Iraqis denounce rocket attack amid foul play suspicions
Press TV – May 20, 2019
Iraq’s Kata’ib Hezbollah, a major pro-government resistance group, says a rocket attack on Baghdad’s Green Zone Sunday night is “unacceptable” and against the country’s national interests.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack which came in the wake of back-to-back sudden decisions taken by the US recently, including its withdrawal of “non-essential” staff from Iraq.
Those measures have surprised many Iraqi leaders and politicians who have questioned Washington’s claims of stepped-up threats to American interests in the Arab country.
Jaafar al-Husseini, a spokesman for the pro-government militia Kata’ib Hezbollah, told reporters on Monday that the rocket attack was “unjustifiable” and contrary to Iraq’s national interests.
The Green Zone, a 10-square-kilometer area in central Baghdad, is home to Iraqi government offices and those of other foreign governments, including the United States.
Although the apparent Katyusha attack hurt no one and its target was not specified, Trump was quick to point the finger at Iran in a tweet, saying if Tehran wants a war, “that will be the official end of Iran.”
Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton, also headed to the White House to discuss the rocket attack, according to media reports.
Kata’ib Hezbollah’s reaction came in the wake of the US having turned its attention to pro-government military groups which played a crucial role in defeating Daesh and other terrorist groups in Iraq.
Washington has commonly described the popular Iraqi forces as “Iran-backed proxies” despite being formally funded and incorporated into Iraq’s security forces.
Earlier this month, during an unannounced visit to Baghdad, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on the Iraqi government to restrain popular mobilization and anti-terror forces, saying they posed a “threat” to US interests.
Western media reports said Washington had notified Iraqi officials that the US might even directly attack the groups without coordinating with Baghdad if it perceived any threat.
The US military also said its forces in Syria and Iraq were ordered to stay vigilant over fears of “imminent threats” from what it called Iran-backed forces in the region.
Speaking to reporters last Tuesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi made it clear that Iraq had not observed “movements that constitute a threat to any side.”
Over the past few days, the US has put its political staff in its Baghdad embassy as well as in the American consulate in the Iraqi city of Erbil on high alert without a viable reason.
American energy giant Exxon Mobil also pulled its foreign workers out of West Qurna 1 oil field in Iraq’s southern province of Basra, a move Iraq’s Oil Minister Thamir al-Ghadhban called “unacceptable and unjustified.”
‘US stirring tension in Iraq to score negotiation points’
Iraqi political analyst Wathiq al-Hashimi said Sunday that Washington was building up a tension about the security situation in Iraq in order to drive a wedge between the Arab country and Iran.
He said in an interview with China Central Television (CCTV) that the recent measures by the US in Iraq were meant to send Iran a clear warning following high-profile visits to Baghdad by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
“Presidents of the US and Iran and foreign ministers of the two countries previously visited Iraq in a row. Now the US sends a warning signal to Iran that it is going to do something,” Hashimi said.
Trump caused outrage among Iraqi people and officials by suggesting during and after his Christmas trip to the country that he would use Iraq as a platform to “watch” Iran and take action against it if necessary.
The US has recently raised the stakes in its so-called maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Washington sent a carrier strike group as well as strategic B-52 bombers to the region in a “clear warning” to Tehran.
The deployment came days before several oil tankers were mysteriously “sabotaged” off the UAE emirate of Fujairah last week.
While dismissing US brinksmanship as a psychological warfare, Iranian officials have made it clear that such maneuvers will not coerce Tehran into negotiations with the United States.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said last week that Tehran would not negotiate with the United States on another nuclear deal and such talks would be “poison”.
Mossad Psychic Friends Network Strikes Again
By Helen Buyniski | Aletho News | May 20, 2019
The Trump administration’s war hawks couldn’t have asked for a more docile casus belli than the Katyusha rocket that landed a mile outside the US embassy in Baghdad’s American-occupied Green Zone on Sunday night, sparing persons, property, and the pride of a president who must have begun to doubt whether the mounting tensions between the US and Iran had any basis in reality at all – or whether the deliberately vague “credible intelligence” on the Iranian “threat” supplied by the Mossad was not a trick to convince the US to take out Israel’s last regional rival.
The plucky little rocket injured no one, and the launcher that fired it was immediately recovered by Iraqi security services in a canal in East Baghdad, which Israeli media breathlessly reported is “home to Iran-backed Shiite militias.” Authorities found no clues as to who had fired the rocket, but a narrative trap was clearly being laid. “Non-emergency” US government personnel had been safely bundled out of the Iraqi embassy by the State Department last Wednesday, supposedly due to an “imminent threat” from Iran, and even Exxon-Mobil had interrupted its plunder of Iraq’s resources, pulling 30 engineers off a Basra oil field as a “temporary precautionary measure.”
Despite its apparent futility as an offensive measure, the lonely rocket fulfills the purposefully broad criteria set forth by “Rapture Mike” Pompeo earlier this month when he warned that any attacks on “US interests or citizens” by “Iran or its proxies” would be met with a “swift and decisive” response. In a “coincidence” that should surprise no one, the malignant manatee followed those remarks with a statement celebrating Israel’s National Day and promising to “work toward a safer, more stable, and more prosperous” – and presumably depopulated of all those pesky Persians – “Middle East.”
Trump met with Bolton and other members of his cabinet on Sunday night to discuss the strike. While the State Department made ominous noises, its statement officially found no responsibility as yet; the president, however, had apparently made up his mind who to blame, and Bolton made up his mind decades ago.
It’s unlikely this will be the last provocation. Despite an “emergency” visit from Pompeo to Baghdad earlier this month in which he paid lip service to Iraqi “independence” while warning “any attack by Iran or its proxies on American forces in Iraq would affect the Iraqi government too,” Iraqi ambassador to Russia Haidar Mansour Hadi has said in no uncertain terms that Iraq will not allow the US to use it as a staging ground for an invasion of Iran. A few people would presumably have to die or be kidnapped before the Iraqis permit their country to be used as a launchpad for World War III by someone whose idea of international diplomacy is basically “that’s a nice sovereign nation you got there – sure would be a shame if we had to invade it a third time.” Though with 5,000 American troops still stationed in Iraq nearly a decade after Obama supposedly ended that war, the second invasion never really finished.
Unwilling to allow Mossad to hog the credit for predicting “Iran”‘s curiously self-defeating act of amateur rocketry, the State Department issued a Level 4 travel advisory on Wednesday, warning US citizens in Iraq that they are at “high risk for violence and kidnapping” from “numerous terrorist and insurgent groups” as well as “anti-US sectarian militias” – who also threaten “western companies.” That warning followed a similar notice from the US Maritime Administration cautioning ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz to give the US a few days notice, the better to attack them and blame Iran – er, protect them.
The Baghdad rocket attack, almost a carbon copy of the pointless “Hamas rocket strikes” Israel stages whenever it wants to derail peace talks or just flatten a few blocks in Gaza, comes almost exactly a week after four oil tankers mysteriously sprouted holes in their sides just below the water line, large enough to attract attention but small enough not to spill a single drop of precious oil or risk sinking the vessels. An anonymous US military source was breathlessly quoted blaming the “sabotage” on Iran the day after the “attack,” as if Americans had learned nothing in Syria other than that rushing into war without all the facts is a great way to cheer up Lockheed Martin stockholders.
Given the newly-leaked OPCW report confirming that last year’s “chemical attack” in Douma, which was immediately pinned on Bashar al-Assad without a shred of evidence based on the word of Oscar-winning terrorist head-choppers the White Helmets, was instead the work of anti-government rebels, the US should be doubly cautious about retaliating against any perceived attack. But Bolton and Pompeo have been baying for Iranian blood for over a decade now, and even the most transparently absurd excuse will do (the Onion’s headline “Bleeding John Bolton stumbles into Capitol Building claiming that Iran shot him” barely counts as satire).
Even if Iran, which has repeatedly said it does not want war with the US, suddenly developed a death wish, it wouldn’t waste its critical first strike on an abandoned building a mile from the American embassy – not when there’s billions of dollars worth of juicy American aircraft carrier sitting in the Gulf, one well-placed missile away from Davy Jones’ locker.
Like the Douma “chemical attack,” this rocket strike does not benefit the government in any way. Iran has nothing to gain by bringing down the full force of the American regime-change machine on its head by crossing Pompeo’s ridiculously vague red line (more of a red blob, really), even if, per the Pentagon’s own 2002 ‘war-gaming’ of the conflict, the US is unlikely to win the resulting war. Just as Nikki Haley’s warning that Assad would be blamed for all chemical attacks was a green light to rebel groups to stage false flag events and pin them on the government, so the Trump administration has essentially issued an open invitation to all Iran’s enemies to attack something – anything – in the CENTCOM region and point to Tehran as the culprit.
As usual, the only winner in this scenario is Israel, whose PM Benjamin Netanyahu actually had the chutzpah to tell US officials that his country wasn’t interested in direct participation in the war he’s been trying to start for the better part of three decades – even as his military official was in the New York Times trying to goad Trump into firing the first shot.
“If the Americans now act like nothing happened – ‘Iran didn’t spit on us, it’s only rain’ – it’s catastrophic, because it’s saying to the Iranians, ‘We won’t interfere.’ What kind of Middle East will we face when it’ll be clear to other countries that Americans are not ready to fulfill what people expect them to do?” Israeli military intelligence officer Yaakov Amidror asked, horrified by a world in which Israel is not able to run around throwing sand in the faces of the bigger kids on the geopolitical playground, safe in the knowledge that Big Daddy ‘Murica will come to its rescue, guns blazing. Saudi Arabia, too, has also claimed it wants no part of this war, even as it joins the US in blaming Iran for the holes in its ships and continues to blame Iran for the Houthis’ refusal to lay down and die in Yemen.
Nor have the US’ usual partners in war crime taken the bait. British Maj. Gen. Chris Ghika, deputy commander of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition, told reporters on Tuesday there was “no increased threat from Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria,” triggering a sharp rebuke from the Pentagon, and Spain actually withdrew its ship from the US-led carrier strike group dispatched last month to the Gulf, determined to avoid getting roped into an extremely unattractive conflict.
I’ve already commented on the curiously threadbare quality of the US’ anti-Iran propaganda – for some reason, the American people aren’t being fed the usual Manichaean dramas starring “animal Assad” or Gaddafi-the-rapist. It’s unsettling how little effort is being expended to sell us what will certainly be the most ruinous war we’ve faced in a lifetime: recycled physics-defying threats about missiles fired from small boats, warnings of sleeper-cell militias Tehran can activate with a word, and the constantly-repeated-but-still-untrue line that Iran is the world’s top sponsor of terror are hardly sufficient to convince a country to act against its interests. Perhaps after the utter failure of the latest regime-change operation in Venezuela, the ruling class has realized that their persuasion skills have gotten soft. Meanwhile, instead of creating and amplifying western propaganda, they’ve merely silenced Iranian media, knocking out PressTV’s YouTube channel.
Americans are familiar with the tragedy of how shortsighted greed destroyed the country’s industrial base in the latter half of the twentieth century. But can we no longer even manufacture consent? Or have the powers that be realized they no longer need the consent of the governed to wage war in the service of empire?
Saudi Arabia playing ‘Trojan horse’ for US amid tensions: Al Akhbar
Press TV – May 20, 2019
Saudi Arabia is fanning the flames of war between Iran and the US while both countries are against a confrontation, a Lebanese newspaper has said, accusing Riyadh of playing America’s “Trojan horse.”
In an article on Monday, Al Akhbar criticized Saudi Arabian King Salman for calling emergency meetings of the Arab League and the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
The paper warned Riyadh’s rulers that with their “subservience” to US President Donald Trump, they were essentially entering the kingdom into a conflict masterminded by Israel and America.
Saudi officials, it said, are only “adding fuel to the fire” of war that is aimed at partitioning the Middle East and destroying its heritage.
The official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Saturday that Salman had invited Arab leaders to convene urgent summits in the city of Mecca on May 30 to discuss ways to “enhance the security and stability in the region.”
Days before the invitation, four oil tankers, including two Saudi ones, were purportedly targeted near the port of Fujairah on May 12, in what the United Arab Emirates described as “sabotage” attacks.
The invitation came at a time when hawks within Trump’s administration are actively trying to tip the scale in favor of a major confrontation in the Middle East.
Over the past few days, the US has put its political staff in its Baghdad embassy as well as in the American consulate in the Iraqi city of Erbil on high alert about what it insists are possible threats from neighboring Iran.
Washington also sent a carrier strike group as well as strategic B-52 bombers to the region in a “clear warning” to Tehran.
Saudi attitude spells doom
Al Akhbar wrote that the tensions have divided the region. It said Al Saud will not use these meetings to discuss Trump’s so-called “deal of the century” for Palestine — which is expected to be unveiled in early June.
Rather, the meetings will fan the flames of war to serve American and Israeli interests, because that is what they think would ultimately save them their crown, the paper wrote.
The article added that King Salman had decided to once again let aggressors use the Saudi airspace and territorial waters to wage war but this would only lead to his own demise and impose a great price upon Persian Gulf sheikhdoms which have tied their economy and security to America’s demands.
Government Accountability Project engages in projection
Anonymous allegations are republished by an allegedly respectable website.
By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | May 20, 2019
A reader has alerted me to the fact that a Washington, D.C. organization called the Government Accountability Project is bad-mouthing me. It says I’m part of the “global warming denial machine.”
I almost never respond to accusations of this kind. It’s time-consuming, draining, and distracting. I prefer to make a positive contribution to the world through my writing, and to let my record speak for itself. In the end, one must trust in the ability of the public to sort sense from nonsense.
In this case, though, I’m making an exception. So let’s start with some basics.
WHO AM I?
1. I am not a US citizen.
2. I have never held a government job (unless one counts part-time clerical work in libraries and hospitals during my teens and early twenties).
3. My journalism career includes four years as a columnist with the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper. I’m a former columnist and member of the editorial board of the National Post. My investigative work has appeared in several newspapers and magazines, and I am the author of three books.
4. I’m a longtime proponent of free speech, having joined the board of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association in 1993, and served as a vice president from 1998 to 2001.
WHO IS SMEARING ME?
The Government Accountability Project (henceforth I’ll call it The GAP), says it helps whistleblowers “hold the government and corporations accountable.” That’s marvellous and admirable.
I, however, am not a government. I’m not a corporation. Having worked with my share of whistleblowers over the years, I line up squarely on their side.
So why is this Washington-based organization trashing me – a journalist in a foreign country, who currently writes out of her home office and receives no regular pay cheque from anywhere?
Lamentably, the GAP has morphed into something rather different than what its name implies. The fine print on its website tells us:
As more attorneys joined the team, Government Accountability Project increased its litigation work, setting up its unique capacity to launch both political advocacy and legal campaigns. [bold added by me]
Political advocacy campaigns. Keep that phrase in mind.
The GAP now focuses its attention on six subject areas, including ding-ding-ding climate change. A section of its website therefore talks about sustainability and “the dangers posed by fossil fuel dependence.”
In other words, one arm of The GAP behaves like a politically-motivated, green advocacy group.
WHO REALLY AUTHORED THESE ACCUSATIONS?
In very large letters, the Government Accountability Project declares: Donna Laframboise recycles old attacks on IPCC. Holding a particular government to account is grand in The GAP universive. But blowing the whistle on a group of governments involved in the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is villainous. Yeah, that’s coherent.
At the bottom of the page bearing that headline we see a September 2013 date. It turns out everything here was actually cut-and-pasted from a now defunct website called ClimateScienceWatch.org, which used to be run by The GAP.
Five-year-old content has simply been transferred from ClimateScienceWatch over to The GAP’s main website. In other words, The GAP’s remarks about me have been recycled – an activity its own headline suggests is contemptible. It’s all so confusing. Green activists vigorously promote recycling. Until they want to insult someone.
Unfortunately for me, The GAP’s main website exudes respectability. There’s an impressive logo, a muted palette, and a professional design. A reader in a hurry might well form the mistaken impression that I’m opposed to government accountability. In fact, I’ve spent my career striving to keep government institutions – including criminal and family courts – honest.
So what does The GAP actually say about me? Those first-published-in-2013 remarks consist of two parts. Here’s the introductory paragraph:
In a Wall Street Journal editorial on the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report, IPCC critic Donna Laframboise sinks to the lowest common denominator of overused attacks. Repeated and unfounded attempts to taint the IPCC’s credibility should be seen as what they are: a distraction from the real issue – the science.
This paragraph is immediately followed by a 600-word “guest post by Climate Nexus.” Who is Climate Nexus? It’s yet another green advocacy group, funded via the Rockefeller Foundation’s billions. Correcting “misinformation about climate change” is part of its mission.
So that’s what happened here. The WSJ published my opinion piece and Climate Nexus produced a response, which was published by ClimateScienceWatch back in 2013. Today, that material appears on The GAP’s main website.
This response, please note, is unsigned.
That’s because Climate Nexus is essentially a PR firm devoted to squelching non-conformist climate views. Its employees police the boundaries of what journalists are allowed to say. Anyone who colours outside the lines is targeted, accused of sinking “to the lowest common denominator of overused attacks.” Whatever that might mean.
Climate Nexus personnel don’t take responsibility for their own words. The people who are cavalierly smearing me – a real journalist, with a real reputation – aren’t identified.
Five years later, we still don’t know who they are. These are anonymous accusers. Anonymous cowards.
To be continued…
Democrat Tulsi Gabbard fends off ‘fake news’ accusations of Russian support
RT | May 19, 2019
Democratic presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard’s anti-war stance has seen her slammed in the media for over-friendliness to Moscow. After this week’s hit piece the Hawaiian Congresswoman called these accusations “fake news.”
Speaking to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Gabbard repeated several of her core foreign policy messages: Regime change operations are “counterproductive and wasteful,” and escalating military tension with Russia and China is a “dangerous” game for the US.
A combat veteran and foreign-policy focused candidate, Gabbard launched her presidential campaign in January. From the outset she was lambasted by both parties and the mainstream media for meeting with Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad, and was branded a “Putin puppet” for suggesting that the US improve relations with Russia, at a time when most of her party was consumed with ‘Russiagate’ hysteria.
Stephanopoulos kept the theme going on Sunday, pressing Gabbard on a recent Daily Beast article accusing her campaign of taking a shocking THREE donations from “Putin apologists,” and one from actress Susan Sarandon – who committed the mortal sin of supporting the Green Party’s Jill Stein in her 2016 election bid, and not Hillary Clinton, as the Hollywood consensus demanded.
Save for one returned contribution from a businessman involved in some unlicensed transactions, no donation mentioned by the Daily Beast amounted to more than $1,000.
“It’s unfortunate you’re citing that article, George, because it’s a whole lot of fake news,” Gabbard responded. “What’s in the best interest of national security? Keeping American people safe.”
“And what I’m pointing out consistently, time and time again, is our continued wasteful regime change wars have been counterproductive to the interests of the American people.”
The latest debacle was ridiculed by commentators on Twitter. Independent journalist Ben Norton called the Daily Beast’s article “embarrassingly bad,” while The Hill’s Krystal Ball blasted the Daily Beast’s reporters for searching through 65,000 donors to find “3 with views that fit their pre-conceived narrative.”
Gabbard is currently polling at around one percent, in a crowded field of 24 Democratic candidates. As the mainstream media continues to fixate on her supposed sympathies for the Kremlin, the Hawaiian has stuck to her guns. On Thursday, Gabbard warned President Donald Trump against “launching a very stupid and costly war with Iran,” and called out “war hawks in his administration” like National Security Advisor John Bolton, for leading the US towards another conflict in the Middle East.
Netanyahu to blame for US warmongering against Iran: American officials
Press TV – May 19, 2019
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is behind the US administration’s continued hostility towards Iran and the recent flare-up in tensions between the two sides, according to a number of American political figures and analysts.
Ben Rhodes, an advisor to the administration of former US president Barack Obama, was quoted as saying by The Jerusalem Post that “Bibi” was one of those “pushing to confront Iran.”
Last week, US Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard also blasted “Saudi Arabia, Netanyahu [and] al-Qaeda” for promoting war with the Islamic Republic.
The report pointed to a 2006 essay on “The Israel Lobby” by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, which later became a book. The authors argued back then that Israel and pro-Israel groups worked to shape the US administration’s policy towards Iran as part of a “grand scheme for reordering the Middle East.”
Moreover, the far-left and far-right parties view Israel as the shadowy manipulator of Washington’s policies towards Tehran.
“Who wants this war with Iran?” American political commentator Patrick Buchanan’s official website asked on Friday. “Answer: [US Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo and [National Security adviser John] Bolton, Bibi Netanyahu, [Saudi] Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.”
The US far-right has also blamed Israel for Trump’s policies, with one website claiming that “Bibi Satanyahoo” is pushing for a war with Iran.
On the far-left, the website Mondoweiss has a headline that says, “Israel wants the Trump administration to attack Iran, but US mainstream media ignores Netanyahu’s instigating.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif recently pointed out that the US administration in Washington was taken over by “Netanyahu firsters”, according to the post.
Zarif blamed Israel and what he called the “B-team” for the US foreign policy decisions.
The hawkish “B-team” is comprised of US National Security Adviser John Bolton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Tensions mounted between Tehran and Washington last May, when President Donald Trump pulled his country out of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and re-imposed harsh sanctions against the Islamic Republic in defiance of global criticism.
The tensions saw a sharp rise on the first anniversary of Washington’s exit from the deal as the US moved to ratchet up the pressure on Iran by tightening its oil sanctions and sending military reinforcements, including an aircraft carrier strike group, a squadron of B-52 bombers, and a battery of patriot missiles, to the Middle East.
On May 5, US National Security Advisor John Bolton — an ardent Iran hawk — said the deployment was in response to a “troubling and escalatory indications” of Iranian activity in the region, without giving details or evidence to support the claims.
Trump, however, later ordered his administration to avoid a military confrontation with Iran, The New York Times and Reuters reported.
Netanyahu’s influence with Trump is nothing short of conspicuous when it comes to regional issues in the Middle East.
Apart from relocating the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem al-Quds and declaring the historical city as the “capital” of Israel, the American head of state has suspended aid to Palestinian groups and also recognized the Syria’s Golan Heights as being Israeli territory.
See also :
Who Won This Year’s Eurovision: Israel or Palestine?
By Adam Garrie | EurasiaFuture | May 19, 2019
Like the Olympics, the Eurovision Song Contest has attempted to create national harmony through head-to-head competition on the basis of national demarcations. While singing or running around a track are vastly preferable expressions of nationalism than killing one another, it is nationalistic rivalry nevertheless and this automatically means that such an event is political, in spite of droning claims to the contrary.
But while recent years have seen the increasingly dated Song Contest become ever more controversial, this year’s events in Tel Aviv represented a watershed moment in public opinion. Multiple artists, activists, philosophers, politicians and even erstwhile apolitical people tried to persuade the Eurovision organisers to relocate the event to a more politically neutral place. No matter what one’s view on Palestine, Israel is more politically polarising than Switzerland and it would be difficult to find anyone who could honestly disagree. In this sense, the real Eurovision Political Contest was one between Israel and Palestine.
The fact that the contest went ahead does represent an initial victory for Israel against the Palestinian civil society activists who encouraged a relocation to a politically neutral place. While the official viewing figures are not yet in for this year’s event, these numbers will eventually offer insight into which side has ultimately won the battle for public opinion. If in fact the viewing figures are significantly down vis-a-vis 2018, this could indicate that the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) call for a television boycott may have had some success.
But even before the numbers are out, several things are apparent. Public perceptions of Palestine have reached a critical turning point in the western world. It is no longer fashionable to ignore the cause of Palestine. Whilst even ten years ago, many apolitical people in the west tended to automatically associate Palestine with “terrorism” while associating Israel with the opposite, at nearly 20 years since the turn of the century, today it is Palestine that is considered “fashionably victimised” while Israel is considered cold, unjust and reactionary.
It goes without saying that it is crude and vulgar to reduce the decades long suffering of Palestine to a “fashion statement”. As such, true supporters of the Palestinian people would never do so. However, one must be honest enough to realise that all political causes in an increasingly fickle western public square are eventually diluted to fashion statements once they reach a critical mass.
True believers in the Palestinian cause should therefore not be put off by the fact that while support for Palestine isn’t growing because thousands of otherwise apolitical westerners have discovered the speeches of George Habash, it is growing nevertheless – this necessary critical mass in public opinion has just about been reached.
In the vulgar world of politics or geopolitics, any form of positive attention is good for one’s cause and the fact of the matter is that from the debating halls of Washington and Westminster, to pop music stages throughout the western world, to social media, art galleries and “hip and cool” public gatherings, it is becoming close to impossible to hold political views that are socially fashionable whilst simultaneously favouring Israel over Palestine. In other words if one wants to be “woke” one has to be woke to Palestine.
This means that while the old paradigm for public figures involved a choice between supporting Israel and supporting Palestine, today’s question for public figures is one of favouring Palestine without reservation (Roger Waters, for example) versus showing solidarity with Palestine while calling for Israel to have its proverbial “F. W. de Klerk moment” whereby the old reactionary regime grudgingly embraces inclusivity.
Some long time Palestine supporters might find this latter view to be naive. That being said, the fact that even the less overtly pro-Palestinian option for western public figures who wish to remain fashionable is still at least somewhat pro-Palestine and in some cases is rhetorically very pro-Palestine, is indicative of the fact that the nature of the Palestine argument for westerners has changed. Palestine is no longer a symbol of “terror” in the eyes of the middle of the road westerner. Palestine is now symbolic of injustice and this is even the case among those whose demographic positions within western societies would have in the past indicated unequivocal acceptance if not support for the Israeli status quo. Beyond this, as western politics itself becomes more polarised between the haves and have-nots, it is becoming all the more natural for westerners to sympathise with those abroad who have not even their own land.
This was reflected in two ways during last night’s Eurovision Final. First of all, those actively boycotting the event had a strong presence on social media, one so strong that hardline Israel supporters were generally on the defensive. This represents a major shift from previous decades when Palestinian supporters had to be on the defence against allegations of “apologising for terrorism”. Now, among trendy westerners it is supporters of Israel who are on the defensive – having to justify their whitewashing of oppression against a people increasingly seen as the victims of supreme injustice.
Secondly, even some of those who defied the proverbial BDS picket line and performed in Tel Aviv felt sufficiently guilty about having done so. Such people ended up showing their support for Palestine while the international cameras were rolling. Most notably, the Icelandic performers held up large banners reading “PALESTINE”, complete with Palestinian flags right in front of the cameras. Then, in a reportedly unauthorised move, Madonna whose performance was the most controversial of the evening had some of her backup dancers wear both Israeli and Palestinian flags. Whilst Madonna’s move will be viewed as a cop-out by many pro-Palestine activists (rightly so from an ethical point of view), the fact that she felt the need to include Palestinian imagery at all is symptomatic of an opportunist trying to have it both ways.
Yet even this opportunistic act is indicative of the fact that supporting Palestine now presents as many opportunities for public figures as it does challenges. Compared to recent years, this is one major step in the right direction as at the turn of the 21st century, trying to do anything positive for Palestine earned one undiluted excoriation from mainstream western society. This is no longer the case.
Thus, the final verdict is this: unlike mid-1980s South Africa, it is still possible for western pop starts to perform in Israel without their careers being ruined by verdicts passed in the court of public opinion. But on the other side of the coin, it is now possible and at times even practically advisable for such pop stars to support Palestine and this of course means supporting BDS.
In the battle of public opinion, Israel is still able to mobilise its troops, but through persistence and by building a genuinely big tent of support, Palestine is now forcing many in the west to side with the victims rather than the oppressors. In this sense, the true winner of last night’s Eurovision Song Contest were the silenced voices of Palestinians whose echos are reverberating ever louder among otherwise aloof people who are becoming slowly acquainted with their conscience.
When North Korea’s Air Force Fought Israel
The Beginnings of Pyongyang’s Military Involvement in the Middle East and its Evolution Over Half a Century
Military Watch Magazine | October 7, 2018
While the Yom Kippur War is a well known Cold War engagement between Soviet and Western aligned forces which took place in the midst of the Vietnam War, pitting the forces of a number of Arab states including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Algeria against their longstanding adversary Israel, the role played by personnel deployed from external powers remains less well known. One party which played a significant role in the conflict, the beginnings of its extensive involvement in the Middle East to undermine the Western Bloc’s regional interests which continues to this day, was the Korean People’s Army (KPA) – the armed forces of North Korea. Having waged an intensive and brutal war with the Untied States and its allies in the 1950s, where an estimated 20-30% of its population was lost primarily due to the American bombing campaign, North Korea well understood the importance of air superiority and set about rebuilding its air and air defence forces with the most capable Soviet made weapons systems available. North Korean pilots and air defence crews were tasked not only with guarding the country’s airspace in the event of a future war with the Untied States, but also of contributing to the war efforts of a number of friendly countries – which they continue to do to this day. North Korean pilots played a considerable role in the Vietnam War, and according to Korean sources downed several U.S. fighter jets over the country. As the air war over Vietnam neared its end in the early 1970s, the KPA Air Force dispatched pilots to Egypt to aid the Soviet aligned country’s own war effort.
North Korean pilots had been stationed to aid Egyptian forces in defending their airspace months before the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, and according to the Egyptian Military’s Chief of Staff Saad Al Shazly, Korean assistance provided critical assistance at a time of great need. Recalling that personnel from the USSR had been flying approximately 30% of the Egyptian MiG-21 fleet and operating about 20% of the country’s surface to air missile batteries, he noted that following the departure of Soviet forces under the decree of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat the Egyptian Air Force had struggled with a significant shortage of trained MiG pilots. Regarding North Korea’s role in solving this issue, the General stated in his memoirs:
“The solution occurred to me in March 1973, during the visit to Egypt of the Vice President of the Democratic (People’s) Republic of Korea (official name of North Korea.) On March 6, while escorting their Vice Minister of War, General Zang Song, on a tour of the Suez front, I asked if they could support us – and give their pilots useful combat training – but sending even a squadron of men. I knew at that time that his country flew MiG-21s. After much political discussion, in April I went on an official visit to president Kim Il Sung to finalise the plan. My fascinating ten day tour of that extraordinary republic, an inspiring an example of what a small nation of the so called Third World can achieve with its own resources is, alas, rather outside the scope of this memoir, as is my stopover in Peking (former English name for Beijing.)
Korean pilots – all highly experienced, many with more than 2,000 hours, arrived in Egypt in June and were operating by July. Israel or her ally ( the United States) soon monitored their communications, of course, and on August 15 announced their presence. To my regret, our leadership would never confirm it. The Korean s were probably the smallest international military reinforcement in history: only 20 pilots, eight controllers, give interpreters, three administrative men, a political advisor, a doctor and a cook. Bu their effect was disproportionate. They had two or three encounters with the Israelis in August and September and about the same number in the war. Their arrival was a heartwarming gesture. I mention the story here mainly to pay tribute to them and to apologise for the churlishness of our leadership in not also doing so.”
While Egyptian forces had long claimed that the MiG-21 was poorly suited to engage the F-4E, Israel’s prime air superiority fighter, and that the Soviet jet lacked the necessary survivability against the heavier American made platform, they were proven wrong not only by the successes of North Vietnamese pilots against the United States – but also by North Korean pilots operating against Israeli Phantoms over Egyptian airspace itself. According to Israeli sources, reporting on an engagement between North Korean piloted MiGs and their own Phantoms, the Korean pilots demonstrated considerable skill and were effectively untouchable in close range engagements – taking full advantage of the MiG-21’s superior manoeuvrability to evade multiple Israeli strikes with impunity. Whether North Korean pilots downed any Israeli fighters remains unknown, though reports indicate that no Koreans were shot down by Israeli jets. A number of reports do indicate however that the poorly trained Egyptian surface to air missile (SAM) crews mistook returning Korean MIG-21 fighters for Israeli jets, and proceeded to fire upon them. This was a common error made by Egyptian SAM crews, one which cost the country a number of fighter jets.
North Korean pilots’ participation in the Yom Kippur War represented only the beginning of the country’s military involvement in the Middle East, nor the last time the country would aid Arab states at war with Israel. While Egypt pivoted towards the Western Bloc in the war’s aftermath, abandoning the Soviet Union and its Arab allies, the country would pursue a number of joint weapons projects with North Korea and continues to import significant quantities of arms from the country. The Egyptian ballistic missile arsenal has North Korean origins, and the Korean Rodong-1 remains the country’s most capable platform in service today. North Korean assistance was also commissioned to construct a war museum in Egypt commemorating the Yom Kippur War, which was based heavily on the larger Fatherland Liberation War Museum in Pyongyang commemorating the Korean War. North Korean forces have since the Yom Kippur War also formed close ties to Syria and Yemen, and the KPA is involved in wars against Western aligned forces in both countries.
Korean assistance has been key to upgrading Syria’s surface to air missile network, while special forces have reportedly been deployed for ground operations. KPA personnel were also reportedly involved in the Lebanon War in alongside their Syrian allies, and were later responsible for aiding the Lebanese militia Hezbollah to construct underground fortifications key to its military success against Israel in 2006. A number of key figures in Hezbollah’s leadership, including its leader Hassan Nasraallah, reportedly travelled to Korea for military training in the 1980s. Korean assistance has been key to strengthening the missile capabilities of Libya, Syria and Yemen, as well as Iran and Hezbollah, with all these parties relying heavily on a wide variety of the country’s missile designs until today. The East Asian state has since the Yom Kippur War played a considerable role in supporting regional forces against the Western Bloc and their allies, and is set to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
‘All decent people’ oppose ‘damaging’ Russia sanctions, Salvini says ahead of EU elections
RT | May 19, 2019
EU sanctions targeting Russia don’t work and “all decent people” support removing them, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said ahead of next week’s European Parliamentary elections.
“I continue to believe that we don’t need sanctions. The issue of their removal unites all decent people,” Salvini told Sputnik news agency after holding a major rally that included leaders of 11 right-wing European parties in Milan on Saturday.
The leader of the right-wing League party argued that the economic warfare between the EU and Russia has “caused damage and resolved nothing.”
“If a tool does not work, it is removed,” he added.
Salvini stressed that much would depend on the outcome of the upcoming elections, including whether it would be possible to repeal the anti-Russia restrictions.
Polls show that Salvini’s right-wing alliance, Europe of Nations and Freedom, is expected to become one of the largest blocs in the next EU parliament.
The political group “will perform a historic feat to pass from the 8th place in Europe to third or maybe second,” National Rally leader Marine Le Pen predicted while speaking at the Milan rally.
The United States and the European Union imposed restrictions on Russia produce and other goods following Crimea’s reunification with Russia in 2014. Moscow reciprocated the sanctions in a tit-for-tat move. Since then, the sanctions regime has expanded to include banking and other sectors.
As a result, many European businesses have been pushed out of the Russian market. The issue has sparked considerable anger in Germany, where politicians from both the left and the right have spoken out against the policy as counter-productive and harmful to German interests.
How Russiagate replaced Analysis of the 2016 Election
By Rick Sterling | Dissident Voice | May 19, 2019
An honest and accurate analysis of the 2016 election is not just an academic exercise. It is very relevant to the current election campaign. Yet over the past two years, Russiagate has dominated media and political debate and largely replaced a serious analysis of the factors leading to Trump’s victory. The public has been flooded with the various elements of the story that Russia intervened and Trump colluded with them. The latter accusation was negated by the Mueller Report but elements of the Democratic Party and media refuse to move on. Now it’s the lofty but vague accusations of “obstruction of justice” along with renewed dirt digging. To some it is a “constitutional crisis”, but to many it looks like more partisan fighting.
Russiagate has distracted from pressing issues
Russiagate has distracted attention and energy away from crucial and pressing issues such as income inequality, the housing and homeless crisis, inadequate healthcare, militarized police, over-priced college education, impossible student loans and deteriorating infrastructure. The tax structure was changed to benefit wealthy individuals and corporations with little opposition. The Trump administration has undermined environmental laws, civil rights, national parks and women’s equality while directing ever more money to military contractors. Working class Americans are struggling with rising living costs, low wages, student debt, and racism. They constitute the bulk of the military which is spread all over the world, sustaining continuing occupations in war zones including Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and parts of Africa. While all this has been going on, the Democratic establishment and much of the media have been focused on Russiagate, the Mueller Report, and related issues.
Immediately after the 2016 Election
In the immediate wake of the 2016 election there was some forthright analysis. Bernie Sanders said, “What Trump did very effectively is tap the angst and the anger and the hurt and pain that millions of working class people are feeling. What he said is, ‘I Donald Trump am going to be a champion of the working class… I know you are working longer hours for lower wages, seeing your jobs going to China, can’t afford childcare, can’t afford to send your kids to college. I Donald Trump alone can solve these problems.’ … What you have is a guy who utilized the media, manipulated the media very well. He is an entertainer, he is a professional at that. But I will tell you that I think there needs to be a profound change in the way the Democratic Party does business. It is not good enough to have a liberal elite. I come from the white working class and I am deeply humiliated that the Democratic Party cannot talk to the people where I came from.”
Days after the election, the Washington Post published an op-ed titled “Hillary Clinton Lost. Bernie Sanders could have won. We chose the wrong candidate.” The author analyzed the results saying, “Donald Trump’s stunning victory is less surprising when we remember a simple fact: Hillary Clinton is a deeply unpopular politician.” The writer analyzed why Sanders would have prevailed against Trump and predicted “there will be years of recriminations.”
Russiagate replaced Recrimination
But instead of analysis, the media and Democrats have emphasized foreign interference. There is an element of self-interest in this narrative. As reported in “Russian Roulette” (p127), when the Clinton team first learned that Wikileaks was going to release damaging Democratic National Party emails in June 2016, they “brought in outside consultants to plot a PR strategy for handling the news of the hack … the story would advance a narrative that benefited the Clinton campaign and the Democrats: The Russians were interfering in the US election, presumably to assist Trump.”
After losing the election, Team Clinton doubled down on this PR strategy. As described in the book Shattered (p. 395) the day after the election campaign managers assembled the communication team “to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up and up …. they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.”
This narrative has been remarkably effective in supplanting critical review of the election.
One Year After the Election
The Center for American Progress (CAP) was founded by John Podesta and is closely aligned with the Democratic Party. In November 2017 they produced an analysis titled “Voter Trends in 2016: A Final Examination“. Interestingly, there is not a single reference to Russia. Key conclusions are that “it is critical for Democrats to attract more support from the white non-college-educated voting bloc” and “Democrats must go beyond the ‘identity politics’ versus ‘economic populism’ debate to create a genuine cross-racial, cross-class coalition …” It suggests that Wall Street has the same interests as Main Street and the working class.
A progressive team produced a very different analysis titled Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis. They did this because “the (Democratic) party’s national leadership has shown scant interest in addressing many of the key factors that led to electoral disaster.” The report analyzes why the party turnout was less than expected and why traditional Democratic Party supporters are declining. It includes recommendations to end the party’s undemocratic practices, expand voting rights and counter voter suppression. The report contains details and specific recommendations lacking in the CAP report. It includes an overall analysis which says “The Democratic Party should disentangle itself – ideologically and financially – from Wall Street, the military-industrial complex and other corporate interests that put profits ahead of public needs.”
Two Years After the Election
In October 2018, the progressive team produced a follow-up report titled “Autopsy: One Year Later“. It says, “The Democratic Party has implemented modest reforms, but corporate power continues to dominate the party.”
In a recent phone interview, the editor of that report, Norman Solomon, said it appears some in the Democratic Party establishment would rather lose the next election to Republicans than give up control of the party.
What really happened in 2016?
Beyond the initial critiques and “Autopsy” research, there has been little discussion, debate or lessons learned about the 2016 election. Politics has been dominated by Russiagate.
Why did so many working class voters switch from Obama to Trump? A major reason is because Hillary Clinton is associated with Wall Street and the economic policies of her husband President Bill Clinton. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), promoted by Bill Clinton, resulted in huge decline in manufacturing jobs in swing states such as Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Of course, this would influence their thinking and votes. Hillary Clinton’s support for the Trans Pacific Partnership was another indication of her policies.
What about the low turnout from the African American community? Again, the lack of enthusiasm is rooted in objective reality. Hillary Clinton is associated with “welfare reform” promoted by her husband. According to this study from the University of Michigan, “As of the beginning of 2011, about 1.46 million U.S. households with about 2.8 million children were surviving on $2 or less in income per person per day in a given month… The prevalence of extreme poverty rose sharply between 1996 and 2011. This growth has been concentrated among those groups that were most affected by the 1996 welfare reform.”
Over the past several decades there has been a huge increase in prison incarceration due to increasingly strict punishments and mandatory prison sentences. Since the poor and working class have been the primary victims of welfare and criminal justice “reforms” initiated or sustained through the Clinton presidency, it’s understandable why they were not keen on Hillary Clinton. The notion that low turnout was due to African Americans being unduly influenced by Russian Facebook posts is seen as “bigoted paternalism” by blogger Teodrose Fikremanian who says, “The corporate recorders at the NY Times would have us believe that the reason African-Americans did not uniformly vote for Hillary Clinton and the Democrats is because they were too dimwitted to think for themselves and were subsequently manipulated by foreign agents. This yellow press drivel is nothing more than propaganda that could have been written by George Wallace.”
How Clinton became the Nominee
Since the 2016 election there has been little public discussion of the process whereby Hillary Clinton became the Democratic Party nominee. It’s apparent she was pre-ordained by the Democratic Party elite. As exposed in the DNC emails, there was bias and violations of the party obligations at the highest levels. On top of that, it should now be clear that the pundits, pollsters and election experts were out of touch, made poor predictions and decisions.
Bernie Sanders would have been a much stronger candidate. He would have won the same party loyalists who voted for Clinton. His message attacking Wall Street would have resonated with significant sections of the working class and poor who were unenthusiastic (to say the least) about Clinton. An indication is that in critical swing states such as Wisconsin and Michigan Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary race.
Clinton had no response for Trump’s attacks on multinational trade agreements and his false promises of serving the working class. Sanders would have had vastly more appeal to working class and minorities. His primary campaign showed his huge appeal to youth and third party voters. In short, it’s likely that Sanders would have trounced Trump. Where is the accountability for how Clinton ended up as the Democratic Party candidate?
The Relevance of 2016 to 2020
The 2016 election is highly relevant today. Already we see the same pattern of establishment bias and “horse race” journalism which focuses on fund-raising, polls and elite-biased “electability” instead of dealing with real issues, who has solutions, who has appeal to which groups.
Mainstream media and pundits are already promoting Joe Biden. Syndicated columnist EJ Dionne, a Democratic establishment favorite, is indicative. In his article “Can Biden be the helmsman who gets us past the storm?” Dionne speaks of the “strength he (Biden) brings” and the “comfort he creates”. In the same vein, Andrew Sullivan pushes Biden in his article “Why Joe Biden Might be the Best to Beat Trump“. Sullivan thinks that Biden has appeal in the working class because he joked about claims he is too ‘hands on’. But while Biden may be tight with AFL-CIO leadership, he is closely associated with highly unpopular neoliberal trade deals which have resulted in manufacturing decline.
The establishment bias for Biden is matched by the bias against Democratic Party candidates who directly challenge Wall Street and US foreign policy. On Wall Street, that would be Bernie Sanders. On foreign policy, that is Tulsi Gabbard. With a military background Tulsi Gabbard has broad appeal, an inclusive message and a uniquely sharp critique of US “regime change” foreign policy. She calls out media pundits like Fareed Zakaria for goading Trump to invade Venezuela. In contrast with Rachel Maddow taunting John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to be MORE aggressive, Tulsi Gabbard has been denouncing Trump’s collusion with Saudi Arabia and Israel’s Netanyahu, saying it’s not in US interests. Gabbard’s anti-interventionist anti-occupation perspective has significant support from US troops. A recent poll indicates that military families want complete withdrawal from Afghanistan and Syria. It seems conservatives have become more anti-war than liberals.
This points to another important yet under-discussed lesson from 2016: a factor in Trump’s victory was that he campaigned as an anti-war candidate against the hawkish Hillary Clinton. As pointed out here, “Donald Trump won more votes from communities with high military casualties than from similar communities which suffered fewer casualties.”
Instead of pointing out that Trump has betrayed his anti-war campaign promises, corporate media (and some Democratic Party outlets) seem to be undermining the candidate with the strongest anti-war message. An article at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) says, “Corporate media target Gabbard for her Anti-Interventionism, a word they can barely pronounce.”
Russiagate has distracted most Democrats from analyzing how they lost in 2016. It has given them the dubious belief that it was because of foreign interference. They have failed to analyze or take stock of the consequences of DNC bias, the preference for Wall Street over working class concerns, and the failure to challenge the military industrial complex and foreign policy based on ‘regime change’ interventions.
There needs to be more analysis and lessons learned from the 2016 election to avoid a repeat of that disaster. As indicated in the Autopsy, there needs to be a transparent and fair campaign for nominee based on more than establishment and Wall Street favoritism. There also needs to be consideration of which candidates reach beyond the partisan divide and can energize and advance the interests of the majority of Americans rather than the elite. The most crucial issues and especially US military and foreign policy need to be seriously debated.
Blaming an outside power is a good way to prevent self analysis and positive change. It’s gone on far too long.
Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist who grew up in Canada but currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. He can be reached at rsterling1@gmail.com.
Sniper-killing journalist game pulled after outcry over ‘Breaking News’ mission
RT | May 19, 2019
A popular sniper-mission video game encouraging players to assassinate a journalist has been pulled by its developer after media reports exposed the controversial shooting scene.
‘Sniper 3D Assassin’ was a free game on Apple devices as well as gaming platform Steam, and was available on Amazon, Google and Microsoft app stores.
New York Times journalist Jamal Jordan tweeted about the journalist killing mission after his nephew showed him the game.
The ‘Breaking News’ mission tells players to make a journalist “famous in a different way,” by shooting them after they receive documents from a police officer. When the mission ends, the screen reads, “That’s a cover story.”
Revelations about the journalist murder mission game were received with horror on Twitter, especially by media workers.
Developers from TFG Co. pulled the game after it was contacted by the HuffPost, insisting it had been “fictional” and intended for “mature audiences.”
“At TFG, we work to create games that bring fun and entertainment to users all around the world,” CTO Mac-Vicar said. “As such, we take feedback from our players very seriously. After listening to our community today, we have decided to remove the mission ‘Breaking News’ from the game.”
The game was released in 2014 and had 10 million downloads in its first month. At one stage in 2016 it was the most downloaded game on Apple’s App Store.
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Does Kevin Barrett Seek to “Absolve Islam of a Terrible Crime”?
The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – Last part of the series titled “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | August 28, 2016
Amidst his litany of condemnations, Jonathan Kay reserves some of his most vicious and vitriolic attacks for Kevin Barrett. For instance Kay harshly criticizes Dr. Barrett’s published E-Mail exchange in 2008 with Prof. Chomsky. In that exchange Barrett castigates Chomsky for not going to the roots of the event that “doubled the military budget overnight, stripped Americans of their liberties and destroyed their Constitution.” The original misrepresentations of 9/11, argues Barrett, led to further “false flag attacks to trigger wars, authoritarianism and genocide.”
In Among The Truthers Kay tries to defend Chomsky against Barrett’s alleged “personal obsession” with “vilifying” the MIT academic. Kay objects particularly to Barrett’s “final salvo” in the published exchange where the Wisconsin public intellectual accuses Prof. Chomsky of having “done more to keep the 9/11 blood libel alive, and cause the murder of more than a million Muslims than any other single person.” … continue
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