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Canada Accepts Dozens of White Helmets Evacuated from Syria – Reports

Sputnik – 29.10.2018

Canada has accepted 117 White helmets along with their family members, evacuated earlier in July from war-torn Syria with the help of Israel, CBC News reported Sunday.

In late July, over 400 White Helmets’ activists and their families were evacuated from Syria at the request of Canada, European countries, and the United States amid a full-scale offensive by Syrian government troops against militants and terrorists in country’s southwestern regions.

According to CBC News, the now-former White Helmets will be settled in four provinces, including British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia. The international community reportedly expected to remove up to 1,200 evacuees, including first responders and their families. In the end, only 422 Syrian White Helmets and their families managed to get out last July.

CBC News said, citing evacuees, that hundreds of White Helmets remain in Syria.

Canada’s Foreign Ministry said earlier that Ottawa was in the process of resettling a group of White Helmets members who had to leave Syria, stressing that security screening was completed before members of the Syrian civil defense group can fly to Canada as refugees.

According to Syrian President Bashar Assad, the group is affiliated with al-Qaeda terrorist organization. The Russian permanent mission to the European Union said earlier that the evacuation of the White Helmets from Syria proves that the states organizing the operation were seeking to cover up the provocative actions of the self-proclaimed humanitarian group.

Damascus and Moscow have accused the White Helmets of helping to stage a chemical attack in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta town in April. That attack prompted the United States, the United Kingdom and France to launch more than 100 missiles on multiple targets in Syria one week later.

In late September, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said that militants as well as White Helmets continued their preparations for plotting chemical attacks to discredit the Syrian government’s troops.

Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen television said Thursday that Militants and the White Helmets group have transported unidentified poisonous materials from the city of Jisr al-Shughur to the settlement of Khirbat al Amud, both located in the rebel-held province of Idlib.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem called Saturday the White Helmets the main tool for staging chemical attacks, adding that this was a terrorist organization created with the financial aid of the UK intelligence.

Muallem reiterated that Syria had destroyed all its chemical weapons arsenals and had not used them.

October 28, 2018 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Canada seems to prefer state of ‘war’ in Korea, not peace

By Yves Engler · October 28, 2018

Who prefers military might over peaceful discussion to settle a long festering international dispute? Canada, it seems.

It may surprise some that a Canadian general is undercutting inter-Korean rapprochement while Global Affairs Canada seeks to maintain its 70-year old war footing, but that is what the Liberal government is doing.

At the start of the month Canadian Lieutenant General Wayne Eyre told a Washington audience that the North Koreans were “experts at separating allies” and that a bid for a formal end to the Korean war represented a “slippery slope” for the 28,500 US troops there. “So what could an end-of-war declaration mean? Even if there is no legal basis for it, emotionally people would start to question the presence and the continued existence of the United Nations Command,” said Eyre at the Carnegie Institute for International Peace.“And it’s a slippery slope then to question the presence of U.S. forces on the peninsula.”

The first non-US general to hold the post since the command was created to fight the Korean War in 1950, Eyre became deputy commander of the UNC at the end of July. He joined 14 other Canadian officers with UNC.

Responsible for overseeing the 1953 armistice agreement, UNC has undercut Korean rapprochement. At the start of the month the Financial Times reported, “the US-spearheaded United Nations Command has in recent weeks sparked controversy in host nation South Korea with a series of moves that have highlighted the chasm between Seoul’s pro-engagement attitude to Pyongyang and Washington’s hard line.”  In August, for instance, the UN force blocked a train  carrying South Korean officials from crossing the Demilitarized Zone as part of an initiative to improve relations by modernizing cross-border railways.

As it prepares to concede operational control over its forces to Seoul in coming years, Washington is pushing to “revitalize” UNC, which is led by a US General who simultaneously commands US troops in Korea. According to the Financial Times, the UN force “serves to bolster and enhance the US’s position in north-east Asia at a time when China is rising.” To “revitalize” UNC the US is pressing the 16 countries that deployed soldiers during the Korean War to increase their military contribution going forward, a position argued at a Vancouver gathering in January on promoting sanctions against the North.

In other words, Ottawa and Washington would prefer the existing state of affairs in Korea because it offers an excuse for keeping tens of thousands of troops near China.

As part of reducing tensions, ridding the peninsula of nuclear weapons and possibly reunifying their country, the two Korean governments have sought a formal end to the Korean War. It’s an initial step in an agreement the Korean leaders signed in April and last month they asked the UN to circulate a peace declaration calling for an official end to hostilities. But, Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland has responded gingerly to these efforts. In response to Seoul and Pyongyang’s joint announcement to seek a formal end to the Korean War in April Freeland said, “we all need to be careful and not assume anything.”

Two Global Affairs Canada statements released last month on the “North Korea nuclear crisis” studiously ignored the Koreas’ push for an official end to hostilities. Instead they called for “sanctions that exert pressure on North Korea to abandon its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs completely, verifiably and irreversibly.” The second statement said UN Security Council sanctions “must … remain in place until Pyongyang takes concrete actions in respect of its international obligations.”

Global Affairs’ position flies in the face of South Korea, Russia, China and other nations that have brought up easing UN sanctions on North Korea. Washington, on the other hand, is seeking to tighten sanctions.

Partly to bolster the campaign to isolate North Korea a Vancouver Island based submarine was sent across the big pond at the start of the year. In April Ottawa also sent a CP-140 Aurora surveillance aircraft and 40 military personnel to a US base in Japan from which British, Australian and US forces monitor the North’s efforts to evade UN sanctions. A September Global Affairs Canada statement titled “Canada renews deployment in support of multinational initiative to enforce UN Security Council sanctions on North Korea” noted: “A Canadian Armed  Forces maritime patrol aircraft will return to the region to help counter North Korea’s maritime smuggling, in particular its use of ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum products. In addition, Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Calgary, on operations in the area as part of Canada’s continued presence in the region, was named to contribute to this effort.”

Rather than undermine Korean rapprochement, Ottawa should call for an official end to the 70-year old war and direct the Canadians in UNC to support said position. Canada should welcome peace in Korea even if it may trouble those seeking to maintain 30,000 US troops to “contain” China.

October 28, 2018 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

US sanctions on Hezbollah aim to punish Lebanon: Observers

Press TV – October 28, 2018

The US has imposed new sanctions on Hezbollah, but observers say Lebanon as a whole will be affected by the punitive measures.

Earlier this week, the administration of US President Donald Trump imposed a new round of sanctions on Hezbollah targeting individuals and international organizations that do business with the resistance group.

Economist Louis Hobeika said he thought “it is difficult to punish Hezbollah without punishing all of Lebanon.”

“No area fully belongs to Hezbollah. The southern suburb of Beirut is not confined to Hezbollah, so how will the sanctions apply here?” Hobeika told Arab News in remarks published Saturday.

Political activist Ali Al-Amin, the director of Janoubia news website, said the outcome of the US decision could be “disastrous” for Lebanon.

“Is the purpose of the sanctions to embarrass the Lebanese government and state?” he wondered.

In the May parliamentary elections, Hezbollah and its political allies won more than half of the seats at the legislature in a major victory for the party.

Former Lebanese lawmaker Fares Souaid told Arab News that the new sanctions are part of a series of US bans meant to “turn the party (Hezbollah) into a burden on the Lebanese after Hezbollah has come forward as a security guarantee for Lebanon.”

The US has its Arab allies in the Persian Gulf on board in cranking up pressure on the Lebanese leaders over their association with Hezbollah, and they all take their cue from Israel.

Israeli leaders have threatened that they would view the Lebanese state as part of Hezbollah in a future war with the resistance movement.

In May, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on the Hezbollah leadership jointly with members of the so-called Terrorist Financing and Targeting Center (TFTC), which includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE.

Hezbollah was formed following the Israeli regime’s invasion of Lebanon and the ensuing occupation of its southern parts in 1980s, and currently constitutes Lebanon’s de facto military power.

Since then, the movement has helped the national army retake the occupied regions from Tel Aviv and thwart two Israeli acts of aggression in 2000 and 2006.

The movement has also been playing a significant role in the Syrian army’s fight against Takfiri terror groups, including Daesh and Nusra Front, thus preventing the spillover of the war into Lebanon.

October 28, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 3 Comments

Thoughts on One Democratic State

By Nahida Exiled Palestinian | Poetry for Palestine | May 18, 2018

Some activists are worried that my passion for justice and my advocacy for full restoration of Palestinians’ inalienable rights might “alienate” some Jewish supporters. They claim Palestinians desperately need Jewish support.

To them I have this to say:

Palestine has now been under the heel of violent foreign rulers since a full Century. Palestinians have always been eager to get international support, including from Jews. Since a full century, the naturally trustful Palestinians were grateful and delighted to give a platform to whomever showed the slightest interest in their cause. Tragically, this resulted in our authentic Palestinian narrative being gradually silenced. Genocidal atrocities since a century are ongoing. Our will to self-determination is untamed. Our Right to be sovereign inside our own land, is intact. Our historic, cultural and national identity, is as strong as ever. Yet all is more or less silenced.

Today we have the terribly dangerous situation where the authentic Palestinian narrative is so absent, that it has never been truly heard or appreciated in the West.

Every time an uncompromising authentic Palestinian voice steps up assertive and strong, it is quickly muffled and tucked away, as to not offend Jewish supporters or to not scratch their sensitivities.

Unconditionally and almost religiously pro-Palestinian organizations have sought Jewish approval in every event, every talk, ever letter, every petition, every motion and every campaign. This went on for decades. I know it from first hand experience, and also from the many Palestinians who echo this same disturbing experience almost globally.

Whenever an authentic Palestinian voice steps out of the narrow confinement of such censored discourse, they are immediately reprimanded and told in no uncertain terms that they have crossed the lines defined by Jewish “supporters”. When a Palestinian refuses to be terrorized by such Thought Police, he or she faces defamation, blacklisting, ostracism, and even threats.

On the day of signing of Oslo agreement, I remember sitting on the staircase in shock, sobbing for the rest of the day, for I knew what is to come. Yet the pro Palestinian camp with all its Jewish “supporters” in control, embraced the move. Palestinians were deceived into believing that a Palestinian state will come into being within five years. They were led to believe the Palestinian problem is on the verge of being resolved once and for all, and closure was eminent, nothing could have been further from truth. And the genocidal slaughter continued, worse then ever. And it continues today.

For the twenty five years that followed, “israel” used the “peace process” to proceed with it’s undeclared aims of total colonisation of West Bank and Gaza. The number of settlers sky rocketed and settlements have multiplied many folds over, making it impossible for any Palestinian state to exist on a land infested with and totally disconnected by Jewish only settlements and Jewish only roads.

In the present, “israel” has managed to totally conquer Palestine by war and terror. It has created a new reality on the ground, by annexing most of the land of historic Palestine, reducing Palestinian areas into fragmented open prisons where Jewish “israelis” can kill-at-will. “israel” together with its international Jewish support network has reduced and degraded the Palestinian population from a formerly radiant, self-sufficient, productive, cohesive, cooperative affluent society into an aid-dependent, traumatized, unproductive, poverty stricken population. The degradation is even practiced by distributing free narcotics to the Palestinian youth!

Despite having achieved their Jewish Zionist goals of total dominance over land and population, the geo-political circumstances are rapidly changing.

Increasingly, the strategists and think tanks of the Jewish state realise that they have passed the highest moment of success, and that the world community in spite of some coerced puppet governments, is very rapidly turning against the Jewish state. They began to feel the heat, of growing isolation, of world disdain. In this context, the next logical step from the perspective of their think tanks and strategists, is to seek the total finalization of their Zionist project, by seeking legitimacy from the rightful natives, through legalization, and through mass campaigns to gain “the hearts and minds” from world community by any artifice necessary.

Such step would guarantee their permanent presence in Palestine while securing themselves with “peace treaties’. And while the And while the Arab Muslims remain majority in greater region, the Jewish-“isrseli” total hegemony and dominance; financial, economical, militaristic, technological, administrative, educational, would be guaranteed.

Their next strategic move would be to offer a luring “solution” which would lure Palestinian support by nominally less oppression, by feigning “equality” while knowing that in reality their hegemony will remain de-facto, due to the huge economical, technological, industrial, and of course military gap between the two groups. Nothing, absolutely nothing in the Jewish state exhibits a willingness to relinquish any part of their control over all apparatus of power in the region. And it is an irrefutable fact, demonstrated by a century of nefarious “facts on the ground” that the Jewish Zionists who invaded Palestine and their aggravated offspring, will never voluntarily relinquish their weaponry, military, and aggressive violence.

Add to this unsettling scenario the most horrific component of ideological supremacy which would no doubt manifest in an explosion of settler violence against Palestinians who are seen as mere slaves created only to serve Jews.

That horrific deception is a strategic move already has a name. “One Democratic State”, “with Equal Rights to All its Citizens”. Very easy to be deceived by such a lofty romantic title, except that it is a cruel misnomer, a sirens’ song to fool and victimise, one last lethal time.

“It is easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled” as goes the adage sometimes attributed to Mark Twain

Leading Palestinians by the nose​, dangling the carrot of “One Democratic State” and ​promising them of a “bright” ​joined ​future​ with their persecutors,​ while knowing fair well that the promised crumbs will never come to fruition, exactly as the crumbs of Oslo, due to the fact-on-the-ground dominance coupled with lethal ideological supremacy​.

“ODS-Equal Rights”,​ is not only an act of egregious deception, it is designed to perpetuate wars and genocide, by rewarding sadistic terrorists, thus it is an act of betrayal to humanity.

October 28, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 1 Comment

The New Cold War may never arrive

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | October 28, 2018

An old Italian friend and a noted Sinologist based in Beijing representing a Vatican paper, Francesco Sisci wrote apropos an article I had posted on Facebook yesterday Donald Trump Meets the End of the Empire authored by Douglas Macgreggor, an ex-US Army decorated combat veteran and an author (National Interest, October 24, 2018):

“Napoleon famously said three things win a war: money, money, money. The word “soldier” comes from soldo, the pay of the soldiers in the renaissance. If the US doesn’t straighten its economy what can it do globally? And if it doesn’t soon, what will China do? With WW 2 the solution in some countries was the war that canceled all debts with massive inflation…”

To my mind, the last sentence in Sisci’s observation will be a last-ditch option for President Trump, because if it fails, that may also mean the end of the United States of America as a nation. And Trump has a rational mind, as his attitude toward Kim Jong-Un or Mohammed bin Salman would testify.

I discount World War 3 in the thermonuclear age. Rivalries will play out below the threshold of wars in which there are no winners.

World nuclear war scenario

That is what makes Macgregor’s article noteworthy. The signs are that Trump is already thinking in terms of cuts in budget expenditure, including the defence budget. In a pithy sentence, Macgreggor highlights the paradigm: “Get ready. “America first” in foreign and defense policy is about to begin. Defense cuts are on the way.”

Macgreggor gives food for thought for Indian pundits who are wildly ecstatic that a US-China New Cold War is about to erupt, which will provide India a historic opportunity to emerge as America’s “counterweight” to China in the Asian context. This is actually a hackneyed thesis dating back to the late K. Subrahmanyam. The George W. Bush presidency brilliantly succeeded in drilling into the mind of the wooly-headed Indians a seductive thought that the US is determined to make a first class world power out of India.

But realism dawned when it became obvious that Barack Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’ was not getting anywhere. The idea became moribund when President Trump arrived in Asia in November 2016 in a watershed regional tour to explain to a stunned ASEAN and Asia-Pacific audience that he’s dead serious about America First.

Of late, Trump’s ‘tariff war’ with China has lifted the sagging morale of our pundits, many of whom are disillusioned with the Wuhan summit between Modi and Xi Jinping and  yearning for a New Cold War. They blithely assume that the logical conclusion of the ‘tariff war’ will be the New Cold War. It doesn’t occur to them that while Trump is mad, there is also a method in his madness. There’s more than a 50:50 chance that the ‘tariff war’ may end before the campaign for the US presidential election 2020 peaks – with Trump declaring ‘victory’, of course, as he did on DPRK’s denuclearization and missile capability.

At any rate, for argument’s sake, is the contemporary world situation ripe for the US to launch a New Cold War against China (or Russia for that matter)? Unlike in the Cold War era of the past century, there is no bipolar struggle on a global scale today. It is impossible to persuade most countries to come to the barricades when they are grappling with their own national priorities – and for most of them China also happens to be the main driver of growth and development, be it in Latin America or Africa or the Asia-Pacific.

The US cannot inject ideology into its competition with China. On the one hand, China is an avid globalizer and proponent of free trade and WTO and a flag carrier at the Davos World Economic Forum, while on the other hand, US’ claim to ‘exceptionalism’ no longer carries credibility with the world community. Meanwhile, the entente with Russia, the alliance with Pakistan, the interdependency with European economies, the diversified relationships in the Middle East and Africa, etc. give China so much ‘strategic depth’ that it is impossible to ‘isolate’ it.

Most important, unlike the former Soviet Union, China understands the mystique of the market and how to leverage it. By the way, a cold war also costs money. Who will step forward to finance the New Cold War? Mohammed bin Salman? No way. Trump himself is notoriously averse to opening his wallet. The Bretton Woods institutions have outlived their utility, too.

From a historical perspective, presiding over a great power in decline is a very difficult thing to handle. Trump is doing remarkably well in the given situation. His tantrums and grandstanding are expedient, diversionary steps become necessary through bluster and rhetoric, but he’s largely getting away with it. The bottom line is, Trump has not started any new war – and to my mind, he has no intentions, either. A withdrawal from Syria, drawdown in Afghanistan and an end to the carnage in Yemen – incidentally, all these were legacies of the Obama era – are on cards.

The intolerable tensions vis-à-vis North Korea (which, again, were an old festering wound) have been dying down – and Trump was willing to take a lot of flak for it in terms of personal attacks and lampooning by detractors.

In sum, Trump has been largely navigating with his America First compass. In the coming period, this can only become more explicit, especially if Trump gets through the November 6 midterm elections intact with no big shift against him in the power equilibrium in the US Congress enabling a further consolidation of his grip on the Republican Party.

October 28, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Video | | 1 Comment

US Midterm Election: Impact on Relations with Russia

By Peter KORZUN | Strategic Culture Foundation | 28.10.2018

The US official statements are often extremely tough and sometimes even bellicose but, like it or not, Russia is an international actor a dialog is inevitable with. National Security Adviser (NSA) John Bolton, a known anti-Russia hawk, visited Moscow on Oct. 22-23. He never sounds friendly but the intensity of his contacts with Russian officials is impressive enough. It was the third time in four months he held talks with high-placed Russian officials, including a five-hour conversation with the Russian counterpart and talks with defense and foreign ministers. Before the recent visit, he came to Moscow in June and met Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev in Geneva.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited to visit Washington in early 2019. The invitation has not been yet formally accepted and the scheduling is still to be ironed out. Before that the Russian and US leaders will meet in Paris at the WWI Victory centenary commemorations on November 11. This meeting will be special. A very important event – the US midterm election on Nov.6 – may change the background. If Republicans win or retain the majority in both houses, President Trump will go to Paris relieved of a heavy load with his position much strengthened. No more talks about an impeachment caused by “Russiagate”. Obstructing him in Congress won’t be an easy walk Democrats hope for. The deep state would be frustrated but it will have to reconcile with reality. The president will have much more wiggle room for achieving his foreign policy goals, especially when it comes to Russia. It does not mean he’ll lift the sanctions or change his stance on the INF Treaty. It means that despite many things that divide them, the parties could have a dialog on major international and bilateral issues. Some of them will continue to be points of contention but some may turn into areas of cooperation. The two powers could have working relations to address the agenda of mutual interest and that’s what they lack at present.

Henry Kissinger had little sympathy for Communists and was no friend of the USSR. Nevertheless, in the capacity of national security adviser and state secretary he pioneered the policy of détente. He is still trying to upend the bilateral relationship. The Soviet Union and the United States were no friends but rather competitors. This fact did not prevent them from being dialog partners to large extent thanks to Mr. Kissinger’s efforts. The worst was prevented, the balancing of the brink of conflict never resulted in real shooting and arms control was effectively in place. Mr. Bolton could do the same. As one can see, he maintains the contacts against all the odds. President Trump and his NSA believe it makes sense. Richard Nixon stood out for his ability to resist outside influence and make independent foreign policy decisions. So is President Trump. There are similarities between the two. Parallels are drawn. President Putin and President Trump both believe in the virtue of the nation state and see a lot of shortcomings of the “supranational globalism” project.

Donald Trump’s opponents realize that. They are trying hard to prevent the undesired outcome on Nov.6. The “migrant caravan” is moving across Mexico to the US southern border to provoke the president into taking decisive steps, such as using the military to hold the migrants’ wave. If force is used, Trump’s opponents will raise hue and cry about it, using it for propaganda purposes. If not, the president will fail to keep his pre-election promises to protect the national borders, frustrating Republican voters. No doubt, the “migrants’ caravan” is a well-orchestrated provocation timed with the midterm election. The NGO People Without Borders claims to be the organizer but obviously somebody is providing funds using it as a cover. The money to feed these people as they were crossing the territories of Honduras, Guatemala and a part of Mexico did not fall from the sky. Nobody of “caravan migrants” was suffering of hunger and thirst.

Some US media are already spreading around the stories to make readers sympathize with the would-be “victims” and see everything President Trump does in a negative light – a plot to deliver a blow at the time of election. Some media believe the “caravan” is linked to Democrat donors. George Soros the ubiquitous is reported to be behind the action along with Brian Roberts, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Comcast. True or not, evidently a group of very influential people is using the “caravan” for political purposes. This is a real national security threat they want the president to turn a blind eye on while opposing the imaginary threat allegedly coming from Moscow. Russia’s experts realize well what the problems the US president has to face with his policies being subverted by powerful opponents. On the other hand, it can’t wait for better times forever. Anyway, the outcome of the Nov.6 election will impact a lot of things, including the prospects for US-Russian relations.

October 28, 2018 Posted by | Deception | | Leave a comment