Lavrov: No need for European missile defense shield if Iran deal a success
RT | November 25, 2013
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says the US will no longer have a reason to build the long-touted missile defense shield in Europe, if Iran fulfills its obligations in the recently-signed nuclear program deal.
“If the Iran deal is put into practice, the stated reason for the construction of the defense shield will no longer apply,” Lavrov told journalists in Rome.
NATO is currently rolling out its new Europe-wide missile defense shield, which will include two interceptor bases close to the Russian border in Romania and Poland, with the first of the first ground missiles becoming operational in 2015. The bases will be able to shoot down short and medium-range ballistic missiles.
Russia has long protested at the placement of such bases on its borders, but during both, the Bush era and Obama’s terms, Washington has insisted that the bases are primarily directed against a potential threat from Iran, and are too close to Russia to stop any of its nuclear warheads.
On Sunday, Iran agreed to curtail its nuclear program in exchange for a loosening of substantial EU and US sanctions that have crippled its economy.
The initial term of the deal is six months, though both sides hope this will lead to a permanent rapprochement after a stand-off that lasted a decade, during which the West accused Iran of attempting to acquire a nuclear weapon, while Iran denied this, insisting that it was entitled to enrich uranium.
US Secretary of State John Kerry, while visiting Europe earlier this month, said that the deployment of the missile shield was not likely to be contingent on improving relations with Iran.
“Nothing has changed at this point and I don’t foresee it changing,” he said.
The current European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) missile defense system was adopted by the White House in 2009. It generally uses more established technologies than President George W. Bush’s expensive and ambitious system that first aroused Russia’s ire over five years ago. The most ambitious phase of the program, initially scheduled to begin next decade, was also canceled earlier this year.
Nonetheless, negotiations about Moscow’s potential involvement in the defense shield have broken down over a lack of trust, and the recent groundbreaking ceremony at NATO’s base in Romania was swiftly followed by an unannounced test of Russia’s newest ballistic missiles as well as international patrols by its strategic bombers.
Lavrov recently called missile defense a “burning issue” in Moscow-Washington relations, and said that Russia will soften its stance on the Eastern European bases only if NATO provides written assurances that they will never be used to shoot down Russian missiles, a request it has repeatedly rejected.
Related article
- NATO building anti-missile shield in Romania (voiceofrussia.com)
The fallacy of corporate taxes in a neo-liberal context
By Michael Laxer | Rabble | November 23, 2013
“Make the corporations pay!”
It is a slogan that sounds good, and with which I would fully agree, under conditions where “corporations,” or, more accurately, those who control them, were actually paying. But this is not the case in the debate in Canada today where many on the left are falsely proclaiming corporate taxes as an alternative to increasing personal taxes, even on the wealthy, and seem to display little understanding that corporate tax rates have nothing at all to do with inequality socially and are not at all a tax on wealth or the wealthy.
When Thomas Mulcair juxtaposes his “plan” to increase corporate taxes as a “progressive” alternative to Toronto-Centre candidate Linda McQuaig’s previously stated notion that taxes should be increased as well on Canada’s wealthiest individuals, he is fundamentally juxtaposing McQuaig’s plan that might accomplish something to a plan that will accomplish absolutely nothing.
The essential fallacy of mythologizing corporate taxes in the present context lies in the fact that, unless you agree with the U.S. Supreme Court, corporations are not people. By definition, if government taxes a corporation, ultimately some individuals, somewhere, pay the bill. Corporations cannot pay anything, any more than a house you own pays its own property tax. Given that corporations can, will and must extract the money to pay their tax bills any number of ways, from increasing prices, to attempting to force down worker wages and benefits, to finding creative ways to reduce nominal profit (which includes actually increasing CEO salaries or privileges, which are a “cost”), in the absence of a campaign to dramatically increase personal taxes on the managerial and CEO class of corporations or to re-adjust social power relations through the threat of socialization of assets and/or price controls, the net effect of corporate taxes, in terms of income levelling, will often be either zero or regressive.
It sounds radical, and is therefore appealing to centrists who wish to nominally appear radical, but its impact on inequality is essentially non-existent for the very simple reason that inequality is driven by disparities in the incomes that exist between individuals. Inequality is facilitated by corporations and corporate actions, but it is manifested in the difference between people and people alone.
This exact inequality exists within corporations themselves. Corporations are comprised, as a general rule, of workers, managers and upper management. Given the nature of the capitalist economy, the way corporations will seek to lessen the impact of higher taxation will not be at the expense of their CEOs.
It is not corporations who own multiple mansions, live lavish lifestyles or indulge in tremendous decadence, it is wealthy people who do so. The disparity between rich and poor is not between rich and poor companies, but rather between rich people and those living working-class lifestyles or those actually living in poverty.
Taxes on corporations, in isolation, separated from higher tax rates on the wealthy individuals who own, profit from and run the corporations, act as little more than waypoints to collecting taxes on corporate workers or customers.
“Progressive” politicians, New Democrats, Liberals and Democrats alike, like the corporate tax narrative when it suits them precisely because it does not threaten any actual people at all, whether it is Galen Weston or one of his Loblaws cashiers. They can claim to be holding the banner of redistributive justice high. To be defending the mythical “99 percent.”
Yet these taxes can only have an impact on inequality if you assume, barring personal tax increases, that corporations will pass the “costs” of higher taxes along, out of a sense of social justice, to their corporate boardrooms. This is, frankly, a counterintuitive and bizarre assumption for leftists to make.
They will not. They will, as they always do, make their workers pay.
We need to move beyond the false narrative of so-called “corporate taxes” as a solution under capitalism and, instead, to advocate for both a dramatic increase in personal taxes on the wealthy and the upper middle class with a corresponding fight to socialize corporate assets. We need to tie this to an entrenchment of union and workers’ rights and democratization of the economy.
It is time to actually make those who benefit from the corporations pay. By higher taxes on capital gains, by higher income taxes on the wealthy and managerial class, by inheritance taxes, by expanding the legal rights and powers of workers.
By advancing expropriation and radically new ownership models.
Until then, when it comes to understanding how to tackle income inequality and its consequences, it is the pre-by-election Linda McQuaig who was right and it is the desperate-for-power NDP leader Thomas Mulcair who is wrong.
NSA infected 50,000 computer networks with malicious software
NRC NIEUWS | November 23, 2013
The American intelligence service – NSA – infected more than 50,000 computer networks worldwide with malicious software designed to steal sensitive information. Documents provided by former NSA-employee Edward Snowden and seen by this newspaper, prove this.
A management presentation dating from 2012 explains how the NSA collects information worldwide. In addition, the presentation shows that the intelligence service uses ‘Computer Network Exploitation’ (CNE) in more than 50,000 locations. CNE is the secret infiltration of computer systems achieved by installing malware, malicious software.
One example of this type of hacking was discovered in September 2013 at the Belgium telecom provider Belgacom. For a number of years the British intelligence service – GCHQ – has been installing this malicious software in the Belgacom network in order to tap their customers’ telephone and data traffic. The Belgacom network was infiltrated by GCHQ through a process of luring employees to a false Linkedin page.
NSA special department employs more than a thousand hackers
The NSA computer attacks are performed by a special department called TAO (Tailored Access Operations). Public sources show that this department employs more than a thousand hackers. As recently as August 2013, the Washington Post published articles about these NSA-TAO cyber operations. In these articles The Washington Post reported that the NSA installed an estimated 20,000 ‘implants’ as early as 2008. These articles were based on a secret budget report of the American intelligence services. By mid-2012 this number had more than doubled to 50,000, as is shown in the presentation NRC Handelsblad laid eyes on.
Cyber operations are increasingly important for the NSA. Computer hacks are relatively inexpensive and provide the NSA with opportunities to obtain information that they otherwise would not have access to. The NSA-presentation shows their CNE-operations in countries such as Venezuela and Brazil. The malware installed in these countries can remain active for years without being detected.
‘Sleeper cells’ can be activated with a single push of a button
The malware can be controlled remotely and be turned on and off at will. The ‘implants’ act as digital ‘sleeper cells’ that can be activated with a single push of a button. According to the Washington Post, the NSA has been carrying out this type of cyber operation since 1998.
The Dutch intelligence services – AIVD and MIVD – have displayed interest in hacking. The Joint Sigint Cyber Unit – JSCU – was created early in 2013. The JSCU is an inter-agency unit drawing on experts with a range of IT skills. This new unit is prohibited by law from performing the type of operations carried out by the NSA as Dutch law does not allow this type of internet searches.
The NSA declined to comment and referred to the US Government. A government spokesperson states that any disclosure of classified material is harmful to our national security.
Nuclear Rights and the P5+1 Talks with Iran
By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett | Going to Tehran | November 22, 2013
Yesterday, while taping a discussion of the latest round of P5+1 nuclear talks with Iran on Russia Today’s CrossTalk that was broadcast today (see here or, on You Tube, here), Flynt said, “I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not particularly optimistic about a deal being reached this week. I don’t think that there’s been a lot of progress on the issues that kept agreement from being reached the last time the parties convened in Geneva:
–There’s the issue of Iran’s nuclear rights, and how they get acknowledged or not acknowledged in an interim agreement.
–There is disagreement about how to handle, during an interim deal, this heavy water reactor facility at Arak which the Iranians are building.
–There are still disagreements about the disposition of Iran’s stockpile of near-20 percent enriched uranium.
I don’t really see much sign that either the United States or the French are backing down from some of the positions they took on those issues ten days ago—and if there’s not some give on that, I don’t know how the Iranians will be in a position to accept the P5+1 proposal.”
On the positions that the United States and France took on these issues in the November 7-9 Geneva talks, Flynt recounts,
“Going into the last round at Geneva, I think the Iranians anticipated getting a draft from the P5+1 where they had clearly worked out understandings about how some of these contentious issues—about Arak, about the 20 percent stockpile, about some acknowledgement of Iran’s nuclear rights; the Iranians had expectations from their previous discussions about the kind of proposal they were going to see. And, basically, the United States and France reneged on those understandings. And so the draft proposal that went in front of Iran was different from what Foreign Minister Zarif and his team were expecting to see, and they weren’t in a position to accept that.
Unless the P5+1—in particular, the United States and France—are willing to stick to understandings that the Iranians thought they had reached, at least verbally, on some of these issues, I don’t think that the Iranians are going to feel, either in terms of substance or in terms of the atmosphere of trust, they’re not going to feel comfortable with going ahead with an agreement.”
Currently, the most fundamental sticking point in Geneva is—as we have long anticipated—the Obama administration’s refusal to recognize Iran’s clear legal right to enrich uranium under safeguards and to acknowledge that the Islamic Republic will have to be treated like any other NPT party. As we’ve written before, see here, Iran and all other states have a sovereign right to pursue indigenous fuel cycle capabilities—a right recognized in Article IV of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as an “inalienable right,” which non-nuclear-weapon states pledge to exercise in line with Article II (where non-weapons states commit not to build or obtain nuclear weapons) and Article III (where states commit to conducting their nuclear activities under safeguards to be negotiated with the International Atomic Energy Agency).
As Flynt explains, the Obama administration—like the George W. Bush administration before it—resists recognizing this legal reality:
“There are basically four countries in the world that try to deny that the NPT recognizes the right of a non-nuclear weapon state like Iran to enrich uranium under safeguards. Those four countries are the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Israel, which isn’t even a signatory to the NPT. Those are the only four countries that take this position. The rest of the world—the BRICS, the Non-Aligned Movement, key U.S. allies like Germany and Japan—have held consistently that the Treaty recognizes a right to enrich. And what is so perverse is that…when the U.S. and the Soviet Union first opened the NPT for signature in 1968, senior U.S. officials testified to Congress that the NPT recognized a right to safeguarded enrichment. That was the position of the United States until the end of the Cold War—and then we decided to try to unilaterally rewrite the Treaty because we didn’t want non-Western countries getting fuel cycle capabilities.”
We’ll see if the Obama administration can do any better this weekend.
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Interventions Watch | November 23, 2013
Pulse Media have recently released an open letter, apparently authored and circulated by people associated with the Syrian opposition, addressing why they feel the inclusion of Mother Agnes Mariam at the upcoming Stop the War Conference should be ‘a “red line” for opponents of conflict’ (emphasis mine).
The letter is signed by 55 activists, journalists, politicians and academics, and I just want to review how ‘opposed’ to ‘conflict’ some of them actually are.
There’s no point in beating around the bush, so let’s get straight into it:
- 1. Prof. Gilbert Achcar, SOAS
In March 2011, as the NATO bombing campaign against Libya was in full swing, Achcar wrote an article for Znet expressing how he thought ‘it was just morally and politically wrong for anyone on the left to oppose the no-fly zone’ – that is, the NATO bombing of Libya, given enforcing a ‘no-fly zone’ always entails bombing, because that is basic military doctrine for this kind of operation. Achcar continues to strenuously deny supporting the ‘no-fly zone’, but I’ll leave it for others to decide whether there is a great deal of difference between him supporting it, and calling on others not to oppose it/try and stop it. He wasn’t, in any case, an ‘opponent’ of that aspect of the ‘conflict’ in Libya.
Achcar also supports sending arms to the Syrian rebels, writing that ‘it is the duty of all those who claim to support the right of peoples to self-determination to help the Syrian people get the means of defending themselves’ (aid agencies, meanwhile, have argued that the further provision of arms will deepen the humanitarian disaster).
- 2. Assaad al-Achi, Local Coordination Committees in Syria
The Local Coordination Committees have in the recent past issued press releases basically welcoming Western military intervention – as long as it’s not too limited, warning that ‘A limited strike to merely warn Assad will lead to nothing but increase in his violence’, and then arguing that ‘Any strike to the regime must aim to paralyze, with attention and precision, its Air Forces, artillery, and missiles arsenal’. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of their position, it is not one that is ‘opposed’ to ‘conflict’, but rather supports the escalation and further internationalization of the conflict.
- 3. Rime Allaf, Syrian writer
Allaf recently wrote an article for The Guardian calling for ‘real friends of Syria’ to ‘break Assad’s siege’ and ‘neutralise his air power’. Which they could only do via a military strike, obviously, so her words are a non-too-subtle call for military intervention.
- 4. Omar al-Assil, Syrian Non-Violence Movement
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 5. Hussam Ayloush, Chairman, Syrian American Council
In September 2013, Ayloush re-posted an article calling for military intervention in Syria on his blog, writing that ‘I agree with the message and decided to share it too’.
- 6. Noor Barotchi, Bradford Syria Solidarity
When Israel bombed Syria in May 2013, Barotchi wrote that ‘I shall not condemn it’, and that she was ‘bothered by . . . people condemning the act’.
7. Mark Boothroyd, International Socialist Network
8. Kat Burdon-Manley, International Socialist Network
9. Clara Connolly, Human Rights lawyer
I could find nothing to indicate the three people above are pro-military intervention.
- 10. Paul Conroy, photojournalist
Conroy has been calling for ‘no-fly zones and safe havens’ within Syria which, the Orwellian language aside, are both forms of military intervention.
- 11. Donnacha DeLong, National Union of Journalists
In November 2011, DeLong wrote in Ceasefire magazine of the NATO bombing of Libya: ‘what was the alternative? . . . It was NATO or nothing and I’m glad it wasn’t the latter’, while decrying ‘The knee-jerk condemnation of NATO intervention’.
- 12.Hannah Elsisi, Egyptian Revolutionary Socialist
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 13. Raed Fares, Head of Kafranabel Media Centre
As reported by The New York Times, in September, when U.S. airstrikes against Syria were being seriously discussed, Fares sent a video to U.S. members of Congress to let them know ‘what the Syrian people inside Syria feel and think about the strike’. The article goes on to say that the video ‘aims directly at American skepticism about another war and recent protests that featured antiwar slogans’. From the context, it’s clear that the video was designed to drum up support among U.S. lawmakers for a U.S. military strike on Syria.
- 14. Naomi Foyle, writer and co-ordinator of British Writers in Support of Palestine
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 15. Razan Ghazzawi, Syrian blogger and activist
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 16. Christine Gilmore, Leeds Friends of Syria
Here’s Christine Gilmore speaking in favour of military intervention in Syria on the BBC in August.
- 17. Golan Haji, poet and translator
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 18. Marcus Halaby, staff writer, Workers Power
In August, Halaby – while renouncing overt military intervention – wrote that ‘we should be demanding aid without strings to the Syrian people’, including ‘the sort of heavy weaponry the fighters need’.
- 19. Sam Charles Hamad, activist
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 20. Nebal Istanbouly, Office Manager of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (SOC) in the UK
When asked by The Egypt Independent whether the NCSROF supported military strikes against Syria, the head of the organisation, Ahmad Jarba, replied ‘Yes, but on the condition to preserve the lives of civilians whether supporters or opponents. This strike will be certain and directed against military sites under the control of the regime. We bless this strike as it will destroy the vehicles which kill the Syrian people mercilessly’.
- 21. Tehmina Kazi, human rights activist
I could find nothing to indicate the two people above are pro-military intervention.
- 22. Ghalia Kabbani, Syrian journalist and writer
I could find nothing to indicate the two people above are pro-military intervention.
- 23. Khaled Khalifa, Syrian writer
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 24. Malik Little, blogger
When the threat of U.S. lead military action against Syria began to subside in October, Little wrote a blog post lamenting what he called the ‘victory’ of the anti-war movement, describing the U.S. military as ‘the only force capable of ending the bloody stalemate’, and ending with ‘The movement to stop U.S. military action failed in 2003 and succeeded in 2013. In both cases, the result was needless bloodshed and brutality borne by people far from our shores’.
- 25. Amer Scott Masri, Scotland4Syria
On 5th September, at the height of the debate over whether the U.S. et al should bomb Syria, the Scotland4Syria Facebook page published a post arguing that ‘War is an evil thing, BUT it becomes necessary when a fascist and criminal dictator like Assad of Syria commits genocide on innocent men, women and children’.
- 26. Margaret McAdam, Unite Casa Branch NW567 (pc)
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 27. Yassir Munif, sociologist and activist
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 28. Tom Mycock, Unite shop steward (pc)
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 29. Maryam Namazie, Spokesperson, Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and Fitnah – Movement for Women’s Liberation
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 30. Tim Nelson, Unison Shop Steward (pc)
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 31. Louis Proyect, Counterpunch contributor
Wrote in June 2013 that he was ‘buoyed by the knowledge that most Arabs and Muslims are sickened by Bashar al-Assad and would like to see him overthrown by any means necessary, even with weapons procured from Satan’s grandmother’. Which implies that he wouldn’t be too bothered to see the U.S. et all supplying weapons to the opposition. Polls published at roughly the same time, incidentally, showed majority opposition in the middle east to ‘the West’ supplying arms.
- 32. Martin Ralph, VP Liverpool TUC (pc)
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 33. Ruth Riegler, co-founder of Radio Free Syria, Syrian International Media Alliance
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention, but she has been extremely critical of the anti-war movement since long before this Agnes controversy.
- 34. Mary Rizzo, activist, translator and blogger
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention. [Aletho News – Mary Rizzo maintains a blog dedicated to western military interventions. The blog was initiated during the campaign for bombing Libya. Mary writes original content promoting R2P as well as aggregating and disseminating the work of others.]
- 35. Christopher Roche and Dima Albadra, Bath Solidarity
Around about the time that the British parliament voted not to military intervene in Syria, Roche re-tweeted a number of things which strongly suggested he was in favour of the intervention.
- 36. Walid Saffour, Representative of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (SOC) in the UK
When asked by The Egypt Independent whether the NCSROF supported military strikes against Syria, the head of the organisation, Ahmad Jarba, replied ‘Yes, but on the condition to preserve the lives of civilians whether supporters or opponents. This strike will be certain and directed against military sites under the control of the regime. We bless this strike as it will destroy the vehicles which kill the Syrian people mercilessly’.
- 37. Gita Sahgal, Centre for Secular Space
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 38. David St Vincent, contributing writer and editor, National Geographic Books
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 39. Reem Salahi, civil rights lawyer
Has written that while she is ‘ambivalent about U.S. intervention’ in Syria given the U.S. track record, she thinks ‘There is something to be said when Syrians in Syria are calling for the U.S. to intervene’.
- 40. Salim Salamah, Palestinian blogger
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 41. Yassin al-Haj Saleh, Syrian writer
Wrote in a New York Times editorial in September, when the debate over whether to directly militarily intervene in Syria or not was raging, that ‘A half-hearted intervention will not be enough. The United States and those who join it must not simply “discipline” the regime for its use of chemical weapons alone, without making a decisive impact on events in Syria. To do so would be a waste of effort and send the wrong message’.
- 42. Richard Seymour, author
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 43. Bina Shah, author and contributor to the International New York Times
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 44. Leila Shrooms, founding member of Tahrir-ICN
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 45. Luke Staunton, International Socialist Network
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 46. KD Tait, National Secretary, Workers Power
Has written that her organisation is calling ‘for weapons for the revolutionaries’ (see 6th comment down).
- 47. Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner
Tatchell has been calling for a ‘no-fly zone’ over Syria for months, including at anti-war demos. He denies that he is pro-war in regards to Syria, but the imposition of a ‘no-fly zone’ is an inescapably pro-war demand.
- 48. Paris Thompson, International Socialist Network
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 49. Hassan Walid, Anas el-Khani and Abdulwahab Sayyed Omar, British Solidarity for Syria
When the U.K. Parliament voted against taking military action against Syria, Sayed Omar, spokesman for BBS, described it as ‘a celebration of brutal dictatorship’. He attacked the ‘excuses’ that some MPs used to justify voting against the the the intervention, and described calls for a diplomatic solution as ‘naive’. He goes on to lament that ‘when Syrians ask you for arms in order to fight him you refuse’. He finishes by saying that ‘Your vote last night means that this nation cannot call itself “Great” any longer’. Which is all strongly indicative that he was in favour of military intervention (see post dated August 31st).
- 50. Robin Yassin-Kassab, author and co-editor of Critical Muslim
Yassin-Kassab was an outspoken supporter of the NATO intervention in Libya. He has also written in regards to Syria that ‘At some point . . . key sections of the military and the Alawi community will realize they have no hope of victory, and will either flee or switch sides. I would prefer this moment to come in a year’s time or sooner, not in another decade. Arming Syria’s guerrillas is the only way to bring about that result’.
- 51. Qusai Zakariya, activist from Moadamiyeh, Syria
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 52. Nisreen al-Zaraee and Wisam al-Hamoui, Freedom Days
I could find nothing to indicate the above are pro-military intervention.
- 53. Tasneem al-Zeer, activist
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
- 54. Razan Zeitouneh, human rights lawyer
Has lamented the fact that the West is refusing ‘to do what it should do under the pretext of not turning Syria into a second Iraq’, and their refusal to ‘to deliver effective weapons or to create a no-fly zone and safe areas for civilians’.
- 55. Ziauddin Sardar, writer, journalist and editor of the Critical Muslim
I could find nothing to indicate the above is pro-military intervention.
So of the 55 signatories, I’d say around 20 of them either openly favour direct or indirect military intervention in Syria; have made comments strongly suggesting they do; or are on the fence somewhat.
My intention here absolutely isn’t to ‘name and shame’.
I’m sure many of the people on the list above who are in favour of military intervention in Syria – direct or indirect, overt or covert, arms or airstrikes – are so because they sincerely believe that it is the best way to ease the suffering in the country, and bring about a freer and more just political order. Especially those who are Syrian themselves.
I disagree with them that this is the best way, of course, given the track records of those who would likely be doing the ‘intervening’ (it’s 99.99% certain that it’d be U.S. lead) – they’ve tended to leave a trail of corpses and carnage behind them wherever they’ve bombed, invaded or subverted, rather than flourishing, peaceful democracies. Perhaps because encouraging peace and democracy isn’t their aim. I also don’t believe there is any such thing as a ‘humanitarian’ bomb or bullet, and am of the opinion that the attempt to re-brand predatory war as a humanitarian endeavor is one of the Big Lies of the age.
But I do think there’s a double standard in play when supporters of military intervention in Syria are accusing others of ‘greasing the skids of the regime’s war machine’, while they grease the skids of the U.S. et al war machine, and implicitly present themselves as ‘opponents of conflict’. Clearly, many of them aren’t.
And are not the supporters of military intervention in Syria in effect playing a role in minimising the dangers posed by the U.S./et al, by arguing like the aforementioned’s predatory, self-interested militarism and ultra violence – which has historically killed far more people than the Assad regime’s – is somehow more acceptable, more morally and politically tolerable, than Assad’s is, even if they recognise the dangers?
I also think there’s somewhat of a double standard in play when opponents of any military intervention can come together with supporters of such an intervention to, despite their differences, denounce the fact that Mother Agnes was invited to speak at the Stop the War conference.
Are we to believe that it’s fine for opponents and supporters of military intervention to put their differences to one side to pursue a common goal (in this case, trying to get Mother Agnes removed from the Stop the War platform), but not fine for opponents of the Assad regime to put aside their differences with an with alleged supporter of the Assad regime to pursue theirs (in this case, preventing a U.S. lead military strike on Syria, a far worse scenario than Mother Agnes being allowed to speak)?
Because that appears to be the message.
Ultimately, if the question is ‘Should Agnes have been invited to address the Stop the War conference?’, then I can see that there is a principled argument against it.
But if the question is ‘Should people be withdrawing just because she was?’, then not in my book. Not unless they’re going to be consistent in applying those principles, by refusing to participate in any campaign or on any platform that might be patronised by any person whose views they otherwise don’t like or approve of.
And for a start, that certainly hasn’t been the case in regards to the literary platform that Pulses’ letter provides.
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corbettreport · November 22, 2013
https://www.bitchute.com/video/8DJRHqOuMHlp
TRANSCRIPTS AND SOURCES: http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=8262
Everything you wanted to know about the JFK assassination in under 5 minutes. The Warren Commission: connecting the dots so you don’t have to!
Mummy, The Ocean’s Eaten My Heat!!
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | September 24, 2013
I’ve been meaning to post on this for a while. We often hear the claim that all of the missing heat has been gobbled up by the oceans.
Now, let’s leave aside some of the obvious problems with this theory, such as:
- How all of this heat has selectively and mysteriously managed to avoid land areas.
- How warm water has managed to sink instead of rise.
- How the water at, or near, the surface seems to have escaped this warming.
And get straight to the nub of the matter.
Water has a much higher heat capacity than air. According to NOAA,
The oceans store more heat in the uppermost 3 meters (10 feet) than the entire atmosphere (above it).
So let’s run some very simple calculations.
In the last decade, most models were predicting something of the order of 0.2C global warming. If, instead of warming the atmospheric , this extra heat has gone into the sea, its effects will be much diluted, with the result that increases in sea temperatures will be much, much less than 0.2C.
(Remember, it takes much more energy to warm a bucket of water by 1C than a bucket of air.)
The suggestion is that, as there has been no noticeable warming in the upper 100 meters, this “hidden heat” is as far as 2000 meters down.
So, ocean temperature should have increased by:
2000 Meters Divided By 3 Meters = 666.6
0.2C Divided By 666.6 = 0.0003C
The idea that we can:
- measure sea temperatures throughout all the oceans of the world
- measure it throughout the whole depth down to 2000 meters and more.
- take into account seasonal changes
- take into account shifting ocean cycles and currents.
and still be able to measure the overall temperature to better than three ten thousandths of a degree is patent nonsense.
So step forward Professor Ted Shepherd, a leading atmospheric scientist and recently installed as Grantham Chair in Climate Science at Reading University.
He had this to say to the Guardian.
“The heat is still coming in, but it appears to have gone into the deep ocean and, frustratingly, we do not have the instruments to measure there,”
Or to put it another way, we have no idea whether it is or not, but in the meantime we’ll still cling to our theory.
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Book Review & Summary
Calling of an Angel: The True Story of Rene Caisse and an Indian Herbal Medicine Called Essiac (1988)
Dr. Gary L. Glum – 30 Q&As – Book Review & Summary
Lies are Unbekoming | October 17, 2026
On June 10, 1975, Dr. Chester Stock, a vice president at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, wrote to a Canadian nurse named Rene Caisse: “Enclosed are test data in two experiments indicating some regressions in sarcoma 180 of mice treated with Essiac.” The sentence sat in a letter from one of the world’s largest private cancer research centers, concerning an herbal tea an elderly English woman had learned from an Ojibwa medicine man at a northern Ontario mining camp in the 1890s. The tests were terminated the following year after Sloan-Kettering admitted, in sworn affidavit three years later, that they had prepared the injectable solution improperly from the dried material supplied — freezing and thawing the herb rather than boiling it as Rene had instructed. By the time Calling of an Angel was published in 1988, Rene Caisse had been dead for a decade, having treated thousands of cancer patients across fifty-six years in her Bracebridge, Ontario kitchen, never charging a fee, and refusing every offer — from Memorial Sloan-Kettering, the National Cancer Institute, Merck, Parke Davis, and private corporations dangling contracts up to $1 million — to release her formula before the medical establishment admitted her remedy had merit. … continue
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