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Russia Profits as US Takes Venezuelan Oil off the Market in Europe

By Irina Slav – Oilprice.com – April 12, 2019

European refiners are switching to Russian sour grades as U.S. sanctions have shrunk Venezuela’s similar-grade exports, Reuters reports, adding that the Russian sour crude is getting increasingly expensive.

Citing sources from the trading industry, Reuters says the situation has been made worse by the fact that OPEC members have cut mainly their output of heavier, more sour grades under the OPEC+ agreement aimed at stimulating a price rise.

U.S. crude is not an alternative as it is overwhelmingly light and sweet, while refineries in Europe are equipped to process heavier grades as well as light ones to make refined products.

The news is the latest reminder that the world is tipping towards a shortage of heavy, sour crude, which is the staple kind of Venezuela crude and which many refineries need to produce fuels and other products.

“Urals is anchored in a positive zone versus dated Brent and there is no indication it will fall to a discount any time soon,” one of the Reuters’ sources said. That’s a complete reversal of the traditional differential between light and heavy oil, with the latter typically trading at a discount to Brent, a light blend.

Sanctions on Iran are further complicating life for European refiners as they have restricted exports of sour grades that Iran also produces in addition to its very popular superlight crude, also called condensate.

According to Reuters, U.S. sanctions have removed 800,000 bpd of heavy crude from the global market, leaving refiners scrambling for alternatives in a limited pool that, besides Russia and Middle Eastern producers, also includes Canada and Mexico as large producers of these grades of crude. The former is having its own problems with a pipeline capacity shortage and a production cut that has boosted prices, and the latter has yet to reverse a fall in oil production.

April 13, 2019 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Canadian Regime Change Fanatics Scream of Russian Interference into Canada’s Elections

By Matthew Ehret | The Duran | April 13, 2019

On April 5 Canada’s foreign minister embodied the essence of hypocrisy by complaining loudly that Canada’s upcoming October 2019 elections were under threat by a regime change operation steered by Russia which was seeking to undermine the international democratic order.

In order to respond to the threat of foreign interference, the Minister of Global Affairs Canada announced the creation of a “democratic” five person body staffed entirely with unelected senior bureaucrats from the Privy Council Office under the control of the Clerk of the PCO which will act as a new Propaganda bureau to determine what Canadians are and are not allowed to know. This body will focus on social media and will interface closely with the head of Facebook Canada CEO Kevin Chan. She also announced the creation of a Security Threats Task Force which unites all intelligence agencies of Canada (RCMP, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Communications Security Establishment under the office of Global Affairs Canada. Lastly, the creation of a G7 Rapid Response Mechanism would be created in order to protect all of Canada’s G7 partners from similar “foreign meddling” and run out of Freeland’s Global Affairs Office.

Justin Trudeau, whose administration is collapsing under the weight of self-contradictions built into the green technocratic worldview that he was selected to advance, was quick to jump on this new narrative stating “it is very clearly that countries like Russia are behind a lot of the divisive campaigns.”

Canadian Regime Changers Exposed

Chrystia Freeland’s role as a regime change darling of the British Empire has been increasingly known since the Ukrainian Maidan. It was that British Empire that groomed her under a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford and groomed her for years as an agent controlling mass perception by her management of Reuters and Canada’s Globe and Mail before placing her in a controlling position of Justin Trudeau in 2013.

Her role in steering the vast networks of Canadian Banderites who have long grown in numbers and influence in Canada is as well-known as her friendship with leading Svoboda/Pravi Sektor leaders in Ukraine who were deployed to overthrow a legitimately elected pro-Russian government from Nov. 2013-Feb. 2014. Increasingly well known is her own family’s deeply rooted Nazi sympathies going back to her grandfather’s role in working directly with the Waffen-SS during the latter’s occupation of Ukraine.

When the Ukraine “color revolution” steered by the British-run Deep State (of which Freeland is a senior member) failed to achieve its goal of de-stabilizing Russia, attention was turned to Venezuela where both Russia and China have invested tens of billions in infrastructure and whose government has been extremely favorable to cooperation on the Belt and Road initiative.

For this job, Freeland was deployed alongside her Oxford-trained colleague Ben Rowswell who together worked diligently for several years for a color revolution. As ambassador to Venezuela from 2014-2017, Rowswell managed to coordinate anti-government forces on the ground stating “We became one of the most vocal embassies in speaking out on human rights issues and encouraging Venezuelans to speak out”. Upon leaving Venezuela he said “I don’t think they (anti-Maduro forces) have anything to worry about because Minister Freeland has Venezuela way at the top of her priority list”.

What Rowswell was referring to was Freeland’s role in garnering the semblance of international support for the overthrow by her creation of the Lima Group of 13 Latin American countries (plus Canada) who could be said to “represent the consensus view of South America” in order to give the regime change a “democratic” look. Apparently the deep state managers of Canada didn’t think there was anything weird in an Anglo Saxon monarchy leading a group of Latin American republics and assumed the world would feel the same way.

As it turns out, even though the majority of Lima Group Foreign ministers were induced to support the regime change (very likely due to the vast control of South American mining operations controlled by Canadian mining giants), the world wasn’t so quick to jump enthusiastically on the regime change bandwagon with both Russia and China firmly denying their recognition of opposition leader Guaido’s legitimacy as the country’s leader culminating in Russia’s March 23 deployment of military aircraft and personnel into Venezuela as a message to all Deep State fanatics to back off.

It is noteworthy, that even though Donald Trump paid limited lip service to the hawks in his own government and internationally by telling Russia to leave Venezuela, the fact is that the rift between Trump and those war hawks exemplified by Bolton, Pence, and Pompeo, was made very clear as the President took several opportunities from April 3-6 to call for greater cooperation with Russia and China.

The Collapse of the Deep State and Rise of the New Paradigm

Freeland, Rowswell and their British handlers are undoubtedly not sleeping well at night. Their system is collapsing and there isn’t very much that they can do about it. The empire’s control structures so long kept in the shadows are increasingly exposed to the light of day with the collapse of Russia-Gate, and the exposure of the role of Canada’s Privy Council Office and Round Table movement (aka: Chatham House groups) as guiding (British) hands behind global affairs.

With the Brexit, Italy’s joining the BRI, the failure of the EU and bankruptcy of the City of London-Wall Street banking system, the world is finally waking up to the fact that the “great game” which so perverted the 20th century is falling apart. Not only that but only one serious alternative is on the table: the Belt and Road Initiative/New Silk Road as a global force of cooperation and long term investment into the real (vs speculative/fictitious) part of the economy.

In weeks, Beijing will host the 2nd Belt and Road Conference from and Trump, speaking alongside China’s vice Premier stated a very important intention as a lead up to that conference: 1) an end to the trade war is immanent with a major deal expected in weeks and 2) that Russia, China and America should stop wasting billions on war machines and start re-directing those expenditures towards long term great projects that benefit everyone. The places to do this not only include Belt and Road projects in Eurasia, Africa and the Americas but also the important domain of space exploration and cooperation. Both Russia and China have made it clear that space is a domain for peace on earth with Russia moving ahead with a lunar colony for 2040 and China’s far side of the moon landing on January 3, 2019 being a precursor to a larger lunar mining/industrialization program to access rare earths and Helium-3 fusion fuel.

Donald Trump has joined this chorus of nations pushing for a space based economy by announcing a revival of NASA’s mission with a Moon-Mars program on March 26.

While the future looks increasingly hopeful, and the British Empire’s ugly hand is increasingly exposed for the world to see, there are still many dirty tricks which the devil can still throw at the world.

BIO: Matthew J.L. Ehret is a journalist, lecturer and founder of the Canadian Patriot Review. His works have been published in Executive Intelligence Review, Global Research, Global Times, The Duran, Nexus Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, Veterans Today and Sott.net. Matthew has also published the book “The Time has Come for Canada to Join the New Silk Road” and three volumes of the Untold History of Canada (available on untoldhistory.canadianpatriot.org). He can be reached at matt.ehret@tutamail.com

April 13, 2019 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Despair or distraction? Pompeo’s ‘push for peace’ in Libya does not pass smell test

By Alex Benley – RT- April 12, 2019

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo may have called for peace in Libya but his lack of credibility makes one suspect something else is going on.

“There is no military solution,” warns West Point graduate, former CIA chief and waterboarding defender, Mike Pompeo.

“We have made clear that we oppose the military offensive by Khalifa Haftar’s forces and urge the immediate halt to these military operations against the Libyan capital,” Pompeo’s statement read.

There is something not right about Pompeo’s call. Otherwise, it would seem to mark a major U-turn in US foreign policy. But the record of this and previous administrations does not corroborate such an assumption.

Libya is a great case study when it comes to the gap between US leaders’ public statements and their underlying intent.

In his address to the nation on March 28, 2011, Nobel peace prize laureate Barack Obama framed the mission as one “to protect the Libyan people from immediate danger and to establish a no-fly zone… Broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.” Roger that.

During a Senate hearing, Hillary Clinton’s deputy, James Steinberg said, “President Obama has been equally firm that our military operation has a narrowly defined mission that does not include regime change.”

During the months that followed, however, the US provided rebels with $25 million in assistance and reportedly allowed advanced weapons to be delivered by Egypt and Qatar.

NATO ships stationed in the Mediterranean to enforce an arms embargo under Section 9 of Resolution 1970 let go a rebel tugboat with small arms, 105mm howitzer rounds, and “lots of explosives.”

On the day Vice Adm. William Gortney, director of the Joint Staff, “guaranteed” the press that Muammar Gaddafi is “not on a targeting list,” bombs hit the presidential compound.

Clinton’s eventual “we came, we saw, he died” is the most striking giveaway that regime change was the White House’s goal right from the start.

The US action under the guise of a peace and humanitarian narrative resulted in the collapse of a once rich and stable country that has since turned it into a playground for extremist forces, with spillover effects for the entire region. It has been a de-facto failed state for eight years now.

Need more examples of Washington’s hypocrisy? Promoting peace in Yemen and Syria on paper did not preclude the US from launching airstrikes against Damascus and exporting weapons that kill civilians in the protracted Saudi-led war on Yemen’s Houthis.

The US is clearer on Venezuela but again not everything is said in public. Remember National Security Advisor John Bolton’s hand-written reminder to send 5,000 troops to Colombia captured on camera?

Going back to Libya, there is another detail that is adding flavor to the story.

It is common knowledge that Haftar’s military experience helped topple the Gaddafi regime in 2011 following his return to Libya from the US where he gained American citizenship. Other than being a skilled commanding officer, he is said to have become a CIA asset and was trained in guerilla warfare by the agency’s paramilitary arm. This was after Washington saved him from a prison in Chad following a botched Libyan campaign and abandonment by Gaddafi in 1987. In March 1996, Haftar took part in the uprising against the Libyan leader.

However, Haftar has also been building ties with Russia. He’s flown to Moscow and has met several times with Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu.

If the general has made up his mind, he could run his homeland on his own terms. The US is just trying to buy time to figure out his and its own next move.
Also on rt.com Libya’s military strongman Haftar to meet Russian FM Lavrov in Moscow

But the timing of the general’s offensive – just days ahead of a major UN conference – might indicate he may have been directed by the US to thwart European and broader international efforts. The goal would be to show who the real powerbroker is, to scare the Europeans with potentially more refugees, and punish the EU for seeking greater autonomy from the US.

So, what’s truly behind Pompeo’s statement – a distraction to prove their alibi while a special CIA op is underway or a signal to a former asset gone rogue in a geopolitical tug of war over who defines Libya’s future?

Whatever the case, make no mistake: Pompeo is no peace dove and the US will have no qualms about issuing secret orders to advance their strategic interests that run counter to their publicly stated objectives.

April 13, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

North Korea’s Kim says US must stop ‘way of calculation’, gives deadline

Press TV – April 13, 2019

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un says the United States has raised the risk of returning to past tensions after the collapse of his second summit with President Donald Trump, stressing that yet another meeting between the two leaders is only possible if Washington comes with the right attitude.

The North’s official KCNA news agency on Saturday quoted Kim as making the remarks, two days after Trump floated the idea of holding a potential third nuclear summit with the North’s leader.

“What is needed is for the US to stop its current way of calculation, and come to us with a new calculation,” Kim was quoted as saying in a speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly on Friday.

He also said that he would wait “until the end of this year” for Washington to decide.

Back in late February, Trump and Kim reached an impasse at their second face-to-face denuclearization talks in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, with Washington demanding full disarmament and Pyongyang demanding economic incentives through partial lifting harsh sanctions.

The second summit in fact did collapse when the American president abruptly walked away from the talks without reaching a deal or even issuing a final statement.

Trump claimed that he quit the talks because Kim demanded to lift all economic sanctions as a prerequisite to denuclearization.

However, Pyongyang quickly responded that it had never asked for the removal of all sanctions, but only the partial removal of them.

In June last year, the two leaders met at a historic summit for the first time in Singapore, where they agreed to work toward denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Subsequent diplomacy between the two sides, however, made little progress, mainly because Washington refused to lift its crippling sanctions.

“The second DPRK-US summit in Hanoi in February raised strong questions about whether the steps we took under our strategic decision were right, and gave us a sense of caution about whether the US is even really trying to improve the DPRK-US relationship,” Kim added, using the initials of North Korea’s full name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The North’s leader also said that Washington came with “completely unrealizable plans” to Hanoi and that the US was “not really ready to sit with us face-to-face and solve the problem.”

“By that sort of thinking, the US will not be able to move us one iota even if they sat with us a hundred, thousand times, and will not be able to get what it wants at all,” Kim stressed.

The North Korean leader further blamed the US for continuing “to ignore the basic way of the new DPRK-US relations, including withdrawing hostile policies.”

Kim also warned that the White House mistakenly believes that “if they pressure us to the maximum, they can subdue us”, stressing that he had no interest in a third summit if it is a repeat of Hanoi.

The North’s leader also noted that his relations with Trump remained excellent.

So far, Pyongyang has taken several steps toward the goal by suspending missile and nuclear testing, demolishing at least one nuclear test site, and agreeing to allow international inspectors into a missile engine test facility.

The US, however, has insisted that sanctions on the North must remain in place until it completely and irreversibly dismantles its nuclear program.

The collapse of the Hanoi summit also disappointed US-ally South Korea, which has been improving relations with the North since early 2018.

Moon, who acts as a go-between in diplomacy involving Washington and Pyongyang, flew to Washington earlier this week in his third official visit to the US with the objective of helping put denuclearization talks with North Korea back on track after the Hanoi failed summit.

Despite the fact that that the situation on the Korean Peninsula had significantly improved following a number of high-level talks last year between Pyongyang and Seoul, as well as Washington, the North is still subject to harsh international sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

April 13, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US Hands Argentina 5,600 Declassified Files from ‘Dirty War’

teleSUR | April 12, 2019

The United States presented to Argentina its fourth and final installment of the Declassification Process on human rights abuses made during the military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983 on Friday.

The final 5,600 documents were added to a record-breaking, 50,000 page-government file composed through the efforts of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies and delivered over the course of the last seven years.

In 2002, both the Argentine Foreign Ministry and the U.S. fortified a declassification process to share top secret information from the United States Archives to the Argentine Commission on Historical Memory and other human rights organizations and public institutions via the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, German Garavano.

Currently the U.S. is developing a web portal to access the collection of declassified notes written during the seven-year, “Dirty War,” when a military dictatorship cracked down on left-wing opponents between 1974 and 1983.

“As the families of victims continue their quests for truth and justice, the declassification of these records helps confront the past with honesty and transparency,” the U.S. Department of State said in a statement on Friday.

Names of perpetrators and victims are inscribed within the set of hard drives, Garavano said. The Argentine Minister is hopeful the judicial system will be able to close some 400 pending investigations on the 30,000 disappeared cases which transpired during the dictatorship.

April 13, 2019 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Is the U.S. Prepared to Accept a Defeat in Venezuela?

By Marco Teruggi – Pagina 12 – April 12, 2019

The attack should have been short since the Maduro administration was not strong enough to resist. This was the conviction of the United States as they carried out a strategy to overthrow him: they built a President 2.0 Juan Guaido; they gave him a fictionalized government, international recognition, a collective narrative among mass media companies, accelerated economic sanctions at different levels. Overlapping these variables, different results were expected to be achieved on their path of getting a forced negotiation or the toppling of the government.

Events did not take the planned course. First and most important, the breaking of the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB): a crucial element that should have happened but did not. A series of tactics were implemented for it, from internal conspiracy with the support of a lot of dollars, visas and guarantees, or the strategy of a latent threat of a possible U.S. intervention. A combination of bluff – an unloaded weapon pointed at your head – with built up dates to try to achieve a rupture, such as on February 23rd.

The second event that should have occurred, despite the difficulty in defining a target, was Guaido supposedly building mass support in the streets. He boasted that 90 per cent of the population supports him. Pictures of his mass mobilization capacity show that the initial momentum on January 23, when his self-proclamation was acknowledged by Donald Trump through a tweet, lost strength. A major reason for this was the crisis of expectations that resulted from the unfulfilled promise of an immediate outcome. Another is that it was an artificial, communicational, diplomatic construction which could not gather more than the right’s historical rank-and-file supporters, characterized by a specific social, geographic class, living conditions, idiosyncrasy and symbolism. The opposition looked too much like themselves.

Third was the attempt to take the poor to the streets; blackouts and the water shortages were the most favorable of the scenarios to provoke this. But the outcome was not what they expected either.  The clearer and wide reaching reality was the majority trying to solve their problems, individually, collectively, together with the Venezuelan Government. Sustained protests, fostered almost completely by the right, were scarce and without capacity to spread in the country.

Each of these variables has feedback points. The crisis of expectations is the result, for instance, of the fact that the Armed Force has not broken, that Guaido speaks of a hastiness that does not occur, with the conclusion that if they don’t succeed in any of their three targets, the last resort is an international intervention headed by the United States. That same interventionist narrative moves away from those who see Guaido as an alternative to the current political and economic situation. Calling on the majorities to achieve an international operation comes across evident obstacles.

Overthrowing Maduro does not seem possible in the correlation of national forces. It has been proven that the attack will not be short and that Chavismo, which is more than a Government, has enough strength to resist. If it was just a national affair, Guaido would lose strength to the point that he wouldn’t even be part of the list of opposition leaders that carry the burden of defeat. The problem is that this new coup attempt was devised over a point of no return with the United States building of a parallel government facade, acknowledged by the European Union, the United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, and right-wing governments in Latin America. What to do with Guaido when the plan is not successful due to initial miscalculations?

The question is due to the US, its current Administration is a mixture of Donald Trump-neoconservative leaders, and the so-called deep state; that is to say, real, invisible structures of power that constitute and safeguard that country’s strategic development in the geopolitical struggle. A defeat in Venezuela would be charged to the Administration in a pre-election period and it would suffer a double blow with Maduro’s continuity, or the lack of ability make a key Latin American country fall in line, and its implications in the international arena.

The deep state has grown stronger recently through tweets and speeches of U.S. spokespeople like Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Southern Command’s commanding general Craig Faller. Their different statements have shifted towards painting Venezuela as an operational base for Russia, Iran, Cuba and China, while the Maduro administration would be subordinated to each of these governments and their corresponding intelligence and military services —particularly to the first three.

The United States has announced its following steps based on that narrative. Pompeo is going to Chile, Paraguay, Peru and Colombia; Abrams to Spain and Portugal; and they convened a third meeting in the United Nations Security Council to talk about Venezuela’s situation. They have not announced the goals of the different moves yet. It is possible though to predict that there is a private and public dimension to the agreements. A possibility would be for the US to declare the Venezuelan government a transnational criminal organization and branding colectivos (Chavista grass-roots organizations) as terrorist groups that “undermine the Constitution and territorial integrity of Venezuela,” according to Bolton’s description. New possible actions would result from each of these elements.

That increase in pressure, tightening the blockade, and isolation has not led yet to the possibility of a military intervention, despite the repeated “all options are on the table.” Abrams himself sidestepped that hypothesis last Thursday. Therefore, how are they planning to achieve the outcome proposed with the combination of these actions? The United States needs to establish means, on-the-ground operational capacity, and domestic and diplomatic agreements. In this regard, the European Union stance was expressed by its high representative for foreign affairs, Federica Mogherini, who affirmed that “new free and credible presidential elections should be held as soon as possible.”

Would the U.S. be willing to accept a negotiated outcome in which Maduro remains in power? So far, that does not look possible. They don’t seem willing to accept a geopolitical defeat in Venezuela either. The U.N. Security Council met on Wednesday to deal with this aspect. At the same time, the right called for more mobilizations. The pieces are still in motion.

Translation by Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau

Edited by Venezuelanalysis.com

April 13, 2019 Posted by | Russophobia | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yet Another Senator from Israel

Cory Booker shines at AIPAC
Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • April 9, 2019

How do you take a typical progressive and turn him or her into a fascist? One possible way is to send the poor bastard off on an all expenses paid trip to Israel where a meticulously crafted and sophisticated brainwashing program will make one believe almost anything regarding the noble and God-chosen Israelis versus the satanic Arab terrorists. Add into that the fact that being pro-Israel is a plus in many career fields and it is easy to understand why a monster like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gets favorable press and commentary in the United States even as he is reviled in most of the rest of the world.

The liberal to fascist metamorphosis is most evident among Democratic Party politicians, who have been successfully targeted by the Israel Lobby and its deep pocketed supporters for many years. It is all part of a massive public relations campaign, which some might instead refer to as disinformation, planned and executed by the Israeli foreign ministry and its diaspora supporters to advance Israeli interests in spite of the fact that the government of Netanyahu has implemented and executed fundamentally anti-democratic programs while at the same time committing war crimes and violating a whole series of United Nations resolutions.

Israel works hard to influence the United States at all levels. Its tentacles dig deep, now extending to local and state government levels where candidates for office can expect to be grilled by Jewish constituents regarding their views on the Middle East. The constituents often insist that the responses be provided in writing. The candidates being grilled understand perfectly well that their answers will determine what kind of press coverage and level of donations they will receive in return.

One of the most blatant propaganda programs is the sponsorship of free “educational” trips to Israel for all newly elected congressmen and spouses. The trips are normally led by Israel boosters in Congress like Democratic House Speaker Steny Hoyer, who recently boasted at an AIPAC gathering how he has done 15 trips to Israel and is now preparing to do another with 30 Democratic congressmen, including nearly all of those who are newly elected. The congressional trips are carefully coordinated with the Israeli government and are both organized and paid for by an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee called the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF). Other trips sponsored by AIEF as well as by other Jewish organizations include politicians at state and even local levels as well as journalists who write about foreign policy.

As noted above, all the trips to Israel are carefully choreographed to present a polished completely Israel-slanted point of view on contentious issues. Visits to Palestinian areas are arranged selectively to avoid any contact with actual Arabs. Everyone is expected to return and sing the praises of the wonderful little democracy in the Middle East, which is of course a completely false description as Israel is a militarized ethno-theocratic kleptocracy headed by a group of corrupt right-wing fanatics who also happen to be racists.

Even progressive politicians who are aware that the Israeli message is bogus and also resent the heavy handedness of the Israelis and their diaspora friends often decide that it is better to go along for the ride rather than resist. But some embrace it enthusiastically, like Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, a liberal Democrat running for his party’s nomination for president, who has, by his own admission, visited Israel many times. Israel and its friends are, of course, both courting and promoting him assiduously.

Booker inevitably reminds one of ex-President Barack Obama because he is black but the similarity goes beyond that as he is also presentable, well-spoken and slick in his policy pronouncements. One suspects that like Obama he would say one thing to get elected while doing something else afterwards, but we Americans have become accustomed to that in our presidents. More to the point, Booker was and is a complete sell-out to Israel and its Jewish supporters during his not completely successful career in New Jersey as mayor of Newark as well as in his bid for the presidential nomination. Booker is a close friend of the controversial “America’s rabbi” Shmuley Boteach and has taught himself enough Hebrew to pop out sentences from Torah with Jewish audiences.

Last week the Intercept published a secret recording of Booker meeting with a group of Jews from New Jersey at the recently concluded AIPAC summit in Washington, which Booker, unlike a number of other Democratic presidential hopefuls, attended enthusiastically. Booker pandered so assiduously that it is hard to believe that he actually knows what he is saying in an effort to be more Israeli than the Israelis. He described an Israel that deserves total commitment from Washington and stated clearly that he wants to create a “unified front” against the nonviolent boycott movement (BDS). He said that there is “no greater moral vandalism than abandoning Israel.”

Phil Weiss on Mondoweiss sums up the high points of what Booker said and did not say in the meeting: “Donald Trump is endangering Israel’s security in Syria; there is no ‘greater moral vandalism’ than dividing the U.S. and Israel; Booker would cut off his right hand before abandoning Israel; he lobbied black congresspeople not to boycott Netanyahu’s 2015 speech because we need to show a ‘united front’ with Israel; AIPAC is an ‘incredible… great’ organization whose mission is urgent now because of rising anti-Semitism; he ‘text messages back and forth like teenagers’ with AIPAC’s president Mort Fridman; and he swears to uphold bipartisan support in the Congress for Israel and give it even more money. And Booker says not one word about Palestinian human rights or Israel’s persecution of Palestinians. That’s right. A progressive senator who invokes Martin Luther King Jr. over and over again has not one word to say about the Jim Crow status of Palestinians while describing Israel as a ‘country that I love so deeply, that changed my life from the day I went there as a 24 year old.’”

Booker elaborated in his own words: “Israel is not political to me. It’s not political. I was a supporter of Israel well before I was a United State Senator. I was coming to AIPAC conferences well before I knew that one day I would be a federal officer. If I forget thee, o Israel, may I cut off my right hand.”

Booker described how he is appalled by the rise of alleged anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. and worldwide. Rather than using that possible development as leverage to get Israel to behave more humanely, he instead prefers to punish all Americans with new legislation intended to strip all everyone of their First Amendment rights. Per Booker “We must take acts on a local stage against vicious acts that target Israel. That’s why I’m cosponsor of Senate Bill 720. Israel anti-Boycott Act.”

Normally progressive Booker, who has criticized the endless war in Afghanistan on the campaign trail, has hypocritically condemned Trump for not continuing war in Syria to protect Israel, saying

“This administration’s seeming willingness to pull away from Syria makes it more dangerous to us, makes it more dangerous to Israel, and this is not sound policy…. When you’re tweeting about pulling out of Syria within days, when that would create a vacuum that would not only endanger the United States of America but it would endanger our ally Israel as well. We need a comprehensive strategy for that region because Israel’s neighborhood is getting more dangerous than less. Syria is becoming a highway for Iran to move more precision guided missiles to Hezbollah. There has got to be a strategy in this country to support Israel that is bipartisan that is wise and that frankly calls upon all the resources of this country, not just military”.

And because Israel always needs more money, Booker is ready to deliver: “Unequivocally 100 percent absolutely [yes] to the 3.3 billion [a year]. I have been on the front lines every time an MOU is up to make sure Israel gets the funding it needs. I even pushed for more funding.”

Do we need a man like Cory Booker as President of the United States? He is articulate enough to cite “moral vandalism” but not perceptive enough to take the concept one step further and appreciate that uncritical close ties to Israel’s feckless and fascist government could easily lead to a nuclear war that would constitute something far worse. He further believes that Israel’s hand deep in the U.S. Treasury is a desirable policy, that unlimited “all resources” support of Israel is a U.S. national imperative, that ending the continued American military presence in the Middle East “would endanger our ally” Israel, and that moves to nonviolently oppose Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians must be made illegal.

One does not see an actual American interest in any of that, but perhaps special spectacles made in Israel are needed, an environment where Booker has clearly spent a great deal of time both physically and metaphorically. Or maybe it’s the Benjamins. Booker will need millions of dollars to mount his campaign and he knows where to go and what he needs to say to get it.

One struggles to see just a tiny bit of humanity in Booker vis-à-vis the Arabs who have lost their homes and livelihoods to Israeli criminality, but none of that comes through in a session in which, admittedly, the Senator from New Jersey is speaking with his Jewish donor/supporters. Booker is on record favoring an Israel-Palestine “two state solution,” which is no longer viable, though he has not objected to Israeli army snipers shooting dead children, journalists, medical personnel and unarmed protesters in Gaza. Frankly, we already have an American leader who puts Israel first in Donald Trump and we don’t need another round of wag the dog in our next president. Cory Booker should work hard to maintain his perfect attendance record at AIPAC as he texts “like a teenager” with Mort Fridman, but maybe someday he will actually grow up and learn to think for himself. As he is a U.S. Senator that certainly is something we might all hope for.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

April 12, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Journalists worried as new UK law could send citizens to jail for going to terror hotspots

RT | April 12, 2019

New UK counter-terrorism legislation could see Britons face up to 10 years in jail if it’s proven they have entered or remained in a “designated area” overseas, as free press campaigners warn British journalists face arrest.

Coming into force on Friday, the Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, will give UK border guards enhanced powers to stop and search individuals without suspicion, on the grounds of tackling “hostile state” activity.

UK ministers unveiled the sweeping new proposals last year in a bid to tackle the threat from so-called foreign fighters. The act allows Home Secretary Sajid Javid to designate an area, dependent on parliamentary approval.

There are exemptions written into the legislation to protect those that have legitimate reasons to be in ‘designated areas,’ but campaigners fear that varying interpretations of the new laws could see journalists being locked up.

Free press and free speech groups, including Reporters Without Borders and Index, warn that due to the vague nature of the new counter-terrorism act, it could lead to a crackdown on journalists’ freedom to travel if they fail to answer questions.

A journalist taking a domestic flight could be stopped without any suspicion of wrongdoing. It would be an offence for the journalist not to answer questions or hand over materials, with no protection for confidential sources.

A UK cross-party committee report on human rights last year, warned the government that the new powers on counter-terrorism risk crossing the line on human rights, restrict freedom of speech and place obstacles on access to information.

April 12, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

UK, Allies Want to Preserve Chemical Labs for New Provocations – Russian Embassy

Sputnik – 12.04.2019

LONDON – The United Kingdom and its allies strive to preserve their chemical laboratories to stage further provocations, a spokesperson of the Russian Embassy in London said on Thursday.

“Therefore, the problem is obviously not with Russia ‘loving Novichok so much’ (to use the words of Mr. Hunt), but with the UK and its allies willing to allow their laboratories, like the notorious Porton Down, to continue with chemical experiments and provocations”, the spokesperson said, as quoted by a press release published on the embassy’s website.

On Wednesday, UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt wrote in Twitter that Russia objected to a military-grade nerve agent Novichok being added to the list of banned chemical substances by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and accused Moscow of using it in the poisoning incident in Salisbury last March.

The spokesperson also noted that Hunt highlighted just one side of the issue, as, in fact, during a session of the OPCW Executive Council in January, the United States, Canada and the Netherlands proposed to include only two groups of substances, named Novichok by Western countries, to the OPCW list. However, Russia opposed this initiative, as suggested that “all new generation toxic materials tested in many countries need to be added into those lists”.

On 4 March 2018, former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench near a shopping center in Salisbury. London claimed they were poisoned with a military-grade A234 nerve agent and accused Moscow of staging the attack, provoking a huge international scandal.

The Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed the claims about Russia’s involvement in the attack and stressed that Moscow has been denied access both to the investigation into the incident and to the Russian nationals.

April 12, 2019 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism | , | Leave a comment

‘Major international victory’: Trump cheers ICC decision not to probe US atrocities

RT | April 12, 2019

After the International Criminal Court (ICC) declined to investigate claims of US atrocities in Afghanistan, US President Donald Trump cheered the decision but said the ICC was “illegitimate” and US and allies beyond its reach.

“This is a major international victory, not only for these patriots, but for the rule of law,” the White House said in a statement, referring to the ICC decision to reject the request to investigate the actions of US military and intelligence officials in Afghanistan.

The US “holds American citizens to the highest legal and ethical standards,” and has consistently refused to join the ICC because of its “broad, unaccountable prosecutorial powers,” threats to US sovereignty, and “and other deficiencies that render it illegitimate,” Trump said in a statement.

“Any attempt to target American, Israeli, or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response.”

Last week, Washington canceled the entry visa of ICC’s chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, saying that anyone who dared investigate US military or intelligence personnel would face the same fate. The Gambian lawyer had been conducting a preliminary investigation into claims of torture, cruelty and sexual assault by US and allied personnel in Afghanistan, dating to 2003-2004.

Bensouda had found a “reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed in connection with the armed conflict in Afghanistan,” and was reportedly planning to open a formal investigation.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Bensouda last month to “change course” or face US sanctions, however, declaring that the US was determined to protect its troops and civilians from “living in fear of unjust prosecution for actions taken to defend our great nation.”

While Washington has pushed for the creation of ad-hoc international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR), the US voted against the establishment of the ICC in 1998, and has refused to join or submit to its authority after the court was officially created in 2002.

The US has held itself above international law for decades. In 1986, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague ruled that Washington had violated international law by supporting the Contras in Nicaragua. The US refused to participate in the proceedings and blocked the enforcement of the judgment in the UN Security Council.

What makes the pressure on ICC different than in the past, UK journalist Neil Clark told RT recently, is that “interference and attacks are now in the open,” whereas in the past they would be confined to back channels and low-key intrigue.

“You know, it’s the empire with its mask off,” said Clark.

April 12, 2019 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

US bars entry to Palestinian co-founder of BDS movement

MEMO | April 12, 2019

The US has denied entry to the co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, Washington-based advocacy group the Arab American Institute (AAI) said Thursday, Anadolu reports.

AAI said Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian activist, was barred from taking a flight to New York on Wednesday. He was stopped at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, according to the institute, which had been coordinating his trip to the US

Barghouti, the co-founder of the BDS movement, had a valid US visa as well as the proper travel documents, AAI said.

“Omar Barghouti is a leading Palestinian voice on human rights. Omar’s denial of entry into the US is the latest example of the Trump administration’s disregard for those rights,” James Zogby, president of AAI, said in a statement.

Barghouti also released a statement, which was posted online, saying the denial of entry is part of Israel’s repression of the Palestinian people.

“The US entry ban against me, which is ideologically and politically motivated, is part of Israel’s escalating repression against Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights defenders in the BDS movement for freedom, justice and equality,” Barghouti said, according to the statement, which was posted on the BDS movement’s Twitter account.

“Supporters of Israeli apartheid in the US are desperately trying to deny US lawmakers, media, diverse audiences at universities, a bookstore and a synagogue their right to listen, first-hand, to a Palestinian human rights advocate calling for ending US complicity in Israel’s crimes against our people,” he added.

“But all my talks will go ahead, with me speaking online.”

The BDS movement was formed in 2005 by 170 Palestinian civil society and rights groups and calls for a boycott of Israeli companies involved in violating Palestinian human rights and for institutions to withdraw their investments in those companies as a form of non-violent pressure on Israel.

It also calls for sanctions campaigns to pressure governments to fulfil their legal obligation to hold Israel to account.

The movement works to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law, according to its official website.

The ban on Barghouti’s entry comes as Republicans in the House of Representatives pushed forward a petition to force the Senate to vote on a bill that would allow state and city governments to penalize entities seeking to boycott, divest from or sanction the state of Israel.

Some 26 states across the US have imposed anti-BDS measures.

April 12, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Where Trump’s and Bibi’s Interests Clash

By Pat Buchanan • Unz Review • April 12, 2019

On Monday, President Donald Trump designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, the first time the United States has designated part of another nation’s government as such a threat.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council responded by declaring U.S. Central Command a terrorist group.

With 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 2,000 in Syria, often in proximity to Iranian units, this inches America closer to war.

Why did we do it? What benefit did the U.S. derive?

How do we now negotiate with the IRGC on missile tests?

Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu took credit for Trump’s decision, tweeting, “Once again you are keeping the world safe from Iran aggression and terrorism. … Thank you for accepting another important request of mine.”

Previous “requests” to which Trump acceded include moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, declaring Jerusalem Israel’s eternal capital, closing the Palestinian consulate and cutting off aid, and U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967, as sovereign Israeli territory.

What Bibi wants, Bibi gets.

One hopes his future requests will not include a demand that we cease dithering and deliver the same “shock and awe” to Iran that George W. Bush delivered to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

With Bibi’s election win Tuesday, his fifth, the secret Mideast peace plan Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has been laboring on these last two years is likely to be unveiled.

Yet it is hard to see how Jared’s baby is not stillborn.

Bibi is not going to accept a Palestinian right of return to Israel, or a sharing of the Holy City with a Palestinian state ruled by a successor of Yasser Arafat. And as Bibi fought Ariel Sharon’s withdrawal of the 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza, he is not going to order the removal of tens of thousands of Jewish settlers from homes on the West Bank.

Indeed, on the eve of his reelection Tuesday, Bibi promised Israelis he would begin the annexation of Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

As for Trump, he is the most popular man in Israel. And he is not going to force Bibi to do what Bibi does not want to do and thereby imperil his major political gains in the U.S. Jewish community.

Given the indulgence of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party for BDS, the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement, and the divisions among Democrats over Netanyahu’s expansionism, the president’s pro-Israel stance has proven a political winner for the GOP.

But while a U.S. war with Iran may be what Bibi wants, it is not what America wants or needs.

Consider what 20 years of U.S. wars in the Mideast have cost this country, as China has stayed out of the region and pushed its power and influence into Asia, Africa and Europe.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have regained control of more territory than they have held since 2001, and they are negotiating with the Americans for a withdrawal of our remaining 14,000 troops.

Cost of the Afghan war: 2,400 U.S. dead, 32,000 wounded, $1 trillion sunk, and the U.S. on the precipice of a potential strategic defeat.

So dreadful has become the five-year Yemeni civil war between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed regime they ousted that the U.S. House and Senate have invoked the War Powers Act and directed Trump to terminate U.S. assistance for the Saudi intervention.

In Libya, where a U.S.-led NATO intervention overthrew Colonel Gadhafi in 2011, a renegade general now controls two-thirds of the country and is mounting an assault on Tripoli. U.S. soldiers and diplomats fled the capital last week.

In Syria, President Bashar Assad, with the support of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, defeated the U.S. backed-rebels years ago.

The Syrian Kurdish militia we partnered with to crush ISIS have been designated as terrorists by the Turks, who promise to annihilate the Kurds if they try to return to homes along the Turkish border.

As for Turkey itself, President Erdogan says he will take delivery this summer of a Russian-made S-400 air and missile defense system.

Go through with that, says the U.S., and we cancel your order for 100 F-35s. The justified U.S. fear: Russia’s S-400 system will be tested against America’s most advanced fifth-generation fighter, the F-35.

If Turkey does not cancel the S-400, a NATO crisis appears imminent.

In Iraq, where 5,000 U.S. troops remain, the government has both pro-U.S. and pro-Iran elements in Baghdad, and mutual designation of the IRGC and CENT-COM as terrorist organizations can only present hellish problems for America’s soldiers and diplomats still in that country.

Bottom line: Though Bibi and John Bolton may want war with Iran, U.S. national interests, based on the awful experience of two decades, and Trump’s political interests, dictate that he not start any more wars.

Not a single Middle East war this century has gone as we planned or hoped.

Copyright 2019 Creators.com.

April 12, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

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