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Senior OPCW official ordered deletion of ‘all traces’ of dissenting report on ‘Douma chemical attack’ – WikiLeaks’ new leak

RT | December 27, 2019

The leadership of the chemical weapons watchdog took efforts to remove the paper trail of a dissenting report from Douma, Syria which pointed to a possible false flag operation there, leaked documents indicate.

In an internal email published by the transparency website WikiLeaks on Friday, a senior official from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) ordered that the document be removed from the organization’s Documents Registry Archive and to “remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever.”

The document in question is a technical assessment written by inspector Ian Henderson after a fact-finding mission to Douma, a suburb of Damascus, in the wake of an alleged chlorine gas attack. Western politicians and media said at the time that the government forces had dropped two gas cylinders as part of an offensive against jihadist forces, killing scores of civilians.

The OPCW inspector said evidence on the ground contradicted the airdropping scenario and that the cylinders could have been placed by hand. Considering that the area was under the control of anti-government forces, the memo lends credence to the theory that the jihadists had staged the scene to prompt Western nations to attack their opponents.

The final report of the watchdog all but confirmed that Damascus was behind the incident, but in the past months an increasing number of leaked documents and whistleblower testimonies have emerged, pointing to a possible fabrication. The OPCW leadership stands accused of withholding opinions contravening the West-favored narrative and using misleading language to report what the inspectors found on the ground.

The alleged email was written by Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW. Its authenticity is yet to be confirmed, but the organization never said any of the previously leaked documents were not real.

Another document published on Friday outlines a meeting with several toxicology experts and their opinions on whether symptoms shown and reported in alleged victims of the attack were consistent with a chlorine gas poisoning. “The experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure,” the document said, adding that the chief expert suggested that the event could have been “a propaganda exercise.”

The Douma incident in April 2018 spurred Western governments into action, with the US, the UK and France delivering a barrage of missiles at what was dubbed chemical weapons sites in Syria days after. This didn’t prevent the government from seizing control over the neighborhood, but put the reputations of the three governments at stake. The OPCW report gave credence to the Western show of force.

December 27, 2019 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | 1 Comment

Russia says extension of UN arms embargo on Iran out of question

Press TV – December 27, 2019

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has ruled out the possibility of renewing a UN arms embargo against Iran which is to expire in October 2020 in line with the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers.

Speaking to the Russian news agency Interfax, Ryabkov said restrictions on Iran’s import and export of arms will expire next year as per the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and it is not possible to renew them.

The US officials’ calls for extension of the embargo are considered as a foreign policy move that has no basis and principle, Ryabkov noted, highlighting that the removal of the embargo is based on the JCPOA, signed by several parties including the US and endorsed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231.

The Russian official said Moscow is not going to bow to the US demands whenever they want. “They may come up with something else next time.”

Under the nuclear deal, from which the US unilaterally withdrew last year, a UN ban on weapons sales to Tehran will end in October 2020.

Last month, President Hassan Rouhani said Iran intends to stay in the nuclear deal despite the US violations, arguing that the accord will be put to good use next year when a long-running arms embargo against Tehran comes to an end.

“By continuing the JCPOA, we will fulfill a major objective in terms of politics, security and defense,” he said.

Noting that for years Iran has been banned by the United Nations from buying and selling any kinds of weapons, Rouhani said the arms embargo will end next year according to the deal and the UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorses it.

“This is one of the important effects of this deal. Otherwise, we could leave the deal today but the kind of benefit we stand to reap next year will no longer exist,” he said.

As the expiration date gets closer, the White House is getting more nervous and American authorities are doing their utmost to make the restrictions permanent.

Last October, US special envoy to Iran Brian Hook told a congressional hearing on US-Iran policy that Washington wanted the UN Security Council to renew the Iranian arms embargo.

One of the issues used by the United States to withdraw from the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 countries was the time span of the UN arms embargo on Iran. The measure covers all weapons sales and “related material” to Iran.

Earlier in August, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed concern that the resolution restricting weapons sales to Iran is due to end in October 2020.

Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Majid Takht Ravanchi responded to Pompeo’s comments and slammed the United States for causing insecurity and instability with its military presence and “unbridled flow of American weaponry into this region, which has turned it into a powder keg.”

December 27, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | 1 Comment

Washington’s Unmasked Imperialism Towards Europe and Russia

Strategic Culture Foundation | December 27, 2019

Washington must think the rest of the world is as stupid as many of its own politicians are. Its passing into law – signed by President Trump this week – of sanctions to halt the Nord Stream-2 and Turk Stream gas supply projects is a naked imperialist move to bludgeon the European energy market for its own economic advantage.

US sanctions are planned to hit European companies involved with Russia’s Gazprom in the construction of the 1,225-kilometer pipeline under the Baltic Sea which will deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany and elsewhere across the European Union. The €9.5 billion ($11bn) project is 80 per cent complete and is due to be finished early next year.

It is quite clear – because US politicians have openly acknowledged it – that Washington’s aim is to oust Russia as the main natural gas exporter to the giant EU market, and to replace with more expensive American-produced gas.

What’s hilarious is the way American politicians, diplomats and news media are portraying this US assault on market principles and the sovereignty of nations as an act of chivalry.

Washington claims that the sanctions are “pro-European” because they are “saving Europe from dependency on Russia for its energy”. The American hypocrisy crescendoes with the further claim that by stopping Russia earning lucrative export revenues, then Moscow will be constrained from “interfering” in European nations. As if Washington’s own actions are not interference on a massive scale.

European politicians and businesses are not buying this American claptrap. The vast overstepping by Washington into European affairs has prompted EU governments to question the nature of the trans-Atlantic relation. About time too. Thus, Washington’s hubris and bullying are undermining its objective of dominating Europe for its own selfish interests.

Russia, Germany and others have defiantly told Washington its weaponizing of economic sanctions will not halt the Nord Stream nor the Turk Stream projects.

As German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said earlier this month, “it is unacceptable” for the US to brazenly interfere in European and Russian energy trade. The American pretext of supposedly “protecting” the national security of its purported European allies is frankly laughable.

The American agenda is a blatantly imperialistic reordering of the energy market to benefit US economic interests. To pull off this audacious scam, Washington, by necessity, has to demonize and isolate Russia, while also trampling roughshod over its European allies. Europe has partly aided this American stitch-up of its own interests because it has foolishly indulged in the US antagonism towards Russia with sanctions due to the Ukraine conflict, Crimea and other anti-Russia smears.

The legislation being whistled through the American Congress by both Republicans and Democrats (collectively dubbed the War Party) is recklessly fueling tensions between the US and Russia. In trying to gain economic advantages over Europe’s energy, Washington is wantonly ramping up animus towards Moscow.

Apart from the sanctions against Russian and European companies partnering on Nord Stream, the US Congress passed separate legislation which seeks to boost American oil and gas production in the East Mediterranean.

A Radio Free Europe report this week was headlined: ‘Congress Passes More Legislation Aimed At Curbing Russia’s Energy Grip On Europe’.

The headline should more accurately have been worded: ‘Congress Passes More Legislation Aimed At Bolstering America’s Energy Grip On Europe’.

The RFE report states: “The bipartisan Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act, which was approved on December 19, is the latest piece of US legislation passed this year that aims to diversify  Europe’s energy sources away from Kremlin-controlled companies.”

Again, the American double-think is jaw-dropping. Such is the arrogance of a flailing, delusional empire when it can publicly justify with a straight face an energy-market-grab with a veneer of virtue.

US oil and gas giants are moving into the East Mediterranean. Exxon Mobil announced the discovery of a major natural gas field off Cyprus in February this year. American firms are also partnering with Israeli companies to begin gas production in the Leviathan Field located off the coast at Haifa.

There is no doubt that the US sanctions targeting Nord Stream and Turk Stream are part of a bigger concerted pincer movement by Washington to corner the EU energy market of 500 million consumers.

Colin Cavell, a US professor of political science, commented to Strategic Culture Foundation: “What should be hammered down in this continuing debate over which country will be able to deliver oil and natural gas to Europe is the fact that neither the United States nor, and especially, the Republican Party, stand for so-called free trade.”

Free-trade capitalism is supposed to be an ideological pillar of the US. In this ideology, governments should not interfere with market supply and demand. But paradoxically as far as US-imposed sanctions on Russian-European energy companies are concerned the American Congress is “quintessentially anti-free market”, notes Cavell.

In its shameless profiteering, Washington is acting aggressively towards Russia and Europe while flouting its own supposed economic principles and relying on brute force to win its arguments. America’s imperialist agenda towards Europe and Russia is how world wars are instigated.

December 27, 2019 Posted by | Economics | , | 1 Comment

‘Blinding the truth’: Israeli snipers target Gaza protesters in the eyes

By Tareq Hajjaj and Pam Bailey | The New Arab | December 20, 2019

Media coverage and social media posts went wild when Palestinian photojournalist Muath Amarneh was blinded in his left eye after he was hit by a rubber bullet while covering a protest in the West Bank.

However, Amarneh was far from unique; Israeli snipers targeting participants in Gaza’s weekly Great Return March protests have aimed for the legs – and eyes. To date, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reports that 50 protesters have been shot in the eye since the demonstrations began March 30, 2018 – leaving them permanently blind.

“Some of these protesters and journalists were hit in the eye with teargas canisters, but most were targeted directly with what is commonly called a ‘rubber bullet,’ giving the impression they are somehow benign,” says Ashraf Alqedra, MD, a treating physician at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital and spokesperson for the Ministry of Health.

“But there is still steel at the core, and although these bullets don’t usually kill, they do grave damage. It is impossible to save an eye hit directly by a rubber-coated steel bullet.”

However, he adds, due to the Israeli blockade, there are no artificial, glass eyes in Gaza – only a cosmetic improvement, but one that can be a significant psychological aid. These are available only by travelling out of Gaza for treatment and permits for such journeys are often not granted.

According to data released by the World Health Organization, Gaza residents submitted 25,897 applications to travel via Erez Crossing to receive medical treatment in the West Bank or Israel; an average of 2,158 were submitted each month. However, the Israeli government only approved 61 percent.

Mai Abu Rwedah: the most recent victim

Mai Abu Rwedah, 20, grew up in north Gaza’s al-Bureij Refugee Camp in a family of nine children supported by a father who works as a janitor for a UN school. She just graduated from university, hoping to start her professional life as a medical secretary and contribute her income.

But that dream was dealt a severe blow December 6, when she became the most recent Gazan to lose an eye to an Israeli bullet.

Abu Rwedah believes in using peaceful, but active, resistance to reclaim Palestinians’ right to return to their ancestral homeland. So, she has joined participants in the Great Return March protest since its launch on March 30, 2018.

On September 21 of that year, she was shot by a rubber-coated bullet in one of her legs, but that didn’t stop her from participating; she kept on going.

Doctors had to extract Mai’s right eye and the bullet damaged her jaw as well

Earlier this month, stood with a few friends about 100 metres from the fence that marks the border between Gaza and Israel. She glimpsed an Israeli soldier waving and pointing his finger to his eye.

“He was trying to intimidate me, but I was not afraid because I was doing nothing wrong. I wasn’t even throwing stones,” Abu Rwedeh recalls.

The soldiers fired tear gas then, and Mai and her friends ran away, but still were in sight of the young man who had threatened her.

“He was watching me; wherever I moved he kept watching. Then, suddenly, he raised his gun and pointed it at me. I was about to flee but he was too fast. He shot me in my eye.”

The bullet damaged her jaw as well. Doctors had to extract her right eye, since it was destroyed, Her determination, however, is intact. Abu Rwedeh continues to protest.

The youngest victim

Mohammed Al-Najar, 12, is the second-oldest son among four children, supported by a father who works in a wedding hall in Khan Younis.

In January, during the mid-year vacation from school, Mohammed begged his parents to allow him to watch the Friday protest with his cousins and other relatives, thinking it would give him an exciting story to share with classmates.

He was given permission to ride one of the government buses that collected people from the various neighbourhoods, taking them to the protest sites. When he disembarked, teargas bombs were flying, and he shouted to warn those around him. Then next one hit him directly in his right eye.

When Mohammad learned later that his eye could not be saved, he locked himself in his room and stopped going to school. When he did go back, he struggled.

“At first his marks at school dropped and he isolated himself. He tried to hide his missing eye,” says his mother, Um Edress.

She took to him an organisation that provided psychotherapy, but he refused to speak. Today, he is socialising, but goes quiet when asked about his injury.

The journalist

According to Dr Alqedra, most people with eye injuries from the Great Return March are journalists or photographers.

One of them is Sami Musran 35, a photographer who works for Al-Aqsa TV. On July 19, he was shot several times – first in his hand, the next two times in his shoulders and the fourth time in the chest. (Fortunately, he was wearing a bulletproof vest, so it did not harm him.) The last time cost him his left eye.

Sami says he had received several calls from Israeli officers warning him not to take photos at the Great Return March. His mother also received calls, saying her son might be killed.

“Forty times, my Facebook account was hacked or deleted for me, and I received death threats as well,” he says. “But I decided to keep on with my work to reveal the Israeli crimes against unarmed Palestinians who participate in the march.”

The night before Musran was shot, his wife tried to insist he stay home, but he refused.

“Minutes before I was hit, my mother called me twice, saying she was very worried about me. But I said that nothing happens that isn’t God’s plan,” he recalls.

He was about 250 metres away from of the Israeli fence when two women and a child were shot. Musran was taking photos of them and went in close. That’s when a rubber-coated bullet hit his eye and he lost consciousness. Two days later, he woke up in the intensive care unit to find out he had a skull fracture and an injured eye. The bullet had damaged the iris, retina and cornea and his vision was gone.

Today, it is hard for him to continue with his job; his depth perception is off, he gets headaches and the sight in his remaining eye “fades” at night. But he will keep trying.

“Israel wants to blind the eyes of the truth by sending messages to photographers saying we will hit your eyes to make you stop taking photos,” he says. “But we do not surrender.”

December 26, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | 2 Comments

Japan to send helicopter-carrying destroyer & spy planes to ensure ‘safe passage’ of oil from increasingly crowded Middle East

RT | December 27, 2019

Japan’s cabinet has approved a plan to send its warship and surveillance planes to the Middle East, framing the controversial mission as “study and research activities” totally separate from the US initiative to contain Iran.

Tokyo is expected to send a destroyer with 200 crew and carrying up to two patrol helicopters alongside two P-3C anti-submarine patrol airplanes to the Gulf of Oman sometime in February, for a year-long mission.

The deployment is styled as a “study and research” mission to ensure “safe passage” for Japanese vessels through the region from which Tokyo receives some 90% of its oil imports. Yet in case of “unexpected developments,” local media report, a special order might be issued by the Japanese defence minister to allow the ‘Self-Defense Force’ to use weapons.

The possibility of Japanese deployment to the region was first voiced soon after a Japanese oil tanker came under a totally not suspicious attack back in June that by pure coincidence occurred just as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was meeting with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

Washington blamed Tehran for that and other attacks, pitching the idea of a maritime ‘policing’ mission but finding little enthusiasm among its allies. Besides Bahrain and the UAE, only the UK agreed to send a couple of destroyers after an embarrassing incident when it tried to seize an Iranian tanker under a bogus pretext only to get its own vessel impounded in a tit-for-tat response. Saudi Arabia joined the naval alliance after a drone attack – that was also pinned on Iran – targeted a major oil facility in the country. In addition, Australia promised to join sometime next year and the US says it’s only a “matter of time” until Qatar and Kuwait also join.

France in the meantime is spearheading a European-led mission independent of the US-led maritime initiative, as the US failed to convince European allies that its gunboat diplomacy was indeed only aimed at ‘protecting’ crucial waterways rather than enforcing Washington’s unilateral sanctions on Iran.

December 26, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 2 Comments

Maccabee Task Force covertly funded 3,200 pro-Israel events on US campuses

By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | December 26, 2019

David Brog, executive director of the Maccabee Task Force, emailed supporters on December 26th: “In the spirit of Hanukkah, donate to help us create modern day Maccabees.” (Maccabees are sometimes seen as violent extremists; see below).

The Maccabee Task Force funds free, propaganda trips for campus leaders to Israel, while obscuring its role and objective in the trips.

In his email solicitation for donations, Brog acknowledged his organization’s covert tactics:

“Many groups like to talk about what they’re doing on campus. We rarely do. You will never see our name on the events we sponsor. You will never see our logo on the buses we send to Israel.”

His email continued:

“But if we hope to continue to raise the funds we need to support these extensive efforts, then we do need to share ‘what we’re doing about it’ on occasion.

“By the time this academic year is over, we will have funded over 3,200 pro-Israel events on 112 campuses across the country and around the world.  And we will have brought over 2,300 leaders from these campuses on transformative trips to Israel.

“And these efforts are working!  Last year, BDS passed on only one of the 80 campuses on which we were active.  And we intentionally go to the campuses with the most active anti-Israel efforts.

“These efforts are extremely effective — and extremely expensive.  If we’re going to be able to keep growing at this pace, we need your help.  Together, we can ensure that we bring more strategies and support to even more pro-Israel students next year.”

Brog, who is Jewish, is also the founding executive director of “Christians United for Israel (CUFI).” In 2007, the Forward listed Brog in its “Forward 50” most influential Jews in America.

According to Charisma News, “Brog is the powerhouse behind the Christian organization, yet he’s also a conservative (non-Messianic) Jew.” The article reports: “Brog, who was chief of staff to liberal Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania for seven years, is said to run CUFI like a political campaign. He has talking points, stays focused and rallies his constituency.”

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak is Brog’s cousin.

The Maccabee Task Force is funded by American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who once said he regretted serving in the US Army instead of the Israeli military. Adelson and others are trying to counter the growing support for Palestinian human rights in the U.S.

The  2015 “Campus Maccabees Summit,” co-hosted by Adelson and Haim Saban, an Israeli-American billionaire who funds Democrats, brought together 50 Jewish organizations from both the left and the right.

The Forward reports: “Adelson and his fellow conference organizers limited participation in the event to donors willing to pledge at least $1 million over the next two years.”

Maccabees, past & present

The Maccabee revolt is at the core of the Hanukkah story. However, some writers dispute the current interpretation. Gary Rosenblatt, editor and publisher of New York Jewish week, writes:

“In our warm and fuzzy packaging of Chanukah in the 21st century, a minor holiday on the Jewish calendar has taken on added significance as our very own antidote to the pervasiveness of Christmas in America. We prefer to emphasize the miracle of the small cruse of oil in the Temple that miraculously lasted eight days, a symbol of hope, faith and the triumph of the few over the mighty.

“But a reading of The Book of Maccabees reveals a bloody struggle, that of a small band of zealots, led by Matathias and his Maccabee sons, who decried the Hellenistic culture of the conquering Greeks and the prohibitions against Jewish religious practice. They waged war against the Greeks, and, some say, against their wayward brethren as well. The Maccabees, for instance, forced uncircumcised Jews to have a brit milah.”

Rosenblatt states: “I have no doubt that if the Maccabees, heroes of the Chanukah story, were around today, they would be leading the West Bank settlers’ current protests, decrying the Jerusalem government for abandoning its Zionist and religious imperative to claim.”

Brog has a long history of advocating for Israel and working to suppress efforts around the U.S. on behalf of Palestinian rights.

On March 28, 2017, Brog addressed the Nevada State legislature in support of an anti-BDS bill, SB.26. BDS, is an international, nonviolent boycott of Israel over its systemic human rights violations. It is based on the principle that “Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity.”

December 26, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 1 Comment

Colombia: Farmers Leader Shot to Death in Front of His Family

Social leader Reinaldo Carrillo in Pitalito, Department of Huila, Colombia. 2019. | Photo: Twitter / @ENGmateocastroe
teleSUR | December 26, 2019

The National Association of Farmer Users (ANUC) activist Reinaldo Carrillo was killed at dawn on Wednesday by hitmen who entered his house and shot him in front of his family in Pitalito town, Department of Huila, Colombia.

“We reject the murder of Reinaldo Carrillo. He was a member of a group of people which expected the government to grant them the ownership title of a vacant land called La Conaca,” said the ANUC, an organization legally recognized as “victim of the armed conflict” and “subject of reparation.”

“Reinaldo is the fifth ANUC leader killed in Huila over the last year… we demand that the authorities’ actions bring about results so that these cases are not added to the long list of impunities.”

A few minutes after the event, local Caracol Radio reported that the attack was perpetrated by three subjects aboard a motorcycle.

Although the 34-year-old social leader was immediately taken to the Pitalito hospital, he died due to the seriousness of his injuries.

“Infinite sadness. My solidarity with Reinaldo’s family, friends, and colleagues. Land ownership remains at the center of the armed conflict,” environmental activist Tatiana Roa said and added that the ‘Lords of The Land” continue to dispose of the life of Colombian farmers at will.

“Lucy Villareal, the mother of two girls, belonged to that extraordinary group of women who work and also take care of their children with love so that we can have a better country. Her cause does not die with her vile murder. We need a government capable of defending the life of every Colombian.”

Less than 24 hours before, the folk artist and social activist Lucy Villareal was also killed after participating in a workshop with children in the department of Nariño.

Between 2018 and 2019, the number of human rights defenders and social leaders killed increased by 13 percent in Colombia, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).​​​​​​​

December 26, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , | 1 Comment

Impeachment Is a Distraction: Heavily Scripted Vote Demonstrates That Democracy Really Is Dead

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 26, 2019

Watching the impeachment “vote” was hard work. With only a few exceptions, each Congressman rose for roughly 90 seconds and provided a prearranged, almost completely scripted-along-party-lines explanation of how he or she was casting one’s ballot. After four grueling hours of hearing self-serving lies like “no one is above the law,” I was hoping that one of them would either fall off the podium and fracture a leg or actually go mad and break out into a song and dance routine. The entire performance was the strongest possible argument for term limits that is possible to make.

However, one of the more truly interesting aspects of the proceedings was the Democratic Party view of Russia, which was cited constantly. According to most of the Democrats, Russian meddling was the decisive element in getting Donald Trump elected, and many of them also believe that there was collusion between the GOP candidate and President Vladimir Putin. It is a viewpoint that is totally at odds with the facts, even if one actually believes that there was a meeting in the Kremlin at which a malevolent Putin instructed his myrmidons to “get Hillary.” Slippery Adam Schiff, he of the intelligence committee, carefully referred to Russia as an adversary but many other Democrats kept using the word “enemy.”

Regarding Ukraine, it was also interesting to note bipartisan support for supplying lethal weapons to the puppet regime in Kiev so they can kill Russian soldiers. No one, as far as I could discern, made the point that the United States had no real interest in regime change in Ukraine in the first place as it was a dangerous move that was responsive to no actual American interest. After that, funding and arming the locals to confront Moscow also would not seem to be in the US interest. That so many congress critters seem to be hard wired in their Russo-phobia would seem to suggest that they are willfully ignorant on the subject and inclined to take the path of least resistance, which is to blame the Kremlin rather than the horrific US policy that preceded and brought about Moscow’s intervention.

One also has to conclude that while the Republicans continue to mostly quietly support an aggressive foreign policy, the real war party in Congress is now the Democrats. They have incorporated Russia as the enemy so completely into their sense of identity that it has become the fallback position whenever they feel compelled to say something to distance themselves from the GOP. For them Russia and Vladimir Putin are together the real enemy that is out to destroy what remains of American democracy. To put it bluntly, such an argument is ridiculous, but it is clearly believed by many in the House of Representatives and Senate.

While all of that was going on in high definition, there were other things taking place. A week before the “trial” in the House of Representatives, the White House ordered a new round of sanctions directed against Iran. The sanctions in part target the country’s largest private airline Mahan Air, which was accused of “weapons of mass destruction proliferation” and transportation of lethal aid to Yemen. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin issued a statement claiming that “The Iranian regime uses its aviation and shipping industries to supply its regional terrorist and militant groups with weapons, directly contributing to the devastating humanitarian crises in Syria and Yemen.”

Mahan Air has been targeted by the Treasury Department since 2011, when it was claimed that the planes were being used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) to move troops and military hardware around the Middle East region. The airline has 55 planes and flies to 40 international and domestic destinations.

The airline is now sanctioned under the Executive Order 13382 as a “proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters.” Apart from the appalling English usage, one might well question the designation itself as Iran is not the party responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. That honor goes to America’s good friend Saudi Arabia. And blaming the situation in Syria on Iran is also a bit of a misdirection as it is the United States that has prolonged the carnage in that country. And what weapons of mass destruction are involved in both cases is by no means clear. Iran has no nukes and there have been no credible reports of the use of chemical or biological weapons in Yemen, while the stories about Syrian government employment of such weapons have turned out to be fabrications.

The Treasury Department sanctions targeted three general ticket sales agents of Mahan Air, as well as dozens of aircraft belonging to or operated by it. The new sanctions might be viewed as the latest step in the US government campaign to apply “maximum pressure” against Iran. The move will mean that other countries in Europe and the Middle East will stop permitting Mahan Air flights from landing or otherwise using their facilities. The Treasury is clearly willing to use what are referred to as “secondary sanctions” on other countries if the ban on Mahan Air is not supported. It is economic warfare pure and simple and the intent might well be to shut down the airline.

The timing and targeting of the White House move suggest that pressure is being directed against Iran’s transportation links with the rest of the world, thereby isolating it and bringing it that much closer to economic collapse. How Iran will react to the new sanctions is not known, but if it is pushed hard enough it might choose to strike back.

There is also some concern over a bill before Congress that was originally introduced three years ago but which now appears to have sufficient support to pass into law. It would authorize additional sanctions by the US Treasury Department directed against “the Syrian regime, Russia and Iran for past and ongoing war crimes” that it has been claimed took place during the Syrian war. As many of the alleged atrocities in the Syrian war have been exposed as fabrications by groups like the White Helmets, it is by no means clear how Washington will verify its list of “war crimes.” At least one report suggests that the White House now supports the bill and is likely to enforce any sanctions that are put in place.

And, of course, it just might be Israel that will pull the trigger and start a war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, struggling for his political survival, continuously claims that Iran is planning to attack, requiring his continued strong leadership. Last month, Israel carried out a “very intense” attack on Iranian and Syrian targets in Syria, killing 23 soldiers and civilians. Earlier, the Israeli Air Force claimed that it had destroyed an Iranian weapons depot in Iraq and also used drones to hit alleged Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Some believe that the Israeli actions are intended to provoke an Iranian response that will bring the US into the fight.

So, Congress continues to whine pointlessly about Russiagate while the pot is boiling over in the Middle East. It will be interesting to see if it will be possible to make it through the year without something very unpleasant happening.

December 26, 2019 Posted by | Russophobia, Wars for Israel | , , | 2 Comments

Nobody Is Touching US-Occupied Syrian Oil With a 6 Foot Pole — Saudi Aramco Denies Sending Experts

By Marko Marjanović | Checkpoint Asia | December 26, 2019

Claims emerged last week that Saudi Aramco was looking to get US-occupied oil fields in eastern Syria back to capacity:

 

  

 

 

 

December 26, 2019 Posted by | Deception | , | 2 Comments

German politician: “Ami go home!”

By Alexandra Kamyshanova | December 26, 2019

In Germany, discontent is growing over unequal relations with the United States Oskar Lafontaine is a German politician, candidate for Chancellor in the German federal election of 1990, Chairman of the Social Democratic Party from 1995 to 1999, Minister of Finance from 1998 to 1999, leader of The Left in Saarland since 2010.

The United States of America is waging bloody economic wars against the entire world, and now against us Germans. The German government is talking interference with our sovereignty. What a fallacy! We have never been a sovereign state. After the end of the World War II, it is the Americans who have been handling issues of war and peace in Germany.

In 1963, Charles de Gaulle said: “Having allies… is a matter of course for us in the historical era in which we find ourselves. But to have your own free choice… is also a categorical imperative, because alliances have no absolute virtue, no matter what feelings they are based on. And if you give up control over yourself, you run the risk of never regaining it.”

Later, Francois Mitterrand would add: “You can’t hand the solution over to others when life or death is at stake.”

American military bases in Germany imperil us instead of protecting. The United States is pushing us to a war with its aggressive policy of encircling Russia and China, with allocating huge amounts of $738 billion for military purposes, by means of withdrawing from the INF Treaty and placing short-range missiles next to the Russian borders. It is in our interest to liberate the German soil from US military bases.

“Ami go home!” the students chanted in 1968, when the United States killed millions of people in Vietnam, using its military bases in Germany. “Ami go home!” the Germans urged when the United States, under the guise of lying about Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, unleashed the war in Iraq using its military facilities in Germany – a war that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. “Ami go home!” – this appeal should become the motto of German politics today, when the greatest military power in the world is obviously violating international law and terrorizing all of the world.

This has been taken from Oscar Lafontaine’s Facebook and distributed by the German Nachdenk Seiten run by another “heavyweight” of German politics – Albrecht Müller, a long-term ally of German Chancellor Willy Brandt, Bundestag member from 1987 to 1994.

“People like Oscar Lafontaine,” Albrecht Müller writes in his commentary, “able to get across their ideas, are a must-have in politics. The demand [on the US to leave Germany] is by no means radical. It’s appropriate. Many Germans believe so, but not those who shape today’s politics in Berlin. The German establishment and representatives of the major news outlets are either associated with the United States and dependent on them, or serve the interests of the military establishment. There are also people who simply lack courage and consider the ‘Ami go home’ demand unduly radical. What else should happen? Sanctions have been imposed against us Germans. The weaponization process is at our expense. We are involved in maneuvers next to the Russian borders. Convoys with military equipment block our railways. What is finally going to make the cup run over.”

December 26, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | | 2 Comments

US uses ISIS as ‘scarecrow’ to intimidate others, while secretly backing them, Syrian FM tells RT

RT | December 25, 2019

Despite claiming to fight jihadists in Syria, the Americans are gladly using them to further anti-Damascus policies and occasionally giving them a helping hand, the Syrian foreign minister told RT.

“The Americans are using ISIS as a scarecrow,” Minister Walid Muallem said in an interview with RT Arabic. “At the same time they are feeding ISIS, [they] encourage them, protect ISIS leaders and help them move from one area to another.”

“The US policy is aimed at investing into terrorism.”

The Syrian government has long accused the US of fueling groups of foreign Islamist fighters, even those bragging of committing atrocities in Syria, as long as they were willing to fight against the forces loyal to Damascus. Washington claimed its illegal deployment of troops in Syria was aimed at destroying IS, but even after the group was declared defeated the American boots remain on the ground.

The latest public justification coming from the US is that oil in northeastern Syria needs to be “secured” from the defeated jihadists. In practice, the US denies the internationally recognized government of Syria of using the country’s national resources.

Muallem also said the US continues its attempts to topple the government he serves with various measures, including by targeting Damascus with economic sanctions. A new round of those is expected after the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) earlier this month.

Part of the NDAA orders punishment of companies who would help the Syrian government in rebuilding infrastructure and the energy sector – which presumably should not be allowed to happen while President Bashar Assad remains in power.

“All nations that were victimized by this system need to join forces and resist those sanctions,” the Syrian official said.

December 25, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , | 5 Comments

India’s three-step communal game plan

Through the NRC-NPR process, the Modi government aims to create a category of second-class citizens

By Prakash Karat | The Hindu | December 22, 2019

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019, and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) are interconnected and twin measures. The Home Minister, Amit Shah, had repeatedly made this clear both in Parliament and outside. First, the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill would be adopted by Parliament following which the NRC would be taken up.

In the wake of widespread protests against the CAA, the Central Government is trying to obfuscate the issue of implementing the NRC. It is taking advantage of the lack of clarity and the inadequate information available on how the NRC is going to be implemented in the whole country. The Minister of State for Home Affairs, G. Kishan Reddy, has said: “A countrywide NRC had not been notified so far and no one should fear.” The Government has put out advertisements in Hindi and Urdu newspapers stating that “The NRC has not been announced yet and if it is done so in future, then rules and regulations should be such that no Indian citizen is troubled.”

The NRC-NPR link

These and other such pronouncements are an exercise in disinformation. A crucial fact is that the NRC process begins with the compilation of the National Population Register (NPR). This is the first stage of the NRC. The notification for preparing and updating the NPR was issued by the Registrar General of Citizen Registration, on July 31, 2019. For this, house to house enumeration will be conducted throughout the country (except in Assam) for “collection of information relating to all persons who are usually residing within the jurisdiction of the Local Registrar”. This enumeration will be undertaken between the first day of April 2020 and September 30, 2020.

The compilation of the NPR is a preliminary step towards preparing the NRC. On the basis of the NPR, the local register of Indian citizens will be finalised after due verification. This is the procedure set out under the “Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules 2003”.

So, from April 1, 2020 onwards, the National Register of Citizens process will begin with house to house enumeration for the National Population Register.

It is important to note that, as per these Rules, during the verification process, particulars of such individuals whose citizenship is deemed to be “doubtful” shall be entered by the local Registrar with appropriate remarks in the Population Register for further enquiry; and in case of “doubtful” citizenship, the individual or the family shall be informed in a specified proforma immediately after the verification process is over.

Another clause of these Rules, 4(5)(a) states that: “Every person or family specified in sub-rule (4), shall be given an opportunity of being heard by the Sub-district or Taluk Registrar of Citizen Registration, before a final decision is taken to include or to exclude their particulars in the National Register of Indian Citizens” [emphasis added].

Use of biometric data

Fifteen questions will be asked in the survey, including questions on the place of birth, the date of birth, and the name of the father and mother. The new addition will be eliciting the details of Aadhaar, which will then be crosschecked with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) for verification of biometrics of the individual. So, the NPR compilation will also have the biometric data of those listed, which raises troubling questions.

It is at the verification stage that communal profiling will take place in line with what the Home Minister had declared — the purpose of the NRC is to eliminate “infiltrators” as against the Hindu refugees who will become eligible for citizenship under the CAA. Those summoned as “doubtful citizens” will have to go through the tortuous process of submitting proof of their citizenship.

The NRC does not require any new law or amendment. It is already part of the Citizenship Act of 1955 through an amendment made during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 2003. For the first time, the concept of a National Register of Citizens was introduced by making it compulsory to register every citizen of India and to issue a national identity card. Based on this, the rules for registration for citizenship were issued subsequently in which provision was made for a National Population Register.

Further, there is confusion created by the fact that the updation of the NPR is being done along with the Census enumeration for 2021. It is the Census authorities who undertake both these processes, but they are two separate things. The NPR is directly linked to the NRC.

That the game plan of the BJP is to create a communal division in States such as West Bengal is absolutely clear. On the one hand, it claims that the NRC process will eliminate all those who are “Muslim infiltrators” from Bangladesh. On the other hand, by amending the Citizenship Act, Hindu migrants who have come from across the border over the decades will be given citizenship.

Superfluous and expensive

The NRC process is being undertaken at a time when the Aadhaar identity card has already covered most of the population. There is also the Electors Photo Identity Card issued by the Election Commission of India. The necessity for another citizenship register and identity card is superfluous. Moreover, it will entail a huge amount of expenditure. The NRC process is weighted against the poorest sections of the population — migrant labour, Adivasis living in remote areas, and other marginalised communities.

The movement against the CAA has correctly linked it to the NRC. The CAA and the NRC must be seen in tandem. While the former would legitimise non-Muslim migrants as citizens, the NRC would target the so-called “Muslim infiltrators”. What the Narendra Modi government is aiming to do is to create a category of second-class citizens whose rights would be severely circumscribed.

Prerogative of States

It is imperative that the communal agenda of the BJP and the Central Government is foiled. This requires stoppage of the NRC. An important step in this direction will be to halt the NPR process in the States. Several Chief Ministers have gone on record that they are opposed to the NRC. Even Nitish Kumar, Chief Minister of Bihar, and Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister of Odisha, whose parties supported the CAA in Parliament, have said that they do not want the NRC.

Already Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister of Kerala, and Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal, have announced that they are suspending the NPR process in their States. The work in the NPR gets halted since it is the State government which provides personnel for the enumeration and verification process. Other State Governments should also do so. If the Central Government stands by the announcement that the NRC process has not begun, then it should withdraw the July 31, 2019 notification for the updation of the NPR.

Prakash Karat is a Politburo member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

December 25, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

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