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Israel issued 50,000 administrative detention orders since 1967

MEMO | June 9, 2017

Israeli occupation forces have issued 50,000 administrative detention orders against Palestinians since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967, the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs revealed on Wednesday.

Head of the research and documentation department in the researcher in the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, Abdel Nasser Farawneh, said that the administrative detention orders have increased since the outbreak of the Second Intifada, as the occupation authorities issued nearly 27,000 orders since September 2000.

He noted that of the total number of orders, nearly 1,704 were issued in 2016, a 50 per cent increase compared to 2015. While, since the beginning of 2017, over 4,000 orders were issued, including new orders and extensions.

Farawneh added that the increased number of detention orders and the increase in administrative orders issued against the Palestinians has led to a noticeable rise in the total number of administrative prisoners. As of today, nearly 5,000 administrative prisoners are held in Israeli prisons and detention centres without any charges against them or trials.

June 9, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Deputy FM calls on UN to stop using the term ‘occupation’

MEMO | June 9, 2017

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, Tzipi Hotovely, has called on the United Nations to stop using the term “occupation” in reference to Israel’s control over Palestinian lands.

The senior official claimed that the international organisation has been lured to repeating the “Palestinian propaganda vocabulary” and claimed that Israel does not occupy the land of anyone.

“As a proof, this year marks the 50th anniversary of Israel’s liberation of Jerusalem and the West Bank,” she claimed.

Hotovely’s remarks came in response to UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, who accused the Israeli occupation of putting more burdens on the Palestinians and preventing them from developing.

The Israeli politician has called on the UN chief to reform what she called the distortion in the United Nations terms and to retract his statements.

“These are facts on the ground,” she said, adding that the term occupation was invented by the Palestinian propaganda machine, and it is very regrettable that the United Nations is being drawn to echo and use it in its speech and literature.

When the international organisation stops using distorted and false terms such as “occupation”, confidence will be restored in it as an institution established for justice and truth.

June 9, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 5 Comments

The Relentless Pulse of Pro-Israel Propaganda in Our Lives

By Thomas S. Harrington | CounterPunch | June 9, 2017

There are times when one can only nod in admiration the ability of Israel and its small but influential set of supporters around the world to implant wholly deceptive and self-serving narratives at the highest levels of the western media system.

Two nights ago, while crawling along the darkened byways of the Hudson Valley, I happened upon a BBC radio documentary produced in April called Tim Samuels’ Sleepover: Inside the Israeli Hospital in which a British reporter with strong Zionist ties, if not deep-seated Zionist beliefs, (article here) tells the heartwarming story of how Israeli doctors operating at Ziv Medical Center in Galilee selflessly and disinterestedly repair guerrillas and assorted other people  fleeing from the Syrian Civil  War.

The half-hour piece opens with gentle and plaintive piano music and then moves quickly to an interview with a Russian-born physician at the hospital, Dr. Lerner, who is described by our reporter as a “dapper doctor with kindly eyes”. We are subsequently told of his “irrepressible energy” and his “reassuring mustache and smile”.

We then follow him as he describes the many ways in which the doctors at Ziv have served the poor Syrians fleeing from the festival of savagery just across the border in Syria. We are subsequently treated to interviews with grateful Syrian guerillas who detail the terrible crimes of the Assad regime—no crimes of ISIS or the numerous other, mostly Islamist, guerilla groups being supported in one way or another by the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia are ever mentioned—and who, when prodded by the reporter,  recount how they have come to realize what wonderful humanitarians the Israelis can sometimes be.  We even hear about what beautiful views of the Dead Sea the fortunate Syrians have from their rooms at Ziv.

Shortly thereafter, listen to the views of an Israeli-Arab doctor and Israeli-Arab social worker who work at Ziv with the smiley-eyed Russian-born doctor. Much like the segregation-era Southern whites who talked about their black mammies being part of the family, our intrepid reporter tells us how, in what we are meant to believe is the fluidly democratic and multicultural state of Israel, it is “no big deal” to have such people working side-by-side with Jews at the same humanitarian tasks.

To his credit, our reporter does not edit out the Palestinian doctor’s very pointed demurral and then subsequent, subtly-phrased doubts, when asked about Israeli motives for providing such fulsome help to these fleeing Syrians.

What’s wholly lacking, of course, is any reflection upon why the native-born Palestinian doctor, living in the “only democracy in the Middle East”, would, unlike his Jewish colleagues born in far off lands, feel so inhibited about expressing the full depth  of his opinions on air to a BBC reporter.

We are then taken up to the “Israel-Syrian border” where we hear the sirens announcing the arrival of injured soldiers from Syria who will be subsequently taken down to Ziv for treatment.

No mention of course, of the fact the Israeli side of what our reporter calls Israel-Syrian border is not, in all likelihood, Israel at all, but rather Syrian land of the Golan Heights illegally occupied by Israel for 50 years.

In the course of his visit to the area, the reporter tells us that the matter of how the Israelis know exactly when an injured Syrian rebel will be coming over the border for treatment are kept “deliberately vague to protect those on the ground”. That, of course, is a nice way of NOT talking about the fact that Israeli intelligence is deeply implicated supporting the mostly Islamist fighter cadres on the other side of the illegally established border.

As the Syrian wounded come over the “border”, our reporter talks with the young Israel officer leading the triage operation and asks (no leading questions here!): “Are you happy to risk your safety and go up to the border and bring it wounded Syrians?” He issues a quick “yes”, again reminding us for the extraordinary Israeli penchant for selfless sacrifice in the service of all humanity, regardless of national origin or the country’s strategic interests. The soldier’s soliloquy fades out into melodramatic background music that has accompanied us during much of our overnight sojourn with Mr. Samuels in the hospital.

The next segment opens with the sounds of birds tweeting in the backyard garden of an Australian-born Israeli physician, Dr. Harari. We learn how he is spreading Israeli medical goodness beyond the treatment for anti-Assad warriors to include a small number of medically needy Syrian children. We sit in on his meeting with a grateful Syrian mother, who, as if on cue in the middle of the conversation, suggests with a slashing movement across her throat that she will be killed by the Syrian government if it is learned she has brought her children to Israel for treatment.

The good doctor goes on to tell of us of how, in an Israel where marriage between Jews and Arabs is routinely and often brutally discouraged, where Arab parliamentarians are routinely shouted down and threatened with arrest or suspension for speaking their minds in public and where the inclusion of two Bosnian Muslims on the Beitar Jerusalem football club caused the majority of the team’s fans to boycott it games, there is an ironclad social consensus regarding the need to use scarce medical resources to treat wounded Syrians  in the country’s  hospitals. And then, in a long peroration, Dr Harari assures us that there is no absolutely political intention behind any of his hospital’s work with the Syrians in Galilee.

Having cleared up that matter, we are taken to a post-op interview in which a Syrian fighter, surrounded by the reporter and the good Israeli doctors, tell us how much better his leg feels with and Israeli-designed screw in it than the previously implanted Syrian one.

Near the end of the 27 minute piece, however, our reporter suddenly expresses some doubts about the purity of moral purpose among Israelis that he has just spent the previous 25 minutes telling us about in vivid and sympathetic terms against the backdrop of syrupy background music.

He asks himself if there could be more to this than meet the eye, or  if he might have failed to pick up on certain hidden motives.

If ever there was a time to go back for another sit-down with that self-censoring Israeli-Palestinian doctor we met earlier in the story, this would appear to be it.

But, of course, doing that, or worse yet, mentioning the numerous reports of high-level Israeli officials spilling the beans and openly admitting country’s strategic goal in Syria is the promotion of an open-ended civil war designed to render the country impotent for years to come might run the risk of ruining his carefully crafted story line and make a mockery of its touching musical accompaniment.

And with facts alike these out in the open, people might begin to see that treating Syrian jihadis crossing into “northern Israel” for what it is: an integral part of Israel’s cold-blooded plan to prolong the bloody Syrian civil war, much in the way the US cynically prolonged Iran-Iraq war by providing arms and “humanitarian” aid to Saddam Hussein while also helping the Iranians to continue to fight.

So where does our intrepid reporter turn in his last-minute moment of doubt for the effective “last word” of his broadcast?

To “a former national security advisor to the prime minister, Major General Yaakov Amidror”, of course.

Who is Yaakov Amidror? He is a member of the ultra-right and blatantly racist Israel Home party who once referred to secular Israelis as “Hebrew-speaking gentiles”.

And so what does this paragon of non-tribal universal human values tell our suddenly and belatedly doubtful British Zionist reporter?

That his story line is (whew!) essentially right, that despite the present savagery of the Arabs, Israel is hoping that its selfless humanity will serve as down payment on a better more peaceful world in the future.

The final fade out is a scene of our Australian-born Israeli doctor sharing a warm and fond farewell with the mother of the Syrian children he has treated.

And with this, the propagandistic masterpiece is complete.

Left enhanced is the aura is the myth of Israel’s morally superior multicultural democracy, and  with it, the reality of Arab (and more specifically Assad-sponsored) savagery on one hand, and Arab dependence on western goodness (not mention superior Israeli medical prosthetics!) on the other.

All explanations of larger historical and structural realities, not to mention present-day Israeli strategic initiatives and the out and out racism of the “expert” enjoying the last word on the issue at hand are completely suppressed.

After listening to this report, the western consumer of media can once again go to bed secure that his tax dollars and political influence are still working on the side of the angels in that oh-so-complicated set of conflicts in the Middle East.

Thomas S. Harrington is a professor of Iberian Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and the author of the recently released  Livin’ la Vida Barroca: American Culture in a Time of Imperial Orthodoxies.

June 9, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | 1 Comment

Comey Testimony Subverts Any Case for Impeaching Trump – Ron Paul Institute

Sputnik – 09.06.2017

Former Federal Bureau of Investigations Director James Comey’s testimony pours cold water on any calls for President Donald Trump’s impeachment, Ron Paul Institute Executive Director Daniel McAdams told Sputnik.

Earlier on Thursday, Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that reports claiming President Donald Trump‘s aides had repeated contacts with Russian intelligence officials prior to the 2016 US election were entirely wrong. Comey also said Trump did not seek to impede the probe into Russia’s alleged interference.

“The Comey testimony if anything undermines any case for impeachment,” McAdams said.

Trump did not obstruct justice, he noted, was never under investigation, and did not interfere with probes into Russia or former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

“In a normal world, that would be an end to the seemingly endless investigations,” McAdams said. “But it won’t be.”

The issue has been framed, he added, that any contacts between the US government or private citizens and Russia are “somehow suspect.”

“It is a kind of hysteria that has gripped the US and is amplified by the mainstream media,” McAdams explained. “In the real world, it is not only normal but desired for incoming administration officials to welcome communications with those who will be their counterparts overseas.”

While the Trump administration may have erred in handling communications with Russia immediately before and after the election, he claimed, the idea that any kind of contact is a high crime is “patently absurd.”

On Wednesday, Congressman Brad Sherman said in a press conference that Congress will possibly start taking action on impeachment resolutions against Trump this year.

Russia has repeatedly denied the allegations it interfered in the US election, characterizing them as absurd and intended to distract public opinion from revealed instances of election fraud and corruption as well as from other pressing domestic concerns.

June 9, 2017 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

Syrian Arab Army takes control of Jordanian border

By Adam Garrie | The Duran | June 9, 2017

Fierce fighting with ISIS and US backed jihadists in southern Syria has been ongoing for months. In June, two convoys of Syrian and allied soldiers came under fire from US forces illegally operating in the desert areas of southern Syria near the borders with Iraq and Jordan.

Today, the Russian General Staff announced that Syrian forces are now in full control of 105 kilometres of the border with Jordan. Jordan which for decades has been hostile to Syria has been an important passage for terrorists and illegal armed forces entering Syria.

The Russian General Staff who work closely with the Syrian Arab Army as part of the anti-terrorist coalition in the country issued the following statement as offered by Russian Col. Gen. Sergei Surovikin,

“As part of the advance of the Syrian army and militia on Daesh’s (ISIS) positions, the control over 105 kilometres of the Syrian-Jordanian border has been restored

The efforts of the government forces on establishing full control over the Syrian-Jordanian border and the border with Iraq continue”.

This not only will help seal off areas where militants can enter Syria but crucially it will send a clear message to the Jordanian armed forces that their presence will not be allowed nor tolerated in Syria.

June 9, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

50% Renewable Energy in the UK – the Ugly Facts

By Euan Mearns | Energy Matters | June 9, 2017

National Grid has reported, that for the first time, over 50% of UK electricity came from renewable electricity (RE) on 7th June. Is this a cause for celebration or not? With biomass generators being subsidised to the tune of £43/MWh and offshore wind producers to the tune of £89/MWh (source Drax), this effectively doubles generation costs. I imagine that the RE generators will be breaking out the Champagne. While if you are a hard-pressed, energy poor pensioner, you are probably wishing you’d bought another blanket. The celebratory way the BBC has broken this news you’d think they were in the employ of the fat cat renewables generators and not the British public. This must change!

I begin with Roger Harrabin’s report from the BBC  and follow with a detailed analysis of UK generation on 7 th June together with my opinions on these events.

The BBC…

Renewable sources of energy have generated more electricity than coal and gas in the UK for the first time.

National Grid reported that, on Wednesday lunchtime, power from wind, solar, hydro and wood pellet burning supplied 50.7% of UK energy.

Add in nuclear, and by 2pm low carbon sources were producing 72.1% of electricity in the UK.

Wednesday lunchtime was perfect for renewables – sunny and windy at the same time.

Records for wind power are being set across Northern Europe.

The National Grid, the body that owns and manages the power supply around the UK, said in a tweet: “For the first time ever this lunchtime wind, nuclear and solar were all generating more than both gas and coal combined.”

On Tuesday, a tenth of the UK’s power was coming from offshore wind farms – a newcomer on the energy scene whose costs have plummeted far faster than expected.

So much power was being generated by wind turbines, in fact, that prices fell to a tenth of their normal level.

Environmentalists will salute this new record as a milestone towards the low carbon economy.

Critics of renewable energy sources will point to the disruption renewables cause to the established energy system.

At the time of Wednesday’s record, 1% of demand was met by storage; this will have to increase hugely as the UK moves towards a low-carbon electricity system.

From this reporting it is plain to see that Roger Harrabin and the BBC are delighted with this milestone “achievement” for renewable energy in the UK to the point where they appear biased. Let me continue with a look at the data from the excellent Gridwatch.

Figure 1 UK power supply on 7th June 2017 as recorded by BM reports and reported by Gridwatch. Wind power as reported is only for large HV connected windfarms. Smaller windfarms are embedded into the LV grid and not recorded. Based on National Grid data from 2015, the large windfarms = 73% of total wind and the wind figure is adjusted accordingly. Similarly, solar is not monitored by BM reports and Gridwatch report model solar output from the university of Sheffield instead. Using these numbers, I calculate peak wind+solar+hydro+biomass = 50.9% of total demand at 13:10. National Grid report 50.7% from which I conclude we are on solid ground from the data stand point. Not reported by National Grid or the BBC is the fact that the renewables contribution had fallen to 21% by midnight after the Sun had set and the wind began to settle down. We cannot now, and will unlikely ever be able to, depend upon RE.

Figure 2 Same data as Figure 1 converted to % of supply. The solar bulge at midday (13:00 in BST) combined with high winds across the country gave rise to the 51% record.

Figure 3 Looking at power supply across 24 hours we see that biomass (5%)+hydr0(1%)+wind(25%)+solar(7%) come in at a combined total of 38% – on a very windy and sunny day.

Costs and prices

So what do I see in these data? Harrabin and the BBC see this:

So much power was being generated by wind turbines, in fact, that prices fell to a tenth of their normal level.

Spot prices may well have plummeted temporarily in the face of gross over supply (which in itself is irresponsible) but the costs to the consumer remain the same. For RE, consumers have to pay price+subsidy and while spot price may temporarily plummet it is normally prevailing market price of ~ £45 / MWh + subsidy for RE. The subsidies are huge. Drax reports they are getting £43 / MWh for biomass production while offshore wind producers are getting £89 / MWh. These subsidies effectively double the wholesale cost of electricity production that WE the bill payer (and BBC license fee payer) have to pay. The BBC have completely lost their sense of objectivity, credibility and responsibility on this matter, celebrating higher electricity bills in the UK!

Energy Security and Reliability

The other aspect of extreme bias is that the BBC and others only ever report RE records, omitting to report the far more numerous occasions when RE contributes virtually nothing. The data from 7th June show coal power production  of 1%. And yet the UK still has 10GW of coal fired capacity that we rely on to keep the lights on in winter when the sun has set, the wind doesn’t blow and the mercury plunges towards -5˚C. On June 7th these generators earned nothing, vital to our survival, they were racking up giant losses instead. There can only be one outcome here, and that is faced with adverse market conditions (created by the government) all the coal generators opt to close down. But since they are essential to keep the lights on in winter this cannot happen, hence they too will be paid subsidies to stand idle (Tory socialism) or they are nationalised (Labour socialism). Either way the public are going to pay even higher electricity bills or taxes.

The BBC

The quality of reporting by the BBC on energy and environmental issues is risible. Funded by the British public through the license fee, they should be there to represent the best interests of the British public. Instead they choose to pander to the demonstrably unpopular and minority interests of the Green lobby and fat cat RE generators who fleece the poor to line their own coffers.

Complaints to the BBC:

Good luck with complaining, the complaints interface appears to be impregnable to me.

June 9, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment

‘Soft Coup’ on Trump, Hiding in Plain Sight

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | June 8, 2017

So what were we watching in ex-FBI Director James Comey’s testimony on Thursday: an upright public servant punished for resisting a power-mad President or a participant in a political scheme to use the law as a way to overturn a U.S. presidential election?

There was a general consensus in the mainstream media that it was the first, that Comey was the noble victim and President Trump the conniving villain. And, surely, Trump could be criticized for his clumsy firing of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and ensuing expression of “hope” to then-FBI Director Comey that Flynn would not be punished further.

But – outside the view of the MSM – there are other troubling aspects of what is now unfolding, including the scene of FBI Director Comey informing President-elect Trump on Jan. 6 about a defamatory annex to an intelligence report detailing unproven but salacious allegations and then seeing those details leaked almost immediately to humiliate Trump in the days before his Inauguration.

In his Thursday testimony, Comey defended his role in alerting Trump to the Intelligence Community’s publication of the allegations, which summarized opposition research done to benefit Hillary Clinton’s campaign and alleging that Trump had hired Russian prostitutes to urinate on him as he lay in a bed once used by President and Mrs. Obama at the five-star Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow – while supposedly secretly videotaped by Russian intelligence.

In the testimony, Comey said that after he and other Obama’s intelligence chiefs briefed the President-elect at Trump Towers on Jan. 6 about their report on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, “I remained alone with the President-elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.

“The I.C. leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the I.C. should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.

“The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBI’s counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-elect.”

Like J. Edgar Hoover

Given the mainstream media’s determined promotion of Russia-gate as a legitimate scandal, the extraordinary nature of this briefing incident has passed largely unnoticed.

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover

If, however, you substituted FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover for FBI Director Comey, the significance of the I.C.’s gratuitous inclusion of such an unsubstantiated smear might take on a different coloring. It was, after all, the decision to tack this classified annex onto the Jan. 6 report that gave the mainstream media the hook to disseminate the “golden shower” accusation across the country and around the world.

Rather than minimizing “potential embarrassment to the President-elect,” as Comey demurred, the classified annex was guaranteed to maximize Trump’s embarrassment, which it did.

In other words, just as Comey said he inferred an improper or illegal order when Trump expressed “hope” that Flynn’s legal ordeal might end, Trump might well have deduced that Comey’s elevation of the urination story amounted to coercion or blackmail from the Intelligence Community.

Trump, who surely knows the shadier corners of the construction trade, might have heard something like, “Gee, we’d hate for your wife and children (not to mention the rest of the world) to hear this story about prostitutes peeing on you” – and read the warning as a threat.

FBI Director Hoover was a master of just this sort of warning, conveyed as a sincere concern about some politician’s well-being. Trump, who has emphatically denied the salacious accusation, could well have seen Comey sending him a message from the leaders of the powerful Intelligence Community that they were determined to remove Trump or at least politically cripple him.

Just three days earlier, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that Trump was “being really dumb” by taking on the Intelligence Community because “they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

In the five months since the Jan. 6 briefing, Trump has gotten a taste of how accurate Schumer’s observation was. Making sure that the public got to read the “dirty dossier” – compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele and financed by some still unknown Clinton supporter – was clearly one of those six ways.

On top of that, Obama’s intelligence chiefs, including Comey, have testified repeatedly before Congress while they or their allies have leaked derogatory information about Trump to The New York Times, The Washington Post and other mainstream news outlets.

The ‘Soft Coup’

In other words, what we may have witnessed in Comey’s ballyhooed testimony on Thursday was just the latest chapter in a “soft coup” to remove Trump – either through a forced resignation or impeachment. The thinking is that Trump is so incompetent that “wise men” must step in to “correct a mistake” made by the U.S. electorate and made possible by the Constitution’s Electoral College system, which enabled Trump to win the presidency despite losing the popular vote,

But the American people are not supposed to see it that way. After all, the realization that U.S. intelligence chieftains might be conspiring to overturn a constitutional election of a U.S. president could be most upsetting and unsettling, even if one assumes that they are sincerely doing what they think is “best for the country.”

So, this side of the story remains unspoken, a silence made possible by the fact that most of the nation’s top news executives and much of its political elite share the opinion that Trump’s presidency must be ended and a more traditional chief executive installed.

But no one in authority wants to acknowledge that a “soft coup” is in the works because that would make America look like a banana republic to the world. It also could infuriate Trump’s 63 million voters who might take exception to this sort of “deep state” veto of a duly certified election.

So, what that means is that the planned removal of Trump will be a deliberate process cloaked in high-minded legal principles and much talk about the rule of law.

Of course, Trump would not be the only loser in this process. His sinking presidency would drag down many of those around him – and, in the case of Michael Flynn, might well lead to criminal charges.

Indeed, if civil libertarians were not largely committed to the anti-Trump #Resistance, they might pause for a moment and consider the disturbing picture of what was done to retired Lt. Gen. Flynn.

Trapping Flynn

To engineer the ouster of Flynn as Trump’s first National Security Adviser, President Obama’s Justice Department holdovers used the archaic 1799 Logan Act as a predicate to justify an FBI interrogation of Flynn about the details of a phone conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyac on Dec. 29, 2016, while Flynn was vacationing in the Dominican Republic.

Since the FBI agents had a transcript of the intercepted phone call and Flynn was working from memory – possibly a bit hazy from a Pina Colada or two – Flynn was an easy mark for a perjury trap. Leaving out some detail, whether intentionally or not, would open him to an obstruction case – and Comey reportedly has indicated that the ongoing criminal investigation of Flynn indeed relates to whether he withheld information from investigators.

Every American who is concerned about the future political use of the U.S. intelligence agencies’ powerful surveillance tools should have shuddered a bit over what was done to Flynn. But many on the Left so desperately want Trump removed from office that they have joined the Russia-gate stampede as the best way to trample Trump.

So, few tears have been shed for Flynn even as he was ambushed based on transcripts of National Security Agency transcripts, a precedent that could be replicated in many other circumstances against American citizens who get on the Intelligence Community’s “six ways from Sunday” black list.

The use of the Logan Act predicate should have set off other alarm bells. The law, which was enacted during the Alien and Sedition Act period, was meant to stop private citizens from trying to conduct U.S. foreign policy on their own, but its constitutionality was always suspect and it has never led to a prosecution, not one in 218 years.

It was also never intended to apply to incoming foreign policy officials of a new presidential administration after the election, when they are understandably beginning to make contacts with foreign officials. So, for then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates to have dusted it off as a predicate for going after Flynn suggests additional entrapment problems.

True, Flynn may have used poor judgment in how he handled a 2015 paid speaking engagement in Moscow, how he reported on his consulting work for a Dutch company owned by a wealthy Turk with high-level political connections, and what he might have said to Kislyak (although we still don’t know the details of that conversation).

Islamic State Warning

But Flynn also had been an Army lieutenant general who led the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 when it produced the U.S. government’s most perceptive critique of President Obama’s proxy war in Syria, even predicting the emergence of an “Islamic state,” a judgment that annoyed other intelligence leaders who were participating in the covert war to overthrow the Syrian government.

The DIA report embarrassed the advocates for an escalation of the war in Syria and the ouster of secular President Bashar al-Assad. Journalist Seymour Hersh reported that Flynn’s DIA “had sent a constant stream of classified warnings … about the dire consequences of toppling Assad.” Flynn told Hersh that these reports “got enormous pushback from the Obama administration.”

After being forced out of his DIA job and retiring from the Army in 2014, Flynn went even further in a 2015 interview when he said the intelligence was “very clear” that the Obama administration made a “willful decision” to back these jihadists in league with Middle East allies, a choice that looked particularly stupid when Islamic State militants started beheading American hostages and capturing cities in Iraq, forcing the reintroduction of U.S. military troops.

However, out of a job, Flynn scrambled around for additional income, including signing up with a speakers’ bureau and forming a consulting company, as many other national security veterans have done.

In perhaps Flynn’s most controversial decision, he accepted a speaking fee of about $45,000 to address the tenth anniversary dinner for Russia’s RT network in Moscow, sitting next to President Vladimir Putin for part of the evening. Given the Obama administration’s heightened hostility toward Russia, Flynn’s appearance drew some high-level criticism.

Flynn further antagonized Obama’s team by signing up with the Trump campaign and then joining the “lock her up” chant at the Republican National Convention directed toward Hillary Clinton.

In the wake of Clinton’s shocking defeat and amid the Intelligence Community’s claims about Russian interference in the election, Flynn’s friendly relations with Russian leaders made him an obvious target.

Still, the notion of Obama holdovers taking Flynn out via dubious legal tactics – and their fueling of a McCarthyistic hysteria over Russia – normally might have raised more objections if not for the widespread disdain for Trump, his narcissistic behavior and his offensive policies, such as the “Muslim travel ban.”

However, amid the mainstream media’s increasingly frenzied talk about Trump’s potential impeachment, this other remarkable story – how the U.S. Intelligence Community is moving to reverse the outcome of a presidential election – is getting ignored in plain sight.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.

June 8, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Trump should learn from Reagan’s folly in Lebanon

By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | June 8, 2017

Even by American standards, the White House statement on the terrorist attacks in Tehran on Wednesday will stand out as a new threshold in the US’ doublespeak on terrorism. Tehran has rejected the US statement as “repugnant”. In a thinly veiled reference to Saudi Arabia, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javed Zarif hit back that the terrorism that Iran has to counter is perpetrated by “US clients”.

The reports from Tehran are saying more explicitly than initially that Saudi Arabia is responsible for the terrorist attacks (for which ISIS has formally claimed responsibility.) The big question is how far the Saudis acted alone or whether there has been some tacit coordination with the US (and Israel.) All three players – US, Saudi Arabia and Israel – have had covert links with the ISIS. It is useful to recall an Israeli army colonel was once taken prisoner by the Iraqi forces during an operation against the ISIS (here).

Interestingly enough, a statement by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps made it a point to link the terrorist attacks in Tehran with US President Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh two weeks ago. It said, “The public opinion in the world, specially the Iranian nation sees this terrorist action that happened a week after the joint meeting of the US president with the heads of one of the reactionary regional states that has constantly been supporting Takfiri terrorists as to be very meaningful, and believes that ISIL’s acknowledging the responsibility indicates their complicity in this wild move.”

Indeed, the US carried out a second attack today within a week on the Syrian government forces in Al-Tanf in the south-eastern region. The timing is interesting. It signals that the US is drawing a “red line” for the Syrian government forces from approaching the border crossing with Iraq. In strategic terms, it is further confirmation that the US at the behest of Israel and Saudi Arabia is indirectly challenging the Iranian presence in Syria. (See my earlier blog The scramble for control of Syrian-Iraqi border.)

Iran is unlikely to be cowed down by the terrorist strikes on Wednesday. It has a long history of resilience while facing terror attacks. Israel and the US intelligence have left no stone unturned in the past to destabilize the Iranian regime and to assassinate Iranian leaders. President Hassan Rouhani pointedly recalled this in his message to the nation on Wednesday, while reiterating that “The terrorist incidents in Tehran today will, no doubt, strengthen the will of the Islamic Iran in the campaign against regional terrorism, extremism and violence.” The Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei virtually played down the Tehran attacks (FARS).

The fallouts of Wednesday’s attacks are sure to be felt in the period ahead. The US-Saudi-Israeli game plan will be to get Iran bogged down at home. The Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman had explicitly warned Tehran last month that a war will be forced on it on Iranian soil by Riyadh. The Saudis are of course acting in their over-confidence that Trump has been literally bought over by King Salman. The Saudis have probably got through to Trump’s family members – his Jewish son-in-law in particular – just as they once had the Bush family eating out of their hands. Some reports have disclosed that King Salman gave away lavish gifts to Trump worth $1.2 billion.

When it comes to Iran, Trump can count on the Congress rallying behind him for taking a hard line. The US lawmakers are generously funded by the Jewish lobby and are heavily compromised to Israel. So, a vicious cycle can develop whereby Congress keeps imposing fresh sanctions against Iran while the White House continues to provoke Tehran. To be sure, Israel can heave a sigh of relief that the narrative has once again shifted away from the Israel-Palestine conflict toward terrorism and Iran.

The US-Saudi-Israeli calculation will be that at some point, Tehran may begin retaliating. But it is highly unlikely that Iran will retaliate in the same coin as its adversaries – with terrorism as a key instrument of state policy. It will plan its moves carefully, methodically. An extensive proxy war is far more likely. Its impact will be felt in Yemen, Syria and Iraq – even Afghanistan.

From this point, the American forces deployed in these countries may begin to feel that life is getting to be a lot more dangerous than they ever knew. Do not rule out at some point in a conceivable future a repetition of the Beirut experience of October 23, 1983 when a single Lebanese militant killed 241 American marine, navy, and army personnel. It was the single deadliest attack on American Marines since the Battle of Iwo Jima. By February 1984 Ronald Reagan had ensured that the US marines were completely withdrawn from Lebanon. Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. Trump is pushing the envelope recklessly.

June 8, 2017 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

US Congress and Knesset celebrate ‘reunification’ of Jerusalem in joint event

Joint US Congress-Knesset event celebrating “reunification” of Jerusalem (Credit: Knesset)
Ma’an – June 8, 2017

BETHLEHEM – In the latest event celebrating the “reunification” of Jerusalem in Israel, the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, and the US Congress held a joint live broadcast event marking the occasion on Wednesday, in which leaders from both countries celebrated their shared colonial histories and applauded Israel’s control over occupied East Jerusalem.

During each year that Israelis celebrate the “reunification” of Jerusalem to mark the Israeli military takeover of the territory decades ago, Palestinians, in contrast, have commemorated the Naksa, meaning “setback,” marking the Israeli invasion and occupation of the West Bank — including East Jerusalem — Gaza, Sinai, and the Golan Heights that began on June 5, 1967 during the Six-Day War, displacing some 300,000 Palestinians, as well as thousands of Syrians, from their homes.

Since 1967, Israel has stood accused of committing major violations of human rights and humanitarian law in the occupied Palestinian territory, including excessive and deadly use of violence; forced displacement; the blockade of the Gaza Strip; unjustified restrictions on movement; and the expansion of illegal settlements.

“For the sake of Jerusalem, let us not remain silent. Let us promise that support for unified Jerusalem remains high on both sides of the aisle, across the political spectrum, and throughout the United States,” Speaker of the Knesset Yuli-Yoel Edelstein said during the event.

“Looking around the world, and especially at this region, one thing becomes crystal clear: Only Israeli sovereignty will ensure that the city’s holy sites remain open, free, and safe for members of every religion,” he added.

However, while Israelis are permitted freedom of movement in Jerusalem and even in the majority of the occupied West Bank, most Palestinians are not permitted to enter Jerusalem without Israeli-issued permits, which means that the city is a rare sight and far from being “open and free.”

Edelstein also applauded the US’ own colonial history, saying that “your country was settled by pilgrims building a city upon the hill,” and developed a “just society based on the values that the Hebrew Prophets preached right here thousands of years ago,” without mentioning the mass killings and displacement of the indigenous peoples of that land; some academics have noted that some 20 million indigenous peoples died as a result of the European invasion and subsequent colonization of the Americas.

US Speaker of the House Paul Ryan also reiterated a similar point of equal rights at the holy sites, before saying that ”without Jerusalem, the Israel we know today would simply not exist” and called members of the Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) “terrorists” for taking Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel in 1976.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted the leaders by once again stating that Jerusalem is “the eternal, undivided capital of the Jewish state,” in contravention of international law, which, according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibits Israel from transferring any of its population to occupied East Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, while Israel officially annexed East Jerusalem in 1980, in a move never recognized by the international community, according to Palestinians and the international community the city has remained an intricate part of the occupied Palestinian territory and would be considered the capital of any future Palestinian state.

Netanyahu also said that Israel had “made sure that the holy sites for Judaism, Christianity and Islam were available to all,” again failing to mention the millions of Palestinians who do not have free access to these sights in Jerusalem.

“In this great convulsion that is taking place around us, there is one free city, where Christians, Jews and Muslims are free to worship undisturbed, and that’s in the free, united city of Jerusalem, and that’s how it will stay,” Netanyahu added.

In response to the event, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee Member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement last week that the move was “unprecedented” and “provocative” and that the US Congress was “singularly contravening longstanding American policy and becoming party to Israel’s egregious violation of international law and international humanitarian law.”

“If the US wants to play a constructive role as a peacemaker rather than as a supporter of an illegal occupation, it must demonstrate respect for the law and recognition of equal rights for all peoples, foremost the Palestinian right to self-determination and freedom,” Ashrawi concluded.

Meanwhile, the US Senate passed a resolution on Monday declaring Jerusalem the “undivided” capital of Israel.

The Senate reportedly passed the nonbinding resolution in order to express its support for the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which would move the US embassy to Jerusalem. US President Donald Trump signed a presidential waiver to prevent the act’s implementation last week, following on the footsteps of every US president since the act’s introduction.

However, on the issue of Palestine, Trump has remained largely elusive, saying in February that when it came to a solution for the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict he could “live with either” a one- or two-state solution, in a significant departure from the US’ publicly held position in favor of a two-state solution to the conflict.

Nevertheless, his elusiveness has not belied the fact that Trump and his administration have maintained their pro-Israel stance, despite stated efforts to renew the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which he said in the past was “not as difficult as people have thought over the years.”

June 8, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | 2 Comments

$110bn US-Saudi arms deal is ‘fake news’

MEMO | June 8, 2017

A $110 billion arms deal between Saudi Arabia and the US, which was touted as the biggest single arms deal in American history has been characterised as “fake news”, a US think tank has said.

Defence industry experts confirmed to experts within the Brookings Institution, that no such deal had been finalised.

There are a bunch of letters of interest or intent, but not contracts said Bruce Riedel, senior fellow at the institute. “Many are offers that the defence industry thinks the Saudis will be interested in someday.”

The Defence Security Cooperation Agency, the arms sales wing of the Pentagon, calls them “intended sales”. The only sale expected in the immediate future was a deal for $1 billion in munitions intended to resupply Riyadh’s war in Yemen.

Riedel said that none of the potential sales were new, and all had been initiated by the Obama administration. President Barack Obama sold the kingdom $112 billion in weapons over eight years, most of which was a single, huge deal in 2012 negotiated by then-Secretary of Defence Robert Gates.

Moreover, it’s unlikely that the Saudis could pay for a $110 billion deal any longer, due to low oil prices and the two-plus years old war in Yemen, said Reidel.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said on Twitter that the defence agreement was the “largest single arms deal in US history” and said other deals amounted to $250 billion in commercial investment.

The deal also raised concern in Israel where the Times of Israel reported Defence Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, “was uneasy over the agreement, which he saw as part of a ‘crazy’ regional arms race”.

June 8, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 2 Comments

Bahrain to jail Qatar sympathisers

Middle East Online | June 8, 2017

MANAMA – Bahrain Thursday followed the United Arab Emirates in announcing that expressing sympathy for Qatar over sanctions imposed by its Gulf neighbours was an offence punishable by a lengthy jail term.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt on Monday cut diplomatic ties with Qatar over accusations that the emirate is a champion of extremist groups in the region.

Qatar firmly denies the allegations.

“Any expression of sympathy with the government of Qatar or opposition to the measures taken by the government of Bahrain, whether through social media, Twitter or any other form of communication, is a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine,” a Bahraini interior ministry statement said.

The UAE on Wednesday announced a similar decision, warning that offenders could face between three and 15 years in prison and a fine of 500,000 dirhams ($136,125, 120,715 euros) should they criticise the decision to boycott Qatar.

Bahrain, home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, has been rocked by unrest since security forces crushed Shiite-led protests in 2011 demanding a constitutional monarchy and an elected prime minister.

The authorities accuse Iran of backing the protesters and aiming to incite unrest in Shiite-majority Bahrain, a charge Tehran denies.

Sunni-ruled Bahrain’s strict cyber crime law prohibits the expression of dissent online, including via social media.

Nabeel Rajab, one of the country’s most high-profile activists, is currently on trial for a series of tweets criticising a Saudi-led Arab military campaign in Yemen.

June 8, 2017 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Moscow Urges CNN Host to Take Honest Interview with Aleppo Boy

Fars News Agency | June 8, 2017

The Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Thursday invited CNN host Christiane Amanpour to visit Syria to make an honest interview with the Syrian boy from Aleppo known as the “symbol of Aleppo suffering.”

The RT broadcaster released a two-part interview with Omran Daqneesh’s father Mohammad Kheir Daqneesh on Tuesday and Wednesday. The interview revealed that the White Helmets volunteers had manipulated injured Omran into being photographed instead of offering immediate help and later threatened his father after he went into hiding to prevent any more unwanted media exposure, Sputnik reported.

Amanpour in her October interview with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov showed the photograph of Daqneesh shot in August, saying that it illustrated “a crime against humanity.”

“I’d like to say that if Amanpour started this story, I mean so publicly, coming to Moscow and being determined enough to print out the photograph and show it to Sergei Lavrov, maybe she has enough bravery, journalistic professional ethics and simple humane conscience to finish it? And do that by going to Aleppo, finding the family of the boy and taking a truly honest interview, not a set up one as they at CNN know, but an honest interview with the boy,” Zakharova said.

August’s footage showed the boy injured and covered in ashes after being rescued from an attack in the militant-controlled Karm al-Qaterji neighborhood. Syrian anti-government forces accused Moscow of conducting an airstrike on the neighborhood, while Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov denied Western media reports of Russia’s alleged role in the strike as the residential neighborhood is directly adjacent to the Russian humanitarian operation corridors for the safe exit of local residents.

Konashenkov previously stated that the nature of damage shown by Western media during Omran’s rescue demonstrates that if the strike did take place, it could not have come from aircraft munitions, but a mine or a gas cylinder, heavily used by terrorists in Syria. The Russian defense ministry’s spokesman accused the media of committing a “moral crime” in the “cynical hype” of the volunteers’ footage for their “formulaic propaganda material.”

June 8, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 1 Comment

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