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Russiagate-pushing Democrats call AG Barr’s ‘spying’ claim conspiracy theory

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) © Reuters / Joshua Roberts
RT | April 10, 2019

The very same congressional Democrats who maintain ‘Russiagate’ was real are denouncing Attorney General William Barr’s claim there was improper surveillance of the Trump campaign as a conspiracy theory.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) demanded of Barr to retract his statement, made earlier on Wednesday, that “spying did occur” during the 2016 presidential campaign. Barr “must retract his statement immediately or produce specific evidence to back it up. Perpetuating conspiracy theories is beneath the office of the Attorney General,” Schumer tweeted.

House Democrats were also pushing the “conspiracy theory” talking point on Wednesday, with Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler (D-New York) contrasting it to what he said was fact of Russiagate, and Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff (D-California) calling it “another destructive blow to our democratic institutions.”

Though he was supposed to testify about the Department of Justice’s 2020 budget, Barr found himself answering questions about the report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which he said showed no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Unwilling to give up the conspiracy theory they’ve pushed for almost three years, Democrats are demanding Barr release the full, unredacted Mueller report.

“I don’t trust Barr, I trust Mueller,” Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) told AP.

“He is acting as an employee of the president,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland). “I believe the Attorney General believes he needs to protect the president of the United States.”

Barr raised alarms among the Democrats when he told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee meeting that he believed “spying” – which he later rephrased as “inappropriate surveillance” – into the Trump campaign did take place, and that he intended to investigate that fully.

“I am not saying that improper surveillance occurred; I’m saying that I am concerned about it and looking into it, that’s all.”

Earlier in the day, President Donald Trump had described the Mueller investigation – and its FBI predecessor – as an “attempted coup,” saying it was based on the uncorroborated ‘Steele Dossier.’ The dossier was produced by a former British spy for a US-based opposition research firm on contract to the Hillary Clinton campaign.

It has been confirmed, however, that the Trump campaign was subjected to FBI surveillance – via former adviser Carter Page – under a FISA warrant secured in October 2016. The warrant application relied largely on the Steele dossier, according to the House Republican memo made public in February 2018. Subsequent revelations have only reinforced the memo’s conclusions.

In September 2018, Trump ordered all documents pertaining to the Page FISA application to be declassified and made public – only to relent within days due to complaints by unnamed “allies” who feared they might get burned by the revelations. The documents remain classified to this day.

See Also:

‘Spying did occur’ by intelligence agencies on Trump campaign – AG Barr

April 10, 2019 Posted by | Russophobia | | Leave a comment

(The only) Four things science tells us about fossil-fueled carbon dioxide (CO2)

By Dr. Caleb Rossiter | Climate Depot | April 9, 2019
  1. Carbon dioxide is plant food. That’s why it’s pumped into commercial green houses! The increase since 1900 of CO2’s share of the atmosphere from three percent of one percent to four percent of one percent has boosted global crop productivity by 15 to 30 percent. In addition, the crops need less water and less fertilizer. Field experiments show that all these benefits will be even greater as CO2 rises to five percent of one percent by about 2050. Minor reductions in a few nutrients for a few crops will be more than offset by new methods and increased income from fossil-fueled economic growth. Industrial CO2 is the Real Green Deal!
  2. Carbon dioxide is a warming gas. CO2 molecules vibrate at the same frequency as heat waves leaving the earth, so they briefly trap some energy. Because CO2 is one of the minor warming gasses (water vapor and upper level cirrus clouds are much more important), it accounts for no more than half of the one degree Celsius rise in global average temperature since 1900. The Earth has been warming since the 19th century, from natural causes, rebounding from the “little ice age.”
  3. The UN’s own data show NO catastrophic climate effects from global warming, whatever its cause. In 1989 the UN and the US EPA predicted that within 10 years rising seas would destroy island nations and coastal regions, and that crop failures would create “eco-refugees.” None of these and other predictions of doom have come true. In fact, UN data show no statistically-significant changes since 1900 in: droughts, hurricanes, tornados, cyclones, rainfall, heatwaves, floods, and the rate of sea-level rise (less than an inch per decade).
  4. The UN’s climate models have badly over-predicted the warming from industrial carbon dioxide, “running hot” over the past 30 years by two to three times the actual increase in global average temperatures. Today’s models produce “scenarios,” not science, when they predict dangerous warming from increased CO2.

Dr. Caleb Rossiter is a climate statistician and is Executive director of the CO2 Coalition, a science education organization comprised of 45 physicists, climatologists, agronomists, geologists, and energy economists.

April 10, 2019 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | 1 Comment

Unaccountable Media Faced with Dilemma in Next Phase of Deep State-gate

By Ray McGovern | Consortium News | April 10, 2019

Readers of The Washington Post on Monday were treated to more of the same from editorial page chief Fred Hiatt. Hiatt, who won his spurs by promoting misleading “intelligence” about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and suffered no consequences, is at it again.

This time he is trying to adjust to the fading prospect of a Deus ex Mueller to lessen Hiatt’s disgrace for being among the most shameless in promoting the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.

He is not giving up. When you are confident you will not lose your job so long as you adhere to the agenda of the growing Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex (MICIMATT if you will), you need not worry about being a vanguard for the corporate media. It is almost as though Hiatt is a tenured professor in an endowed chair honoring Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who perhaps did most to bring us Iraqi WMD.

In his Monday column Hiatt warned: “Trump was elected with the assistance of Russian spies and trolls, which he openly sought and celebrated. But he did not (or so we are told) secretly conspire with them.” In effect, Hiatt is saying, soto voce: “Fie on former (now-de-canonized) Saint Robert of Mueller; we at the Post and our colleagues at The New York Times, CNN et al. know better, just because we’ve been saying so for more than two years.”

Times executive editor Dean Baquet said, about the backlash to the Times‘ “collusion” coverage: “I have no regrets. It’s not our job to determine whether or not there was illegality.” CNN President Jeff Zucker said: “We are not investigators. We are journalists.” (One wonders what investigative journalist Bob Parry, who uncovered much of Iran-Contra and founded this site, would have thought of that last one.)

Going in Circles

Hiatt’s circular reasoning is all too familiar. It is the kind a former director of national intelligence excels at when he’s not lying, sometimes under oath. For instance, James Clapper was hawking his memoir at the Carnegie Endowment last year when he was confronted by unexpectedly direct questions from the audience.

Asked about the misleadingly labeled, rump “Intelligence Community Assessment” (ICA) of Jan. 6, 2017, which he orchestrated, and which blamed Russia for interfering in the 2016 election, Clapper gave an ipse dixit response: The ICA simply had to be correct because that’s what he had told President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump.

In fact, that “Intelligence Community Assessment” stands out as the most irresponsible, evidence-free and at the same time consequential crock of intelligence analysis since the National Intelligence Estimate of Oct. 2001 claimed there was WMD in Iraq. Recall that that one was shaped by out-and-out fraudulent intelligence to “justify” an attack on Iraq six months later.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, described the main thrust of the committee’s five-year bipartisan report, stating, “In making the case for war, the [Bush] Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent.”

Hiatt was one of the media’s major offenders, feeding on what the Cheney/Bush folks told him. When no “weapons of mass destruction” were found in Iraq, Hiatt conceded during an interview with The Columbia Journalism Review that, “If you look at the editorials we write running up [to the war], we state as flat fact that he [Saddam Hussein] has weapons of mass destruction … If that’s not true, it would have been better not to say it.” [CJR, March/April 2004] As Parry wryly observed at the time in a piece calling for Hiatt’s dismissal, “Yes, that is a common principle of journalism, that if something isn’t real, we’re not supposed to confidently declare that it is.”

The Morning After

Clapper: After WMD failure, promoted by Obama.  (White House Photo/ Pete Souza)

The media set the prevailing tone the day after the ICA was published. The banner headline atop page one of the Times read: “Putin Led Scheme to Aid Trump, Report Says.” That put in motion more than two years of Dick Cheney-like chicanery in the media.

Buried inside the Times that same day was a cautionary paragraph written by staff reporter Scott Shane who noted, “What is missing from the public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the [three] agencies’ claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. That is a significant omission.” Indeed it was; and remains so.

(Sadly, Shane was then given his marching orders and fell in line with many other formerly reputable journalists in what has been the most miserable performance by the mainstream media since they helped pave the way for war on Iraq.)

Clapper and Hiatt are kindred souls when it comes to the “profound effect” of Russian election interference. In his column, Hiatt asserted as flat fact that: “Trump was elected with the assistance of Russian spies and trolls …” At the Carnegie event in November, Clapper opined:

“As a private citizen, understanding the magnitude of what the Russians did and the number of citizens in our country they reached and the different mechanisms that, by which they reached them, to me it stretches credulity to think they didn’t have a profound impact on election on the outcome of the election.”

Hiatt: Captain of Cheerleaders

Hiatt emulated peppy, preppy cheerleader George W. Bush in leading Americans to believe that war on Iraq was necessary. Appointed Washington Post editorial page editor in 2000, he still runs the page — having not been held accountable for gross misfeasance, if not malfeasance, on Iraq. Shades of Clapper, whom President Obama allowed to stay on as director of national intelligence for three and a half years after Clapper lied under oath to the Senate Intelligence Committee about NSA surveillance of U.S. persons.

That Obama appointed Clapper to lead the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election speaks volumes. Clapper claims to have expertise on Russia and has made no effort to disguise his views on “the Russians.” Two years ago, he told Chuck Todd on Meet the Press:

“… in context with everything else we knew the Russians were doing to interfere with the election, and just the historical practices of the Russians, who are typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique … we were concerned.”

It beggars belief that Obama could have been unaware of Clapper’s bizarre views on “the Russians.” Clearly, Obama was bowing yet again to pressure from powerful Deep State actors arguing that Clapper was the ideal man for the job.

And there is now documentary evidence that, from the Deep State point of view, indeed he was. In the text exchanges between discredited FBI sleuth Peter Strzok and his girlfriend, Lisa Page, a lawyer working for the FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, it seems clear that Obama wanted to be kept apprised of the FBI’s behind-the-scenes machinations. In a Sept. 2, 2016 text to Strzok, Page writes that she was preparing talking points because the president “wants to know everything we’re doing.”

A Sweaty Pate?

Clapper is aware now that he is going to have to sweat it out. He may believe he can ignore White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, who has said that he and other former intelligence officials should be investigated after special counsel Mueller did not establish collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Strzok: Will he be on Nunes’s list? (Wikipedia)

But recent statements by members of the House and Senate intelligence committees cannot be dismissed so easily. In his media appearances, the supremely confident, hero-of-many-liberals Clapper has been replaced by a squirming (but-Obama-made-me-do-it) massager of facts. He may find it harder this time to avoid being held accountable.

Devin Nunes (R-CA), the House Intelligence Committee ranking member, has gone on the offensive, writing Friday that committee Republicans “will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous individuals involved … in the abuse of intelligence for political purposes. These people must be held to account to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future.”

On Sunday, Nunes told Fox News he’s preparing to send eight criminal referrals to the Department of Justice this week concerning alleged misconduct during the Trump-Russia investigation. This will include leaks of “highly classified material” and conspiracies to lie to Congress and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court. It’s no-holds-barred for Nunes, who has begun to talk publicly about prison for those whom DOJ might indict and bring to trial.

Nunes’s full-speed-ahead offensive is being widely ignored in “mainstream” media (with the exception of Fox), giving the media the quality of “The Dog That Did Not Bark in the Night.” The media has put its ducks in a row, such as they are, to try to rip Attorney General William Barr apart this coming week when he releases the redacted text of the Mueller report that so disappointed the Democratic Party/media coalition.

But how will they cover criminal referrals of the “heroes” who have leaked so much to them, providing grist for their Russia-gate mill? They will likely find a way, eventually, but the media silence about Nunes is depriving oxygen to the story.

On Sunday, Nunes said,

“They [the Democrats] have lied multiple times to the American people. All you have to do is look at their phony memos. They have had the full support of the media, 90 percent of the media in this country. They all have egg on their face. And so the fact of the matter remains, is there going to be — is justice going to be served or is justice going to be denied? And that’s why we’re sending over these criminal referrals.”

Nunes is, of course, trying to project an image of confidence, but he knows he is fighting uphill. There is no more formidable foe than the MICIMATT, with the media playing the crucial role in these circumstances. How will the American people be able to see egg on anyone’s face if the “mainstream media” find ways to wipe it off and turn the tables on Nunes, as they have successfully done in the past?

Though the Democrats now control the House, they have lost some key inside-the-Deep-State allies.

By all appearances, House Democrats still seem to be banking on help from the usual suspects still on duty in the FBI, CIA, and the Justice Department. Lacking that they seem ready to go down with the Schiff—Rep. Adam Schiff of California, perhaps the most virulent Russia-gater that there’s been.

Clapper is no longer in a position to help from the inside, and there’s no knowing how his sleepy replacement, Dan Coates, will react, if and when he wakes up long enough to learn chapter and verse about the machinations and dramatic personae of 2016.

Of course, there is a new sheriff in town running the Department of Justice. Attorney General William Barr, for better or ill, is a far cry from Jeff Sessions, who let himself be diddled into recusing himself. He’s not Rod Rosenstein either, whose involvement in this affair may have already earned him a prominent place on Nunes’s list of referrals.

What Did Obama Know, and When Did He Know It?

On top of this, Sen. Rand Paul (R, KY) has called for an investigation into the origins of Mueller’s probe, including on the dicey question of how witting President Obama was of the Deep State chicanery during the last months of his administration. Page did tell Strzok in that Sept. 2, 2016 text that the president “wants to know everything we’re doing.”

Sen. Paul has also tweeted information from “a high-level source” that it was former CIA Director John Brennan who “insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included in the Intelligence Report… Brennan should be asked to testify under oath in Congress ASAP.”

Vying for Media Attention

If, as expected, Nunes discloses the names of those being criminally referred to DOJ, and Barr releases a redacted text of the Mueller report, the “mainstream” media will have a fresh challenge on their hands. The odds would seem to favor the media covering the Democrats’ predictable criticism of Barr — and perhaps even of Mueller, now that he has been defrocked.

The Post’s Hiatt should be counted on, as always, to play a leading role.

At the same time, there are signs the America people are tired of this. It would be difficult though for the media to avoid reporting on criminal referrals of very senior law enforcement and intelligence officials. Given the media’s obvious preference for siding with the intelligence agencies and reporting on Russia-gate rather than Deep-State-gate, it would be even harder for the media to explain why these officials would be in trouble.

Things appear to be unraveling but, as always, much will depend on whether the media opts to remain the “dog that didn’t bark,” and succeeds again in hoodwinking too many people.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years and prepared the President’s Daily Brief for Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan. He is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

April 10, 2019 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 1 Comment

US Senate Provokes Turkey by Backing The New Hellenic-Israeli Alliance in The Eastern Mediterranean

By Adam Garrie | EurasiaFuture | 2019-04-10

If anyone doubted that the thriving partnership between Athens, Nicosia and Tel Aviv is not as much about gas as it is about military cooperation, an official statement from the US Senate has put such theories permanently to rest. Not only is Israel siding with countries that continue to have unsettled disputes with Turkey, but by partnering with Nicosia in order to build a gas pipeline to Europe, Israel is upping the stakes against Turkey at a time when relations between Ankara and Tel Aviv continue to decline. In doing so, Israel is actively taking Nicosia’s side in a maritime gas dispute with Ankara. As such, the nuclear armed power is dramatically increasing tensions in in the region.

Legislation introduced by US Senators Bob Menendez and Marco Rubio seeks not only to offer US support to gas extraction and pipeline projects between Tel Aviv, Nicosia and Athens, but as part of this legislative package, the US would lift the long standing arms embargo against Nicosia. This cannot be viewed as anything other than a provocation against Turkey. The fact that this has been proposed days after the US ruled to cut Turkey off from the F-35 project that Ankara had been involved in from its early stages makes it all the more clear that the US, Israel, and the two Hellenic states of southern Europe are united against Turkey. When one adds Egypt and several other southern European nations to this mix, it becomes clear that multiple states are cooperating in order to attempt and harm Turkish interests. This not only poses a danger to the stability of the wider Eastern Mediterranean region, but it puts the efficacy of NATO at risk.

According to a Senatorial press release from Washington:

“The Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act of 2019 would allow the US to fully support the trilateral partnership of Israel, Greece, and Cyprus through energy and defence cooperation initiatives – including by lifting the embargo on arms transfers to the Republic of Cyprus”.

At a time when Turkey is trying to improve declining ties with the US and reach a settlement to disputes with both Athens and Nicosia, other countries in this equation are taking active steps to provoke and alienate Turkey.

Within this broad context, it is important to remember that while the US claims its F-35 dispute with Turkey is a product of Turkey’s S-400 deal with Russia and whilst Israeli Primer Benjamin Netanyahu claims that Iran is his number one enemy, these rhetorical devices mask a deeper reality in which Turkey is now considered a foremost worry to both Israel and also to many in Washington (in spite of Turkey’s history as a loyal NATO member). All the while, Athens and Nicocia are being used as pawns in the dangerous game whose rules have been set by vastly more powerful nations.

Below is the full background of the multiple ways in which Israel has united with traditionally Turkophobic powers in southern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean.

—

Israel, America and The F-35

Throughout 2018, the US threatened to halt delivery of the F-35s to Turkey due to Ankara’s insistence that it will purchase the Russian made S-400 missile defence system. But while on the surface, the row between Turkey and the US appears to be one stemming from a reality in which Turkey has warm relations with Moscow whilst the US does not, there is an Israeli factor at hand that may be the overriding factor at play. The fact that Israel’s ally India has more or less received a green light from the US to purchase S-400s makes this reality all the more clear.

In May of last year, Russian media outlet Sputnik reporting the following:

“According to a top Israeli defence official, the Jewish state seeks to remain the only country in the region with F-35 jets to maintain its military’s qualitative edge. The discussions between Israel and the United States have also reportedly touched upon the jet’s performance-enhancing software; unnamed sources confirmed to Haaretz that the matter is ‘part of the negotiations,’ while Israel has denied having talks over the F-35 deal, under which Turkey is expected to obtain 100 stealth fighter jets”.

Whilst anti-Turkish forces do exist in the US owing to Turkey’s increasingly warm relations to countries as diverse as Russia, Iran and China, the fact that recent years and months have seen a dramatic decline in Turkey-Israel relations has clearly played a part in America’s move to effectively remove Turkey from the F-35 project that it had been a part of from the earliest stages of the jet’s development.

Although the Pentagon had previously expressed its willingness to follow through with its pledged delivery of US made F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, Congressional opposition fuelled by a unique alliance of the US based Armenian, Hellenic and Jewish lobbies continues to oppose the US delivery of the jets to NATO member Turkey. This month, these anti-Turkish forces have achieved their desired result as the US has frozen the delivery of F-35s to Turkey.

What one is witnessing in the United States is a perfect storm of geopolitical brinkmanship which has allied with domestic ethno-religious agitation groups in a malaise of open Turkophobia. From the perspective of many in Congress from both major US parties, delivering the F-35s to Turkey would violate the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) which allows for US sanctions on otherwise neutral or even allied countries who purchase weapons from nations being directly sanctioned by Washington. The directly sanctioned nations in question are Russia, Iran and the DPRK (North Korea).

Because of Turkey’s unflinching agreement to purchase Russia’s S-400 missile defence systems, Ankara is now being targeted by members of the US Congress keen to exert what amounts to a blackmail clause in CAATSA which would threaten any nation with sanctions for the “offence” of purchasing Russian weapons.

The reality of the US sanctioning a once valued NATO partner is now becoming an increasingly likely reality.

From healthy relations to the ultimate strain 

Turkey was the first Muslim majority nation to recognise Israel and prior to recent decades, Ankara and Tel Aviv have had a generally healthy relationship. This dramatically changed in 2010 when Israeli commandos illegally boarded the MV Mavi Marmara in international waters. The MV Mavi Marmara was a privately chartered Turkish flagged ship carrying mostly Turkish activists on their way to Gaza in order to deliver much needed humanitarian supplies to besieged Palestinians. The gruesome raid killed ten Turks and resulted in the lowest ebb in Ankara-Tel Aviv relations until now.

A new anti-Turkish alliance in the eastern Mediterranean and among US based pressure groups 

For much of the 20th and 21st centuries, the large American based Hellenic and Armenian lobbies have agitated for a less friendly US approach to Turkey. For the Armenian lobby, the main goal is to convince the US Federal government to recognise the tragic events of 1915 as “The Armenian Genocide” while the Hellenic lobby has sought to persuade Washington to pressure Ankara into acknowledging the early 20th century conflict in western Anatolia as the “Pontic Genocide”. Additionally, the US Hellenic lobby has for years attempted to persuade NATO to take a tougher line on the status of Northern Cyprus. Thus far, none of these lobbying attempts have met with the desired success of the respective lobbies at a Federal level.

While the US based Jewish lobby is traditionally more powerful than either the Hellenic or Armenian lobbies, the US Jewish lobby has generally had little negative to say about Turkey in-line with the fact that of all of the Muslim majority governments in the region Tel Aviv had its best relations with Ankara, as well as the overriding reality that Turkey never passed any antisemitic legislation as most of the powers of Europe did prior to the mid-20th century.

But with Turkish President Erdoğan openly calling for a wider pan-Islamic movement for Palestine, all the while calling Israel a terrorist state, the US Jewish lobby like Israeli politicians, have joined traditional foes of Turkey in openly agitating for a more anti-Turkish position form the US government.

This has expressed itself both domestically in the US and geopolitically in terms of Israel’s new regional partnerships. Against this background, it is perhaps not surprising that Gilad Erdan, a member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud faction has called for Tel Aviv to recognise the events of 1915 as an “Armenian Genocide”. If Israel were to officially do this, it would represent a clear break between Tel Aviv and Ankara and quite possibly a point of no return. The more Turkey stands up for Palestine, the more voices like those of Erdan will become amplified in arguing for a move that is less about Armenia (a traditionally anti-Zionist nation) than about sending a clear message to Turkey that the partnership has run its course.

Israel and The Craiova Group

Formed in 2015, the fledgling Craiova Group is a partnership between Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania aimed at fostering deeper cooperation between the four south-eastern European nations. While the group has generally been far less notable in terms of its aims and accomplishments vis-a-vis the Three Seas Initiative linking Baltic eastern and central Europe with the European nations of south-east, this month the Craiova Group came into its own as the official organisation which will carry out Israel’s attempt to isolate Turkey in the wider eastern Mediterranean region.

On the 2nd of November, 2018, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu took part in a Craiova Group summit in Varna, Bulgaria. There, Netanyahu said,

“I am here at the summit of four countries – Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Romania. This is the first time that they have invited a leader outside these four countries to participate in their summit. This is a great honor for Israel and reflects Israel’s rising status in the world.

Each one of the leaders has individually told me that they will try to improve their consideration of Israel in relevant votes both at the EU and the UN. They all want to promote the gas pipeline from Leviathan to Europe and the Balkans. They are also very interested in Israeli gas and Israeli technology, and they would very much like Israel’s friendship. This is a good sign”.

Netanyahu also discussed making the Craiova Group integral to Tel Aviv’s plans to construct the East Med Pipeline, a joint Israeli-Hellenic project that will see a gas pipeline travelling from disputed Israeli waters through to disputed Cypriot waters and finally into mainland Europe via The Hellenic Republic. But while Netanyahu’s speech talked about unity against the supposed threat of Islam which clearly played to the sentiments of many in Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania where the racist anti-Turkish/anti-Muslim hashtag “#nokebab” has become a cultural phenomenon, the pipeline alliance that Israel is trying to secure is clearly aimed at boxing Turkey into a corner in its own territorial waters.

At present, Ankara and Nicosia are in the midst of a heated row regarding rights to offshore gas fields in the waters off the island of Cyprus. At present, while there is no realistic plan for Nicosia to militarily enter the Turkish North of the divided island, Nicosia is opposed to Turkish plans to begin extracting gas in the waters off of the disputed territory of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (aka Northern Cyprus). To put it another way, in spite of rhetoric to the contrary, the government in Nicosia clearly cares about controlling the waters off of Cyprus more than it cares about controlling the island’s total landmass.

But far from being just a new chapter in the age old Hellenic-Turkish disputes of the region, this particular conflict is also being driven by Israel whose government is keen to see Tel Aviv, Nicosia and Athens work jointly on an East Med pipeline that excludes Turkey while at the same time impinging on offshore territory that Turkey claims it has an inalienable right to exploit. Now, Israel looks to bolster these plans which have already seen Egypt pivoting ever closer to Tel Aviv and Nicosia by also drawing Bulgaria, Serbia and Romania into the project.

When one remembers that during the ultimately brief Turkish-Israeli rapprochement of 2016, there were talks of a joint gas project between Tel Aviv and Ankara, the underpinnings of the present conflict become all the more clear.

To further understand the background of the severe downgrade in Turko-Israeli relations that has now become a rivalry for energy supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean, it is important to understand the following that was originally published in Eurasia Future in May of last year:

“The Turkish government has just announced the effective expulsion of Eitan Na’eh, Israel’s Ambassador to Ankara. According to the Daily Sabah,

‘Na’eh was asked to leave Turkey indefinitely by the Turkish ministry of foreign affairs following the Israeli bloodshed and his tweets’.

Pipeline politics no more

Against this background, erstwhile plans for a Turkey to Israel East Mediterranean pipeline have stalled. As a result, Tel Aviv has pivoted closer to Turkey’s regional rival Egypt (which has said next to nothing about Palestine in recent days), while most importantly there is now talk of an EU sponsored East Mediterranean pipeline between Israel, Cyprus, Greece and Italy.

According to a report from New Europe,

“The EastMed gas pipeline would circumvent Turkey, which has increased tensions with Cyprus, Greece and Israel recently, providing a way to transport newly discovered gas supplies from the East Mediterranean to Europe. The talks in Nicosia in May[2018] follow a memorandum of understanding regarding the EastMed pipeline, which was signed in December.

According to the Public Gas Corporation of Greece (DEPA), the EastMed will connect the recently discovered gas fields in the Levantine Basin, in the southeast Mediterranean, with mainland Greece and is projected to carry 8-14 billion cubic meters per year of natural gas to Greece and Europe.

According to DEPA, the approximately 1900 kilometer long pipeline (700 kilometers on-shore, 1200 off-shore) consists of the three following main sections, as well as compressor stations located in Cyprus and Crete: a pipeline from the fields to Cyprus, a pipeline connecting Cyprus to Crete, and a pipeline from Crete crossing mainland Greece up to the Ionian coast.

From there the EastMed can link up with the offshore Poseidon pipeline enabling the delivery of additional diversified sources from the Levantine to Italy and beyond. The EastMed pipeline is preliminarily designed to have exit points in Cyprus, Crete, and mainland Greece as well as the connection point with the Poseidon pipeline”.

The deal to create such a pipeline was sealed in December of 2017 while glowing reports from pro-EU media touted the deal as a means of allowing Europe to decrease its dependence on Russian gas while also offering Israel a chance to swap Turkey for EU partners. As Turkey’s long paralytic bid to join the EU is now de-facto over, both Europe and Israel’s cooperation over a new East Mediterranean gas pipeline has the effect of drawing Russia and Turkey into an even closer partnership than the one they are currently in.

At the moment the Turkstream pipeline designed to bring Russian gas into Europe via Turkey is a major joint project between Moscow and Ankara. Now, both the EU and Israel are looking to challenge this route with a pipeline of their own in a similar region. In reality, there is enough demand for gas in Europe and Israel to mean that both pipelines can coexist, but the geopolitical optics are clear enough. Tel Aviv has joined forces with the most anti-Ankara states in the EU in order to cut Turkey out of Israel’s future.

The importance of Turkey’s Soft Power in the Sunni Muslim world

President Erdoğan has already proved himself to be the ‘Sultan of Soft Power’ in the wider Sunni Muslim world. Without clear leadership from Egypt, Saudi Arabia or Qatar and with Saddam’s always controversial Iraqi government long out of power, Erdoğan has positioned himself as a champion for Palestine not only in Turkey and the Sunni Arab world but beyond. Because of this, one should never underestimate how far Turkey will take its support of Palestine vis-a-vis Tel Aviv, not least because the more Erdoğan voices his opinions in support of Palestine, the more he is respected and supported both in Turkey and far beyond.

Israel supporting Turkey’s main rivals 

Because Israel has taken clear moves away from Turkey and towards its hated Hellenic rivals, officials in Ankara who in the past may have been hesitant to sever ties with Tel Aviv because of economic considerations may now be much closer to doing so. Israel’s intensifying military cooperation with both Greece and Cyprus are a further sign that when it comes to Turkey, Tel Aviv is doing everything in its power to replace its once healthy Turkish partnership with that of countries with notoriously poor and always heated relations with Ankara.

Then there is the issue of Kurdish ethno-nationalism in both Syria and Iraq. Uniquely in the world, the United States and Israel are supporters of Kurdish separatism both in northern Syria and northern Iraq.  President Erdoğan has already made it clear that this is one of several red lines that Israel can cross in respect of maintaining even semi-normal relations. During the attempted illegal Kurdish succession from Iraq in the autumn of 2017, Erdoğan posed the following rhetorical statements to Kurdish secessionists in Iraq,

“Who will recognize your independence? Israel. The world is not about Israel?…

…“You should know that the waving of Israeli flags there will not save you!”

—

Conclusion 

In order to connect these dots, one must ask some vital questions:

1. Why is the US treating its longstanding NATO partner Turkey much worse than it is treating its new Indian partner over the purchase of the same Russian made S-400 defensive weapons?

2. With Turkey and Israel competing for regional soft power influence, regional influence in respect of gas pipelines and competing in respect of building new diplomatic alliances in the Eastern Mediterranean, could Israel be preparing options to lead military assaults on Turkish assets (perhaps in Cyprus) and as such fears Turkey’s ownership of F-35 as well as S-400s?

3. As Russia is both an Israel and Turkish ally, is Tel Aviv attempting to use the US to pressure Turkey to choose between its Russian and American partners knowing that Moscow will not do so?

4. As Israel owns F-35s but not S-400s, is Tel Aviv worried that if Turkey had both, it would be able to seriously counter possible Israeli aerial bombardments against Turkish assets in the wider region?

When one looks at the overall state of Turkey-Israel relations and what Israeli officials have themselves said about Turkey and the F-35s, it begins to become ever more apparent that the F-35/S-400 issue is as much if not more about Tel Aviv than it is about the neo-Cold War between Washington [and Russia].

Now that the US Senate is openly endorsing the Tel Aviv-Nicosia-Athens gas and security partnership, there can be little doubt that a new anti-Turkish alliance is being built in the eastern Mediterranean that is centred on Israel and supported by the United States.

April 10, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Don’t expect US-Iran war before 2021

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | April 10, 2019

There is no reason to disbelieve the boast by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claiming credit personally for US President Donald Trump’s decision to designate Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a “foreign terrorist organisation” under American law. It is common knowledge that all major decisions and most minor decisions by Trump regarding the West Asian situation are dictated by Israel’s interests.

Deep-pocketed Jewish billionaires such as Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, far-right Christian evangelicals and the well-known Israeli lobby wield enormous influence over Trump whose son-in-law Jared Kushner is also known to be an ardent Zionist who has funded West Bank settlements. Both decisions by Trump in recent weeks — granting US recognition to the illegal Israeli annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights region as well as yesterday’s move against Iran’s IRGC — are to be seen as motivated by the desire to bolster Netanyahu’s campaign seeking a fresh term in Israel’s parliamentary election on April 9.

The Pentagon and the State Department had reportedly expressed misgivings over Trump’s decision branding IRGC as a terrorist organisation. Indeed, Trump’s announcement on April 8 says clearly that the US state department will take the lead role in implementing this decision. Trump avoided voicing any intention to confronting the IRGC militarily and instead underscored his decision is to impose economic sanctions against the Iranian security organisation.

Considering that the IRGC has a long reach in the economic arena, especially in vital sectors such as energy, telecommunications, etc., in effect, Trump’s decision amounts to an extension of the US sanctions against Iran. Therefore, as Trump put it, the decision becomes a template of his “maximum pressure” strategy against Iran, which has been under implementation.

Tehran’s reaction has been surprisingly restrained under the circumstances. To be sure, Tehran has retaliated by naming the US Central Command (which is headquartered in Doha and covers the so-called Greater Middle East stretching from the Levant to Central Asia) as a terrorist organisation. Interestingly, Iranian reports highlighted that it is a “tit-for-tat” measure — that is, a move Iran had no choice but to make. The overall mood is one of resignation that the Trump administration is under the Israeli spell and has taken a step that is not exactly in American interests.

There have been no threatening statements from Tehran directed at the US, either. In a highly nuanced remark, the influential chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Iranian Parliament, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh hastened to clarify that Iran’s measures against the US Central Command, in response to US anti-IRGC move, is defensive, not a declaration of war.

Again, Iran’s powerful Supreme National Security Council, which is the apex executive body on foreign and security policies, has also restricted itself to saying in a statement, “Undoubtedly, the US regime will bear all the responsibilities for the dangerous consequences of its adventurist move.” This must be noted carefully as a signal to the US defence and security establishment.

Most important, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei estimated Trump’s move as only to be expected, given the IRGC’s pivotal role in countering Iran’s enemies. He said the US move will fall flat. The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari was quoted as saying, “This U.S. move was quite laughable since the Revolutionary Guards are in people’s hearts … The Revolutionary Guards will increase its defensive and offensive capabilities in coming year.”

On the political plane, however, Tehran will step up its “resistance”. More Iranian support for Hamas can be expected. Similarly, the US move, coming hot on the heels of recognising the Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights, will only further further consolidate the “resistance”. The known unknown is going to be the impact on Afghanistan. Tehran has links with the Taliban. But it has been voicing strong backing for President Ashraf Ghani’s insistence that the peace talks should be “Afghan-led, Afghan-controlled.” Iran’s overriding concern is the stability of Afghanistan and the welfare of the Shi’ite communities. Conceivably, the US must be factoring in the imperative need to discourage Iran from playing a spoiler role in Afghanistan.

Among the Iranian security agencies, it is the IRGC that is in the driver’s seat in steering policies in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. The point is, the US Central Command and the IRGC (plus various Iran-backed militia forces) “co-habitate” these theatres. It is inconceivable that the US would precipitate any hostile moves against the IRGC that draw forth retaliation and jeopardise the safety and security of American personnel. Iran has the capacity to infect pain and give sleepless nights to the US personnel deployed under the Central Command and, to be sure, the Pentagon and the CIA are well aware of that.

We may, therefore, expect a tacit understanding by the two antagonistic parties to stay out of each other’s path. Of course, that is easier said than done, since these are high kinetic theatres witnessing acute confrontation. But then, the US-Iran tango has a 40-year history of shadow boxing.

Some shrill rhetoric can be expected from the US side, especially from US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton. Both are stridently “anti-Iran”. Bolton had been in the payroll of Iranian dissident groups based in the West. Both Pompeo and Bolton are passionately devoted to serving Israeli interests. But, in the final analysis, it is Trump — and Trump alone — who matters.

Quite obviously, Trump will be extremely wary of getting into a shooting war with Iran. Trump knows only too well that a war with Iran will have regional ramifications and can hurt his presidency. His game plan through this year and the next will be to ensure that his “maximum pressure” strategy deters Iran from causing any serious political embarrassment during his campaign, which is due to start later this year, for his re-election bid in 2020.

Suffice to say, Trump’s IRGC designation is unlikely to lead to any shooting war with Iran — till end-2020, at least. Having said that, there will be no let-up in Tehran’s pursuit of “resistance” in Syria and Iraq. And, given the pivotal role of the IRGC in Iran’s foreign and security policies, any form of direct engagement politically or at the diplomatic level between Washington and Tehran can be ruled out. Having said that, make no mistake that the US’ regional strategies in Syria and Iraq will come under severe challenge. To be sure, a strategic stalemate is Israel’s objective too as the guarantee against US retrenchment from the Middle East.

April 10, 2019 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Unfinished Gaza War: What Netanyahu Hopes to Gain from Attacking Palestinian Prisoners

By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | April 10, 2019

The current violence targeting Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails dates back to January 2. It was then that Israel’s Public Security Minister, Gilad Erdan declared that the “party is over.”

“Every so often, infuriating pictures appear of cooking in the terrorist wings. This party is coming to an end,” Erdan was quoted in the Jerusalem Post.

Then, the so-called Erdan’s Committee recommended various measures aimed at ending the alleged “party”, which included placing limits on prisoners’ use of water, banning food preparations in cells, and installing jamming devices to block the alleged use of smuggled cell phones.

The last measure, in particular, caused outrage among prisoners, for such devices have been linked to severe headaches, fainting, and other long-term ailments.

Erdan followed his decision with a promise of the “use of all means in (Israel’s) disposal” to control any prisoners’ protests in response to the new restrictions.

The Israel Prison Service (IPS) “will continue to act with full force” against prison “riots”, he said, as reported by the Times of Israel.

That “full force” was carried out on January 20 at the Ofer Military Prison near Ramallah, in the West Bank, where a series of Israeli raids resulted in the wounding of more than 100 prisoners, many of whom sustaining bullet wounds.

The Nafha and Gilboa prisons were also targeted with the same violent pattern.

The raids continued, leading to more violence in the Naqab Prison on March 24, this time conducted by the IPS force, known as the Metzada unit.

Metzada is IPS’ ‘hostage rescue special operation’ force and is known for its very violent tactics against prisoners. Its attack on Naqab resulted in the wounding of many prisoners, leaving two in critical condition. Palestinian prisoners fought back, reportedly stabbing two prison-guards with sharp objects.

On March 25, more such raids were conducted, also by Metzada, which targeted Ramon, Gilboa, Nafha and Eshel prisons.

In response, the leadership of Palestinian prisoners adopted several measures including the dismantling of the regulatory committees and any other form of representation of prisoners inside Israeli jails.

The decentralization of Palestinian action inside Israeli prisons would make it much more difficult for Israel to control the situation and would allow prisoners to use whichever form of resistance they may deem fit.

But why is Israel provoking such confrontations when Palestinian prisoners are already subjected to a most horrid existence and numerous violations of international law?

Equally important, why now?

On December 24, embattled Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and other leaders of Israel’s right-wing government dissolved the Knesset (parliament) and declared early elections on April 9.

A most winning strategy for Israeli politicians during such times is usually increasing their hostility against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, including the besieged Gaza Strip.

Indeed, a hate-fest, involving many of Israel’s top candidates kicked in, some calling for war on Gaza, others for teaching Palestinians a lesson, annexing the West Bank, and so on.

Merely a week after the election date announcement was made, raids of prisons began in earnest.

For Israel, it seemed like a fairly safe and controlled political experiment. Video footage of Israeli forces beating up hapless prisoners, accompanied by angry statements made by top Israeli officials captured the imaginations of a decidedly right-wing, militant society.

And that’s precisely what took place, at first. However, on March 25, a flare in violence in Gaza led to limited, albeit, undeclared war.

A full-fledged Israeli war on Gaza would be a big gamble during an election season, especially as recent events suggest that the time of easy wars is over. While Netanyahu adopted the role of the decisive leader, so determined to crush the Gaza resistance, his options on the ground are quite limited.

Even after Israel accepted Egyptian-mediated ceasefire terms with the Gaza factions, Netanyahu continued to talk tough.

“I can tell you we are prepared to do a lot more,” Netanyahu said about the Israeli attack on Gaza during a video speech beamed to his supporters in Washington on March 26.

But, for once, he couldn’t, and that failure, from an Israeli viewpoint, intensified verbal attacks by his political rivals.

Netanyahu has “lost his grip on security,” the Blue and White party leader, Benny Gantz proclaimed.

Gantz’s accusation was just another insult in an edifice of similar blistering attacks questioning Netanyahu’s ability to control Gaza.

A poll, conducted by the Israeli TV channel, Kan on March 27, found that 53% of Israelis believe that Netanyahu’s response to the Gaza resistance is “too weak.”

Unable to counter with more violence, at least for now, the Netanyahu government responded by opening another battlefront, this time in Israeli prisons.

By targeting prisoners, especially those affiliated with certain Gaza factions, Netanyahu is hoping to send a message of strength and to assure his nervous constituency of his prowess.

Aware of the Israeli strategy, Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh linked the ceasefire to the issue of prisoners.

We “are ready for all scenarios,” Haniyeh said in a statement.

In truth, the Netanyahu-Erdan war on Palestinian prisoners is foolish and unwinnable. It has been launched with the assumption that a war of this nature will have limited risks, since prisoners are, by definition, isolated and unable to fight back.

To the contrary, Palestinian prisoners have, without question, demonstrated their tenacity and ability to devise ways to resist the Israeli occupier throughout the years. But more importantly, these prisoners are far from being isolated.

The nearly 6,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails represent whatever semblance of unity among Palestinians that transcends factions, politics and ideology.

Considering the direct impact of the situation in Israeli prisons on the collective psyche of all Palestinians, any more reckless steps by Netanyahu, Erdan and their IPS goons will soon result in greater collective resistance, a struggle that Israel cannot easily suppress.

– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His forthcoming book is ‘The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story’ (Pluto Press, London).

April 10, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | 1 Comment

Hamas Won Again

By Gilad Atzmon – April 10, 2019

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won a decisive victory yesterday. He is likely to carry on to a fifth term in office. As of this morning, the right-wing bloc has a clear advantage of 65 seats (out of 120) over the centre/left parties and seems more likely to form a coalition.

The meaning of yesterday’s election results are obvious and undeniable. The Israeli left is now marginal, verging on non-existent. The Israeli Labour party has been reduced to a miniature caricature, pretty much the size of Meretz, themselves a parody of left thinking. Needless to mention that these two parties are Zionist to the core. They deny the Palestinian right of return and believe in segregation between Jews and Arabs by means of a two-state solution.

Netanyahu is, beyond doubt, the most sophisticated player in the Israeli political theatre. In the weekend he vowed to annex the West Bank Settlements. By performing this election ploy, he managed to completely obliterate his hard-line rivals on the right such as Bennett-Shaked’s New Right and even Zehut, which promised to be a ‘rising political force.’ As for this morning neither Zehut nor Bennett, who promised his voters he would be the next Defence Minister, made it to the Knesset. Netanyahu has also managed to reduce the USA into a subservient colony. We saw President Trump working hard for his friend in Jerusalem, recognising Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and castigating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a ‘terror organisation’. But most significantly, Netanyahu is also Hamas’s favourite prime minister.

Hamas knows very well that Israeli centrist government are genocidal in their approach to Arabs and Palestinians in particular. Hamas remembers Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak. They clearly prefer Bibi. They know very well that Bibi has been anxious to operate in Gaza. Hamas knows very well that Israel is running out of military and political options, let alone solutions to the conflict. Hamas voted Bibi. It entered ceasefire negotiations with Israel just a few days before the election. There is good reason to believe that Hamas would prefer to deal with Netanyahu rather than with a ‘centrist’ party led by three war criminals. Hamas won again, it has pushed Israel into a state of further paralysis. Israel does not have a prospect of a future in the region. Israel may not be defeated by Quasam rockets but by its own Ghetto mentality.

April 10, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | 2 Comments

Canada Needs to Develop More Rules to Control its Spying Operations – Watchdog

Sputnik – 10.04.2019

According to a government watchdog’s report, the Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) and Armed Forces (CAF) have no rules when it comes to intelligence operations, and they do not answer to any independent body for their actions.

Canada needs to consider developing a legislation that will regulate how the military and the DND conduct intelligence operations, a national security watchdog committee in Canada’s parliament suggests.

In its report, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians says the DND and the CAF have “one of the largest intelligence programs” in Canada, yet their operations face little to no outside scrutiny.

The DND and CAF enjoy a freedom known as the “Crown prerogative,” The Globe and Mail reports. This allows the Canadian government to make decisions as it sees fit unless its hands are somehow tied by statutes or the courts.

“Once a statute occupies the ground formerly occupied by the prerogative power, the Crown must comply with the terms of the statute,” the report quotes the Supreme Court of Canada as ruling.

This means that while Canada does have certain administrative directives and rules that govern defence intelligence operations, no legislation explicitly guides these activities. At the same time, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) are subject to laws that say what they can and cannot do, the Globe and Mail reports.

“DND/CAF is an anomaly in conducting its intelligence activities under the Crown prerogative. Those activities are similar in kind, risk, and sensitivity to those conducted by other Canadian security and intelligence organizations, which operate under and benefit from clear statutory authorities, limitations and requirements for ongoing review, tailored to the requirements of their specific mandates,” the Committee’s report says.

Besides, the Committee points out that, unlike CSIS and CSE, military intelligence is not subject to review by an independent and external body, meaning that military intelligence operations are not only unregulated, but also do not report to anyone.

Therefore, the Committee suggests developing legislation that would restrain the DND and CAF, as well as oblige them to report annually on their intelligence operations.

In the meantime, Committee chairman MP David McGuinty said the watchdog found “no evidence of wrongdoing” by defence personnel during its investigation.

Naturally, both the CAF and DND objected to the proposal, saying more oversight would make the military less flexible when it comes to operations; it would also undermine information sharing with Canada’s closest allies, they argued, according to the Globe and Mail.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has said that his department would look at the Committee’s suggestions.

“There are internal processes that we have in place. Can we improve those? Of course we are looking at those,” he said after a cabinet meeting Tuesday.

However, he also noted that caution must be exercised in order to keep the military flexible, so that it “keep our soldiers safe.”

April 10, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment