Abbas Is No Arafat. He Must Go.
By Stuart Littlewood | American Herald Tribune | September 27, 2017
I’ve been writing about the plight of the amiable Palestinian people under Israel’s jackboot for the same length of time that Mahmoud Abbas has been Palestinian president. And that’s far too long. Abbas has also been chairman of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organisation, which describes itself as the sole representative of the Palestinian people) for even longer.
A recent poll by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research showed that the Palestinians have had enough. Two-thirds want Abbas out.
A majority are also dissatisfied with the decision at Fatah’s latest Convention to keep Abbas as head of Fatah for another 5 years. The poll found that most view the Palestinian Authority, which is also headed by Abbas, as a burden to the Palestinian people rather than an asset. An even larger majority feel they cannot criticise the PA without fear. Perception of corruption in the PA now stands at 76%.
What’s more, two-thirds of Palestinians believe a two-state solution is no longer possible due to Israel’s relentless expansion of illegal settlement and 53% support a return to an armed intifada.
And if presidential elections were held now, Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh would probably win.
“As naked as the day that he was born”
Abbas has been a big noise in Palestinian affairs for decades. In 2003 Arafat appointed him prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority. Some say the West foisted Abbas on Arafat. A power struggle ensued, and after Arafat’s suspicious death in 2004 Abbas was seen as a natural successor. Hamas boycotted the presidential election of January 2005 and Israel arrested or restricted the movement of other candidates. So Abbas won easily in dubious circumstances.
Abbas’s term as President officially ended more than 8 years ago. It is long past clear-your-desk time. The Basic Law allowed him an extension of one year but he still clings to power. Increasingly he’s seen as the king with no clothes and, in the words of the Danny Kaye song, “altogether as naked as the day that he was born”.
The trouble with Abbas is that he’s always ‘behind the curve’. Illegal settlement building under the Allon Plan, effectively annexing Palestinian territory, began in 1967 and the Israelis’ dash to create as many irreversible ‘facts on the ground’ as possible in order to make their occupation permanent was clear from the start.
Abbas claims to be one of the architects of the Oslo Interim Agreement, which was supposed to ensure a start to negotiations on permanent status by 1996 and lead to the implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and the settling of all main issues. But ever since the beginning of the Oslo process back in 1993 the rights of the Palestinian people have been sacrificed on the altar of so-called political progress, the glittering prize being ‘peace and security’.
That was all smoke ‘n’ mirrors, of course. What we’ve seen is a continuous slide downhill for the Palestinians while the Israeli colonisation and expansion programme goes from strength to strength. Justice has never been allowed to play a part. Furthermore Abbas has repeatedly given the Israelis time to cement their ill-gotten gains, readily agreeing to more bogus negotiations arranged by the same dishonest brokers.
And he inexplicably dragged his feet over joining the International Criminal Court.
During his over-long tenure Abbas has failed to unite the Palestinians under a single purposeful voice with a clear mission. He has driven the factions further apart by letting rip the old Fatah-Hamas rivalry. His regime fails to keep the world informed or make proper use of media opportunities and behaves as if gagged.
He is not noted for tactical brilliance and his embassies in the West are lazy, uncommunicative and uncooperative towards journalists and writers, and probably under orders not to ‘make waves’. I myself have been branded an enemy of Palestine by Abbas’s London embassy, an insult I wear as a badge of honour.
The Palestinian Authority under Abbas is frequently accused of collaborating with Israel in its brutal oppression. Abbas seems to be the darling of the West and of Israel, and the Israelis are said to regard him as a strategic asset. They’d hate to lose him.
Hamas is usually blamed for any whiff of corruption but the PA is bursting with it. In 2015 a report by The Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (AMAN) titled Absolute Power, Total Corruption hit the headlines. AMAN was established by a number of Palestinian civil society organizations to combat corruption and enhance integrity, transparency and accountability in Palestinian society.
According to the Commissioner-General, Azmi Shuaibi, “the cancellation of elections and the absence of the Legislative Council led to the president’s monopolizing the three powers — legislative, judicial, executive — which has served as fertile soil for some cases of corruption.” Certain non-ministerial government institutions were still outside the scope of official accountability and had awarded salaries and privileges to officials that were inconsistent with financial reality.
But even this catalogue of misbehaviour didn’t hammer the final nail into Abbas’s political coffin. Today he’s increasingly busy cracking down on dissenters within his own Fatah party and outside organisations.
Peace process “a deceptive farce”
The confidential Palestinian Papers, leaked by Al-Jazeera in 2011, revealed the shambolic conduct of the so-called peace process and how the Palestinian team allowed the Israelis to walk all over them, with US help.
One of the leak’s sources, a French-Palestinian lawyer and former adviser to the PLO, Ziyad Clot, said in an article in The Guardian that the peace process was “an inequitable and destructive political process which had been based on the assumption that the Palestinians could in effect negotiate their rights and achieve self-determination while enduring the hardship of the Israeli occupation”. They were “a deceptive farce whereby biased terms were unilaterally imposed by Israel and systematically endorsed by the US and EU”. They “excluded for the most part the great majority of the Palestinian people: the seven million Palestinian refugees”. And, he said, “the PLO, given its structure, was not in a position to represent all Palestinian rights and interests”.
So why did the Palestinians’ chief negotiator since 1995, Saeb Erekat, still engage in it? Erekat was educated in political science in the US and conflict studies in England, so should have been savvy enough to see through it. Will no-one steer the Palestinians into a sane justice process and away from the ‘kangaroo’ peace negotiations that Erekat and Abbas seem addicted to?
Not long ago, in an interview, I asked law professor and former UN special rapporteur Richard Falk: “How acceptable is it for a weak, demoralized and captive people like the Palestinians to be forced into negotiating with their brutal occupier under the auspices of a US administration seen by many people as too dishonest to play the part of peace broker?
He replied: “Even if the United States was acting in good faith, for which there is no evidence, its dual role as Israel’s unconditional ally and as intermediary would subvert the credibility of a negotiating process. In fact, the US Government signals its partisanship by White House appointments of individuals overtly associated with the AIPAC lobbying group as Special Envoys to oversee the negotiations such as Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk… The unsatisfactory nature of the current framework of negotiations is further flawed by weighting the process in favor of Israel, which enjoys a position of hard power dominance.”
That the UK Government will shortly be celebrating 100 years of the infamous Balfour Declaration, and continuing to endorse its cruel legacy while refusing to support Palestinian statehood, is an indictment of Abbas’s dismal performance.
Face it, the guy is no Arafat. On Abbas’s watch the high hopes of ordinary Palestinians have turned to dust. As Oliver Cromwell told the English Parliament in 1653: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” Those same words are applicable also to Abbas, and indeed the entire PLO and Palestinian Authority.
What Palestinians need, but probably will never get, is leadership with style, wisdom and the will to make friends with the West. Their case is still not widely understood and any new leader must have the ability to outwit Israel’s absurdly successful propaganda. Yes, the Zionists may have a stranglehold on Western opinion, but the Palestinians possess a superior two-edged weapon which they have never used effectively: truth and a just cause.
*(Mahmoud Abbas. Image credit: Kremkin.ru)
Kurdistan – what the referendum is hiding
On this electoral poster, the map of « independent Kurdistan » overflows from the autonomous Iraqi region onto Iraqi and Syrian territory.
By Thierry Meyssan | Voltairenet | September 26, 2017
The referendum for the independence of Kurdistan is a fool’s game. The United States, which secretly supports it, claims in public to oppose it. France and the United Kingdom are doing the same, hoping that Washington will make their old dreams come true. Not to be outdone, Russia is hinting that although it is against any unilateral change, it might support independence… as long as everyone accepts the independence of Crimea, which means accepting its attachment to Moscow.
The degree of hypocrisy of the permanent members of the UN Security Council is such that they have so far been unable to give a ruling on this question, despite their apparent unanimity. They have not adopted any resolution (in other words, a text with international force of law), nor Presidential declaration (in other words a position common to the members of the Council) – nothing except an insipid Press release during their meeting on 19 September [1].
Currently, there exist eight non-recognised States – Abkhazia, North Cyprus, Nagorno-Karabagh, Kosovo, Ossetia, Western Sahara, Somaliland and Trasnistria. Two European regions are also hoping for independence – Catalonia and Scotland. Any modification of the status of Iraqi Kurdistan will have consequences for these ten countries.
The independence of Iraqi Kurdistan would be a tour de force, insofar as it would mean displacing Kurdistan, as it was recognised by the Sèvres Conference in 1920, from its current location on Turkish territory to Iraqi territory. Of course, everyone has become used to using the title Kurdistan to indicate this region, which, since 1991, has been subject to a slow and continual ethnic cleansing by London and Washington.
During « Desert Storm », this region was mainly inhabited by Iraqi Kurds. London and Washington made it a no-fly zone against President Hussein. They forced into power one of their collaborators from the Cold War, Massoud Barzani, who initiated the displacement of the non-Kurdish populations. The same Barzani, although he was twice re-elected since then, has maintained his grip on power for more than two years without a mandate. The National Assembly, which demanded his departure, has met only once since the end of his mandate to vote the principle of the referendum, but in the absence of Goran – a party which has continually denounced the feudal system of the Barzanis and the Talabanis, and the nepotism and the corruption which are the direct result. In fact, Massoud Barzani has been in power, without interruption, for the last 26 years.
From 1991 to 2003, the non-Kurds progressively left the no-fly zone, so that the region was proclaimed, with the defeat of President Hussein, as Iraqi Kurdistan.
On 1 June 2014, the secret services of Saudia Arabia, the United States, Israël, Jordan, the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, Qatar, the United Kingdom and Turkey organised, in Amman, (Jordan) a preparatory meeting for the invasion of Iraq by Daesh. We know of the existence of this meeting by the Turkish document that Özgür Gündem published immediately [2]. This daily newspaper – with whom I collaborated – has since been shut down by the « sultan » Recep Tayyip Erdoğan [3].
According to this document, it was agreed to coordinate Daesh and the region of Iraqi Kurdistan. The former launched a lightning offensive to capture Mosul, while the latter grabbed Kirkuk. Four days earlier, President Massoud Barzani had travelled to Jordan to talk to the participants of this meeting. He was careful not to take part in the meeting himself, but was represented by his son Masrour, the head of his own Intelligence services.
When Daesh invaded the part of Iraq that the United States had previously attributed to him, they profited from the occasion to imprison the Yezedis and bind them into slavery. Most of the Yezedis are Kurdish, but in conformity with the Amman agreement, the neighbouring Barzanis did not intervene, even when some of them fled into the Sinjar mountains. Those who fled were finally saved by the commandos of the Turkish PKK. The Turkish Kurds saved them all, whether they were Kurds or not. They used this victory to demand their recognition from the Western powers (who, since the Cold War, has viewed them as terrorists). The current revision of this affair by the Barzanis cannot erase their crime against their own people [4].
Another famous Kurd took part in the meeting in Amman – the Islamist Mullah Krekar. He was imprisoned in Norway, where he was serving a five-year sentence for having threatened, on TV, to kill Prime Minister Erna Solberg. He travelled to the Amman meeting in a NATO plane, and was taken back to his cell in the days that followed. He then revealed his allegiance to Daesh. He was not condemned for belonging to a terrorist organisation, but was offered a two-year remission of sentence and was freed. He then went on to direct Daesh in Europe, from Oslo, under the protection of NATO. Clearly, the Stay-behind network of the Atlantic Alliance is still operational [5]
Having annexed Kirkuk, the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan extended to their zone the ethnic cleansing that its members had been perpetrating in the no-fly zone between 1991 and 2003.
We can relax – the immovable Barzani has assured that he will not implement measures of retaliation against those who vote “No”.
The non-constitutional President Barzani has announced that all the populations of Iraqi Kurdistan and the annexed territories may participate in the referendum. Together, all these regions housed more than twelve million citizens in 2013. But today, three million non-Kurdish citizens have been forced to flee. So only a chosen number of electors are called to vote on the future not only of the place of the expelled legitimate inhabitants, but also that of all other Iraqis.
- In order to participate in the referendum, one must –
- live in Kurdistan or the annexed regions ;
- be over 18 years old ;
- have been registered before 7 September on the electoral lists ;
- and for those who are refugees abroad, one must have been registered for the electronic vote … which supposes that they must first present their papers to the electoral authority of Kurdistan, from which they have been expelled.
As it happens, the Barzanis have a particular conception of the populations who are called to vote. In 1992, there were no more than 971,953 voters, but a decade later, in 2014, they suddenly numbered 2,129,846, and now 3,305,925, on September 25, 2017.
Independence will give the Barzani and Talabani clans further means with which to pursue their affairs. It will also offer Israël the possibility of implementing certain of its military objectives. Since the end of the 1990’s and the development of missile weaponry, Tsahal has abandoned its strategy of occupying the « border regions », meaning the territories just outside its frontiers (Sinaï, Golan, South Lebanon). On the contrary, it intends to neutralise Egypt, Syria and Lebanon by taking them from behind. This is why Tel-Aviv supported the creation of South Sudan, in 2011, in order to place missiles pointed at Egypt, and is today supporting the creation of Kurdistan in order to place missiles pointed at Syria.
According to Israel-Kurd, which is widely quoted by the Turkish Press, Israëli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised Massoud Barzani to transfer 200,000 Israëlis to the new state to « help » with its administration [6].
According to this logic, the ideal for Tsahal would be to extend the territory of Iraqi Kurdistan not only to Kirkuk, but to Northern Syria. This is the purpose of the YPG and its « Rojava ». This self-proclaimed autonomous state is a long corridor which links Iraqi Kurdistan to the Mediterranean, and is occupied by US troops who are illegally installed in several military bases.
Eight months before the Amman meeting, a Pentagon researcher, Robin Wright, confirmed her country’s agreement with this project [7]. At that time, the Barzanis were still claiming that they defended all Kurds, including those who were living in Turkey and Iran. Mrs. Wright carefully explained that such a project was impossible, but published her map of « Sunnistan », attributed to Daesh, and « Kurdistan » attributed to the Barzanis in Iraq and Syria.
Incidentally, in August, the Pentagon published a call for tender for the buying and transfer of 500 million weapons and ammunition, mainly ex-Soviet [8]. The 200 first trucks were delivered to the YPG at Hasakah, on 11 and 19 September, via Iraqi Kurdistan, without being attacked by the jihadistes [9]. The Russian Minister for Defence has just made public satellite photos of a camp of US special forces in the middle of Daesh territory, living quite comfortably with the Kurds and the jihadists [10].
So since we are told that this « independent Kurdistan » is a democratic Kurdish project, why would we doubt it?
Translation by Pete Kimberley
Notes
[1] “UN Security Council Press Statement on Iraqi Kurdistan”, Voltaire Network, 21 September 2017.
[2] « Yer : Amman, Tarih : 1, Konu : Musul », Akif Serhat, Özgür Gündem, 6 juillet 2014.
[3] Those journalists who escaped the purge and managed to flee, created the electronic daily Özgürlükçü Demokrasi outside of Turkey.
[4] “Rewriting the massacre at Sinjar”, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network, 12 September 2017.
[5] NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe, Daniele Ganser, Routledge, 2004.
[6] “200,000 Israelis expected in “Kurdistan” once independence is declared”, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network, 20 September 2017.
[7] “Imagining a Remapped Middle East”, Robin Wright, The New York Times Sunday Review, September 28, 2013.
[8] “Heikle Fracht aus Ramstein”, “Millionen Schuss Munition für Kalaschnikows”, Frederik Obermaier & Paul-Anton Krüger, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 12. & 20. September 2017.
[9] “200 lorries of arms and ammunition: delivery by the Pentagon to the YPG”, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network, 23 September 2017.
[10] « Le ministère russe de la Défense diffuse des photos des Forces US stationnées chez Daesh », Réseau Voltaire, 24 septembre 2017.
653,249 people were arrested in the US last year for breaking marijuana laws
By Mark Frauenfelder – Boing Boing – September 25, 2017
One person gets arrested for marijuana possession every 71 seconds in the United States, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s annual Crime In the United States (CIUS) report. This is great news to drug cartels, police departments, racists, corrupt politicians, the prison industry, and the involuntary rehab clinic racket. It’s bad news for everybody else.
“Arresting and citing nearly half a million people a year for a substance that is objectively safer than alcohol is a travesty,” said Morgan Fox, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project. “Despite a steady shift in public opinion away from marijuana prohibition, and the growing number of states that are regulating marijuana like alcohol, marijuana consumers continue to be treated like criminals throughout the country. This is a shameful waste of resources and can create lifelong consequences for the people arrested.”
There are currently eight states that regulate marijuana similarly to alcohol for adults, four of which voted to do so in November 2016. Marijuana possession is also legal for adults in the District of Columbia. Twenty-three states and D.C. considered legislation in 2017 to regulate marijuana, including in Vermont where the legislature approved such a measure before the governor vetoed it. “Regulating marijuana for adults creates jobs, generates tax revenue, protects consumers, and takes money away from criminals,” Fox continued. “It is time for the federal government and the rest of the states to stop ruining peoples’ lives and enact sensible marijuana policies.”
UPDATE: Data omitted from original analysis shows 653,249 marijuana arrests in 2016. Some reporting law enforcement agencies do not distinguish between types of drug arrests or possession and distribution violations.
More on Imran Awan
Where are all those congressional emails?
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • September 26, 2017
I wrote an article on the strange case of Imran Awan about two months ago. To summarize it briefly, Awan, his two brothers and wife, naturalized U.S. citizens born in Pakistan living in the Washington DC area, found employment as IT administrators in the House of Representatives working for as many as 80 Democratic Party congressmen. Even though they may have had little actual training in IT, they insinuated themselves into the system and were paid in excess of $5 million over the course of ten years, chief-of-staff level pay, while frequently not even showing up for work. They even brought into the arrangement a frequent no-show Pakistani friend whose prior work history consisted of getting recently fired by McDonald’s.
Along the way, their security files were never reviewed. They were involved in bankruptcies, bank fraud and other criminal activity, but their troublesome behavior was never noticed. They were on bad terms with their father and step-mother, which including forging a document to cheat their step-mother of an insurance payment and even holding her “captive” so she could not see their dying father. Their father even changed his last name to dissociate himself from them.
Imran Awan, the leader of the group, worked particularly for Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, who was, at the time, also the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Though he had no clearance and was not supposed to work with classified material, he and his family obtained password access to congressional files and Imran himself was able to enter Wasserman-Schultz’s own personal iPad computer which linked to the server used by the Democratic National Committee.
As of February 2016, the Awans came under suspicion by the Capitol Hill Police for having set up an operation involving double billing as well as the possible theft and reselling of government owned computer equipment. It was also believed that they had somehow obtained entry to much of the House of Representatives’ computer network as well as to other information in the individual offices’ separate computer systems that they were in theory not allowed to access. It was also believed that Imran sent “massive” quantities of stolen government files to a remote personal server. It may have been located in his former residence in Lorton, Virginia. The police began an investigation and quietly alerted the congressmen involved that there might be a problem. Most stopped employing the Awan family members and associates, but Wasserman-Schultz kept Imran on the payroll until the day after he was actually arrested.
Imran was arrested on July 25th at Dulles Airport as he was flying to Pakistan to join his wife Alvi, who had left the country with their children and many of their possessions in March. In January, they had also wired to Pakistan $283,000 that they had obtained fraudulently from the Congressional credit union. After his arrest, Imran was defended by lawyer Chris Gowen, a high-priced $1,000 an hour Washington attorney who has worked for the Clintons personally, the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.
There are many questions regarding the Awan case. One might reasonably ask how foreign-born IT specialists are selected and vetted prior to being significantly overpaid and allowed to work on computers in congressional offices. And the ability of those same individuals to keep working even after the relevant congressmen have been warned that their employee was under investigation has to be explained beyond Wasserman-Schultz’s comment that Awan had not committed any crime, which may have been true but one would expect congressmen to err on the side of caution over an issue that could easily have national security ramifications. And how does a recently bankrupt and unemployed Imran Awan wind up with a high-priced Clinton-connected lawyer to defend himself?
As the story involves possible espionage, fraud and even something new to consider regarding the theft of information from the DNC server, one might have expected the Fourth Estate to wake from its slumber and take notice. But perhaps not surprisingly there has been astonishingly little follow-up in the mainstream media about the Awan family, possibly because it involves some leading Democrats, though the Daily Caller and some other conservative sites have stayed on top of developments.
Since his arrest Imran Awan has had his passports confiscated by the court and has been released on bail on condition that he wear an ankle monitor at all times and not travel more than 50 miles from the Virginia home where he is staying with a relative. In early September, he sought to have the monitor removed and his passports returned so he could travel to Pakistan and visit his children. His plea was rejected. He is not yet scheduled for trial on the allegations of bank fraud and is apparently still under investigation by the Bureau relating to other possible charges, including possible espionage. His four accomplices are also still under investigation but have not been charged. They are on a watch list and will not be allowed to leave the United States while the inquiry is continuing.
It has also been learned that Imran had been on the receiving end of complaints filed with the Fairfax County Virginia police in 2015-6 by two women who resided in separate apartments in Alexandria that are reportedly paid for by Imran Awan. Both of the women complained of abuse and one is believed to be a “second wife” for Imran Awan, legal in Pakistan but illegal in the United States. Imran reportedly divorced his second wife shortly after his arrest.
In a surprise development, investigative journalists have also determined that Imran Awan retained as of the end of August a still-active secret, numeric email account on the House of Representatives server. E-mail accounts in Congress normally are labeled using the holder’s name, so all active accounts are identity-linked as a security measure. In this case the numeric account was linked to the actual account of a House staffer who works on national security issues for Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana. Imran Awan clearly has been using the anonymous House of Representatives address as it was cited in a suit filed by a landlord seeking unpaid rent on an apartment rented for his second wife in Alexandria.
The most significant recent development in the Awan case is, however, the decision made by Imran’s wife Alvi to return to the United States at the end of this month. She has been charged as a co-conspirator relating to the bank fraud that her husband was also involved in, which potentially could result in some jail time. There are, however, reports that she has been interviewed several times in Pakistan by FBI agents and has apparently agreed to a plea bargain to tell all she knows about what went on with the Awan family. Some on Capitol Hill believe that what she knows could prove to be explosive, not only regarding the lax security practices in Congress but also in terms of Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s negligence in providing access to the DNC server. The actual whereabouts of the large quantity of stolen government documents might also be resolved.
This story, which is still unfolding, continues to have the potential to blow wide open the complacent culture on Capitol Hill and it also might ruin the reputations of a number of leading Democrats. Stay tuned!
Manafort Demands Probe After Leak Revealed He Was Being Wiretapped
Sputnik – 20.09.2017
A legal representative of Paul Manafort, who at one time managed the successful 2016 presidential bid of Donald Trump, has demanded an investigation into the FBI after anonymous sources seemingly broke federal law by leaking classified information to the media regarding the investigation into Manafort.
On Tuesday, CNN broke the news that the FBI had secured a wiretap on Manafort’s phone under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA.) The investigation began in 2014 following allegations that Manafort was operating as a foreign agent in his capacity as a campaign adviser to Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. The wiretap paused in 2016, and resumed in 2017 under new allegations of Manafort’s ties to Russian intelligence. Eventually, the FBI ended the wiretapping for a lack of evidence.
If the reports are true, then a felony has been committed — but not by Manafort. According to Jason Maloni, a spokesman for the former lobbyist and Trump presidential campaign manager, “it is a felony to reveal the existence of a FISA warrant, regardless of the fact that no charges ever emerged. The US Department of Justice’s Inspector General should immediately conduct an investigation into these leaks and to examine the motivations behind a previous Administration’s effort to surveil a political opponent.”
“Mr. Manafort requests that the Department of Justice release any intercepts involving him and any non-Americans so interested parties can come to the same conclusion as the DOJ — there is nothing there.”
Manafort has denied the charges that he “knowingly” communicated with Russian intelligence operatives during the election. He denies any participation in efforts to “undermine the interests of the United States.”
FISA warrants aren’t easy to secure. As former FBI agent Asha Rangappa told Public Radio International, “what the FBI has to do is go into a secret FISA court and show the judge that there’s probable cause to believe that the person they are targeting is acting as what’s called ‘an agent of a foreign power,’ that they’re acting at the direction and control of a foreign intelligence service in this case.”
Robert Mueller, the Department of Justice Special Counsel in charge of investigating the alleged ties between Russia and the Trump campaign team, has been undertaking what the New York Times called a “shock and awe” strategy in his investigation, utilizing tactics like dramatic nighttime raids on Manafort’s residence and impaneling a grand jury to indict Manafort.
“Mr. Mueller has obtained a flurry of subpoenas to compel witnesses to testify before a grand jury, lawyers and witnesses say, sometimes before his prosecutors have taken the customary first step of interviewing them. One witness was called before the grand jury less than a month after his name surfaced in news accounts. The special counsel even took the unusual step of obtaining a subpoena for one of Mr. Manafort’s former lawyers, claiming an exception to the rule that shields attorney-client discussions from scrutiny,” The Times reported.
“It’s important early on to strike terror in the hearts of people in Washington,” one attorney told the Times, in reference to Mueller’s probe.
The real reasons behind the cancellation of Israel – Africa Summit
By Thembisa Fakude | MEMO | September 13, 2017
It is another bad September for Israel in Africa. Sixteen years ago in Durban, Israel suffered a political blow at the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances. The conference ended up with a walk out by Israel and the US after the draft declaration equated Zionism to racism.
Similarly, the NGO Forum of the conference was equally critical of Israel. The conference was regarded as a serious drawback against the pro-Israeli forces at the conference.
On 11 September 2017, the organisers of the first Israeli – Africa Summit which was scheduled to take place in Togo in October announced that the conference had been “postponed indefinitely”.
The controversial conference has been very divisive since its announcement, many criticised it for undermining the African Union (AU). Those critical of the conference argue that any pan African political gathering should involve and take queue from the AU not a particular country.
Secondly, African countries reject the idea of legitimizing Israel, hosting a conference of such nature would have certainly legitimised the Israel. Israel has been engaged in an aggressive charm offensive in Africa under the slogans “Israel is returning to Africa”.
It is all about numbers, the 54 African countries matter when it comes to voting at various global political platforms. Israel has already a significant presence outside the government in many countries particularly in East and West Africa. These organisation are tasked with facilitating people-to-people interactions. Moreover, Israel – like many countries – is queuing up to exploit the African economic opportunities. However, the continued atrocities Israel commits in Palestine remain an obstacle to expand in Africa.
The hosting of a pan African summit in a small country, with a long track record of dictatorship and sociopolitical instability, then call it “ Israeli – Africa Summit” is nothing short of arrogance by Israel. Indeed Africa often embraces a bloc position on difficult foreign policy issues; understandably most African countries are too small and weak to tackle big global political issues on their own. Israel is clearly trying to destroy that position.
It wants to exploit that weakness in Africa by courting smaller countries and forcing them to go against the political trend. The summit would have undermined the unity and seriousness of the African Union (AU). The AU is the only platform that can organise a summit of such a nature and magnitude with that kind of a title.
The Africa- Israeli conference in Togo has exposed a certain number of very important factors in the development of African politics. First, the rejection of this summit by most African nations had little to do with the influence of Arab – African relationship, it had a lot to do with a strong solidarity with Palestine. This is important to mention because the rejection of the Israeli – Africa Summit could easily be misinterpreted or credited to wrong political phenomenon.
Morocco’s efforts in discrediting the summit where by and large self-serving. It used the opportunity as a “public relations fanfare as it reenters the AU”. Many African countries remain committed to the struggle of the Palestinians, and it is that which made them assume a position against the summit.
It is common knowledge that the people-to-people relationships between Arabs and Africans have deteriorated over the years due to racism and the treatment of Africans, particularly African refugees and workers. The number of African leaders who were willing to attend the Israeli- Africa Summit also suggests a change even at the government level.
The conference’s postponement is certainly a diplomatic setback for Israel. However what has been surprising is the number of African countries who were willing to travel to Togo for the summit. Besides Nigeria, whose position was muted by the absence of its president, almost all members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had endorsed and were willing to attend the summit. Furthermore, there is already evidence that the disagreements that have occurred during the discussions leading up to the summit have created cracks and mistrust in Africa.
The biggest question is whether this is the last charm offensive attempt by Israel in Africa? If not, how is Africa going to react next time a big country like Israel makes similar attempts? Will the postponement strengthen the AU or are African countries going to begin overtly embracing standalone foreign policies? What will this mean to the AU’s ambition in maintaining a united position on African foreign policy?
The choice of Togo as the host country without consulting the AU was a serious miscalculation by Israel. Togo is going through political challenges of its own. It was political opportunism by Israel, taking advantage of a weak government hoping to be rescued from its own internal political challenge. The Togolese government was hoping to use Israel’s sociopolitical and economic pledges through the summit to stretch its political tenure, pacify political rumblings in the country and weaken the political opposition.
Read: Togo’s summit cancellation is “victory to African struggle,” says Hamas leader
Democrats Getting Ready to Lose in 2020
By Daniel Haiphong | American Herald Tribune | September 10, 2017
The New York Times reported on Labor Day weekend that top Democrats are already preparing for the 2020 election. Countless Democratic Party officials have been busy on the fundraising trail, making visits to wealthy donors in their popular vacation destinations. This includes popular names such as Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. The Times notes that the Democratic Party’s preparations are unprecedented this early into Donald Trump’s presidency. What the preparations reveal is both desperation and opportunism as the Democrats seek to position themselves for the next election campaign.
Democratic Party efforts to develop a campaign strategy for 2020 have focused primarily on fundraising rather than the issues affecting poor and working people. The Times article describes in great detail the excursions to Martha’s Vineyard taken by potential Presidential candidates Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. Warren has lamented in the past about the Democratic Party’s reliance on Wall Street money yet has spent much of the summer courting wealthy donors. Kamala Harris, meanwhile, has emulated Warren and has spent ample time studying the online fundraising methods used by Bernie Sanders.
Some of the wealthy donors seeking to line Harris and Warren’s pockets include Boston real estate developer Richard Friedman and Oakland Athletics owner Guy Saperstein. The courtship of wealthy, capitalist donors places the Democratic Party on a losing path. Even as figures such as Harris try to learn how to appeal to Sanders voters, their fundraising activities repeat the very mistake Hillary Clinton made in her 2016 campaign. It was Clinton’s ties to Wall Street that made Bernie Sanders attractive to Democratic Party voters who found themselves in Wall Street-facilitated debt and poverty. WikiLeaks struck the final blow to Clinton’s campaign when it revealed that Hillary Clinton had used her influence over the Democratic National Committee to rig the primaries against Sanders.
The fact that Warren and Harris have not learned from Clinton’s mistakes should come as no surprise. It really isn’t up to them. The Democratic Party has long been a wholly owned political subsidiary of the corporate oligarchy. During the 2016 campaign, Bernie Sanders criticized Hillary Clinton’s financial ties to Wall Street hedge funds, military contractors, and energy conglomerates through the Clinton Foundation. However, the corporate ownership of the Democratic Party didn’t start with Hillary Clinton. This has been a decades long trend that reached its pinnacle under the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
A quick look into the Democratic Party’s top donors gives a clear picture as to why its top brass cannot break from the corporate oligarchy. Top Democratic Party donor Tom Steyer is a billionaire hedge fund investor who owns stock in the Corrections Corporation of America. Other top donors include Hedge Fund magnate Donald Sussman and co-owner of Facebook Dustin Moskovitz. These elements of the ruling class only skim the surface of the corporate patronage involved in the numerous PACs that donate to the Democratic Party in exchange for favorable political policy. Under these conditions, trips to Martha’s Vineyard and the Hamptons are just part of the job of being a prospective Democratic Party presidential nominee.
But business as usual will be the death of the Democratic Party. The Clinton-Obama wing of the party remains dominant. That means opposition to universal healthcare remains the consensus in the party despite over eighty percent of Democratic voters supporting the measure. It also means that the Democratic Party will continue to support policies that simply make life harder for poor and working people. This is not to mention how establishment Democrats have taken the lead in waging endless war around the planet at the expense of all of humanity.
The Democratic Party elite hope that figureheads such as Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren can hide these inconvenient truths. For all of their branding as guardians of a mythical “middle class,” neither Harris or Warren possess a clean record. Warren is a staunch defender of Israel even when it conducts genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. She is also a strong supporter of sanctions against Iran. So while she gives lip service to reducing military spending and student loan debt, Warren has been historically unwilling to challenge the military machinery that contradicts her domestic policy positions.
Then there is Kamala Harris. Harris was once called the “best looking” Attorney General by none other than Barack Obama. But looks can be deceiving. Harris has defended both banks and prisons from punishment. She failed to prosecute OneWest Bank in 2013 despite ample evidence that it violated the law in over 1,000 foreclosures. The year before, Harris defended the right of prisons to inflict cruel and unusual punishment by fighting federal court supervision in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown V. Plata.
So even in the midst of Trump’s chaotic Presidency, his opponents fare little better. The system of US capitalism and empire is in crisis. Neither political party has any solutions. The broad masses of poor and working people in the US will have to look toward independent forms of political organization to achieve their interests. In the meantime, it appears the Democratic Party is preparing for another losing corporate campaign in 2020.
Senate Debates Billions for Insurers while Public Demands Medicare for All
By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese | Health Over Profit | September 8, 2017
This week we attended a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee where there was broad bi-partisan support for giving billions more to the insurance industry to “stabilize the market.” The government already gives for-profit insurance $300 billion annually and their stock values have risen dramatically since passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), so the rush to give them more was disheartening.
That was contrasted with a meeting with the staff of Senator Bernie Sanders about the improved Medicare for all bill he plans to introduce on September 13. Sanders, along with other Senators, is seriously trying to figure out how to transform health care from being a profit center for big business to being a public good that serves the people. That means doing away with the health insurance industry, not giving them billions of public dollars.
The contrast reinforced the need to advocate for improved Medicare for all and push for the best healthcare system we can create.
Healthcare a Commodity or a Human Right?
Senators are back from their long summer recess, and they started off with health care back at the top of the agenda. The Senate HELP committee held its first of four hearings on September 6, and Senator Bernie Sanders is preparing to introduce a Medicare for All bill on September 13. The two efforts are a clear example of the underlying dilemma that we have faced in the United States for the past 100 years: Is health care a commodity or a public good? It can’t be both.
The failed efforts to repeal and replace the ACA took up a lot of time and energy this year and left the country in no better position to deal with the ongoing healthcare crisis. Now, time is really short because private health insurers are announcing their rates for 2018, and they are, not surprisingly, screaming for more money because they have to (*gasp*) pay for health care.
A group of us attended the first Senate HELP committee hearing to convey the message that the people are ready to undertake the serious work of creating a National Improved Medicare for All. Typically, before and sometimes during a hearing, attendees are allowed to hold signs as long as they are not disruptive. On that day, the committee chair, Senator Lamar Alexander, ordered that signs be put away before the hearing even began. He told Dr. Carol Paris, a steering committee member of the Health Over Profit for Everyone campaign, that “we are not talking about improved Medicare for All now.”
Instead, the entire hearing focused on “stabilizing the insurance market,” even though their stock values have quadrupled since 2010. Five health insurance commissioners from different states testified before the senators and answered questions. It appeared that all had been well-prepped by the health insurance industry. The committee members patted each other on the back for being bi-partisan, unfortunately they were working together for the insurance industry, not for the people.
The bi-partisan hearing discussed three main points: making sure that public dollars were available to subsidize insurance costs, reinsuring private health insurers so they would be protected if they had to spend ‘too much’ money on health care and incentives to entice private insurers back into areas that are not profitable. Coincidentally, these were the same points raised in the bi-partisan proposal published this year by the Center for American Progress, a Democratic Party think tank financed in part by health insurance lobbyists. Both parties are clearly on the side of health care as a commodity.
Not one person participating in the hearing questioned whether health care belonged in the market. At least one Senator, Rand Paul, complained about Big Insurance coming to Washington with their hands out and said he would rather pay directly for health care than give the money to Big Insurance. His ideology is far from supporting Improved Medicare for All, but he did call out the corruption.
Perhaps the most disappointing of the day was Senator Al Franken, who has completely bought into the ‘health care is a commodity’ camp. Not only did he advocate for subsidizing and reinsuring private insurers, but he called for a federal reinsurance program to cover the costs of people who need health care, at least after Big Insurance takes their cut. And Franken, who tried to make jokes about the hearing, called for more money to advertise and lure youth into the insurance market, which is about as unethical as pushing cigarettes or candy, and wants heavier enforcement of mandates to purchase health insurance. Franken touted a ‘virtuous cycle’ of giving more money to health insurers so that they lower premiums and more people buy insurance. The problem is that there is nothing very virtuous about spending billions to subsidize an industry that has a greater responsibility to pay its Wall Street investors than to pay for necessary health care. The insurance industry has shown itself to be insatiable, and ready to use their power to extort Congress because they hold people’s lives in their hands.
It was a difficult hearing to attend. The whole time we wanted to stand up and ask whether they could possibly see how ridiculous this all appeared and whether they thought private health insurers added any benefit. But, the Capitol Police made it clear from the start that they would arrest anyone who disrupted without warning, and we had a meeting scheduled with Senator Sanders’ staff after the hearing. We did manage to squeeze out a few “Medicare for All’s” during the hearing.
Healthcare Without the For-Profit Insurance Industry
The meeting with Senator Sanders’ staff was like night and day. We began from the premise that health care is a human right and had a frank discussion of how that could be achieved. The text of his upcoming bill was not available, but for 90 minutes we discussed many of the details of the bill. This meeting was scheduled because of a letter that the Health Over Profit for Everyone steering committee sent to the Senator’s health staffers raising concerns about what was reported to be in the bill. An initial response was lacking, but once the letter was widely circulated in progressive blogs, the staff were ready to meet.
There has been a movement for National Improved Medicare for All in the United States for a long time. People in the movement have debated and reached consensus about how an improved Medicare for all system ought to be structured. Much of that is embodied in John Conyers’ legislation, HR 676: The Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, which has 118 co-sponsors. Senator Sanders and his group, Our Revolution, are raising funds and working to build more support for Improved Medicare for All, but they still need to cooperate with those who have been advocating for this if they want full support.
Fortunately, Senator Sanders has demonstrated that he is responsive to public pressure. He started the year off not intending to introduce Medicare for all legislation, but he received push back and changed his mind. Then he started talking about fixing the ACA and introducing a public option, and there was pushback against that. There has also been pressure about the contents of the bill. When it was learned that there would be co-pays, many organizations, including Physicians for a National Health Program, contacted his office to say that co-pays add more complexity to the system and cause people to delay or avoid necessary health care. His staff reported that co-pays have been removed in the bill except for purchasing drugs, in order to encourage the use of generic drugs.
In the process of winning a single payer healthcare system, the movement for National Improved Medicare for All has the role of being the watchdog to make sure that we create the best system we can. We want this system to work for everyone and to be a system that improves health, a system that the United States can be proud of. This is a role that will be ongoing even after we win because we will have to improve the system and constantly guard against those who would try to privatize it so they can profit.
After meeting with Senator Sanders’ staff, we felt more reassured that his intention is to ultimately create a strong National Improved Medicare for All system. There are many provisions in the bill that are to be applauded – providing care to every person in the United States and offering fairly comprehensive coverage – and a few that we will have to work on – such as including long term care, abolishing investor-owned health facilities and a more rapid transition period. On September 13, if all goes well, the text of the bill will be released and we will assess it.
The People Can Win Improved Medicare for All
All in all, we are in a strong position. The Senate HELP committee hearing showed how out of touch many of our legislators are with the people, who favor Improved Medicare for All or are just yearning for affordable health care no matter what form that takes.
And, we know members of Congress can be moved, some more easily than others. This week the architect of the ACA in Congress, former Senator Max Baucus, who had us arrested with six others in 2009 when we stood up and called for single payer to be included in the debate, joined the choir. Baucus said single payer is the answer, commenting “we’re getting there, it’s going to happen.” We were arrested demanding that he put single payer on the table and he refused, calling for more police instead. Now, more than 100,000 preventable deaths later, he supports it. The ACA was born out of the corruption by healthcare profiteers and everyone involved from Obama to Baucus knew it, and everyone from Alexander to Franken knows that remains true today.
The tide is shifting in the United States. After a century of what Professor David Barton Smith, a health historian calls, “more palatable approaches” that have each “self-destructed,” we are clear that health care is a public service, not a financial profit center. We are ready to do the work to make what was once considered impossible, National Improved Medicare for All, become inevitable. Each week, new support for single payer arises. The other surprise this week was the support of centrist Democrat, Senator Jon Tester of Montana, who explained that his farmer parents never had insurance until they were old enough for Medicare.
Hopefully, more legislators will arrive at the wisdom that, as Professor Smith describes: “The practical mechanics of how to make such a universal health insurance system work are a lot easier than patching together the existing hopelessly fragmented private-public health insurance system. The Medicare program actually does this quite well and the cry of Medicare for all has never been silenced. Indeed, no one has ever objected to their ‘mandated’ coverage under Medicare.”
The people have the power to finally make the government do the right thing. No more compromises. No more false solutions. Onward to National Improved Medicare for All.
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UAE tortured, killed journalist for opposing Israel normalization
The Cradle | October 31, 2026
UAE security officers detained, tortured, and killed Emirati poet and news editor Habib al-Sayegh in August 2019, shortly after he published a column opposing UAE normalization with Israel, according to a newly published book.
“Princes and Thieves,” a book by investigative journalist Matthew Cole published on 25 October, alleges that UAE security officers raided Sayegh’s Abu Dhabi home shortly after the publication of the column, hooded him in front of his wife and took him to a detention facility where he was tortured to death.
His interrogators reportedly pulled out several of his teeth with pliers and beat him repeatedly with a sharp metal object.
On 11 August 2019, Sayegh criticized the UAE’s plan to normalize relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords in his weekly column for Khaleej newspaper. The column was titled “Israel Is Our Real Enemy and A Dangerous Project.”
Sayegh described Israel as “a real and natural enemy” while questioning “who authorized the normalizers to speak on behalf of everyone?”
Nine days after the column was published, Emirati state media announced his death, without stating a cause. … continue
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