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Teacher on Leave After Allegedly Assaulting Student Who Refused to Stand for Pledge of Allegiance

By Jon Queally | Common Dreams | February 3, 2018

A teacher in Colorado this week was suspended after it was alleged that she assaulted a young child who refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance—a troubling example of educators who refuse to acknowledge that students have the right to refuse participation in the daily ritual still found in many U.S. schools.

According to CBS News:

A teacher with Colorado’s Boulder Valley School District was placed on paid administrative leave following an alleged incident at the middle school, the school district said Thursday. CBS Denver confirmed the Lafayette Police Department is investigating reports that teacher allegedly assaulted a student who refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Karen Smith, [the school’s] physical education teacher, was placed on leave Thursday.

The school’s principal, Mike Medina, sent a letter home to parents Thursday evening notifying them there had been an “incident” involving Smith but said he could not elaborate.

Last year, as Splinter News reported at the time, a teacher in New Jersey was suspended after he bragged about failing students who refused to participate in the pledge.

“They refused to stand, saying ‘they didn’t have to[.]’ I told them that is true and that what makes this country great is ‘that I didn’t have to pass them either,'” Steven Solomon, the teacher, confessed. He was later suspended for his actions.

Though many public schools in the country continue to treat standing as the pledge as compulsory, the U.S. Supreme Court has said forcing students to do so is a violation of their constitutionally-protected rights. The court, as the ACLU explains in an on-line manual directed at students, “has held that it is just as much a violation of your First Amendment rights for the government to make you say something you don’t want to say as it is for the government to prevent you from saying what you do want to say.” All students, the civil liberties group says, “have a right to remain silently seated during the pledge.”

In a 2009 column  that appeared on Common Dreams, entitled ‘The Pledge of Allegiance Is Un-American,” Michael Lind put it this way: “In a republic, the people should not pledge allegiance to the government; the government should pledge allegiance to the people.”

February 4, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 2 Comments

Israeli forces kill 19-year-old with bullet to the head

IMEMC | February 3, 2018

Ahmad Samir Abu ‘Obeid, 19, was killed by Israeli soldiers with a live round in the head, during a massive military invasion into Burqin town, west of Jenin, in the northern part of the West Bank.

The Palestinian Health Ministry has confirmed that the soldiers shot Ahmad with a live round in his head, causing a very serious injury, before medics rushed him to Jenin Governmental Hospital, where he died from his wounds.

The Ministry added that the soldiers also shot two other young Palestinian men with live rounds in their legs, and six with rubber-coated steel bullets, in addition to causing dozens to suffer the severe effects of teargas inhalation, after the army attacked locals, who protested the invasion.

The army also arrested four young Palestinian men, and demolished a room and a barn, in addition to causing damage to several structures and cars, before withdrawing from the town.

The invasion was carried out by twenty-two armored military vehicles, and two bulldozers, before the soldiers broke into and searched many homes, and used K9 units in searching the properties, causing anxiety attacks among many Palestinians, especially children.

After the army withdrew from the town, hundreds of Palestinians marched in Ahmad’s funeral procession, while chanting against the ongoing Israeli military occupation.

The Israeli invasion into several areas in the Jenin Governorate started when the soldiers invaded Kafeer village, south of the Jenin city, after surrounding it and declaring it a closed military zone.

The soldiers conducted extensive military searches of homes and detained two siblings, identified as Thieb Walid Ershaid, 43, and his brother Qa’qaa, 42, after surrounding their homes.

The shooting death of Abu Obeid came during the invasion of Wadi Burqin by the Israeli military early Saturday morning to besiege the home where the army believed that the wanted man Ahmad Nasr Jarrar, was hiding.

Ahmad Nasr Jarrar was wanted by the Israeli military for allegedly killing an Israeli settler on January 8th.

Following that killing, the Israeli military invaded many nearby villages and conducted house-to-house searches.

On January 18th, the Israeli army besieged a home where they mistook Ahmad Ismail Jarrar for his cousin, and killed him. Ahmad was from Burin, west of Jenin.

February 4, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | 2 Comments

Bahraini Emir Mubarak Al Khalifa in Tel Aviv

Al-Manar | February 4, 2018

The Bahraini emir Mubarak Al Khalifa visited the Zionist entity in the context of normalizing ties between the regime in Manama and the enemy’s authorities.

The Zionist Telecommunication Minister Ayoob Kara revealed that he met with the Bahraini emir, adding that he would welcome him at Knesset on Monday.

Ayoob posted the photo of his meeting with Mubarak Al Khalifa via Twitter.

A Bahraini governmental delegation visited the Zionist entity last December and had a field tour in the occupied Al-Quds accompanied by a staff from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

February 4, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

‘We are going to win’: Trump can’t do anything about FBI despite GOP memo – former CIA official

RT | February 4, 2018

The FBI need not worry despite the release of the GOP memo alleging the FBI’s surveillance abuse against Donald Trump, because the Bureau has been in the game much longer than the current president, says an ex-CIA analyst.

“I know how this game is going to be played. We are going to win,” Philip Mudd, a former CIA analyst told CNN, referring to a brewing conflict between Trump and America’s security services following the recent release of the GOP document.

Mudd, who also served as a deputy national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia on the US National Intelligence Council, added that despite the declassification of the document which outlines abuses by the FBI and the US Justice Department, Trump can’t do anything about the “hundreds of agents” working on the case of his alleged collusion with Russia. Apparently, Trump’s just not powerful enough.

“They [the FBI] are going to be saying (I guarantee it): You [Trump] think you can push us off this [investigation] because you can try to intimidate the [FBI] director? You better think again, Mr. President. You have been around for 13 months. We have been around since 1908,” Mudd said.

He also noted the security services’ reaction to the memo, saying: “FBI people are ticked.” He also described accusations of corruption issued against the FBI by no less than the US head of state himself, as “an attack on [its] ability to conduct an investigation with integrity.”

The four-page GOP file that has caused a stir within the US political establishment was initially commissioned by the House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-California) in mid-January. Trump authorized its release on Friday.

The document chronicles how the FBI and the DOJ obtained a warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page entirely on the basis of the so-called “Steele dossier” paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign through the Democratic National Committee.

Democrats, many mainstream media outlets, and a number of former and current FBI and DOJ officials fiercely resisted its publication. It also triggered a social media storm and sent Trump critics into meltdown. And of course, some even ‘found’ a Russian trail in these developments.

February 4, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , | 5 Comments

“Nunesburgers” & denial from the MSM while Politico blames Putin

OffGuardian | February 4, 2018

The “Nunes” Memo isn’t political dynamite but it could be the final blow to the whole ridiculous and virtually fact-free Russiagate narrative. It confirms the Steele dossier is a scam, and demonstrates the lies employed to get approval for spying on Trump’s team, it shows the vindictive bias in the establishment towards an elected official.

But, of course, the mainstream media and various paid opinion-makers are not admitting that. In fact there’s a chorus of evasion and distraction and frantic meme-creation right now, from bots spamming talking points, and “#nunesburger” hashtags to avowedly serious opinion pieces claiming it’s all a “half-baked conspiracy theory”… blah… blah…

There’s no shortage of examples of just how eerily lockstep the various strands of the campaign are, but here’s one of the “serious” ones to mull over. Politico’s The Nunes Memo & Putin’s Long Game.

Here’s the text with our annotations:

Ever since the U.S. intelligence community discovered the Russian operation to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and aid President Donald Trump’s victory, some Republicans have been laboring to undermine investigations into the attack and discredit the intelligence agencies that discovered it.

It’s almost touching how, right from the off, they bravely opt to simply ignore the fact that the Russia hack narrative is now probably doomed. Like a first class passenger on the Titanic, deeply in denial, they are sitting, hat slightly askew, sipping tea and admiring the view while the deck beneath them tilts and slides. Don’t think about the facts, Politico readers, think about the mean people who wanted you to know the facts!

Those efforts reached a new crescendo (sic) on Friday, when House Republicans released a partisan memo alleging anti-Trump bias at the FBI with approval from Trump, who declared on Twitter that both the FBI and Department of Justice are corrupt.

Well, first can someone tell them what “crescendo” means? Secondly, isn’t it interesting how the Memo only “alleges” anti-Trump bias, even though it contains and refers to clear proof of same. Contrast with the above claim of certitude about “Russian interference” in the face of no proof whatsoever.

But that turmoil, some were quick to point out, is exactly what Putin wanted all along.

In the nick of time the Titanic passengers have managed to grab something to keep them afloat. A lifebuoy with “Putin” written on it in scary red letters. Reality averted.

“The latest attacks on the FBI and Department of Justice serve no American interests – no party’s, no president’s, only Putin’s,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in a statement Friday. “Our nation’s elected officials, including the president, must stop looking at this investigation through the warped lens of politics and manufacturing partisan sideshows. If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin’s job for him.”

Someone could tell McCain that the rule of law is undermined by people breaking the law and getting away with it – not by revealing the fact to the public. But they probably wouldn’t dare.

For more than a year, Trump has consistently cast doubt on the assessments of intelligence agencies he now leads, arguing that “the deep state” is stacked against him.

The Memo (which Politico hasn’t yet quoted or linked to) proves Trump was right. But let’s not waste time on details like that.

Facing an investigation that reached into his own administration, and potentially into the Oval Office, the president chose to fire his FBI director, James Comey last May, and since then has repeatedly hinted that he might try to do the same to others.

That may include deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who oversees special Russia counsel Robert Mueller. “You figure that one out,” Trump said when asked Friday if he still had confidence in Rosenstein after reading the memo.

The cumulative effect of it all, intelligence veterans said, was to diminish trust in government institutions—thereby weakening the U.S.

To sum up their point here if we may – it’s not the fact US officials have been caught lying and manipulating and conspiring against elected representatives that diminishes trust in government institutions – it’s the fact people insist on talking about it

“We have to remember what Putin’s goal in this whole endeavor was,” said Ned Price, a former CIA officer and NSC spokesperson under President Barack Obama. “It was at its core to divide the American people and pit us against each other.”

“This is exactly what he had hoped and it has succeeded beyond his wildest expectations,” he said of the memo. “This memo just play right into that… This is exactly what Putin had in mind.”

In some ways this is the most ridiculous thing in the article. Why would any sane person – Putin or anyone else – want America to be more divided, unstable and terrifying than it already is? To the rest of the world, even its supposed friends, America is the psycho next door with the drinking problem, the chainsaw and the cupboard full of illegal firearms. No one wants this guy getting all riled up about anything. Because they don’t want to wake up with their house on fire and their kids dead in the yard.

The memo “is simply an attempt to cast aspersions on the whole investigation,” said Robert Litt, a former general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who now works for Morrison and Foerster.

This is rather like saying proving someone guilty of child abuse is an “attempt to cast aspersions” on their parenting. And they still haven’t mentioned or quoted the contents of the Memo.

“To the extent that Putin’s goal is to weaken us an emphasize our internal division, which was certainly one of the conclusions that the intelligence community reached, yes absolutely [he succeeded],” Litt added. “This is increasing partisanship and division and making it more difficult to bring to light what they’re actually doing. … I would’ve thought that there would have been a considerably greater level of bipartisan concern about what the Russians have done.”

Hey – you know another way they could have thwarted that damn Putin? Their intelligence agencies could have not lied and cheated and plotted in the first place.

But for Trump, House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes and other Republicans, Friday was a day of triumph.

“The Committee has discovered serious violations of the public trust, and the American people have a right to know when officials in crucial institutions are abusing their authority for political purposes,” Nunes wrote on Friday, accompanying the release of the memo his staff drafted.

“I think it’s a disgrace what’s happening in our country,” Trump declared.

Politico focuses on what Nunes said as if the only thing that mattered was the fact he was triumphing over the Dems. They completely avoid even considering the fact the words happen also to be true. Truth is a thing. It happens. It can be measured. Remember when that used to matter? Oh but wait – Politico is about to discuss the contents of the Memo!…

The memo, however, showed little that was new. A dossier compiled by a former British intelligence operative, who was funded in part by Clinton’s campaign, was part of the basis for the investigation, the memo says. But that was already known. And other elements of the investigation were underway independent of the dossier, the memo acknowledged.

… No, false alarm. It looked momentarily as if they were going to discuss the contents of the Memo, but it turns out they don’t need to, because there’s nothing new in it! Nope. Nothing here you haven’t seen before. Move along.

But wait – if the Memo doesn’t matter why did so many people not want it published? Why is it “dividing” anyone? If the Memo doesn’t matter then why is it just what Putin wants?

And if the Memo doesn’t matter and contains nothing new why won’t Politico quote a single line of it? Or even link to it?

And they don’t. Not once in the entire piece. What Politico is saying, with pure Doublethink, is the Memo is completely worthless, useless, empty and boring and a fiendish, cunning plot by Vladimir Putin to divide America and undermine public faith in its institutions. And most of the people who read it will believe these two things with ease. Because being an American Liberal these days requires complete removal of your sense of the ridiculous.

This last bit is interesting though:

Nonetheless, conservative media — including some outlets which were handed the memo before it became public — rejoiced.

Former House Speaker and Trump confidant Newt Gingrich suggested that the memo would ultimately undermine Mueller’s investigation.

“This memo will lead to more releases of more material and it will go on and on,” Gingrich told POLITICO. “We will be shocked at how deep the sickness was. … Why would you think Mueller is anything different? He’s just part of the same mess.”

Are we going to see a Memo war of attrition? Will this signal an avalanche of mutually destructive dirt from all sides? This could be a time for popcorn and a comfy chair.

February 4, 2018 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

The World’s Most Dangerous Document Hits the Front Pages…

No it didn’t.

By Jan OBERG  | The Transnational | February 2, 2108

The mainstream media are totally irresponsible in their priorities. At the moment of writing, five hours after the world’s most dangerous document was presented, no major Western media has featured it prominently. This means it won’t be. No chance it would go viral. The increasing risk of nuclear war isn’t important.

While people talk about fake, a much larger issue is omission:

What is hidden to you? What world order issues are deliberately down-graded?

What threats to humanity end up at the bottom of page 38 after 10 pages of sports, entertainment and celebrity stories?

Another technique is cover-up, talking about something else such as the ever convenient North Korean “threat” or Russia’s latest evil plot.

It’s not only ignorance. There are media and other power elites who know exactly what to hand out to you and how. And what to fake, omit and cover up instead of covering.

Time to wake up: The dominant Western media are rapidly becoming the largest single obstacles to understanding our world. One proof is this story.

* * *

The Transnational has already posted a few articles about this scary, absurd and anti-ethical document, the Nuclear Posture Review, NPR:

• Huffington Post’s first article based on a leak from January 14, 2018.

• Pentagon advocates nukes against a cyber attack, in the New York Times, January 16, 2018.

• Paul Rogers, Sliding towards nuclear war?

• And in a larger perspective, a world expert on it all – Daniel Ellsberg and his new book, The Doomsday Machine. Confessions of a Nuclear Planner.

* * *

And then tonight happened the Pentagon “rollout” of this formal document on which the U.S. is going to base its nuclear policies in the future.

Watch the whole event here on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist.

Watch and listen carefully to how the Pentagon experts explain and rationalize it all, from within their box: So natural as if talking about pleasant everyday affairs.

And take note of the lame, cliquish questions asked by what must be highly selected media people who, it seems, have never read a book about nuclear policies. Don’t challenge a single underlying assumption or point to dangers.

The central words are ‘the safety of the American people’, the capabilities and it’s all held within the weapons technological framework and blurred security environment and deterrence. Not a single, intellectually defensible argument given.

No questioning of the framework – legal, political, ethical, psychological, civilisational…

* * *

This is not only what the leading US psychiatrist of war, Nazi doctors and sect psychology, Robert Jay Lifton calls ‘psychic numbing’.

Or what Yale psychologist Irving Janis in his classical study called ‘groupthink’.

No, seldom has the Theatre of the Absurd of the MIMAC – the Military-industrial MEDIA-Academic Complex – been performed so well.

In a calm and rational manner, we learn how natural it is to perceive, to talk about – and never question – what is in reality directly and fundamentally related to the unthinkable omnicide – destruction of humanity and the world as we know it.

All in the name, of course, of maintaining the US-based, military-dominated post-1945 world order against America’s beloved enemies. What would it do without them? How would it develop new nukes at trillions of dollars if it did not invent enemies all around. Imagine it had a policy of co-operation with the world instead of dominating it?

It’s well known that one of the defining characteristics of terrorism is the targeting, wounding or killing of innocent people, of people who are in no way fighters or otherwise related to the conflict – like children on a school bus, patients at a hospital.

The Nuclear Posture Review is a plea for mega-terrorism, dwarfing ISIS and everybody else.

It’s about the use of nuclear weapons – NUTs meaning Nuclear Use Theory – not for the deterrence business as usual, or MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction.

It is a document that argues in favour of nuclear weapons being usable, for the theory that the US can start, fight and survive a nuclear exchange. In other words, for making the unthinkable not only thinkable but acceptable.

You can’t use nuclear weapons without killing and wounding millions and making life uninhabitable for billions. Every thought about nuclear use is based on a terror philosophy – and practised today only by the United States of America.

The NPR 2018 lowers the psychological threshold and increases the likelihood vastly that nuclear weapons will be used in the future.

This kind of thinking brings huge dangers to the world. There are lots of vested interests that don’t want you to know.

This document should be condemned – as it would have been throughout the homogenised Western mainstream media had it been Russia or China or some other nuclear weapons state that had presented a similarly perversely dangerous and exceptionalist nuclear-use policy.

There is a simple solution to this nuclear madness: Nuclear abolition. That’s what the world’s huge majority wants and has voted for at the UN.

And if you don’t believe that, let’s try a little experiment in democracy – after all that’s what the US is, isn’t it? Get all the nuclear weapons states to hold free and fair referendums asking their citizens whether they want their own countries defended by nuclear weapons.

For the first time in human history. Then we take the struggle for nuclear abolition from there…

February 4, 2018 Posted by | Environmentalism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | 1 Comment

Moscow Identifies Reasons Behind New US Nuclear Doctrine

Sputnik – February 4, 2018

MOSCOW – The Russian Foreign Ministry on Saturday expressed disappointment with the confrontational and anti-Russian stance in the recently issued US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and outlined intentions to take the policies, revealed in the document, into account in ensuring its own security.

The NRP, published on Friday, claims a stronger US nuclear deterrent is needed to discourage Russia, China, Iran and North Korea from either developing new weapons or expanding existing arsenals. The US doctrine envisages short-term plans to modify existing submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warheads to provide a low-yield option and pursue a modern nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM) in the long run. The NPR notes that these activities are not intended at being employed in a nuclear warfare, however they are aimed at raising the US nuclear threshold to ensure that the country’s potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in nuclear escalation.

Moreover, in its nuclear doctrine the United States accuses Russia of repeated violations of several international arms control treaties and commitments, particularly the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov was the first to react to the release of the NPR. The diplomat suggested on Friday that Washington used alleged Russian threats to justify a hike in military spending and nuclear buildup. Antonov noted that the document raised questions and did not encourage practical work.

Moscow Will Have to Take US Policies into Account

“The content of the new nuclear doctrine (the so-called Nuclear Posture Review) released by the United States on February 2 has provoked our deep disappointment. The confrontational and anti-Russian nature of this document strikes the eye. We can state with regret that the United States explains its policies for large-scale boost of nuclear weapons by referring to modernization of the nuclear forces in Russia and alleged increasing role of nuclear weapons in the Russian doctrine statements. We are accused of lowering the nuclear threshold and of conducting some ‘aggressive’ behavior,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a Saturday statement on the NPR.

Moscow suggested that the NPR questioned Russia’s right to self-defense when countering aggression in situations critical for the country’s existence.

“Of course, we will have to take into account the approaches introduced by Washington and take all necessary measures to ensure own security,” the statement pointed out.

The projects on creation of low-yield weapons for sea-based cruise missiles and low-yield warhead for ballistic missiles carried by Trident II submarines, mentioned in the new US nuclear doctrine, represent the most danger, the Russian Foreign Ministry noted, adding that nuclear weapons with such characteristics are designed as “battlefield weapons.”

The ministry also suggested that the United States was misleading the global community by saying that the new NPR would not lower the threshold of nuclear weapons use.

“Even more dangerous is the belief of the US military experts and other specialists in the sphere of national security, emerging from the pages of the nuclear doctrine, in their ability to reliably simulate the development of conflicts, in which they allow usage of ‘low-yield’ nuclear warheads. For us, the opposite is clear: significantly lowered ‘threshold conditions’ may lead to a missile-nuclear war even during low-intensity conflicts,” the Russian ministry stressed.

Moscow expressed deep concern over the fact that in its NPR, the United States allowed for the possibility of using nuclear weapons in “extreme circumstances,” which, according to the Russian Foreign Ministry, are not limited to military scenarios.

“Washington’s practically ‘adjustable’ approach to the use of nuclear weapons is concerning. The possibility of its use in the case of ‘extreme circumstances’ is declared, which the doctrine’s authors do not limit to military scenarios,” the statement read.

The US Nuclear Posture Review describes military scenarios in a rather unclear manner, thus allowing the United States to consider practically any case of military force use as a reason for carrying out a nuclear strike on those who it calls “aggressors,” the document continued.

“If all this is not an increase of the nuclear weapons factor in the doctrine, then what does the United States mean when it uses this notion about Russia?” the statement pointed out, referring to the US statement on the increasing role of nuclear weapons in the Russian military doctrine.

Groundless Accusations

The Russian Foreign Ministry categorically refuted all the allegations against it, made in the US nuclear doctrine.

According to the ministerial statement, “the US document is overfilled with different anti-Russia cliches starting from far-fetched accusations of ‘aggressive behavior’ and different kinds of ‘meddling’ and finishing with baseless accusations of ‘violations’ of a whole range of arrangements in the sphere of arms control.”

“Such peremptory cliches have recently been replicated by Washington without a pause. We consider this as an unfair attempt to shift on others the responsibility for the degradation of the situation in the field of international and regional security and the imbalance of arms control mechanisms, resulting from a series of irresponsible steps taken by the United States itself,” the ministry added.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called Washington’s statements saying that Moscow refuses to further decrease its nuclear capabilities yet another “falsification.”

The US nuclear doctrine said that Russia allegedly demonstrates lowering threshold for its first-use of nuclear weapons through statements of the country’s officials.

Reacting to this statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry noted that these accusations against Russia had nothing to do with reality.

“The military doctrine of the Russian Federation clearly limits the use of nuclear weapons to two hypothetical and purely defensive scenarios: only in response to aggression with the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction against Russia and (or) our allies, and also — the second scenario – in case of use of conventional weapons, but only when the very existence of our state is threatened,” the ministerial statement read.

The Russian ministry emphasized Moscow’s openness for discussion of various issues, related to strengthening international security.

“We have directed the attention [of various players] including the United States to the fact, that settling key strategic stability problems, such as unilateral and unrestricted deployment of the US global missile defense system, implementation of the ‘global strike’ concept, the US denial to ratify the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and refusal to rule out possibility of deploying weapons in space, would contribute to creating the needed conditions for moving on the path of nuclear disarmament,” the statement pointed out.

Moreover, Moscow reiterated its commitment to obligations under various international treaties.

“Russia strictly complies with its obligations under all the international agreements. We fully implement the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Treaty on Open Skies,” the statement read.

The statement also noted that Moscow had not in any way violated its obligations under the 2011 Vienna Document of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on increasing security and confidence-building measures, and the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances.

“As for the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe [CFE], Russia could not have violated this document, because it had suspended its participation in the agreement back in 2007. This has been done because the Treaty, created during the era of confrontation between two military and political blocs, the Warsaw Treaty Organization and NATO [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization], does not fit in today’s reality, because one of the blocs was dismissed long ago, while the other one, on the contrary, has been increasing its potential and expanding its ‘geography,'” the document pointed out.

This new reality has been reflected in the Agreement on Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE-II), which NATO allies led by the United States refused to ratify, the statement noted.

See Also:

New US Nuclear Posture Review Spurs Outrage Among Atomic Bomb Victims in Japan

US Keeps and Modernizes Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Europe, Placing Them Near Russia’s Borders – Russian Foreign Ministry

February 4, 2018 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

China: Who’s a nuclear menace? Us or US?

Press TV – February 4, 2018

China has expressed firm opposition to a recent US government report describing Beijing as a potential nuclear rival, also calling on Washington to reduce its much larger nuclear arsenal and join in efforts to promote regional stability.

Casting China as “a major challenge to US interests in Asia,” the 74-page US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) report said the US strategy for China was designed to prevent Beijing from mistakenly concluding that any use of nuclear weapons, however limited, was acceptable.

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang condemned the US report on Sunday and said his country exercised utmost restraint in developing nuclear capabilities and kept its nuclear arsenal at the “minimum level” required for national security.

The official Xinhua news agency cited Ren as saying that Beijing would resolutely stick to the peaceful development of nuclear weapons and pursue a national defense policy that was defensive in nature. It also added that under no circumstances would China use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear-weapon-free zones.

The Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman called on the US — which possesses the world’s largest nuclear weapons arsenal — to conform to the irreversible world trend of peace and development rather than run in the opposite direction.

“We hope the US will abandon a Cold War mentality and earnestly shoulder its special and primary responsibility for its own nuclear disarmament, understand correctly China’s strategic intentions, and take a fair view on China’s national defense and military development,” Ren added.

China has the world’s fifth-largest nuclear arsenal, with 300 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The US and Russia each possess about 7,000 warheads, or about 20 times as many as Beijing.

Before he became US president, Donald Trump did a lot of China-bashing particularly in matters of trade; but since assuming office, Trump has taken a softer line on China and tried to cultivate a relationship with the Chinese leadership.

February 4, 2018 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | 1 Comment

Sumoud

February 4, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | 2 Comments