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‘Temples to colonial theft’: Western museums should return looted artifacts to where they belong

Moai sculpture from Easter Island in the British Museum © Veronika Lukasova © Global Look Press
By Danielle Ryan | RT | November 28, 2018

Is it possible to ‘loan’ something back to the person or place you stole it from? The British Museum in London, which houses one of the biggest permanent collections of world art and artifacts, certainly seems to think so.

Last week, responding to an emotional plea from the governor of Easter Island, the museum generously announced that it would consider “loaning” an 800-year-old statue back to the territory, which is now part of Chile.

The Hoa Hakananai’a was stolen — or “taken without permission” as The Guardian more delicately put it — in 1868 by the British HMS ‘Topaze’ and delivered to Queen Victoria. The museum itself uses even more sanitized language. Its online information page about the statue explains that it was “collected” during the frigate’s expedition to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and was “gifted” by the Queen to the museum a year later.

“This statue would have originally stood on a specially built platform on the sacred site of Orongo,” the museum explains. “It would have stood with giant stone companions, their backs to the sea, keeping watch over the island.”

The reason it doesn’t still serve this purpose, is because the museum refuses to give it back. The 2.4-meter statue has no cultural or emotional significance to British people. To the Rapa Nui people, on the other hand, the Hoa Hakananai’a is extremely culturally and spiritually significant.

“We are just a body. You, the British people, have our soul,” Governor Tarita Alarcon Rapu said through tears during a visit to the museum last week. “You have kept him for 150 years. Just give us some months and we can have it there.”

The Hoa Hakananai’a is just one example of many when it comes to spoils of the British Empire which sit permanently in UK exhibitions. The museum has also refused to return the Rosetta Stone, something the head of Egypt’s new national museum recently called for, and the Parthenon Marbles. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras recently raised the issue with Theresa May, saying that their “natural place” is at the Parthenon. In 2013, India called for the return of the Koh-i-noor diamond, which was taken and given to Queen Victoria in 1850. David Cameron dismissed the notion, saying he did not believe in “returnism.”

Just this week, news reports said that the London museum would temporarily return some of the iconic ancient Benin bronze sculptures to Nigeria. There are more than a thousand of the bronzes sitting in museums across Europe, and successive Nigerian governments have sought their return for decades. France is set to give back 26 of the sculptures permanently, a decision made after a report commissioned by President Emmanuel Macron called for thousands of African artworks to be returned.

“I cannot accept that a large part of the cultural heritage of several African countries is in France,” Macron said last year in Burkina Faso. “There are historical explanations for this but there is no valid, lasting and unconditional justification.”

According to the French report, about 90 percent of Africa’s cultural heritage is situated outside of the continent. When the British Museum returns “some” of their 700 Benin bronzes, however, it will only be on loan.

In a recent article for The Guardian, Tiffany Jenkins, the author of an entire book about why Western museums should refuse to return their stolen treasures, writes that when the first wave of Benin bronzes were created, Benin was an empire and the objects were crafted on the back of the slave trade. Maybe the descendants of the Benin king should apologize for slavery before they are approved as “morally worthy owners of the artefacts,” she writes, rather ironically.

Jenkins argues reductively that history is ugly and tussling over the rights and wrongs of the past is a pointless exercise. If Western countries start returning artifacts looted during the colonial era, she says, “there could be no end to competitive claim-making.”

Well, so be it.

It is not any British or European museum’s right to withhold plundered treasures while it decides who is “morally worthy” of possessing them. The very suggestion reeks of colonial arrogance. Ultimately, Jenkins writes, artifacts in Western museums “enlighten us about the world” and that is the job of our museums. How lovely; stolen cultural heritage enlightens us deserving Westerners, so of course, it has fulfilled its one, true purpose.

The fact that repatriating colonial loot is complicated and uncomfortable is no good reason to avoid facing reality and doing the bare minimum to atone for past sins. This is cultural property we are talking about. It belongs to the peoples and cultures where it originated — and to quote Macron, there is “no valid, lasting and unconditional justification” for refusing their return.

Of course, it is not only British or French museums that house looted art and cultural objects. There has been an ongoing dispute between Russia and Germany over artwork looted when the Red Army conquered Berlin in 1945. Much of the looted items were returned to East Germany after 1945, but not all of them. Moscow claimed the looting was a legitimate response to Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union and its destruction of Soviet national treasures. Germany begged to differ.

In October, the British Museum launched an initiative to counter the perception that everything within its walls is looted treasure — but Twitter users quickly made fun of the effort. ‘We didn’t steal all of it’ is hardly a very persuasive or positive-sounding plea.

That campaign came after art historian Alice Procter made headlines for giving ‘Uncomfortable Art Tours’ in British museums. The tours focus on slavery and colonialism and Porter encourages participants to wear ‘Display It Like You Stole It’ badges as they wander the exhibitions to advocate for more honest descriptions under artifacts. “On most text panels there’s little or no mention of how objects came to be there. Euphemistic language of ‘acquisition’ obscures the truth,” Procter wrote in a piece for The Guardian.

“You can look at the Gweagal shield in the British Museum and have no idea that it is considered crucial to the story of indigenous and settler relations in Australia, that its position in the museum is extremely controversial, and it’s sought by Gweagal people today,” she adds.

Another argument those against repatriation frequently use is that indigenous people, in some cases, offered or sold cultural objects to colonizers in exchange for something they needed more — money or tools, for example. Those items, they argue, can’t be said to be ‘stolen’ — but this completely ignores the power imbalance of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized.

“Collected,” “acquired,” and “taken without permission” in this context are simply euphemisms for “stolen.” It is clear that the British Museum and people like Jenkins are worried about setting a precedent. Returning just one item would open the floodgates.

The British Museum is nothing short of a temple to colonial theft. If it concedes in one case, where does it end? It will never happen, of course, but in an ideal world, that would be just one extremely tiny — and wholly inadequate — price to pay for hundreds of years of colonial massacre and plunder.

November 28, 2018 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Keep politics out! International bodies should not be used to further anti-Russian agendas

By Neil Clark | RT | November 28, 2018

The recent hysteria over a Russian standing for the presidency of Interpol was only the latest example of how Cold War ideologues are seeking to politicize everything in pursuance of their obsessive anti-Russian crusade.

World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). And now the election for Interpol president. These international organizations, which do valuable work, should be free from geopolitics. The representatives of some Western countries, I’m afraid, think differently.

The problem, for the US and its closest allies, has been that international bodies don’t always do exactly what they want. Other countries, including horror of horrors Russia, also have a say in them.

That is most undesirable as only the voices of the self-righteous, self-appointed ‘world policemen’ should be heard. Then a geopolitical agenda can be pursued through these hitherto impartial and well-respected organizations.

Let’s take WADA first. World sport needs an anti-doping agency which is independent and will apply the rules and regulations equally to all nations, including, if need be, against the US. But the anti-Russian countries want an anti-doping agency that will single Russia out for special treatment. In July 2016, Reuters revealed how the heads of the US and Canada’s anti-doping bodies had drafted a letter to WADA calling for ALL Russian athletes to be banned from the Rio Olympic Games.

Just imagine if the Russian anti-doping agency had sought to get all US or Canada athletes banned, whether or not they had been found guilty of cheating. They would be accused of playing politics and being terribly unsporting. But it seems it’s OK if Uncle Sam and his allies do it.

It was a similar story with the football World Cup in Russia. That really got the neocons hyperventilating. The process by which FIFA awarded Russia the World Cup had to be ‘illegitimate’. The tournament must be taken away from Russia demanded John McCain and 12 other US Senators.

Russia is a football-loving nation which had never before hosted a World Cup. Its status as host nation was actually long overdue, regardless of one’s views of the policies of the Russian government. But for the Russophobes politics is everything. They never take a break from bear-baiting.

The OPCW has also been affected by the new outlook, whereby everything has to conform to the Western elite’s foreign policy goals.

The UK has pushed (successfully) for a change in the role of the chemical weapons watchdog. Frustrated that the OPCW has, up to now, only been able to say whether or not a chemical weapons attack has taken place, the UK government has managed to politicize the OPCW so that it now will be able to attribute blame for an attack.

We can only imagine the enormous pressure, public and private, that will be put on it to declare ‘guilty’ those who the UK and its allies wish to bomb. “The OPCW is a Titanic which is leaking and has started to sink,” Russian Industry Minister Georgy Kalamanov said. He wasn’t being overly dramatic.

Having ‘done’ the OPCW, the hawks then turned their attentions to Interpol and sabotaging the election of a Russian, Alexander Prokopchuk, as the agency’s president. Prokopchuk was regarded as the frontrunner for the job at the international police agency and rightly so.

He was already Interpol vice-president, the vice-chair for Europe since 2016, and well-respected by his colleagues.

But others were horrified at the prospect of a Russian winning. Financier Bill Browder tweeted a letter from twelve US Senators attacking the candidacy. Unsubstantiated claims were made that Prokopchuk was ex-KGB. If elected he would be ‘Putin’s puppet.’

“This is really quite an extraordinary situation, to find ourselves with the possibility of not just a fox in charge of the hen coop, but actually the assassin in charge of the murder investigation,” fumed MP Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the UK’s House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee and a former member of the Intelligence Corps.

There were threats to set up a rival organization to Interpol if Prokopchuk was elected.

But the smear campaign against him succeeded. Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin press secretary, spoke of “interference in the electoral process of an international organization”. Of course, as it was interference from the UK and the US it didn’t really count. Again, just imagine the uproar if Russian parliamentarians tried to block the election of a British or US candidate.

As if the interference was not enough, we’ve now got Browder calling for countries such as Canada to help kick Russia out of Interpol altogether.

If that sounds familiar, then think back to John McCain’s calls for a ‘League of Democracies’ (i.e. the US and approved allies), to get round Russia’s UNSC veto.

Russia’s great crime is not ‘human rights’ abuses, but the fact that it has effectively blocked the Western elite’s plans for regime change in Syria and has sought to reclaim its self-respect at home and abroad since the disastrous days of the oligarch-friendly Boris Yeltsin.

As a response, the war against Russia, and we have to call it that, has been waged on a number of fronts. Neocon think tanks and commentators urge Russian media, such as RT, to be taken off air and for more sanctions to be imposed.

They call for increased military buildup on Russia’s borders under the guise of ‘protecting European security’. They urge European nations to pull out of beneficial gas pipeline projects with Russia and buy US LNG instead. They cheer on the most anti-Russian forces in Ukraine.

They also seek to get Russia banned or sidelined in international organizations. Which is inimical to the whole notion of internationalism. As Mary Dejevsky wrote last week in the Independent, “what happened over the Interpol presidency should not be dismissed so lightly. It raises questions that deserve answers – questions that may not even be asked, now that a result has been achieved that is deemed satisfactory by the vocal Western world.”

Bodies that only include the US and its allies, or only follow the geopolitical agendas of certain countries, cannot be accepted as the norm. We need to hear all voices and not just the loudest ones.

November 28, 2018 Posted by | Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

US, Europe & NATO risk all-out war by backing unhinged Kiev regime

By Finian Cunningham | RT | November 28, 2018

With the US, EU and NATO all bolstering claims of “Russian aggression” – in face of contrary evidence – the real danger is that the Kiev regime will be emboldened to carry out more reckless provocations leading to all-out war.

It seems indisputable that the three Ukrainian Navy vessels were dispatched last Sunday in order to instigate a security response from Russian maritime border forces. In contrast to normal procedures for passage clearance through the Kerch Strait, the Ukrainian warships refused to communicate with Russian controls and acted menacingly inside Russia’s Black Sea territorial limits.

At a United Nations Security Council emergency meeting on Monday, the US, Britain and France pointedly refused to take on board Russia’s legal argument for why it felt obliged to detain the Ukrainian boats and 24 crew. The Western powers automatically sided with the version of events claimed by President Petro Poroshenko – that the Ukrainian Navy was attacked unlawfully by Russia.

The US, EU and NATO denounced Russia’s “aggression” and demanded that the Ukrainian vessels and crew be repatriated immediately, even though under Russian law there is a case for prosecution.

It is the West’s refusal to acknowledge facts that is part of the problem. Russia is continually accused of “annexing” Crimea in 2014 instead of the Western powers recognizing that the Black Sea peninsula voted in a constitutionally held referendum to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. Crimea was prompted to take that historic step because the US, EU and NATO had only the month before backed an illegal coup in Kiev against the elected Ukrainian government. That coup brought to power the present Kiev regime led by Poroshenko and a parliament dominated by neo-Nazi parties.

So, the problem here is a refusal by Western supporters of the dubious Kiev regime to accept the legal, historic reality that Crimea is part of Russia’s territory. Ships passing through the Kerch Strait between Russia’s mainland and Crimea are obliged to notify Russian maritime controls of passage. Russia has since reopened the strait to civilian cargo transport following the naval skirmish at the weekend.

When the Ukrainian Navy vessels violated legal procedures and entered Russian territorial limits, their action was aggressive, not Russia’s response.

Furthermore, there are already emerging signs that the Ukrainian naval transport was orchestrated for the purpose of inciting an incident.

Some of the detained crew members have admitted carrying out orders which they knew would be seen by Russia as provocative.

It has also been reported by US government-owned Radio Free Europe that the Ukrainian secret services (SBU) have confirmed that its officers were among the crew on the boats. The vessels were also armed. If the transfer was an innocent passage, why were secret services involved?

Recall that Ukrainian secret services have previously been caught staging sabotage operations in Crimea.

Another major background factor is the increasing NATO military buildup in eastern Ukraine and the Black Sea.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin officially opened the 19km bridge linking Russia’s mainland with Crimea in May earlier this year, there were calls in US and Ukrainian media for the structure to be sabotaged. Moscow has understandably stepped up security controls around the vital infrastructure, which cost $3.7 billion and is the longest bridge in Europe.

In recent months, the US and Britain have ordered increasing military deployment to the region under the guise of “training” and “assistance” to the Kiev regime forces.

Earlier this year, in July, the NATO alliance held naval drills, Sea Breeze, along with Ukrainian forces in the Black Sea. That’s in spite of the fact that Ukraine is not a member of NATO, although it is aspiring to join the 29-member US-led bloc at some time in the future.

It was the following month, in August, that Russia began stepping up its controls and searches of vessels through the Kerch Strait linking the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov. The latter leads to ports under the control of the Kiev regime such as Mariupol, which is adjacent to the breakaway Donetsk People’s Republic. The DPR and Luhansk People’s Republic broke away following the coup in Kiev in 2014 and have been under military attack for the past four years despite the so-called Minsk peace treaties. These are more facts that the Western backers of the Kiev regime refuse to deal with.

More NATO buildup continued in September with the supply of two gunboats by the US to the Ukrainian Navy for deployment in the Sea of Azov. Pentagon-linked publication Defense One described that supply as part of efforts by Washington and Kiev to develop a “mosquito navy” in order to skirmish with Russian forces.

Only four days before the latest naval clash, Britain’s Defense Minister Gavin Williamson announced the Royal Navy was to send HMS ‘Echo’ to patrol with Ukrainian special forces to “defend freedom and democracy.” Williamson said: “As long as Ukraine faces Russian hostilities, the United Kingdom will be a steadfast partner.”

This is background to the simmering tensions in the Black Sea between Ukraine and Russia. The situation has arisen because of Western interference in Ukraine – primarily the coup in Kiev in February 2014. Yet, in all discussions about events since then, the Western powers are in denial of facts and their culpability. The recent militarization of the Black Sea by the NATO alliance is a stark provocation to Russia’s national security, but again the Western powers bury their collective heads in the sand.

Given the reckless indulgence by the US, Europe and NATO of the Kiev regime amid its ongoing violations against the populace in eastern Ukraine, its refusal to abide by the Minsk agreements, and its continual inflammatory and unhinged rhetoric against Russia, it should not be surprising if this same regime feels emboldened to provoke an armed confrontation with Moscow.

Arguably, the Kiev regime and its adulation of World War II Nazi collaborators never had any legitimacy in the first place. It continues to demonstrate its lack of legitimacy from the immense social problems in Ukraine of poverty, corruption, human rights violations, neo-Nazi paramilitaries running amok, and now martial law being imposed.

It remains to be seen if the recent naval provocation was carried out with the tacit approval of Washington and other NATO powers as a pretext for further militarization against Russia. The initial misplaced condemnations of Russia have subsided to more measured calls from US President Donald Trump and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian for “restraint” and “dialogue.”

That might suggest Kiev’s failing President Poroshenko and his security services acted alone to order the naval confrontation as a desperate throw of the dice to escalate NATO and EU support for his shaky regime against Russia.

Trump’s comments hoping that Kiev and Russia would “straighten things out” sound like Washington is not behind the provocation and has no desire for a wider conflict. Just as well, because such a development is a gateway to all-out war.

Nevertheless, such a catastrophe is always a serious risk when Western powers indulge this unhinged Kiev regime.

November 28, 2018 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

As Time Runs Out, Poroshenko and the West Poison the Sea of Azov

By Tom LUONGO | Strategic Culture Foundation | 28.11.2018

Trouble has been brewing in the Sea of Azov all year. It started with Ukraine’s seizing a Russian fishing boat and detaining its crew in March. The Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko canceled the Friendship Treaty with Russia. After that he has accepted surplus US naval vessels to prop up a navy that exists in name only.

This is all in response to Russia’s completing the Kerch Strait bridge which Russia can use to block access through. The Kerch strait is Russian territory and, by international law, Russia can limit access to the Sea of Azov.

So, this weekend’s incident in which a tug was rammed, ships fired upon and seized by Russia, ultimately was a proper and legal response to a clear provocation because the Ukrainian military ships refused to announce their intentions.

Let’s not beat around the bush here. This incident is meant to justify further antagonism between the West and Russia on the eve of the G-20 and the planned meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin.

It also was meant to inflame Ukrainian nationalism and drum up support for Poroshenko who is trailing badly in the polls as we approach March elections. Declaring martial law so as to potentially suspend those election, the US satrap is raising the stakes on Russia to it finally responding to these repeated provocations.

At the same time the Ukrainian Army unleashed the heaviest shelling of the Donbass contact line near Gorlovka in years.

There are a number of different angles on this incident and how it will be used to increase tensions between the West and Russia.

Russia is officially taking the position that Poroshenko is doing this to keep his Western backers happy who have dumped billions into him and his government to keep Ukraine a festering wound on Russia’s border.

It is also a desperate attempt to prop up this failing government and potentially suspend March’s elections.

While I am certainly sympathetic to that position, it is also the least interesting part of it because it is so blatantly obvious. I think the deeper gambit here has to do with Poroshenko ending the Friendship Treaty.

According to Rostislav Ishchenko ending the treaty works only in Russia’s favor as it removes the permanence of the boundary between Russia and Ukraine. In effect, it opens up the path to Russia to recognize the breakaway republics of Lugansk and Donetsk.

But, it’s more than that because it also opens up the argument that the Sea of Azov is now International Waters since the border is in dispute. This allows for legal maneuvering by Europe and the US through the UN to find Russia in violation of Ukrainian vessels’ right of passage. I’m not saying this is the case, being no legal scholar on this, but this looks the most likely tack to take to sell the world further on the evil, expansionist Russia narrative.

And that argument can hold weight because no one recognizes Crimea as part of Russia, officially.

The UN Security Council’s usual suspects – Europe and the US – backing Ukraine on this issue was wholly predictable. And the question now will be whether the US got its casus belli to try and force NATO ships into the Sea of Azov under the pretext of keeping the peace in International Waters.

Former British MP George Galloway, writing for RT, suspects this may simply be a ‘Wag the Dog’ moment for not only May but French Poodle Emmanuel Macron and Trump with his Mueller ‘troubles.’ Invoking Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade Galloway muses.

A dangerous constellation of weak, collapsing Western governments and leaders suddenly find their interests coinciding with the tin-pot tyrant Poroshenko. And into the Valley of Death they might just be ready to send their people charging. If they do they will find a resolute Russia far stronger than at Balaclava.

I would go even further at least as it regards Theresa May. This provocation occurred in concert the announcement of British forces being sent to Ukraine next year.

With the May government betraying the British people over Brexit with her awful deal, continuing the distraction of evil Russia is one way to keep support from failing further.

Because, deal or no deal, May is finished once we’re past this and like her accomplishing her mission to betray Brexit, setting NATO on a collision course with Russia is more possible by having British forces on the ground. All manner of false flags can be ginned up to saddle any incoming Labour government with.

Going back to the transition period between the outgoing Barack Obama and the incoming Trump everything imaginable was done to poison Trump’s early days as President. The idea that Trump and Putin could establish normal relations was anathema.

He’s been bogged down ever since.

And who was behind that? British and American Intelligence along with the judiciary who today are slowly being pulled into the limelight of their corruption. This is all part of a carefully stage-managed plan.

Those who cling to power do so out of desperation and will use every trick and point of leverage they have to remain where they are. In that respect Poroshenko is no different than anyone else. He knows if he loses power he will be expendable, to be thrown to the wolves while the US and Europe move to back the next quisling presiding over Kiev.

There doesn’t seem to be much on hope on the horizon regardless of the elections.

The big question at this point is whether Ukraine as a neocon project to destroy Russia is still worth the trouble. That’s what Poroshenko and those behind him hope is the case. I’m not convinced they have enough support to keep this up, given the tepid response from Europe.

If no sanctions are added to Russia over this incident and NATO is not dispatched to ‘calm things down’ in the Sea of Azov then this was nothing more than an attempt by Poroshenko to derail elections and rally Ukrainian nationals. The Verkovna Rada cut his martial law demand down to 3o days from 60 to ensure elections happen on time.

But looking ahead to the G-20, Trump will be saddled with this incident precluding finding any common ground with Putin over anything important. The two need to work out a plan for Syria, Korea, Japan and Iran and now we’re talking about Ukraine.

So, the days pass and nothing of substance changes. Putin knows time is on his side while those arrayed against Russia become increasingly desperate to justify its destruction to a tired and skeptical world.

November 28, 2018 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Assange Never Met Manafort. Luke Harding and the Guardian Publish Still More Blatant MI6 Lies

By Craig Murray | November 27, 2018

The right wing Ecuadorean government of President Moreno continues to churn out its production line of fake documents regarding Julian Assange, and channel them straight to MI6 mouthpiece Luke Harding of the Guardian.

Amazingly, more Ecuadorean Government documents have just been discovered for the Guardian, this time spy agency reports detailing visits of Paul Manafort and unspecified “Russians” to the Embassy. By a wonderful coincidence of timing, this is the day after Mueller announced that Manafort’s plea deal was over.

The problem with this latest fabrication is that Moreno had already released the visitor logs to the Mueller inquiry. Neither Manafort nor these “Russians” are in the visitor logs.

This is impossible. The visitor logs were not kept by Wikileaks, but by the very strict Ecuadorean security. Nobody was ever admitted without being entered in the logs. The procedure was very thorough. To go in, you had to submit your passport (no other type of document was accepted). A copy of your passport was taken and the passport details entered into the log. Your passport, along with your mobile phone and any other electronic equipment, was retained until you left, along with your bag and coat. I feature in the logs every time I visited.

There were no exceptions. For an exception to be made for Manafort and the “Russians” would have had to be a decision of the Government of Ecuador, not of Wikileaks, and that would be so exceptional the reason for it would surely have been noted in the now leaked supposed Ecuadorean “intelligence report” of the visits. What possible motive would the Ecuadorean government have for facilitating secret unrecorded visits by Paul Manafort? Furthermore it is impossible that the intelligence agency – who were in charge of the security – would not know the identity of these alleged “Russians”.

Previously Harding and the Guardian have published documents faked by the Moreno government regarding a diplomatic appointment to Russia for Assange of which he had no knowledge. Now they follow this up with more documents aimed to provide fictitious evidence to bolster Mueller’s pathetically failed attempt to substantiate the story that Russia deprived Hillary of the Presidency.

My friend William Binney, probably the world’s greatest expert on electronic surveillance, former Technical Director of the NSA, has stated that it is impossible the DNC servers were hacked, the technical evidence shows it was a download to a directly connected memory stick. I knew the US security services were conducting a fake investigation the moment it became clear that the FBI did not even themselves look at the DNC servers, instead accepting a report from the Clinton linked DNC “security consultants” Crowdstrike.

I would love to believe that the fact Julian has never met Manafort is bound to be established. But I fear that state control of propaganda may be such that this massive “Big Lie” will come to enter public consciousness in the same way as the non-existent Russian hack of the DNC servers.

Assange never met Manafort. The DNC emails were downloaded by an insider. Assange never even considered fleeing to Russia. Those are the facts, and I am in a position to give you a personal assurance of them.

I can also assure you that Luke Harding, the Guardian, Washington Post and New York Times have been publishing a stream of deliberate lies, in collusion with the security services.

I am not a fan of Donald Trump. But to see the partisans of the defeated candidate (and a particularly obnoxious defeated candidate) manipulate the security services and the media to create an entirely false public perception, in order to attempt to overturn the result of the US Presidential election, is the most astonishing thing I have witnessed in my lifetime.

Plainly the government of Ecuador is releasing lies about Assange to curry favour with the security establishment of the USA and UK, and to damage Assange’s support prior to expelling him from the Embassy. He will then be extradited from London to the USA on charges of espionage.

Assange is not a whistleblower or a spy – he is the greatest publisher of his age, and has done more to bring the crimes of governments to light than the mainstream media will ever be motivated to achieve. That supposedly great newspaper titles like the Guardian, New York Times and Washington Post are involved in the spreading of lies to damage Assange, and are seeking his imprisonment for publishing state secrets, is clear evidence that the idea of the “liberal media” no longer exists in the new plutocratic age. The press are not on the side of the people, they are an instrument of elite control.

November 27, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Catholic Lands to be Seized in Jordan Valley

Ma’an – November 27, 2018

TUBAS – Israeli authorities decided to seize hundreds of dunams of Palestinian land, which belongs to the Catholic Church, in an area in the northern Jordan Valley, on Tuesday.

Mutaz Bisharat, a Palestinian official in charge of Jordan Valley’s Israeli settlements file at the Palestinian Authority (PA), told Ma’an that Israeli authorities have issued a decision to seize 267 dunams (66 acres) of land belonging to the Catholic Church.

Bisharat mentioned that the land in question is located across from an Israeli military camp.

Bisharat added that the decision to seize the land represents a real threat against a number of Palestinian families that live in the surrounding areas, particularly if Israeli authorities force the families to be evacuated from their lands under the pretext of “security reasons.”

Bisharat noted that this strategy seeks to control the land and expand illegal Israeli settlements across the Jordan Valley.

Forming a third of the occupied West Bank and with 88 percent of its land classified as Area C, the Jordan Valley has long been a strategic area of land unlikely to return to Palestinians following Israel’s occupation in 1967.

The unpredictability of the training drills leaves rural Palestinian communities in the Jordan Valley anxious about when they will be displaced, and whether the next time will be permanent.

Palestinians in the Jordan Valley are one of the most vulnerable groups to displacement, with over 60 percent of the 6,000 Palestinians forcibly displaced since 2008 belonged to herding or Bedouin communities, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

November 27, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | 1 Comment

Israel Attorney General: ‘No Palestinian state’ so ICJ illegitimate

MEMO | November 27, 2018

Israel’s Attorney General is drafting a legal opinion which will declare the International Court of Justice (ICJ) illegitimate on the grounds that there is “no Palestinian state”.

Avichai Mandelblit said yesterday that he was drafting the judgment to refute the ICJ’s legitimacy to rule on the Israel-Palestine conflict, claiming that there is no Palestinian state and citing the fact that Israel is not a member of the court.

Speaking to students at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, Mandelblit explained: “I intend to issue an opinion soon, according to which the International Court of Justice in The Hague has no authority to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because there is no Palestinian state,” Arutz Sheva reported.

Israel has consistently rejected efforts by the ICJ and its counterpart, the International Criminal Court (ICC), to investigate its human rights record. In this, Israel has received the support of its main ally – the USA – with National Security Adviser John Bolton saying in September that the institution is “dead to [us]”. Bolton continued: “The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court.”

The ICC was quick to respond to the US’ threats, saying: “As a court of law, [the ICC] will continue to do its work undeterred, in accordance with those principles and the overarching idea of the rule of law.” The ICC added that it is an independent and impartial institution with the backing of 123 countries.

Israel’s opposition to the ICJ and ICC has become more vehement in the wake of Palestine’s appeals to the court. In January 2015 the Palestinian Authority (PA) signed the Rome Statute of the ICC, officially accepting the court’s jurisdiction over its territories and allowing a preliminary investigation into the situation in Palestine to be opened.

In May 2018, the PA specifically requested that the ICC investigate crimes committed within its territories, with Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki meeting ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to discuss the issue. The request called on The Hague to investigate the forcible transfer of Palestinians, unlawful killings, illegal appropriation of land and property, demolition of Palestinian properties, repression of dissent through the unlawful killing of peaceful protesters and the policy of mass arbitrary detention and torture.

Since then the PA has called on the ICC to investigate a number of incidents. In June, the PA asked the court to prosecute Israeli Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan for incitement after he called for Palestinians allegedly flying incendiary kites to be assassinated. In September, the PA called for an investigation into Israel’s planned demolition of the Palestinian village of Khan Al-Ahmar, which the ICC said could constitute a war crime. In October, the PA asked the ICC to investigate Israel’s escalation of illegal settlement in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Thus far neither the ICJ nor the ICC have prosecuted Israel for its actions.

November 27, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Pro-Israel groups attack Rand Paul for blocking $38 billion to Israel

If Americans Knew | November 27, 2018

Free Beacon reports that “pro-Israel groups in America are mobilizing against Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) for blocking the continuation of U.S. aid to Israel.”

Paul has placed a “block” on legislation to give Israel $38 billion over the next 10 years – $23,000 per every Jewish Israeli family of four. This is the largest military aid package in U.S. history and amounts to $7,230 per minute to Israel, or $120 per second. A stack of $38 billion dollar bills would reach ten times beyond the international space station.

A block is a legislative procedure in which a senator calls on the floor leader not to move forward with a bill and indicates that the senator may filibuster against it.

Jewish News Syndicate reported last week that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) had sent an action alert to its members calling on them to pressure Paul to remove his block on the bill, ‘‘S. 2497 Ileana Ros-Lehtinen United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018.’

Now, according to Free Beacon, a right-wing pro-Israel website, AIPAC has also been purchasing advertisements on Facebook attacking Paul “as the primary Senate force blocking the reauthorization of the U.S.-Israel security pact.”

AIPAC Facebook ad against Rand Paul

Another pro-Israel group, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), has also reportedly organized an email blitz to pressure Paul to remove his hold, and has “invested heavily” in ads in Kentucky targeting Rand’s constituents.

According to Free Beacon, “Paul, a proponent of ending U.S. aid across the globe, has had multiple confrontations with the pro-Israel community over the years as result of his views. Paul has sought to hold up U.S. aid to Israel multiple times over the years, creating friction between him and top U.S. pro-Israel lobbying shops.”

Yesterday CUFI sent an email to supporters around the country saying: “Sen. Rand Paul is blocking the U.S.-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act, S.2497. This bill is the cornerstone of U.S. support for Israel.”

In the message, CUFI calls Paul the “last obstacle to getting this bill signed into law.”

Free Beacon reports that Paul has also recently proposed suspending U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain over their attacks on what the Free Beacon calls “pro-Iran militants in Yemen.” Paul has long opposed U.S. support for the attacks on Yemen, which is on the brink of famine and has 50,000 dead.

Israel has long targeted Yemen as one of the countries that must be controlled in its quest for hegemony in the region.

November 27, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Yes, You Have the Right to Talk Back to the Government, But It Could Get You Killed

By John W. Whitehead | Rutherford Institute | November 27, 2018

“The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.”— Justice William J. Brennan, City of Houston v. Hill

What the architects of the police state want are submissive, compliant, cooperative, obedient, meek citizens who don’t talk back, don’t challenge government authority, don’t speak out against government misconduct, and don’t step out of line.

What the First Amendment protects—and a healthy constitutional republic requires—are citizens who routinely exercise their right to speak truth to power.

It’s not an easy undertaking.

Weaponized by police, prosecutors, courts and legislatures, “disorderly conduct” charges have become a convenient means by which to punish those individuals who refuse to be muzzled.

Cases like these have become all too common, typical of the bipolar nature of life in the American police state today: you may have distinct, protected rights on paper, but dare to exercise those rights and you put yourself at risk for fines, arrests, injuries and even death.

This is the unfortunate price of freedom.

Yet these are not new developments.

We have been circling this particular drain hole for some time now.

Almost 50 years ago, Lewis Colten was arrested outside Lexington, Kentucky, for questioning police and offering advice to his friend during a traffic stop.

Colten subsequently challenged his arrest as a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech and took the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which sided with the police.

Although the Court acknowledged that Colten was not trespassing or disobeying any traffic regulation himself, the majority affirmed that Colten “had no constitutional right to observe the issuance of a traffic ticket or to engage the issuing officer in conversation at that time.”

The Supreme Court’s bottom line: protecting police from inconvenience, annoyance or alarm is more important than protecting speech that, in the government’s estimation, has “no social value.”

While the ruling itself was unsurprising for a judiciary that tends to march in lockstep with the police, the dissent by Justice William O. Douglas is a powerful reminder that the government exists to serve the people and not the other way around.

Stressing that Colten’s speech was quiet, not boisterous, devoid of “fighting words,” and involved no overt acts, fisticuffs, or disorderly conduct in the normal meaning of the words, Douglas took issue with the idea that merely by speaking to a government representative, in this case the police—a right enshrined in the First Amendment, by the way—Colten was perceived as inconveniencing and annoying the police.

In a passionate defense of free speech, Douglas declared:

Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns, the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet. The situation might have indicated that Colten’s techniques were ill-suited to the mission he was on, that diplomacy would have been more effective. But at the constitutional level speech need not be a sedative; it can be disruptive.

It’s a power-packed paragraph full of important truths that the powers-that-be would prefer we quickly forget: We the people are the sovereigns. We have the final word. We can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy. We need not stay docile and quiet. Our speech can be disruptive. It can invite dispute. It can be provocative and challenging. We do not have to bow submissively to authority or speak with reverence to government officials.

Now in theory, “we the people” have a constitutional right to talk back to the government.

In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded as much in City of Houston v. Hill when it struck down a city ordinance prohibiting verbal abuse of police officers as unconstitutionally overbroad and a criminalization of protected speech.

In practice, however, talking back—especially when the police are involved—can get you killed.

The danger is real.

We live in an age in which “we the people” are at the mercy of militarized, weaponized, immunized cops who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.”

While violent crime in America remains at an all-time low, the death toll as a result of police-sponsored violence continues to rise. In fact, more than 1,000 people are killed every year by police in America, more than any other country in the world.

What we are dealing with is a nationwide epidemic of court-sanctioned police violence carried out against individuals posing little or no real threat.

Police encounters have deteriorated so far that anything short of compliance—including behavior the police perceive as disrespectful or “insufficiently deferential to their authority,” “threatening” or resistant—could get you arrested, jailed or killed.

The problem, of course, is that compliance is rarely enough to guarantee one’s safety.

When police officers are allowed to operate under the assumption that their word is law and that there is no room for any form of disagreement or even question, that serves to destroy the First Amendment’s assurances of free speech, free assembly and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, if ever there were a time to scale back on the mindset adopted by cops that they are the law and should be revered, feared and obeyed, it is now.

November 27, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | 3 Comments

WikiLeaks Categorically Denies Assange-Manafort Meetings

By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 11/27/2018

Update: WikiLeaks has fired back at the Guardian, tweeting: “Remember this day when the Guardian permitted a serial fabricator to totally destroy the paper’s reputation. @WikiLeaks is willing to bet the Guardian a million dollars and its editor’s head that Manafort never met Assange.”

The Guardian’s report was written by Luke Harding and Dan Collyns, and was based exclusively on unnamed sources.

***

Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, right around the time he joined Trump’s campaign, according to The Guardian, which as is now the norm in reports of this kind refers to unnamed “sources.”

Sources have said Manafort went to see Assange in 2013, 2015 and in spring 2016 – during the period when he was made a key figure in Trump’s push for the White House.

It is unclear why Manafort wanted to see Assange and what was discussed. But the last meeting is likely to come under scrutiny and could interest Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor who is investigating alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

A well-placed source has told the Guardian that Manafort went to see Assange around March 2016. Months later WikiLeaks released a stash of Democratic emails stolen by Russian intelligence officers. –The Guardian

The 69-year-old Manafort has denied any involvement in the release of the emails, and has said that the claim is “100% false.”

While Manafort was jailed this year under a plea agreement with special counsel Robert Mueller, on Monday, Mueller said that Manafort had repeatedly lied to the FBI, breaching his deal. According to documents filed in court, Manafort committed “crimes and lies” covering a “variety of subject matters.”

According to The Guardian, Manafort’s first visit to the Ecuadorian embassy occurred one year after Assange was granted asylum inside, according to two sources. To add icing to the cake, “a separate internal document written by Ecuador’s Senian Intelligence agency and seen by The Guardian lists “Paul Manaford [sic]” as one of Assange’s several well-known guests, along with… “Russians.” 

According to two sources, Manafort returned to the embassy in 2015. He paid another visit in spring 2016, turning up alone, around the time Trump named him as his convention manager. The visit is tentatively dated to March.

Manafort’s 2016 visit to Assange lasted about 40 minutes, one source said, adding that the American was casually dressed when he exited the embassy, wearing sandy-coloured chinos, a cardigan and a light-coloured shirt. 

Visitors normally register with embassy security guards and show their passports. Sources in Ecuador, however, say Manafort was not logged. –The Guardian

So we have Manafort allegedly visiting Assange, in sandy-coloured chinos, and that Russians also visited the WikiLeaks founder. And none of this was known until today.

The Guardian goes on to suggest that “The revelation could shed new light on the sequence of events in the run-up to summer 2016, when WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of emails hacked by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency. Hillary Clinton has said the hack contributed to her defeat.”

Note that The Guardian has considered the “hack” settled, which agrees with Western intelligence assessments (the same Western intelligence that conducted espionage on Donald Trump’s campaign). Nowhere to be found is the possibility that the emails were copied locally – a theory recently bolstered by a fresh analysis that flies in the face of a report commissioned by cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike – which was caught fabricating a report on Russia hacking Ukrainian munitions, and was forced to retract portions of their analysis after the government of Ukraine admonished them.

The Guardian goes on to link Manafort to “black operations” against the political rival of Ukraine’s former “Moscow-friendly president, Viktor Yanukovych,” and that Manafort “flew frequently from the US to Ukraine’s capital, Kiev – usually via Frankfurt but sometimes through London.”

Manafort is currently in jail in Alexandria, Virginia. In August a jury convicted him of crimes arising from his decade-long activities in Ukraine. They include large-scale money laundering and failure to pay US tax. Manafort pleaded guilty to further charges in order to avoid a second trial in Washington.

As well as accusing him of lying on Monday, the special counsel moved to set a date for Manafort to be sentenced.

One person familiar with WikiLeaks said Assange was motivated to damage the Democrats campaign because he believed a future Trump administration would be less likely to seek his extradition on possible charges of espionage. This fate had hung over Assange since 2010, when he released confidential US state department cables. It contributed to his decision to take refuge in the embassy. –The Guardian

And in perhaps the most shocking part of The Guardian‘s reporting, they refer to the highly salacious and largely discredited “Steele Dossier,” saying that according to the document, Manafort was at the center of a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, and that both sides had a mutual interest in defeating Clinton, wrote former MI6 spy Christopher Steele.

In a memo written soon after the DNC emails were published, Steele said: “The [hacking] operation had been conducted with the full knowledge and support of Trump and senior members of his campaign team.” –The Guardian

You know things are desperate when the Steele Dossier makes a guest appearance to once again bolster unsupported reporting.

November 27, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 2 Comments

Pierre Omidyar: A Dangerous Billionaire-Backer of the “Resistance”

By Daniel Haiphong | American Herald Tribune | November 27, 2018

One of the most disturbing trends in the era of Trump has been the flock of billionaires that have come rushing into the Democratic Party to pose as leaders of an opposition movement to the “fascist” predations of the real estate mogul. These billionaires, which include capitalists such as George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, and Tom Steyer are the architects of a “Big Tent” strategy first outlined by Black Agenda Report Editor Glen Ford. This strategy was devised by the Hillary Clinton Presidential campaign of 2016. The strategy has two components. The first component is the promotion of “diversity” to distract from the fact that the Democratic Party can no longer appeal to the interests of the poor or working-class, especially Black people who have been held in electoral captivity for a generation. Second, “Big Tent” Democrats actively seek an alliance of Wall Street, the military and intelligence apparatus, and Republicans to provide the financial and political strength behind the strategy.

The “Big Tent” strategy is called the “Resistance.” One of the chief billionaire-backers of the “Resistance” is Pierre Omidyar. Omidyar is the founder of the eBay corporation. His surplus profits have been used over the years to exert “soft power” influence over the U.S. state. Omidyar has given hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of cash to Democratic Party candidates since 1999.

Omidyar was one of the principle donors to the NeverTrump Political Action Committee (PAC) that formed during the 2016 election. The NeverTrump PAC brought together neoliberal and neoconservative Democrats into an alliance against Trump. William Kristol, editor in chief at the Weekly Standard and longtime Republican, has been one of the most vocal supporters of the NeverTrump movement. Kristol is an expert in the think-tank business and understands the importance of “soft power.” He helped found the Project for the New American Century that peddled neocon wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as an escalation of the U.S.’ military presence around the world, including on Russia’s doorstep. Kristol has become a favorite of the corporate media since Trump was elected in 2016. He is a regular on MSNBC and is viewed by corporate Democrats as the “sane” wing of the Republican Party.

That Omidyar would align with Kristol is a stark indication of the “Big Tent” strategy at work. In a post on Twitter after the midterm elections came to pass, Kristol celebrated the support that he has received from “the left” and its benefactors such as Pierre Omidyar. Kristol’s excitement about billionaire support from all sides of the political aisle represents a development in the Trump era that is far more dangerous than Trump himself. The “Big Tent” strategy is a marked political shift to the right. Not only this, but the shift is part and parcel of a covert war against the real “left” that is principally being waged by the fake “left” coalition of thieves and warmongers in the Democratic Party.

The critical question that must be asked is whether there are any benefits for ordinary poor and working-class people in supporting the NeverTrump coalition or billionaire backers such as Omidyar. And the answer is more complex than a simple “no.” It is far worse than that. Omidyar is not a “lesser-evil” billionaire. In the system of U.S. imperialism, those don’t exist.

By supporting Omidyar and his version of the “Resistance,” most of humanity stands to lose. Omidyar’s “soft power” network has only one mission and that is to stabilize an empire in crisis. One of the ways that Omidyar has attempted to stabilize the imperialist system is through investments in journalism. Omidyar is the principle owner of First Look Media, the parent corporation of The Intercept. While The Intercept has covered important issues in the past, it has been charged with privatizing Edward Snowden’s leaks and promoting regime change efforts in Syria through direct attacks on the democratically-elected government of Bashar Al-Assad. Furthermore, The Intercept possesses a troubling record of outing the identities of those leaking secret government information. In a word, Omidyar has used his influence over The Intercept to stifle dissent while promoting the outlet as a pioneer of “independent” media.

Omidyar is most concerned, however, with ensuring that the US empire maintains corporate and military control over the world’s nations and peoples. He has donated millions to the Clinton Global Initiative responsible for imposing ruthless austerity measures on nations such as Haiti. There is also documented evidence that Omidyar used his philanthropic network to support the “Maidan Revolution” in Ukraine in 2014 which propelled neo-Nazis into state power, much to the pleasure of the IMF. The billionaire eBay mogul has also been a critical supporter of the United States Agency for International Development or USAID. USAID is well-known for its support of “soft power” tactics to promote regime change in nations that do not bow down to U.S. military and corporate power such as Cuba.

Omidyar is not just dangerous at the individual level. Rather, the billionaire’s influence over the U.S. power structure is representative of conflict within the ruling class of the imperialist system headed by the United States. On the other side of Omidyar stands Trump, a ruthless billionaire who holds no allegiance to any sector of the imperialist system. Trump is not loyal to the banks or the military and intelligence apparatus. Trump is loyal to himself. His moves as President thus far such as the tax breaks for the rich, his willingness to broker peace in Korea, or his racist dog whistles and policies toward immigration from Central America, are all representative of the sharpening decline of imperialism.

Omidyar wants to save the imperialist system from decline. The section of the billionaire class from which Omidyar belongs is interested only in engendering endless war and austerity under conditions of social peace. The likes of Omidyar pose as the “Resistance” to Trump but really represent a threat of potentially greater proportions. Omidyar actively creates infrastructure for leftists and progressives to be bamboozled into supporting the machinations of imperialism. It is no secret that the section of the Republican Party that supports Trump also wields “soft power” through its own think-tanks such as the Federalist Society. However, in this period of crisis in the political apparatus of imperialism, party lines are becoming blurred. The “Big Tent” strategy reigns and billionaires such as Omidyar will do anything to ensure that the deadly alliance re-assumes full control of the system from Trump.

In conclusion, a dialectical relationship exists between Omidyar and Trump. It was Omidyar’s section of the ruling class that created the economic and political conditions for Trump. For over thirty years, billionaires such as Omidyar, Steyer, and Buffet have bled workers and poor people dry. Wages and wealth have plummeted for the majority while profits and land holdings have soared for the minority. The only thing that workers and poor people can count on is that the military, police, and surveillance apparatus will grow as people become more desperate and impoverished. Omidyar and the Democratic Party-aligned billionaires have coalesced with as many repressive forces in the ruling class as possible to wage a struggle against Trump. In doing so, they avoid the very real crisis of legitimacy that elected Donald Trump in the first place.

We should steer clear of supporting Omidyar and expose his putrid political record as proof that there is no such thing as a “progressive” billionaire. Real progressives and radicals stand for universal healthcare, peace, jobs, and against war, mass incarceration, and mass surveillance. These are the political issues of our time that the entire ruling class stands against. Trump knew this and politically appealed to anti-regime change and anti-free trade sentiment within the Republican and Democratic Party. Through their “resistance” toward Trump, Omidyar and his ilk have as their real goal the suppression of this sentiment so that it never becomes a truly progressive movement for social transformation in this country.

November 27, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

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