboard cutout caricatures.” Stephens was even slammed by Andy Revkin, a climate journalist Stephens favorably cites in his column: “The column also features the kind of straw men and other familiar foils used by those more wedded to a world view or policy position than committed to a deep examination of a complex and consequential problem.” Hundreds of climate activists and science journalists slammed the Times, cancelling their subscriptions and comparing the Times to flat-earthers, creationists, and anti-vaxxers.
Many NYTimes readers are canceling their subscription over Stephens’ op-ed [link]. Stefan Rahmstorf and Ken Caldeira are canceling their subscription to the NYTimes [link]. Michael Mann also.
The NYPost has a good roundup of the hysterical responses.
Even the relatively moderate green journalists are up in arms:
- David Roberts at vox : The New York Times should not have hired climate change bullshitter Brett Stephens
- Nate Silver tweets: There’s nothing conservative (or liberal) about the Stephens column. The issue is about evidence vs. bullshit. He doesn’t know his subject.
And finally, a philosophical basis for canceling your NYTimes subscription over this: The righteous folly of canceling your NYTimes subscription.
JC reflections
How much do the shenanigans in Nye’s Quadrant in the name of science actually ‘matter’? Well fortunately, I don’t think these folks are very good politicians.
The issue of greatest concern is the impact all this has on the scientific community. The fame and fortune of Michael Mann — derived from Nye Quadrant tactics — is going to be tempting to some young scientists to emulate. I am already seeing hints of a few mid career climate scientists that seem ready to go full Nye.
Can we get back to the top half of the quadrant diagram, please.
UK ‘terrorist’ gets 8yrs behind bars for ‘aiding ISIS’ online
© met.police.uk
RT | May 3, 2017
A British man who kept Islamic State publications concealed, James Bond-style, in memory cards inside cufflinks and created a “one-stop shop” for terrorists online has been sentenced to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to five terrorism charges.
Samata Ullah, 34, an unemployed man from Wales, was sentenced to eight years in prison with a five-year extension period on Tuesday after pleading guilty to five charges of terrorism in a British court, according to the Metropolitan Police.
The court at the Old Bailey in London heard how Ullah created an online hub for terrorists from his bedroom, where he uploaded instructional videos and other information to aid terrorists.
According to the Crown Prosecution Service, Ullah was a part of a global network of terrorists who were using their cyber skills to aid Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). Ullah provided instructional videos on how to use encryption programs to hide terrorist activities online and helped IS develop their capabilities and spread propaganda through the Dark Web.
“It is the first time we have seen anything on this scale,” Commander Dean Haydon, head of the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism unit, said, according to the BBC. “He had set up a self-help library for terrorists around the world and they were using his library.”
Haydon described Ullah’s online library as “a one-stop shop for terrorists,” with “guidance on encryption, ways to avoid detection from police and security services, expert tuition around missile systems, and a vast amount of propaganda.”
Prosecutor Brian Altman QC described Ullah as a “new and dangerous breed of terrorist,” according to the BBC.
In March, Ullah admitted to being a member of IS as well as aiding the group in terrorist training, preparing terrorist attacks and possessing articles connected with terrorism.
Ullah was arrested at his home in Wales last September after an international sting operation monitored conversations he had with a Kenyan contact who planned anthrax attacks in the East African nation.
Upon Ullah’s arrest in September, police seized around 200 pieces of evidence, including 150 digital devices with eight terabytes of data, which the Metropolitan Police described as “equivalent of more than 2.2 million copies of the War and Peace e-book.”
Police also found around 30 USB memory cards disguised as cufflinks, which contained “infamous ISIS publications,” according to the Met.
The Metropolitan Police said the evidence they found established Ullah as an active member of IS and “revealed his radical mindset.”
“Just because Ullah’s activity was in the virtual world we never underestimated how dangerous his activity was,” Haydon said. “He sat in his bedroom in Wales and created online content with the sole intention of aiding people who wanted to actively support ISIS and avoid getting caught by the authorities.”
NYT Cheers the Rise of Censorship Algorithms
By Robert Parry | Consortium News | May 2, 2017
Just days after sporting First Amendment pins at the White House Correspondents Dinner – to celebrate freedom of the press – the mainstream U.S. media is back to celebrating a very different idea: how to use algorithms to purge the Internet of what is deemed “fake news,” i.e. what the mainstream judges to be “misinformation.”
The New York Times, one of the top promoters of this new Orwellian model for censorship, devoted two-thirds of a page in its Tuesday editions to a laudatory piece about high-tech entrepreneurs refining artificial intelligence that can hunt down and eradicate supposedly “fake news.”
To justify this draconian strategy, the Times cited only a “fake news” report claiming that the French establishment’s preferred presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron had received funding from Saudi Arabia, a bogus story published by a Web site that mimicked the appearance of the newspaper Le Soir and was traced back to a Delaware phone number.
Yet, while such intentionally fabricated articles as well as baseless conspiracy theories are a bane of the Internet – and do deserve hearty condemnation – the Times gives no thought to the potential downside of having a select group of mainstream journalistic entities feeding their judgment about what is true and what is not into some algorithms that would then scrub the Internet of contrary items.
Since the Times is a member of the Google-funded First Draft Coalition – along with other mainstream outlets such as The Washington Post and the pro-NATO propaganda site Bellingcat – this idea of eliminating information that counters what the group asserts is true may seem quite appealing to the Times and the other insiders. After all, it might seem cool to have some high-tech tool that silences your critics automatically?
But you don’t need a huge amount of imagination to see how this combination of mainstream groupthink and artificial intelligence could create an Orwellian future in which only one side of a story gets told and the other side simply disappears from view.
As much as the Times, the Post, Bellingcat and the others see themselves as the fount of all wisdom, the reality is that they have all made significant journalistic errors, sometimes contributing to horrific international crises.
For instance, in 2002, the Times reported that Iraq’s purchase of aluminum tubes revealed a secret nuclear weapons program (when the tubes were really for artillery); the Post wrote as flat-fact that Saddam Hussein was hiding stockpiles of WMD (which in reality didn’t exist); Bellingcat misrepresented the range of a Syrian rocket that delivered sarin on a neighborhood near Damascus in 2013 (creating the impression that the Syrian government was at fault when the rocket apparently came from rebel-controlled territory).
These false accounts – and many others from the mainstream media – were countered in real time by experts who published contrary information on the Internet. But if the First Draft Coalition and these algorithms were in control, the information scrubbers might have purged the dissident assessments as “fake news” or “misinformation.”
Totalitarian Risks
There also should be the fear – even among these self-appointed guardians of “truth” – that their algorithms might someday be put to use by a totalitarian regime to stomp out the last embers of real democracy. However, if you’re looking for such thoughtfulness, you won’t find it in the Times article by Mark Scott. Instead, the Times glorifies the creators of this Brave New World.
Big Brother of George Orwell’s 1984
“In the battle against fake news, Andreas Vlachos — a Greek computer scientist living in a northern English town — is on the front lines,” the article reads. “Armed with a decade of machine learning expertise, he is part of a British start-up that will soon release an automated fact-checking tool ahead of the country’s election in early June. He also is advising a global competition that pits computer wizards from the United States to China against each other to use artificial intelligence to combat fake news. …
“As Europe readies for several elections this year after President Trump’s victory in the United States, Mr. Vlachos, 36, is one of a growing number of technology experts worldwide who are harnessing their skills to tackle misinformation online. … Computer scientists, tech giants and start-ups are using sophisticated algorithms and reams of online data to quickly — and automatically — spot fake news faster than traditional fact-checking groups can.”
The Times quotes the promoters of this high-tech censorship effort without any skepticism:
“‘Algorithms will have to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to fighting misinformation,’ said Claire Wardle, head of strategy and research at First Draft News, a nonprofit organization that has teamed up with tech companies and newsrooms to debunk fake reports about elections in the United States and Europe. ‘It’s impossible to do all of this by hand.’”
The article continues: “So far, outright fake news stories have been relatively rare [in Europe]. Instead, false reports have more often come from Europeans on social media taking real news out of context, as well as from fake claims spread by state-backed groups like Sputnik, the Russian news organization.”
Little Evidence Needed
Though providing no details about Sputnik’s alleged guilt, the Times article links to another Times article from April 17 by Andrew Higgins that accuses Russia’s RT network of “fake news” because it detected a surge in opinion polls for Francois Fillon, who stands accused in the mainstream media of having a positive relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Oddly, however, further down in the story, Higgins acknowledges that “lately, Mr. Fillon has seen a bump in real opinion polls.”
(Ultimately, Fillon finished a strong third with 20 percent of the vote, one percentage point behind National Front’s Marine Le Pen and four points behind Emmanuel Macron, the two finalists. It’s also curious that the Times would fault RT for getting poll results wrong when the Times published predictions, with 90 percent or more certainty – and 85 percent on Nov. 8 – that Hillary Clinton would win the U.S. presidential election.)
Beyond failing to offer any evidence of Russian guilt in these “fake news” operations, Tuesday’s Times story turns to the NATO propaganda and psychological warfare operation in Latvia, the Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, with its director Janis Sarts warning about “an increased amount of misinformation out there.”
The Stratcom center, which oversees information warfare against NATO’s perceived adversaries, is conducting “a hackathon” this month in search of coders who can develop technology to hunt down news that NATO considers “fake.”
Sarts, however, makes clear that Stratcom’s goal is not only to expunge contradictory information but to eliminate deviant viewpoints before too many people can get to see and hear them. “State-based actors have been trying to amplify specific views to bring them into the mainstream,” Sarts told the Times.
As the Times reports, much of the pressure for shutting down “fake news” has fallen on American tech giants such as Facebook and Google – and they are responding:
“After criticism of its role in spreading false reports during the United States elections, Facebook introduced a fact-checking tool ahead of the Dutch elections in March and the first round of the French presidential election on April 23. It also removed 30,000 accounts in France that had shared fake news, a small fraction of the approximately 33 million Facebook users in the country.”
A Growing Movement
And, according to the Times, this censorship movement is spreading:
“German lawmakers are mulling potential hefty fines against tech companies if they do not clamp down on fake news and online hate speech. Since last year, Google also has funded almost 20 European projects aimed at fact-checking potentially false reports. That includes its support for two British groups looking to use artificial intelligence to automatically fact-check online claims ahead of the country’s June 8 parliamentary election. …
“David Chavalarias, a French academic, has created a digital tool that has analyzed more than 80 million Twitter messages about the French election, helping journalists and fact-checkers to quickly review claims that are spread on the social network.
“After the presidential election in the United States last year, Dean Pomerleau, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, also challenged his followers on Twitter to come up with an algorithm that could distinguish fake claims from real news.
“Working with Delip Rao, a former Google researcher, he offered a $2,000 prize to anyone who could meet his requirements. By early this year, more than 100 teams from around the world had signed on to Mr. Pomerleau’s Fake News Challenge. Using a database of verified articles and their artificial intelligence expertise, rival groups — a combination of college teams, independent programmers and groups from existing tech companies — already have been able to accurately predict the veracity of certain claims almost 90 percent of the time, Mr. Pomerleau said. He hopes that figure will rise to the mid-90s before his challenge ends in June.”
So, presumably based on what the Times, the Post, Bellingcat and the other esteemed oracles of truth say is true, 90 percent or more of contrary information could soon be vulnerable to the censorship algorithms that can quickly detect and stamp out divergent points of view. Such is the Orwellian future mapped out for Western “democracy,” and The New York Times can’t wait for this tightly regulated – one might say, rigged – “marketplace of ideas” to take over.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.
Investigation into Khan Sheikhoun: Rules-based order tested by Western scheming
By Dr Alexander Yakovenko | RT | May 2, 2017
There is still no proper reaction by the OPCW to the alleged use of sarin in Khan Sheikhoun in Syria on 4 April.
Unfortunately, the work of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) to Syria is shrouded in secrecy. What is clear is that it continues to operate in a remote mode, using Internet data mostly concocted by the radical elements of the Syrian opposition, including the notorious “White Helmets”.
From the scarce information one can gather that the samples taken from those injured or dead were tested in the OPCW-licensed laboratories in Britain and Turkey and established to be sarin or sarin-like substance. However, the samples were not taken at the site of the incident. Hence, the basic principle of the investigation, that of the chain of custody, hasn’t been observed. There are no answers on that from our Western partners. As there is no clear evidence that those people were from Khan Sheikhoun and not from somewhere else.
Equally dubious is the questioning of the “witnesses” by the FFM. One can’t be sure they were residents of Khan Sheikhoun. Moreover, those “witnesses”, as we understand, are mostly supporters of the opposition or their family members. Their impartiality is questionable. However, information is available, including provided by the Swedish Doctors for Human Rights, which demonstrates that those photo- and video- materials were clearly staged.
It looks like the FFM, so far, is not doing its job properly. That the FFM team, in terms of its composition, is absolutely dominated by the countries hostile to Damascus, is another fundamental flaw. This is in sharp contrast to the established international practice. According to the UN Secretary-General decision the UN-OPCW Investigation Mechanism mustn’t include representatives of the UNSC P5, as well as Syria’s neighbors. And yet the heads of both FFM segments are British citizens, albeit no one can in earnest assume the British position in the Syrian conflict as unbiased. Why not act by the book and why afraid of the truth being established in due course? The proposal to have a special investigation, with due oversight of the international community, was voted down by the West.
There’s still time to conduct a proper, full-fledged investigation. According to the UN Secretariat, the security situation in Khan Sheikhoun is quite acceptable. The Syrian side is also ready, in the interests of this investigation, to put a ceasefire in force along the way of the OPCW staff’s travel to the site. The Director-General of the OPCW Technical Secretariat stated his willingness to send the OPCW experts to Khan Sheikhoun.
The Syrian Government is also ready to ensure a totally secure environment for the FFM staff to visit Shayrat airbase. We insist on such a visit. The US Administration explained its Shayrat missile attack by the alleged storage of sarin at this airbase. It is necessary to verify this allegation.
It is a fair assumption that sarin could have been used in Khan Sheikhoun. The question is who did it and how the toxic substance was delivered. A few versions exist. As the information is accumulated there is more and more grounds to think that the terrorists controlling this area blew up the home-built sarin munition on the ground which resulted in civilian casualties. The “White Helmets” acted too hastily to stir public outrage and posted in-advance prepared materials on the Internet. However, they made several bad mistakes which point to the staged nature of those materials.
The definitive answer to what really happened in Khan Sheikhoun can only be provided by a full-fledged investigation in full compliance with the OPCW verification provisions. It is too serious a matter for peace in the region and a wider world for the OPCW to fail this test of credibility. Those who have taken over the FFM investigation are all to eager to manage the truth in their vested interest. Otherwise they wouldn’t obstruct efforts to open it up for due scrutiny. It is this tactics of pushing the UN Security Council to act on the basis of forged evidence and flawed investigation, that undermines the rules-based world order.
It has to be borne in mind that the British Foreign Secretary recently hypothesized on joining another US action in Syria in response to another chemical incident, which means that an order for it has already been placed. A lot is said about the disastrous lack of trust in international relations. Unilateral actions and takeovers of international bodies by the West further undermine it.
Dr Alexander Yakovenko, Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Deputy foreign minister (2005-2011). Follow him on Twitter @Amb_Yakovenko
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Does Kevin Barrett Seek to “Absolve Islam of a Terrible Crime”?
The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – Last part of the series titled “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | August 28, 2016
Amidst his litany of condemnations, Jonathan Kay reserves some of his most vicious and vitriolic attacks for Kevin Barrett. For instance Kay harshly criticizes Dr. Barrett’s published E-Mail exchange in 2008 with Prof. Chomsky. In that exchange Barrett castigates Chomsky for not going to the roots of the event that “doubled the military budget overnight, stripped Americans of their liberties and destroyed their Constitution.” The original misrepresentations of 9/11, argues Barrett, led to further “false flag attacks to trigger wars, authoritarianism and genocide.”
In Among The Truthers Kay tries to defend Chomsky against Barrett’s alleged “personal obsession” with “vilifying” the MIT academic. Kay objects particularly to Barrett’s “final salvo” in the published exchange where the Wisconsin public intellectual accuses Prof. Chomsky of having “done more to keep the 9/11 blood libel alive, and cause the murder of more than a million Muslims than any other single person.” … continue
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Aletho News- Knesset advances bill mandating death by hanging for Palestinian prisoners
- Eilat port faces worst crisis as Red Sea shipping collapses
- Iran protest-riots can only achieve US-Israeli intervention, ‘shadow CIA’ concludes
- The Coming War on Iran: What Has Really Been Happening?
- US Cargo Planes Have Flooded the Persian Gulf Since the First of December
- Deep-state forces from abroad instigated violence in Nepal – former foreign minister
- Rare Earths—or Arctic Control? Greenland’s Riches May Just Be Excuse
- Kiev awards major mining project to Trump-linked investors
- US makes money from weapons, not from Ukrainian minerals
- Drone hits Kazakh tanker en route to Russian port
- If Americans Knew
- The New Neoconservatives
- As more Gaza children freeze to death, Trump eyes Gaza as starting point for world domination – Not a ceasefire Day 95
- More death: in Gaza, West Bank, Israeli prison – Not a ceasefire Day 94
- The Israeli Influence Operation Aiming to Install Reza Pahlavi as Shah of Iran
- Avoidable tragedy: another infant dies from cold – Not a ceasefire Day 93
- Israel is quietly erasing Palestinian refugee camps from existence in the West Bank
- The “Zionist tint” to the Maduro abduction, if not operational, then normative
- Press association condemns Israel’s continued ban on media access to Gaza
- Israeli Indifference to Palestinian Suffering Is Fertile Ground for the Growth of Sadism
- Surge in premature births, congenital defects, cancer deaths in Gaza – Not a ceasefire Day 92
- No Tricks Zone
- Denmark Places Climate Protection Above Animal Welfare, Poisoning And Culling Cows
- New Study: Greenland Was 3-7°C Warmer And Far Less Glaciated Than Today 6000-8000 Years Ago
- German Media Report That Current Frigid Weather Can Be Explained By Arctic Warming!
- Berlin Blackout Shows Germany’s $5 Trillion Green Scheme Is “Left-Green Ideological Pipe Dream”
- Modeling Error In Estimating How Clouds Affect Climate Is 8700% Larger Than Alleged CO2 Forcing
- Berlin’s Terror-Blackout Enters 4th Day As Tens Of Thousands Suffer In Cold Without Heat!
- Expect Soon Another PIK Paper Claiming Warming Leads To Cold Snaps Over Europe
- New Study: Human CO2 Emissions Responsible For 1.57% Of Global Temperature Change Since 1750
- Welcome To 2026: Europe Laying Groundwork For Climate Science Censorship!
- New Study Finds A Higher Rate Of Global Warming From 1899-1940 Than From 1983-2024
Aletho News 