NATO is seeking to revive Сold War climate – Lavrov at UNGA
RT | September 21, 2017
NATO is currently seeking to revive the Cold War climate instead of building a dialogue with Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in his speech at the UN General Assembly in New York.
Russia has honestly walked along a long path of getting rid of the legacy of the Cold War but received no support in its efforts from its partners in the West, the minister said, expressing his regret over the fact that “some countries still prefer force to dialogue.”
“The West constructed its policy on the basis of a principle, ‘If you are not with us, you are against us’ and proceeded with hideous expansion of NATO to the east,” the Russian diplomat said, adding that such policy ultimately led only to “instability” in the post-Soviet republics and increased tensions in the region.
At the same time, the minister said that Russia is ready to cooperate with its western partners and work together in a constructive way to find mutually acceptable solutions of the pressing issues, including the Ukrainian crisis in particular.
He also expressed his hope that the Russian initiative that involves sending a UN peacekeeping mission to Eastern Ukraine would ultimately help to resolve the crisis, adding that the relevant draft resolution had been already submitted to the UN Security Council.
‘Unilateral sanctions – illegitimate’
“Centuries of history have shown that a lasting settlement of difference can only be [achieved] through dialog and balancing of the core interests of the conflicting parties,” the minister said, adding that, “unfortunately, the arsenal of many western states does not include diplomacy but only rough pressure.”
“Any unilateral sanctions imposed aside from the sanctions approved by the UN Security Council are illegitimate and undermine the collective nature of the international efforts,” Lavrov said.
He then expressed concern over the new rounds of sanctions imposed by the US against Iran and warned that they threaten the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, which earlier greatly contributed to the restoration of the regional and global stability.
‘War hysteria around North Korea could lead to disaster’
Lavrov denounced the escalation of tensions around the Korean Peninsula by calling it a “very dangerous confrontational spiral.” The minister stressed that Russia condemns the North Korean nuclear tests conducted in violation of the UN resolutions, but added that war hysteria stirred up by the West around Pyongyang’s actions could end up in a “disaster.”
The minister then called on all the parties to the Korean crisis to start a dialogue, and said that there is “no alternative to the political and diplomatic settlement of the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula.”
He also urged the international community to support the joint Russian-Chinese roadmap of resolving the crisis that involves the “double freeze” initiative, envisaging Pyongyang stopping its nuclear and missile program in exchange for the US and South Korea abandoning their joint military exercises near the peninsula.
At the same time, Lavrov praised Tuesday’s statement by US President Donald Trump, in which he stressed the importance of respecting the principle of sovereignty in international relations. “We are pleased to see that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, … unilaterally stated that it is important to abide by the principle of sovereignty in the international affairs, that it is more important to lead by an example than dictate to other peoples,” the minister said.
‘Attempts to topple undesirable regimes only open way to terrorists’
It is unacceptable to incite riots and to threaten to use force to enforce “democratization” or undermine legitimate authorities in any country, Lavrov said. The attempts to ignore the opinions of others and to issue ultimatums without the UN approval “never led to anything good,” he added.
“The upsurge of international terrorism, millions of refugees and waves of illegal immigrants have come to a significant extent as a result of reckless attempts to remove some undesirable regimes, particularly through military intervention,” the minister said, adding that such actions brought only “chaos and destruction” to the Middle East and North Africa as well as “opened a way for terrorists.”
He then urged the international community to make additional efforts aimed at restoring stability in Syria and Iraq, adding that what has been done so far is still not enough, despite the success achieved in fighting Islamic State (IS, former ISIS/ISIL) in the region.
“A string of bloody terrorist acts in the world shows that it is an illusion to try and create separate islands of security. Extremism and terrorism is something that we need to combat together, without using double standards and hidden agendas,” Lavrov said as he once again drew attention to what he called an “ambiguous” situation in Syria, where the US-led coalition seems to be sparing Al Nusra terrorists in its airstrikes while fighting another terrorist group, Islamic State.
‘No militarization of cyberspace’
Russia rejects the idea of militarization of cyberspace, Lavrov said, adding that this field should not be allowed to become “an area of military confrontation.” He went on to say that cyberspace should be prevented from being used to inflict economic damage or spread extremist propaganda.
He called on the international community to work out rules of “responsible behavior” in cyberspace that would be in the interests of all states. The diplomat also said that Russia drafted a universal convention on prevention of cybercrimes, including hacking attacks, and urged the General Assembly to discuss it during this year’s session.
200,000 Israelis expected in “Kurdistan” once independence is declared
Voltaire Network | 20 September 2017
According to the magazine Israel-Kurd based in Erbil, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and Massoud Barzani, the self-appointed President of the future independent Kurdistan, have reached a secret agreement.
Tel-Aviv is committed to installing 200,000 Israelis of Kurdish origin in Kurdistan.
The announcement has been widely repeated in the Turkish, Iranian and Arab press. The plan to create a South Sudan and a Kurdistan has been an Israeli military objective following missile development at the end of the nineties. These territories, largely administered by the Israelis, have enabled a rear attack on Egypt and Syria.
Out of the 8.5 million Israelis living in Israel, around 200,000 are of Kurdish origin. In March 1951, “Operation Ezra and Nehemiah” (named after the biblical persons that organized the flight of the Jewish people from Babylon) permitted 11,000 Jewish Kurds to emigrate from Iraq to Israel. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee of New York funded this operation. The planes used for this air lift were made available by the Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista.
The Barzani family that governs the Iraqi Kurdistan with an iron fist, is historically connected to Israel. Mullah Mustafa Barzani, father of the current president Massoud Barzani, was one of Mossad’s high official.
The Israeli Prime Minister is the only head of government to have publicly declared his support of the creation of an independent Kurdistan outside the historic Kurdish territory (which would also be to the detriment of the indigenous populations).
Despite the prohibition declared by the Iraqi Constitutional Court, a referendum will take place on 25 September 2017 with a view to declaring this new State.
Translation
Anoosha Boralessa
After the Caliphate, Rojava
One war can hide another
This map was published by Robin Wright nine months before the offensive by Daesh into Iraq and Syria. According to this Pentagon researcher, it rectifies the map published in 2005 by Ralf Peters for the reshaping of the Greater Middle East.
By Thierry Meyssan | Voltairenet | September 19, 2017
While the Syrian Arab Army, the Russian aviation and Hezbollah are preparing to finish off Daesh, the Pentagon is planning a new war against Syria, this time with Kurdish troops. Just as the mission of the Caliphate was to create a Sunnistan straddling Iraq and Syria, so the mission of « Rojava » is to create a Kurdistan straddling the two states, as the Pentagon has been publicly stating for the last four years.
According to US grand strategy, as defined by Admiral Cebrowski in 2001, and published in 2004 by his assistant Thomas Barnett, all of the Greater Middle East must be destroyed except for Israel, Jordan and Lebanon.
Consequently, the imminent victory against Daesh will change nothing of the Pentagon’s intentions.
President Trump is against the manipulation of the jihadists. He has stopped the financial and military support that his country was giving them, and has managed to convince Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to do the same. He has modified NATO policies in the matter. However, nothing yet hints as to whether or not he will also oppose the Pentagon’s grand strategy. As far as the US Interior is concerned, the whole of Congress is in league against him, and he has no possibility of preventing a procedure for destitution other than negotiating with the Democratic Party.
Donald Trump has composed his administration of ex-senior civil servants from the Obama administration, a number of opportunistic politicians, many improvised representatives, and very very few trustworthy personalities.
His special representative against Daesh, Brett McGurk, is an ex-collaborator of President Obama, and is supposed to serve Trump’s new policy. On 18 August, he organised a meeting with the tribal leaders to « fight Daesh ». However, the photographs he published attest to the fact that, on the contrary, several of Daesh’s leaders also participated in the meeting.
In the same vein, helicopters of the US Special Forces exfiltrated two European leaders of Daesh and their families from the outskirts of Deiz ez-Zor, before they could be taken prisoner by the Syrian Arab Army on 26 August. Two days later, they also exfiltrated about twenty more Daesh officers.
Everything looks as though the Pentagon were storing away its jihadist structure and conserving it for other operations elsewhere. Simultaneously, it is preparing a new episode against Syria with a new army, which, this time, will be composed around Kurdish forces.
This war, like the war against the Caliphate,was announced four years ago in the New York Times, by Robin Wright, a researcher at the US Institute of Peace (equivalent to the NED for the Pentagon). It also planned to divide the Yemen into two states, potentially shared between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi – and finally, last but not least, to dismember Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, the « Rojava » project corresponds to Israëli strategy, which, since the end of the 1990’s and the development of missiles, is no longer concentrated on controlling its border regions (the Sinaï, the Golan and South Lebanon), but on taking its neighbours from behind (hence the creation of South Sudan and eventually, Greater Kurdistan).
The recruiting drive for European soldiers for the « Rojava » project has only just begun. A priori, it could assemble as many combatants as there were for the jihad, insofar as the members of the anarchist groups which provide manpower are as numerous in Europe as common law prisoners.
Indeed, the jihadist network began in French prisons before becoming a generalised « crusade ». It is probable that the recruitment within the anarchist movement will also spread as the conflict goes on. Washington, London, Paris and Berlin, who organised this recruitment, planned in the long term. I use the word « crusade » deliberately, because these wars in the Middle Ages, like the one we have just experienced, were in fact European imperialist operations against the people of the Greater Middle East. It is just as grotesque to claim that there is a link between the message of Christ and the crusades as to claim a link between the Prophet and jihadism. In both cases, the commanders were « Westerners »[1], and these conflicts exclusively served Western imperialism. The successive crusades bled across two centuries, and the majority of Christians in the Levant fought alongside their Muslim compatriots against the invaders.
Not long ago, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Laurent Fabius, publicly declared that President Assad « did not deserve to be on Earth », and confirmed that the jihadists were doing a « good job ». Many young people answered his call by joining Al-Nusra (Al-Qaïda), then Daesh. Today, the French ex-Minister for Foreign Affairs, Bernard Kouchner, publicly announced that France would support the creation of state which would include Iraqi Kurdistan and the corridor to the Mediterranean via Syria. A few young Europeans have already answered this call, and many others will follow.
Today, as in 2011-12, the Western Press has taken the side of this new anti-Syrian army, supported by their governments. It will never question the treachery of Abdullah Öcalan, who renounced Marxist-Leninism for anarchy. It will repeat that Kurdistan has already been recognised by the Sèvres Conference, in 1920, but it will avoid looking at the documents which specify its boundaries. It will believe it to be legitimate in Iraq and Syria, although it is currently situated in Turkey. It will ignore the fact that the frontiers in fact correspond to nothing other than the plans developed by the Pentagon.
The referendum for the independence of the Iraqi region of Kurdistan and the territories annexed with the help of Daesh will launch the beginning of this operation, on 25 September. As in 2014, it will be intended to simultaneously destroy Iraq and Syria, this time without creating a « Sunnistan » from Rakka to Mossul, but a « Kurdistan », on a territory linking Erbil and Kirkuk to the Mediterranean.
Translation Pete Kimberley
[1] This term is poorly chosen insofar as « Westerner » is not opposed to « Oriental », but to « Soviet ». I could find no other term to describe collectively the Europeans, the North-Americans and the Israelis. Author’s note.
President Aoun at UN: Lebanon Won’t Allow Naturalization of Any Refugee
Naharnet | September 21, 2017
The Lebanese President Michel Aoun stressed Thursday in his maiden speech before the UN General Assembly that Lebanon will not allow the naturalization of any Syrian or Palestinian refugee on its soil “no matter what that might cost.”
“The decision in this regard belongs to us and not to anyone else,” Aoun underlined.
Noting that the Syrian state is now in control of “85 percent of its territory,” the president emphasized that “there is an urgent need to organize the return of refugees to their country.”
“Some call for the refugees’ voluntary return and we call for their safe return and differentiate between the two concepts,” Aoun noted.
“The claim that they will not be safe should they return to their country is an unacceptable excuse… If the Syrian state is carrying out reconciliations with the armed groups that it is fighting, wouldn’t it be able to do so with refugees who had fled war?” the president asked.
He added: “The UN better help the refugees return home instead of helping them to stay in encampments that lack the least requirements of decent life.”
Separately and from the same UN podium, Aoun nominated Lebanon to become a “permanent, UN-affiliated center for dialogue among the various cultures, religions and races.”
“I hope the member states will back Lebanon in this demand, so that we can all work for peace, security and stability,” he added.
US President Donald Trump’s suggestion that refugees be resettled closer to home instead of brought to the United States has angered many in Lebanon, a tiny country hosting more than 1.5 million refugees.
The country of just 4 million is officially hosting more than 1 million Syrian refugees and some 500,000 Palestinians. The real numbers are likely higher as many don’t register with the UN.
UK Surgeon David Nott, Takes Sides While Saving Lives in East Aleppo
By Steven Sahiounie | American Herald Tribune | September 21, 2017
David Nott is a British surgeon who has received numerous awards and accolades for his medical volunteerism in East Aleppo, Syria in 2013 and 2014. He was hosted by the Aleppo City Medical Council, which was founded in 2012 by medical professionals committed to the armed revolution in Syria, which sought to overthrow the Syrian government of Pres. Bashar Assad.
The Aleppo City Medical Council served and existed in only one neighborhood in Aleppo: that of occupied East Aleppo. On the Western side of Aleppo lived 1.5 million persons, who were living under the Syrian government, as were the majority of the highly populated areas across Syria. On the Eastern side of Aleppo lived 250,000 civilians, who went to sleep one night, and woke up occupied by armed rebels. The unarmed civilians of East Aleppo didn’t vote to accept occupation by armed militias. In some cases they may have been willing to work with the rebels, but the majority of the civilian population of Aleppo did not want to participate in the revolution. Even though they did not choose war, the war came to their neighborhood, and took away their freedom. No longer were they able to visit relatives, shop, go to University, or visit a doctor in Western Aleppo. They were made prisoners in their own homes and neighborhoods.
The armed opposition, the so called ‘rebels’ of Syria, are the armed militia known as Free Syrian Army. This group began as a US supported armed group, but lacked the man-power to sustain a viable armed opposition to the very large Syrian Arab Army, which prior to the war had ranked as the 16th strongest Army in the world. From the outset in 2011 the FSA began an outreach invitation to Al Qaeda and other Radical terrorist groups, in order to bulk-up the numbers in the armed opposition on the ground, with the hope of providing enough man-power and weapons in order to topple the Syrian government.
Dr. David Nott was seduced by the romantic notion of rebels fighting against a brutal regime. Apparently, he was not aware of the true beginning of the Syrian conflict, which began in March 2011.
When Dr. Nott writes about his time in Syria he takes sides, while saving lives in East Aleppo. He was not a neutral humanitarian.
CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour has said “I learned a long, long time ago, when I was covering genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, never to equate victim and aggressor, never to create a false moral or factual equivalence, because then, if you do, particularly in situations like that, you are party and accomplice to the most unspeakable crimes and consequences, so I believe in being truthful, not neutral.”
Dr. David Nott does not acknowledge the Doctors in the hospitals in Western Aleppo who were treating patients injured, or dying, from missile attacks on their neighborhoods by the rebels Dr. Nott worked for. He glorifies the position of his rebel friends, while demonizing the Syrian Arab Army, who were defending the lives and property of the unarmed civilians in Western Aleppo. He seems unaware that the ‘regime’ forces are made up of Syrian males over the age of 18 who are able bodied and not enrolled in University. In other words, they are drafted in a compulsory national service during the conflict, and are not from any one particular sect, but are from every Christian and Muslim sect, including atheists. The Syrian Arab Army were Syrian citizens, however the rebels in Eastern Aleppo were from various countries, and included various Radical Islamic terrorist groups, including ISIS, and Dr. Nott acknowledges their presence.
In fact, Dr. Nott was well aware of the presence of ISIS within the area he worked, even to the point of going through ISIS check points. He pretended to be afraid of them, and acknowledged that they had executed other British humanitarians, but this did not prevent him from leaving the area for his own personal safety. His calculated choice to remain in a specific area known to have ISIS presence must only mean that his ‘minders’, the FSA, had made special provisions with ISIS for Dr. Nott’s services. Dr. Nott was ‘off-limits’ to ISIS. In fact, Dr. Nott performed surgery on an ISIS terrorist in Eastern Aleppo. The hospital operating room was not attacked by ISIS, and he was not forced to perform surgery, but rather this was an FSA controlled Hospital which was allied with ISIS, and thus the ISIS injured were received as normal course of duty.
Dr. Nott recalls being taken to a Priest in Western Aleppo by his ‘minders’ in an effort to portray the conflict as non-sectarian. He should have asked his friends, “Where are the Christians and Priests who support the revolution here in Eastern Aleppo?” He doesn’t seem to be aware that the Syrian Christians have been targeted from the outset by the ‘rebels’.
Robin Harris in 2013 wrote: “Many Iraqi refugees left to join the two million indigenous Christians of Syria. They now share their hosts’ lot — persecution by the western-supported, Saudi-financed, Islamist-dominated Syrian rebels. Priests are special targets. This is where a Syrian Catholic priest, Father François Murad, was murdered last month.”
Dr. Nott wrote an impassioned plea concerning the photo-gone-viral of young Omran, bloodied and sitting in the back of an ambulance in Eastern Aleppo. Dr. Nott was not there at the time, but one of his colleagues from the Hospital in Eastern Aleppo contacted him concerning the tragic photo. Based only on the second-hand information coming to him, Dr. Nott was certain this little boy, saved by the famous WHITE HEMETS of Eastern Aleppo, was the victim of the brutal Syrian regime. Dr. Nott wrote: “The picture of Omran epitomises the horror that can be broadcast on our television screens.” “The sticking point is whether Assad stays or goes. He has to go. The refugees who have left the country will not return unless he has gone. There is no alternative.”
Dr. Nott did not ask all the refugees who left Syria if they left because of Pres. Assad, or whether they would be willing to come back to Syria if there was peace, even though Pres. Assad might remain. Yet, Dr. Nott would have you to believe there is no other reason for leaving Syria. In fact, many Syrian refugees left from peaceful areas, like the Syrian coast, which had never had battles or destruction, and which had remained peaceful and stable. Many Syrian refugees would tell you that they left for the chance to have an income, while living in a peaceful place. There are as many reasons to leave Syria as there are refugees: each has their own story. It is untruthful to portray all the Syrian refugees in a blanket statement.
Now that Western Aleppo and Eastern Aleppo are reunited in peace and stability, the true stories pour out from the actual eye witnesses. The father of the little boy Omran has now told the full details to both Syrian and Western journalists. The details given to Dr. Nott by the treating physician in Eastern Aleppo do not ring true. It was Omran’s father who saved the boy from the rubble, and it was the WHITE HELMETS who seized the boy, without medical treatment first, and staged the photo which then went viral. The colleague of Dr. Nott from the Aleppo Medical Council was present, but only gave treatment after the photo was finished. The WHITE HELMETS even offered to pay a bribe to the father, but were refused, and they have since admitted so.
The father of Omran, Mohammed Kheir Daqneesh stated: “The truth is one thing and they used him in a way that was not truthful and this really bothered me. The armed militia and their media used him in a way that was excessive.”
Once the rebels and their allies were driven out of Eastern Aleppo, the residents were able to run to freedom in Western Aleppo. Another British citizen was present as the Syrian refugees came pouring in. Rev. Andrew Ashdown is a Church of England priest studying Christian-Muslim relations in Syria. He wrote: “They said that they had been living in fear. They reported that the fighters have been telling everyone that the Syrian Army would kill anyone who fled to the West, but had killed many themselves who tried to leave – men, women and children.”
“The refugees said that the ‘rebels’ told them that only those who support them are “true Muslims”, and that everyone else are ‘infidels’ and deserve to die.”
“Likewise, most had been given no medical treatment. (A doctor who has been working with the refugees for weeks told me last night that in an area recently liberated, a warehouse filled with brand new internationally branded medicines had been discovered.)”
“One old man in a wheelchair who was being given free treatment in the Russian Field Hospital said he had been given no treatment for three years despite asking.”
The British Priest who personally interviewed the actual survivors of 3 years of occupation in Eastern Aleppo is shedding light on the true picture of life in Eastern Aleppo under the occupation of the rebels. Why is the story that Dr. Nott is telling us so very different? Maybe the difference is that Dr. David Nott was not a neutral observer, but was firmly on the side of the rebels. His minders may have carefully kept him away from civilians, and knowing he could not understand Arabic, the language barrier kept Dr. Nott in the dark as to the true picture of life under occupation of the FSA rebels, and their allies like ISIS and Al Qaeda. Dr. Nott was kept constantly busy treating the injured and saving lives.
The Syrian conflict seems to be winding down to an end. Dr. David Nott and other western humanitarians may begin the long and thoughtful process of asking themselves why they backed the rebels and their allies in a bloody and impossible fight. The US-UK-NATO war machine, fueled by western mainstream media sold many seemingly intelligent people on the idea of a Syrian revolution which would be fought for freedom and democracy. Perhaps one day Dr. Nott will come back to Aleppo and meet some actual residents and survivors of Western and Eastern Aleppo. Perhaps then he can understand the role he played in support of the rebels and their political ideology.
SYRIA: Game Over for Macron after Shameful UNGA Performance
By Bruno Guigue | 21st Century Wire | September 20, 2017
Before the UN General Assembly, you treated President Bashar al Assad as a criminal and declared that he should be held accountable to “international justice”. You have betrayed those who believed in a turn-around in your politics and you have brought this serious accusation against the legitimate leader of a UN member state.
Exactly what jurisdiction has empowered you, Mr Macron, to issue arrest warrants for foreign heads of state, who, by the way, could teach you a thing or two?
Who gives you the right, as a European head of state, representing the former colonial power in Syria (1920 – 1946), to hand out certificates for good or bad behaviour to your Middle Eastern counterparts?
This intervention is made all the more disturbing by the fact that you, like your predecessors, persevere with your complacency towards the petro-monarchies, to whom you sell arms that are used to massacre the courageous people of Yemen. You denounce the crimes you have attributed to the Syrian president, but you turn a blind eye to the head-choppers, the West’s beloved mercenaries. The 10,000 deaths in Yemen, the 500,000 children suffering from malnutrition, the terrifying cholera epidemic brought on by the Saudi bombardment, don’t trouble you, trigger no remorse and yet, you seriously want us to take notice of your indignation over Syria?
Everybody is aware that the Syrian conflict has caused tens of thousands of deaths, that the bloodbath gone on too long and that a political solution must be found, once the terrorist hordes are eliminated. As you speak, the Russians, Iranians and Turks are gathered in Astana to work towards this end. When you fling such accusations at Pres. Assad, what are you really talking about? From the very beginning of the “Arab Spring” in 2011, the anti-government protests were polluted by armed insurgents who opened fire on the security forces. The Arab Observer Mission was present from 24th December 2011 to 18th January 2012, at the behest of the Arab League. Despite Saudi pressure, their report denounces violence carried out by both sides. The myth of the peaceful uprising has long since evaporated Mr Macron, it’s time to bid farewell to this romantic fairytale.
This war was pre-fabricated by the sponsors of the “opposition”, in an attempt to destabilize the Syrian state. The Baathist government may have had shortcomings, but Syria was debt-free, a productive, multi-ethnic country where people of different faiths, lived, peacefully, side by side. The biggest demonstrations in 2011 were in favour of the Syrian government and the proposed reforms. To blame this government for the war that was started by a foreign-backed, armed uprising, is a distortion of reality. You pervert the facts to serve the narrative you wish to uphold. Mr Macron stop selectively determining the facts as you do, also, with the victims. Wars are cruel, this one is no exception. But who should bear responsibility, other than those who wanted to subjugate Damascus to Wahhabi Sharia law with the help of the US, France, Great Britain and the oil kingdoms.
Even in the statistics of the SOHR, an opposition-partisan organisation, 40% of the victims – since 2011 – were from the Syrian Arab Army, 35% the armed groups and 25% civilians caught in the crossfire of war. If a war could spare civilians, we would know about it. The war, supported by France in Yemen certainly doesn’t, neither does the US coalition bombing of Mosul or Raqqa. But accusing the Syrian Arab Army of deliberately committing crimes against its own people is an insult to common sense. This army is an army of conscripts, who defend their homeland against the tsunami of extremist militants. While you are safe at the UN, Mr Macron, “Assad’s soldiers” cross the Euphrates to settle his account with DAESH.
Of course, in this game of illusionists, you still hold the joker, you still have the chemical weapon “false flag” with which to feed the propaganda mill. Sticking to the CIA script of this novel, you even pretend to set a “red line”. The fact that an MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) expert showed you that the August 2013 attack could only have come from terrorist held areas, is of no consequence to you. When the same US experts have denounced the Khan Sheikhoun (April 2017) alleged CW attack, blamed upon Damascus, you remain resolute. Have you even read the report by eminent American journalist, Seymour Hersch, which dismantles the western narrative of Syrian Arab Army chemical attacks?
Beware Mr Macron, this chemical weapon farce, the western propaganda mantra, is wearing thin. It even steals the crown from the lies of State, uttered by Colin Powell, brandishing his file at the UN Security Council. With each passing day, the chemical weapon lie loses its power to enchant. Those who still believe it are those who want to believe it, or who believe their own governments in the west would never lie to them. But the majority of the Syrian people don’t believe it, and that is what matters. When an area is liberated by the Syrian Arab Army, the refugees are returning home, life begins again and hope resurfaces. Making windmills with your insignificant arms at the UN wont change anything, and your inane chatter is already being drowned out by the media hubbub. Your so called “contact group”, Mr Macron, is already dead in the water and will disappear from our consciousness in under a week.
Who is still paying any attention to the French presidency? This presidency, regardless of who is in power, has demonized the Syrian government, brought traitors into Syria disguised as opposition, has condoned the brutality of the armed “moderates”, encouraged the influx of terrorists into Syria – terrorists who forced the French Lycee in Damascus to close its doors. This presidency has refused cooperation with Syrian forces & allies, it has delivered arms to the extremist groups, it has refused to fight DAESH when DAESH was threatening Damascus, it has called for the murder of a legitimate head of state, it has imposed an embargo on medicines for the Syrian people – this presidency has flouted international law and allied itself with the worst aspects of neo-colonialism. Nobody is listening to you.
By choosing to interfere in the affairs of sovereign states, France has relinquished its part in the game. Give up Mr Macron, you too are “out.”
Translation from the French, by Vanessa Beeley for 21st Century Wire.
***
Bruno Guigue is a French author and political analyst born in Toulouse 1962. Professor of philosophy and lecturer in international relations for higher education.
US, Iran break ice at UN
By M K Bhadrakumar | Indian Punchline | September 21, 2017
The US President Donald Trump’s speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday has drawn attention to the Iran nuclear deal of July 2015. Will the deal survive? Or, will it perish in a sudden death? Trump said,
- The Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the US has ever entered into. Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States, and I don’t think you’ve heard the last of it. Believe me.
Harsh words, indeed. Meanwhile, the P5+1 and Iran met at foreign minister level in New York on Tuesday. According to European sources, “the meeting included a long discussion” between Tillerson and his Iranian counterpart Mohammed Javad Zarif – although Tillerson publicly maintained that they merely shook hands. In a subsequent interview with Fox News, Tillerson narrowed down the US demand at this point to the so-called “sunset provision” in the Iran deal under which time limits (of varying lengths, such as 10 or 15 years) apply to some of the restrictions put on Iran’s nuclear program.
Evidently, there is much sophistry in the arguments being proferred, (as explained lucidly by Paul Pillar, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University and in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution in a blog in the National Interest magazine.) Tillerson indeed hinted that the issue goes beyond Iran’s nuclear programme. As he put it,
- Our (US’) relationship with Iran from a security standpoint and a threat standpoint is much broader than that, as is the entire region. And we’ve really got to begin to deal with Iran’s destabilizing activities in Yemen, in Syria. The President (Trump) highlighted that today, that under the agreement – the spirit of the agreement, if you want to use that word – but even the words of the preamble of the agreement, there was clearly an expectation, I think on the part of all the parties to that agreement, that by signing this nuclear agreement Iran would begin to move to a place where it wanted to integrate – reintegrate itself with its neighbors. And that clearly did not happen. In fact, Iran has stepped up its destabilizing activities in the region, and we have to deal with that, and so whether we deal with it through a renegotiation on nuclear or we deal with it in other ways.
Simply put, the US feels agitated about Iran’s cascading influence in the Middle East and its emergence as the foremost regional power – even surpassing Israel. In turn, Israel, which has lost its military pre-eminence in the Middle East, is counting on the Trump administration (which also has a big contingent of “hawks” on Iran) to push back at Iran’s lengthening shadows, especially in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza.
One hitch here is that the European Union disfavours a re-opening of the Iran nuclear deal (for whatever reasons.) The EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini made this point quite clear after the FM-level meeting in New York. The EU position is also shared by Russia and China. The point is, the Iran nuclear deal is working splendidly well and Tehran is fulfilling to the last word its obligations (which is something even Tillerson admits.)
Unsurprisingly, Iran is furious about Trump’s threatening speech. The chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari (who reports directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei) hit back strongly:
- Time is now ripe for correcting the US miscalculations. Now that the US has fully displayed its nature, the government should use all its options to defend the Iranian nation’s interests. Taking a decisive position against Trump is just the start and what is strategically important is that the US should witness more painful responses in the actions, behavior and decisions that Iran will take in the next few months.
However, it cannot be lost on Tehran what perturbs the Trump administration most could be the need to re-engage Iran in negotiations relating to regional politics. Significantly, while making an impassioned plea for the raison d’etre of the nuclear deal in his speech at the UNGA on Tuesday, President Hassan Rouhani desisted from touching on options available to Iran:
- The deal is the outcome of two years of intensive multilateral negotiations, overwhelmingly applauded by the international community and endorsed by the Security Council as a part of Resolution 2231. As such, it belongs to the international community in its entirety, and not to only one or two countries.
- The JCPOA can become a new model for global interactions; interactions based on mutual constructive engagement between all of us. We have opened our doors to engagement and cooperation. We have concluded scores of development agreements with advanced countries of both East and West. Unfortunately, some have deprived themselves of this unique opportunity. They have imposed sanctions really against themselves, and now they feel betrayed. We were not deceived, nor did we cheat or deceive anyone. We have ourselves determined the extent of our nuclear program. We never sought to achieve deterrence through nuclear weapons; we have immunized ourselves through our knowledge and – more importantly — the resilience of our people. This is our talent and our approach. Some have claimed to have wanted to deprive Iran of nuclear weapons; weapons that we have continuously and vociferously rejected. And, of course, we were not and are not distressed for forgoing an option that we in fact never sought. It is reprehensible that the rogue Zionist regime that threatens regional and global security with its nuclear arsenal and is not committed to any international instrument or safeguard, has the audacity to preach peaceful nations.
- Just imagine for a minute how the Middle East would look had the JCPOA not been concluded. Imagine that along with civil wars, Takfiri terror, humanitarian nightmares, and complex socio-political crises in West Asia, that there was a manufactured nuclear crisis. How would we all fare?
Rouhani remarked later in New York, “We don’t think Trump will walk out of the deal despite (his) rhetoric and propaganda.” Tehran has all along estimated that Trump is a bluff master and a bazaari at heart. Of course, Iran is unlikely to re-negotiate the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal. But below that threshold comes the tantalizing prospect of a (re)-engagement between the top diplomats of the two countries. To be sure, the ice was broken on Tuesday. Notably, Zarif is keeping his thoughts to himself.
The US and Israel have suffered a strategic defeat in Syria from which they will never quite recover, and would, therefore, want to safeguard at least their irreducible core interests in the post-conflict situation in the New Middle East. The question is, what is it that the US can offer Iran in return? The US is only hurting its self-interests by preventing American companies from doing business in the Iranian market. Trump isn’t Barack Obama and he simply lacks the persuasiveness or the moral authority to get the rest of the world to fall in line with the US’ sanctions regime against Iran so long as Tehran scrupulously observes the terms of the nuclear deal. Having said that, from the Iranian perspective, a full-bodied integration with the international community has always been the strategic objective of its foreign policies.
RT may soon be dropped by US providers, courtesy of McCain & Graham
RT | September 21, 2017
Buried deep inside the just-passed defense budget is a small amendment, which could lead to a ban on broadcasting RT in America. The architects of the provision, Senators Graham and McCain, may recall that in their youth such practices formed what was known as the ‘Iron Curtain’.
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2018, which was passed by the US Senate earlier this week, is stuffed with provisions that have little to do with US national defense. This is a tactic that US lawmakers have traditionally used to ‘piggy-back’ legislation which would have little hope of adoption as a stand-alone bill.
Deep down the list of amendments is No 1096, which aims to “prohibit multichannel video programming distributors from being required to carry certain video content that is owned or controlled by the Government of the Russian Federation”.
Proposed by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and co-sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), the amendment was submitted by John McCain (R-Arizona), a fellow foreign policy hawk. The provision says a distributor working in a US jurisdiction “may not be directly or indirectly required” to carry video content that is “is owned, controlled, or financed (in whole or in part) by the Government of the Russian Federation.”
In plain English then, any contract RT currently has or will have with American cable and satellite networks to carry its programming will no longer be protected by US federal law after this amendment is signed into law by President Donald Trump. The channel’s current arrangements with carriers made it illegal for them to arbitrarily drop RT’s programming (unless the content shown was obscene) but now they will apparently be able to discriminate against it should they so wish.
The discussion on how the US could insulate its population from RT was sparked by a declassified US intelligence community report on alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, which put this channel in the spotlight. The report asserted that RT was a primary tool of such interference, done through critical reporting on US foreign policy and domestic problems. Despite the report containing factual errors and no evidence, it was taken at face value by many US media outlets and politicians.
“There is an obsession on Capitol hill and in the mainstream media with RT, because RT is effective and because RT is watched. But also because RT carries perspectives that are not available on the mainstream media,” commented Daniel McAdams, Executive Director for the Ron Paul Institute.
“The fact of the matter is that John McCain and Lindsey Graham, the people behind this amendment, the Atlantic Council and the others that are trying to silence RT – they are the totalitarians, they are the enemies of free speech, the enemies of the First Amendment.”
The move seems to resemble the strategy of the Soviet government, which strictly controlled domestic media and suppressed radio broadcasts from Europe to insulate the population of the country from ideas and narratives it deemed unfit. The censorship system, dubbed the “Iron Curtain”, backfired and became a major factor in eroding the Communist Party’s control, for the simple reason that people perceived media sources which the government tried to silence as more trustworthy than those it allowed.
Russia warns US it will strike back if militia attacks in Syria don’t end
RT | September 21, 2017
Moscow has warned the US that if militias it supports in northeast Syria again attack positions of pro-government forces backed by Russia, the Russian military will use all its force to retaliate.
The troops of the Syrian Democratic Force (SDF), a predominantly Kurdish militia that receives support from the US military, have twice attacked positions of the Syrian Arab Army in the Deir ez-Zor governorate with mortar and rocket fire, according to the Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov.
“Russia unequivocally told the commanders of US forces in Al Udeid Airbase (Qatar) that it will not tolerate any shelling from the areas where the SDF are stationed,” Konashenkov said, adding that the attacks put at risk Russian military advisers embedded with Syrian government troops.
“Fire from positions in regions [controlled by the SDF] will be suppressed by all means necessary,” he stressed.
Konashenkov said Moscow suspected the SDF of colluding with the terrorist group Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS/ISIL) in Deir ez-Zor rather than fighting it, as it claims to be. He said Russia had detected the transfer of SDF fighters from the IS stronghold of Raqqa, to join forces with the jihadists.
“SDF militants work to the same objectives as IS terrorists. Russian drones and intelligence have not recorded any confrontations between IS and the ‘third force,’ the SDF,” the Russian general said.
The statement said that the siege of Raqqa by the SDF has been halted, apparently in response to the latest advances by Syrian government forces in Deir ez-Zor, which is located to the east from Raqqa along the Euphrates River.
“The central parts of the former ISIL capital, which account for roughly 25 percent of the city, remain under full control of the terrorists,” Konashenkov remarked.
According to the statement, in the last 24 hours Syrian government troops “continued their offensive operation” to destroy the last “IS bridgehead” near the city of Deir ez-Zor, the provincial capital. Troops led by Syrian Army General Suheil al-Hassan liberated around 16 sq km of territory and two settlements on the western bank of the Euphrates River.
“More than 85 percent of Deir ez-Zor’s territory is under the full control of Syrian troops. Over the next week the city will be liberated completely,” Konashenkov said.
The city of Deir ez-Zor in eastern Syria was besieged by Islamic State in 2014. Syrian government forces lifted the blockade of the city in early September.
However, the liberation of Deir ez-Zor also triggered a confrontation between Syrian government forces and the US-backed SDF militants, the point of contention being control of Deir ez-Zor’s oil fields.
Following Damascus’s strategic victory, food, medicine and other essentials started to reach the city by convoy, where previously the inhabitants had to rely on air-drops.
The escalation of tension in eastern Syria is mirrored in the western Idlib governorate, where militant forces this week attacked Syrian positions in a designated de-escalation zone. The offensive threatened a unit of Russian military police, who were stationed in the area to monitor the ceasefire. Russia mounted an emergency rescue operation on Wednesday, in which three Russian special operations troops were injured. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that the militants’ offensive had been instigated by US special services.
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Why vaccines for children are Big Pharma’s holy grail – Part 1
By Serena Wylde | TCW Defending Freedom | October 18, 2023
James A Shannon, director of the US National Institutes of Health 1955-68, said: ‘No vaccination can be proven safe before it is given to children.’
When he made that statement, it was still possible in the US to sue vaccine manufacturers under tort law for vaccine-induced deaths and injuries, which is no longer the case.
Today the US has the world’s most aggressive vaccine schedule and ranks as the sickest country, with the highest infant mortality, in the developed world. The UK does not lag far behind.
Vaccines carry three separate areas of potential risk. Firstly, they artificially stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies, which temporarily inhibits another part of the body’s defence mechanism. In an infant, whose immune system is just developing, this high demand of energy can in some cases overwhelm its metabolic reserves, and cause brain inflammation. The brain is the highest energy-consuming tissue in the body, followed by the gastro-intestinal tract and the immune system.
Secondly, vaccines contain chemicals, metals and drugs. Thirdly, according to the former pharmaceutical R&D executive Sasha Latypova, traditional vaccines are consistently contaminated with plant and animal proteins which hyper-sensitise the body, especially in children, giving rise to allergies.
In the US in the 1970s there were three inoculations recommended for children… continue
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