Western Kim-Phobia & The Danger of War
By Caleb Maupin | New Eastern Outlook | May 11, 2016
In almost every US aligned Gulf State, you can find an autocratic monarch who rules over a small, oil-rich corner of the world via an outdated, pre-democratic legal system that grants him absolute authority. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarch with dictatorial powers, was married to 30 different women, by whom he has fathered a total of 35 children. The recently deceased King Abdullah, now replaced by Salman, was a serial human rights violating autocrat who routinely beheaded people for “insulting” him, and he was certainly not alone.
If investigative journalists in the Western press bothered to dig, they could most certainly find out the shocking details about the wealthy aristocracies of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Jordan. The US-backed oil monarchies of the Middle East are known to have rooms full of trafficked sexual slaves from around the world, and to preside over populations with no human rights or freedoms.
Due to the fact that the decadent and oppressive Gulf state monarchs are allies of the United States, sell oil to Wall Street and buy weapons from the Pentagon, Western media mostly ignores their undisputed and well documented scandals and atrocities.
However, when reporting on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Western media reports every rumor and unsubstantiated claim as undisputed truth. Everything said by defectors from the northern part of the Korean peninsula is believed and uncritically repeated. Western media has embarrassed itself more than a few times in the past years, by repeating allegations that are so obviously false and easily disproven, that they must be quietly retracted.
The claim that women in the DPRK are forbidden from riding bicycles was ripped to shreds with video from inside the country. The Korean Workers Party actually prides itself on its advancement of women, with women winning Olympic gold medals and playing a prominent role in the military. The outrageous claim that the DPRK executes people by “feeding them to wild dogs” was traced to a satirical Chinese publication.
Unlike the US-aligned autocracies in the Middle East, the DPRK has a constitution and elections. Even though the Korean Workers Party promotes dialectical materialism and atheism, there are freely practicing Christian churches all throughout the northern half of the Korean peninsula. Even the DPRK’s harshest critics admit that the country has “universal housing” (no homelessness), and that it has completely wiped out illiteracy. These facts alone show that the DPRK, regardless of its flaws, is a much more humane and human rights-respecting society than Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, and many other US aligned regimes.
The special, obsessive demonization of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in Western media, rightly called “Kim-Phobia” is not just an insult to journalistic integrity. Kim-phobia could have catastrophic consequences, not only for the Korean peninsula, but for the entire human race. US media has selected the “North Koreans” for demonization and isolation for special, strategic reasons.
“Human Rights” Testimony Given Under Duress
If mainstream US media were to start slandering Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping by saying they were cannibals or child molesters, it’s not guaranteed that many people would automatically believe it. The governments of both Russia and China have enough respect and credibility, as well as economic ties to the United States, that such false claims would be widely dismissed and refuted. While some rightists and non-thinking war-hawks are tempted to believe whatever slanderous allegation is made, a very large percentage of the western populace would question such claims.
Likewise, wild and extreme claims against Raul Castro and the leadership of Cuba would face similar scrutiny. While the Tea Party and many Cuban exiles in Miami may accept any anti-Cuban propaganda, with many Americans visiting Cuba and prominent celebrities praising its healthcare system, not all anti-Cuban allegations are merely accepted as fact.
However, the outrageous statements and accusations against Kim Jong-Un and the Korean Workers Party can be routinely passed on without any scrutiny or filter. Why?
With tens of thousands of US troops on its border and under an economic blockade, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is focused on military defense, not the information war. Very few Westerners visit the northern part of the Korean peninsula. The country has made a point of strategically cutting itself off from the Western press and the Internet for military purposes. Because of these unique circumstances, Wolf Blitzer and Don Lemon can pretty much say anything about Kim Jong-Un and the Korean people without anyone fact-checking them.
The bombardment of anti-DPRK propaganda has become very effective. For example, the United Nations held hearings about “Human Rights” in the DPRK in Seoul. At these hearings, person after person stood up and accused the government in the North of horrific atrocities. What the media ignored while reporting on the human rights hearings was that this testimony was given under duress.
The government in southern Korea has its infamous “National Security Laws” which have been condemned by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other bodies. Under the National Security Laws, anyone who says or writes anything that could be interpreted as supporting or speaking positively of the DPRK can be imprisoned for decades.
These laws are not symbolic, but routinely enforced against anyone who dares utter a positive word about Kim Il Sung, Communism, Socialism, or US atrocities during the Korean war. For example, Park Geun-Jung was sentenced to 10 months in prison for activity on social media. Park is not a Communist, and was obviously being sarcastic with his tweets about his northern countryfolk, but this did not prevent him from being locked up.
The United Nations Human Rights hearings in Seoul were a violation of the UN’s own procedures. The UN received what was essentially coerced testimony from people who knew they would be imprisoned and possibly tortured if they said anything other than “North Korea is hell on earth.”
THAAD and War Danger
The United States is now installing a huge missile system in the southern part of the Korean peninsula. This is the latest measure in the “Asian Pivot” of the US military. The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system’s installment has garnered objections, and not only from the DPRK. China and Russia have also raised deep concerns.
Why would China and Russia be concerned about the THAAD system? Essentially, this system gives US forces in South Korea the ability to strike both Russia and China, and to deflect any retaliatory measure.
Southern Korea can be used as a base, not just to attack the north, but also Russia and China. The THAAD system shields US missile launchers from any response, and would allow the US to continue unloading its missiles onto Russia and China.
China and Russia both now have hypersonic gliders, which could probably penetrate the THAAD system. However, it is very disturbing that the United States is looking to make south Korea, where tens of thousands of US troops are stationed, immune from Russian or Chinese retaliation. If the United States and the “Republic of Korea” are not planning an attack on Russia, China, or the DPRK, why prepare southern Korea for such a thing?
The excuse of the United States and the south Korean regime for this highly provocative move against the two largest countries in the world is “Crazy Kim made us do it.”
US audiences have been psyched up by “The Interview”, “Red Dawn”, and “Olympus Has Fallen”, along with press reports saying bizarre, unsubstantiated things like “Kim Jong Il Claims to have invented the Hamburger” into believing that the DPRK is somehow bent on world conquest. In reality, all the DPRK asks for is the peaceful democratic re-unification of the peninsula.
The anti-Kim obsession of the western press is serving to justify US preparations for war in Asia. US weapons and military personnel are pouring, not just into southern Korea, but also into the Philippines, Indonesia, and other parts of the world.
Meanwhile, US troops and military equipment are being deployed into Eastern Europe. Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania, all of which have been gutted by neoliberalism since the collapse of the USSR, are now having their homelands turned into launch pads for a third world war.
The United States is surrounding Russia and China with troops, and continuing to describe any defensive move by the two countries as “aggression.”
In such a context, hostilities on the Korean peninsula, with the USA supporting the south and Russia and China supporting the north, could easily spin way out of control. With the DPRK as such an easily demonized target, a single spark could easily light up the entire world.
The “Kim-Phobia” of the US media is very strategic. Hipster journalism about “crazy Kim” has very important public relations value for the Pentagon as it escalates its presence in Asia.
Progressive minded human beings should see how dangerous this is. “Kim-Phobia” could be setting the stage for World War Three, as more and more weapons and US military personnel pour into the region.
Attorney-client privilege denied to us, used by Feds to keep the law secret
PrivacySOS | May 9, 2016
How do you spell chutzpah? I submit an alternate spelling: O-B-A-M-A D-O-J.
How the Obama administration interprets the phrase “government transparency,” in three acts.
Act One: Secret Law
The Obama administration is trying to keep secret a 2003 Office of Legal Counsel memo outlining how federal intelligence agencies interpret “commercial services agreements” between telecoms and their customers. The memo, which the ACLU seeks in a FOIA lawsuit, likely outlines the government’s legal position on how intelligence agencies can access information held by telecommunications companies. Senator Ron Wyden, who from his position on the Senate Intelligence Committee has routinely warned Americans of unconstitutional intelligence activities, has said the government’s “opinion is inconsistent with the public’s understanding of the law, and should be withdrawn.”
Wyden has also publicly stated that the DOJ misled a federal court during its legal fight to keep the memo secret. In a March 2016 letter, Wyden wrote that a DOJ memorandum of law filed in the case contains a “key assertion” that is false. “This assertion appears to be central to the DOJ’s legal arguments,” Wyden wrote.
Now the DOJ has fired back at Wyden, asserting in a brief in the ACLU lawsuit that the Senator’s claims about this “key assertion” were “wholly erroneous” and “based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the law.” The Justice Department claims the administration can keep the legal memo secret because it is not “working law,” but rather confidential legal advice. According to the DOJ, even though an agency may rely on an Office of Legal Counsel memo “by acting in a manner that is consistent with the advice,” the memo doesn’t necessarily “establish agency policy,” meaning it’s not “working law”—which is subject to public disclosure—but instead confidential legal advice.
(As Wyden noted, the DOJ “isn’t denying that this opinion is inconsistent with the public’s understanding of the law”; instead, it’s arguing that the legal memo at issue doesn’t constitute law.)
To repeat: The government is arguing that even if agencies “rely” on an OLC memo and act “in a manner consistent” with its advice, it isn’t law. Instead, it’s private legal advice, which just so happens to be something the government can keep secret from the public.
Act Two: Limitless Surveillance
In April 2016, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released parts of a November 2015 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) opinion about how the FBI, NSA, and CIA use information collected pursuant to Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. (The FISA Amendments Act, signed into law in 2008, put congress’ stamp of approval on the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program.) Section 702 of that statute allows the intelligence agencies to warrantlessly wiretap Americans’ international communications, as long as Americans or people within the United States are not “targeted.” Part of that statute requires that the Attorney General and ODNI prepare annual reports, called “certifications,” to be reviewed by FISC judges. These certifications include information about how, why, and under what circumstances intelligence agencies “minimize” information about non-targets or US persons caught up in its dragnets.
The recently released November 2015 FISC opinion describes some of these minimization procedures in detail. Among them are procedures related to the capture, dissemination, and use of attorney-client privileged communications. The opinion reveals that the FBI can disseminate attorney-client privileged communications as long as the FBI’s lawyers approve it. The rules require the FBI to “advise recipients that the dissemination contains information subject to attorney-client privilege, that the information is being disseminated ‘solely for intelligence or lead purposes,’ and that it may not be further disseminated or used in any trial, hearing, or other proceeding without the approval of the AG or the Assistant AG for National Security.”
In other words: The US government allows itself to warrantlessly wiretap our international communications and even use our attorney-client privileged communications for intelligence purposes, as long as it doesn’t disclose to criminal defendants or courts that it has done so.
Act Three: Upside Down World
The US government refuses to disclose a legal memo that likely describes how intelligence agencies spy on our communications, claiming that the memo isn’t “working law” but instead constitutes “private” legal advice. Secret law is thereby justified by attorney-client privilege. In this case, the attorney and the client are one in the same: the executive branch.
At the same time, the government gives itself the power to warrantlessly wiretap, retain, disseminate, and use for intelligence purposes our attorney-client privileged communications—so long as the fact of agencies doing so never becomes public. Surveillance of attorney-client privileged communications is justified, as long as it remains secret.
Secret law, secret surveillance. Attorney-client privilege for government lawyers advising government agencies about government policy. No attorney-client privilege for ordinary people, who will likely never learn that the FBI or NSA has warrantlessly obtained their confidential communications.
Only in an upside down world could this administration choose this path, having called itself the “most transparent administration” in history.
4 members of Egyptian satire troupe Street Children referred to prosecution for ‘insulting the state’
Ahram Online | May 10, 2016
Four members of Street Children (Atfal Shawaree), a satirical performance art troupe, were referred Tuesday to a Cairo prosecution on accusations of inciting protests and publishing videos that insult state institutions, a judicial source told Ahram Online.
The artists were arrested on Monday and are being held at Cairo’s Sayeda Zeinab police station prior to the referral to Heliopolis prosecution.
On Sunday, the group’s sixth and youngest member, Ezz El-Din Khaled, 19, was ordered to be released on EGP 10,000 bail pending investigation into charges of inciting protests and publishing videos that insult state institutions.
Prosecution appealed the decision to release Khaled on Monday. The appeal was rejected on Tuesday and the 19-year-old was released.
Khaled was arrested from his home on Saturday evening.
The six-member performance group gained popularity among youths for their videos in which they that mock societal norms as well as the discourse of government officials and supporters.
Street Children released their first video in January 2016. The troupe’s last video was another satirical titled “Sisi is my president.”
Israel may force Palestinians to raise Israeli flag on Nakba Day
MEMO | May 10, 2016
Culture and sports centres in Israel, including Arabic institutions, should be made to raise the Israeli flag on Nakba Day, a senior minister has said yesterday.
Israeli Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev instructed the ministry’s Director General Yossi Sharabi to put together an initiative that would see institutions raising the Israeli flag, YnetNews reported.
The news site reported informed sources saying: “Personal judgment should not factor in here.”
If Regev’s proposal is approved by the Knesset, it would force Al-Midan Theatre in Haifa and the Doha Stadium in Sakhnin, whose population is predominantly Arab, to raise the Israeli flag.
Since she took office, Regev promised to promote the Israeli flag’s prominence.
Majd Atwan, 22, sentenced to 45 days imprisonment for Facebook postings
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – May 10, 2016
Majd Yousef Atwan, 22, a young Palestinian woman from Al-Khader village, Bethlehem, and a recent beauty school graduate, was sentenced by an Israeli Ofer military court to 45 days imprisonment and a 3,000 NIS ($794) fine for posting on Facebook, which the Israeli military occupation deemed “incitement.”
Atwan is one of approximately 150 Palestinians detained and imprisoned for social media postings, including the case of Dareen Tatour, a Palestinian poet from Nazareth being prosecuted for poetry posted online. She was arrested in a 2:00 am army raid on her family home on 19 April, which was invaded by occupation soldiers. She is one of 7,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails and nearly 70 women and girls.
Sheikh Raed Salah begins nine-month prison term for “incitement”
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – May 9, 2016
Sheikh Raed Salah, Palestinian leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, began a nine-month jail term for “incitement” on Sunday, 8 May. He arrived at the jail with dozens of supporters, and said that “this prison sentence will not deter us from maintaining the defence of [Jerusalem’s] Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
Since 1996, Salah is the leader of the northern wing of the Islamic Movement, which organizes Palestinian citizens of Israel. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the movement banned last year, sparking widespread protest and condemnation. Salah has been imprisoned in the past for incitement and related charges; this imprisonment is related to a 2007 rally against Israeli construction work near Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Salah arrived for his sentence at Beersheba prison, and was then transferred to Nafha prison by Israeli occupation forces. He has repeatedly stated that his imprisonment is an attempt to shut down Palestinian defense of Al-Aqsa from attacks by settlers and the Israeli government.
He served as mayor of Umm al-Fahm between 1987 and 2001. In 2010, he participated in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla aboard the Mavi Marmara, the ship attacked by Israeli special forces who killed ten Turkish and American activists, as the armed forces took over the ship and prevented it from breaking the siege of Gaza.
In 2011, Salah was targeted during a visit to the UK for deportation and exclusion. Arrested in the UK, he was kept in the country until March 2012 fighting the charges, which he eventually defeated in a significant court victory.
Extremist settlers attack Palestinian human rights activists in Hebron
Ma’an – May 8, 2016
HEBRON – A group of extremist Israeli settlers on Saturday attacked two Palestinian human rights activists in the Tel Rumeida area in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron, video footage showed.
Human Rights Defenders spokesperson Badee Dweik told Ma’an that settlers attacked Emad Abu Shamsiya and Yasser Abu Markhiya, who work with the group’s Hebron office. The two were taking footage of extremist settlers carrying rods near Palestinian homes in Tel Rumeida in Hebron’s Old City.
Abu Shamsiya, who serves as coordinator of the group in Hebron, said the settlers “were preparing to attack and intimidate Palestinian residents, especially children,” and that he rushed toward the scene with Abu Markhiya after they heard children screaming.
Their video shows a group of three settlers, two boys and one adult, begin to pass by. The adult settler can be heard saying in Hebrew, “if you take footage of me I’m going to kill you.” The children approach Abu Shamsiya and Abu Markhiya and order them to put down the camera before the adult strikes Abu Shamsiya.
“They punched me and broke my camera,” Abu Shamsiya told Ma’an, highlighted that Israeli soldiers were watching when the settlers attacked him and his colleague without intervening.
Dweik told Ma’an that attacks by Israeli settlers and Israeli soldiers against activists attempting to document settler attacks on Palestinian residents have increased recently, especially after footage captured by Abu Shamsiya in March of an Israeli soldier shooting and killing Abd al-Fatah al-Sharif while he was lying motionless on the ground stoked widespread international criticism.
A day after release of the video, Israeli settlers gathered outside the home of Abu Shamsiya in Hebron to threaten him.
Tel Rumeida — where Shamsiya’s house is located and the site both Saturday’s incident and al-Sharif’s killing — has long been a flashpoint for tensions between Palestinians and Israeli settlers and military, and is location to an illegal Israeli settlement.
Mistreatment of Palestinians in the Hebron area has been common since the city was divided in the 1990s after a US-born Israeli settler, Baruch Goldstein, massacred 29 Palestinians inside the Ibrahimi Mosque.
The majority of the city was placed under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, while the Old City and surrounding areas were placed under Israeli military control in a sector known as H2.
The area is home to 30,000 Palestinians and around 800 Israeli settlers who live under the protection of Israeli forces. Hebron residents frequently report attacks and harassment by the settlers carried out in the presence of the forces.
Reporters Without Borders – not independent but “strictly linked to US foreign policy”
By Graham Vanbergen | TruePublica | May 4, 2016
Reporters Without Borders has published the latest 2016 report on press freedom where Britain has fallen yet again with the organisation making the following statement about press freedom in Britain:
“Terrorist attacks have led to the adoption of draconian security legislation. The government reacted to the London public transport bombings in 2005 with a Terrorism Act the following year that restricts freedom of expression. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) adopted in 2000 allows the authorities to obtain the phone records of journalists in cases of threats to national security. Worse still, despite a law protecting the confidentiality of sources, the police have since 1984 been able to ask the courts to order media outlets to hand over unpublished journalistic source material “in the interests of justice.”
It is hardly surprising that Britain has fallen 4 places in 2016 behind such countries as; Tonga, Belize, OECS (Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States), Samoa, Ghana, Suriname, Namibia, Jamaica, with Burkino Faso and Botswana just behind, given recent legislative actions by the Conservative government since 2010.
The Guardian revealed in January 2015 that the British intelligence agency GCHQ described journalists as a “potential threat to security” and that huge quantities of emails of many journalists were among interceptions that went as far back as 2008. It was only the result of the Edward Snowden leaks that as many as 70,000 emails from journalists captured by Britain’s surveillance agency became known.
On the 15th October, Gordon Raynor, Chief Reporter at The Telegraph said– “Investigative journalism will be stopped dead in its tracks and local newspapers may be driven out of business when new laws restricting Britain’s free press come into force next month.” He continues – Media organisations face “the most substantial threat to press freedom in the modern era” as a result of the “menacing” laws passed in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry.
An independent report into the implications of the Crime and Courts Act, which came into force on November 3, says that The Telegraph’s landmark investigation into what turned out to be the most explosive political scandal in decades over MPs’ expenses would have been all but impossible under the new regime.
Britain sitting at number 38 flatters reality.
‘Freedom of Press’ is published by the US-based Freedom House, an NGO established in 1941 that has been ranking countries worldwide since 1980 in relation to democracy, human rights and press freedom. In May 2014 it reported that Britain has slipped down the global rankings for freedom of the press to 36th place.
According to Freedom House, “only 13 percent of the world’s population enjoys a free press—that is, where coverage of political news is robust, the safety of journalists is guaranteed, state intrusion in media affairs is minimal, and the press is not subject to onerous legal or economic pressures.” Although Britain is ranked as safe in press freedom terms one has to wonder given the very heavy handed behaviour by the government at The Guardian over the Snowden files and state surveillance over journalists more widely.
Meanwhile, without any sense of shame, US President Obama, the leader of the ‘free-world’, having presided over continual declines in press freedom sees the USA drop to a pitiful 41st place has the Whitehouse Briefing Room release the following statement (first paragraph):
“On World Press Freedom Day, we thank the journalists around the world without whom democracy could not flourish and whose courageous work helps hold authorities to account. These are the men and women who work to ensure that debate on public issues can be, in the words of Justice William Brennan, “uninhibited, robust, and wide open.”
One glaring component missing from all these so-called press freedom reports is that the biggest economic trade deals in the history of humanity are due to be signed in 2016 …. in total secrecy. In the EU, the European Commission is making the secret Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade deal even more secret than any normal person would think possible by the introduction of a new rule last year that means politicians can only view (some selected) TTIP text in a secure ‘reading room’ in Brussels. That is, of course, only after their mobile phones, memo pads, and pens have been taken away and two guards ominously placed in the room to ensure no notes are taken. And even then only after signing confidentiality agreements that threaten prosecutions for any leaks.
In the US, the same ‘reading room’ exists. As The Independent reports:
“In the basement of the US capitol, there is a room, a locked soundproof room, and the only people allowed in this room are US senators, and they can’t bring their assistants, they can’t bring their phones, they can’t even take notes in there. Inside this room is not the codes for our nuclear weapons, it’s not CIA files, it’s not the documents that tell us an alien landed in Roswell. No, in this room is the text of a trade deal (TTIP).”
Press freedom?? This type of secrecy, designed by corporations and the unelected politicians of the EU Commission would have made Joseph Goebbels in Nazi Germany proud. The EU Commission have now become completely independent of the politicians who represent the 508 million citizens of the 28 nation bloc where millions sign petitions and protest on the streets, get arrested and/or fined in their thousands and yet remain unheard. This is extreme press freedom censorship in every sense of the word. It says something when citizens have to rely on people like Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Edward Snowden for any real information on the matter – and both of them are in hiding from British and American police.
And so we come back to RWB who that as it turns out, is financed by none other than the US Congress and by various agencies tied to the US government – who coincidentally are conducting the talks on TTIP.
As GlobalResearch reports: “If we go to the RWB website to find who stands behind these self-anointed judges of world press freedom, we find nothing. Not even their board of directors are named, let alone their financial backers. Their annual published Income and Expenditure statements give no clue who stands behind them financially. RWB’s former Secretary General Robert Menard admitted that the budget for the organization was provided by “US organizations strictly linked with US foreign policy.”
Unfortunately, Reporters Without Borders are pretty much in the same boat as the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists amongst many others who have thoroughly important sounding names but in the end prove to be little more than propagandists for their masters.
We asked Reporters Without Borders why there had been no mention of TTIP in any of their reports. At the time of publication, we have received no reply.
‘EU Stays Silent on Erdogan Press Crackdown’
Sputnik – May 8, 2016
Two journalists from Turkey’s leading newspaper Cumhuriyet have been sentenced to five years in prison for revealing state secrets, but the case against them is purely political since the footage they published only confirmed what everybody already knows about Ankara’s activities in Syria, Turkish journalist Zeynep Oral told Radio Sputnik.
Two prominent Turkish journalists, Can Dudar and Erdem Gul, were sentenced on Friday to five years ten months and five years in prison, respectively, for publishing footage that appears to show Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) smuggling arms to opposition groups in Syria.
However, the charges of terrorism and espionage that were levied against them are baseless because the supposed state secret that they divulged has been well known for some time, Zeynep Oral, President of PEN Center Turkey and a columnist for the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet, told Radio Sputnik.
“In fact both Can Dudar and Erdem Gul were put on trial for spying and terrorism, for attempting to put down the government and so many things, they were even prosecuted as terrorists, but the court acquitted them of all of these.”
“They are only being punished for what they have written. The court insisted that they have revealed ‘state secrets.’ Those secrets are not secrets; everybody knows about them, there are tons of publications about them, it’s not a secret any longer, this has already been published before.”
Oral believes that the current state of journalism in Turkey is the worst she’s seen in her 45-year career, and has resulted from the government’s political interference in the media and arbitrary use of the court system.
“I have lived through three different military coups and in none of them was it so bad. At least when you had the military coups you knew what you could write, what was forbidden to write, what was not forbidden to write, what was permissible.”
“Now there is uncertainty, you can be prosecuted for anything you write. The same article can be written by different names and one will be prosecuted and the other will not be prosecuted. For me this is a completely political court case, it has nothing to do with justice,” Oral said.
At first the Turkish government claimed the trucks were only taking humanitarian aid to Syria, then changed their story and said they were providing arms for the Turkmen in Iraq.
“Then the Turkmen said no, we’re not receiving any arms from the Turkish government.”
“Then Mr. Erdogan declared, ‘I shall not let them go free, they’ll have to pay for this.'”
“I think the court obeyed the orders of Mr. Erdogan.”
Oral said that while Turkey has a secular constitution, religion has been playing a greater role in political under the current government.”In the last ten years we have made a lot of concessions in the field of secularism. The education is being changed, the law system is being changed. The president of the parliament is saying, ‘we should change our constitution and take away secularism.'”
“All the resonances are becoming more and more religious. Of course, for me, that is unacceptable, not understandable, it’s a counter-revolution I would say.”
Turkey has recently become important to Europe “for the first time” because of its deal over the migrant crisis, but while the EU expresses concern about authoritarianism there, it will not interfere in support of European ideals regarding human rights, particularly freedom of expression, Oral said.
“They are ready to do anything to save their profits, their territory, I won’t say their ideals.”
“Profits and benefits are more important than ideals, these days, for the EU.”
THE OXFORD UNION FAWNS TO APARTHEID AMBASSADORS
By Hugh Jaeger · May 5, 2016
On 26 April Israel’s new Ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev, spoke at the Oxford Union. Three days later I sent a 300-word letter to The Oxford Times about his speech, and a street protest against him that was held outside the building.
Any newspaper has the right to edit letters. In addition The Oxford Times sets a limit of 300 words. I write lots of letters to the paper. Usually they are on other subjects, and nearly always The Oxford Times publishes them in full.
On 5 May the paper published some of my letter about Ambassador Regev. Unusually it had been edited to less than half its length. The choice of which sentences to delete robbed the letter of all of its evidence and much of its force.
Below is the full letter as I sent it. In [brackets and italics] are the sentences that The Oxford Times deleted. Draw your own conclusions!
MARK REGEV’S APPEARANCE AT THE OXFORD UNION WAS NOT BALANCED
Thank you everyone from Oxford University Palestine Society and Oxford Palestine Solidarity Campaign who, at scant notice, protested outside the Oxford Union on 26 April.
The Union had invited Mark Regev, Israel’s new London ambassador, to speak. Regev was spokesman for Israel’s defence ministry during its 2006 invasion of Lebanon. [He notoriously defended Israel’s massacres of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza in 2008–09, 2012 and 2014.
In 2008–09 Regev claimed Israel’s use of white phosphorus in the Gaza massacres didn’t break international law. He defended Israel bombarding hospitals, schools, homes, mosques, churches and a UNWRA aid store. He claimed Hamas kept weapons in mosques and carried them in ambulances. After the 2008–09 massacres the UN Goldstone report found no evidence for Israel’s claims, but accused both Israel and Hamas of war crimes.]
The Oxford Union holds debates between high-calibre speakers. It could have invited Regev and a seconder to debate against equal opponents. A Palestinian advocate such as Hanan Ashrawi or liberal Israeli such as historian Professor Ilan Pappé of Exeter University would have been suitable. Or Channel 4 newscaster Jon Snow, who knows the Middle East and lives in Oxford.
Instead the Union let Regev address an audience and then answer questions. [Few students, however bright, can match Regev’s experience, guile and cold cunning.] The Union treated previous Israeli ambassadors the same: Daniel Taub in 2014 and Ron Prosor in 2010. Each got off lightly.
[Regev told his audience only anarchists or Marxists distinguish between criticism of Zionism and prejudice against Jews. He claimed to support a two-state settlement! In fact his government keeps seizing Palestinian land and pouring illegal settlers into East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Online the Union repeated Regev’s propaganda but no audience criticism. It betrayed the interests of Israelis, Palestinians and students.]
Syria, ISIS, and the US-UK Propaganda War
By Eric Draitser | New Eastern Outlook | May 6, 2016
With the war in Syria raging in its fifth year, and the Islamic State wreaking havoc throughout the Middle East and North Africa, it’s clear that the entire region has been made into one large theater of conflict. But the battlefield must not be understood solely as a physical place located on a map; it is equally a social and cultural space where the forces of the US-UK-NATO Empire employ a variety of tactics to influence the course of events and create an outcome amenable to their agenda. And none to greater effect than propaganda.
Indeed, if the ongoing war in Syria, and the conflicts of the post-Arab Spring period generally, have taught us anything, it is the power of propaganda and public relations to shape narratives which in turn impact political events. Given the awesome power of information in the postmodern political landscape, it should come as no surprise that both the US and UK have become world leaders in government-sponsored propaganda masquerading as legitimate, grassroots political and social expression.
London, Washington, and the Power of Manipulation
The Guardian recently revealed how the UK Government’s Research, Information, and Communications Unit (RICU) is involved in surveillance, information dissemination, and promotion of individuals and groups as part of what it describes as an attempt at “attitudinal and behavioral change” among its Muslim youth population. This sort of counter-messaging is nothing new, and has been much discussed for years. However, the Guardian piece actually exposed the much deeper connections between RICU and various grassroots organizations, online campaigns, and social media penetration.
The article outlined the relationship between the UK Government’s RICU and a London-based communications company called Breakthrough Media Network which “has produced dozens of websites, leaflets, videos, films, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and online radio content, with titles such as The Truth about Isis and Help for Syria.” Considering the nature of social media, and the manner in which information (or disinformation) is spread online, it should come as no surprise that a number of the viral videos, popular twitter feeds, and other materials that seemingly align with the anti-Assad line of London and Washington are, in fact, the direct products of a government-sponsored propaganda campaign.
In fact, as the authors of the story noted:
One Ricu initiative, which advertises itself as a campaign providing advice on how to raise funds for Syrian refugees, has had face-to-face conversations with thousands of students at university freshers’ fairs without any students realising they were engaging with a government programme. That campaign, called Help for Syria, has distributed leaflets to 760,000 homes without the recipients realising they were government communications.
It’s not hard to see what the British Government is trying to do with such efforts; they are an attempt to control the messaging of the war on Syria, and to redirect grassroots anti-war activism to channels deemed acceptable to the political establishment. Imagine for a moment the impact on an 18-year-old college freshman just stepping into the political arena, and immediately encountering seasoned veteran activists who influence his/her thinking on the nature of the war, who the good guys and bad guys are, and what should be done. Now multiply that by thousands and thousands of students. The impact of such efforts is profound.
But it is much more than simply interactions with prospective activists and the creation of propaganda materials; it is also about surveillance and social media penetration. According to the article, “One of Ricu’s primary tasks is to monitor online conversations among what it describes as vulnerable communities. After products are released, Ricu staff monitor ‘key forums’ for online conversations to ‘track shifting narratives,’ one of the documents [obtained by The Guardian ] shows.” It is clear that such efforts are really about online penetration, especially via social media.
By monitoring and manipulating in this way, the British Government is able to influence, in a precise and highly targeted way, the narrative about the war on Syria, ISIS, and a host of issues relevant to both its domestic politics and the geopolitical and strategic interests of the British state. Herein lies the nexus between surveillance, propaganda, and politics.
But of course the UK is not alone in this effort, as the US has a similar program with its Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC) which describes its mission as being:
…[to] coordinate, orient, and inform government-wide foreign communications activities targeted against terrorism and violent extremism… CSCC is comprised of three interactive components. The integrated analysis component leverages the Intelligence Community and other substantive experts to ensure CSCC communicators benefit from the best information and analysis available. The plans and operations component draws on this input to devise effective ways to counter the terrorist narrative. The Digital Outreach Team actively and openly engages in Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi, and Somali.
Notice that the CSCC is, in effect, an intelligence hub acting to coordinate propaganda for CIA, DIA, DHS, and NSA, among others. This mission, of course, is shrouded in terminology like “integrated analysis” and “plans and operations” – terms used to designate the various components of the overall CSCC mission. Like RICU, the CSCC is focused on shaping narratives online under the pretext of counter-radicalization.
It should be noted too that CSCC becomes a propaganda clearinghouse of sorts not just for the US Government, but also for its key foreign allies (think Israel, Saudi Arabia, Britain), as well as perhaps favored NGOs like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, or Doctors Without Borders (MSF). As the New York Times noted:
[The CSCC will] harness all the existing attempts at countermessaging by much larger federal departments, including the Pentagon, Homeland Security and intelligence agencies. The center would also coordinate and amplify similar messaging by foreign allies and nongovernment agencies, as well as by prominent Muslim academics, community leaders and religious scholars who oppose the Islamic State.
But taking this information one step further, it calls into question yet again the veracity of much of the dominant narrative about Syria, Libya, ISIS, and related topics. With social media and “citizen journalism” having become so influential in how ordinary people think about these issues, one is yet again forced to consider the degree of manipulation of these phenomena.
Manufacturing Social Media Narratives
It is by now well documented the myriad ways in which Western governments have been investing heavily in tools for manipulating social media in order to shape narratives. In fact, the US CIA alone has invested millions in literally dozens of social media-related startups via its investment arm known as In-Q-Tel. The CIA is spending the tens of millions of dollars providing seed money to these companies in order to have the ability to do everything from data mining to real-time surveillance.
The truth is that we’ve known about the government’s desire to manipulate social media for years. Back in February 2011, just as the wars on Libya and Syria were beginning, an interesting story was published by PC World under the title Army of Fake Social Media Friends to Promote Propaganda which explained in very mundane language that:
… the U.S. government contracted HBGary Federal for the development of software which could create multiple fake social media profiles to manipulate and sway public opinion on controversial issues by promoting propaganda. It could also be used as surveillance to find public opinions with points of view the powers-that-be didn’t like. It could then potentially have their “fake” people run smear campaigns against those “real” people.
Close observers of the US-NATO war on Libya will recall just how many twitter accounts miraculously surfaced, with tens of thousands of followers each, to “report” on the “atrocities” carried out by Muammar Gaddafi’s armed forces, and call for a No Fly Zone and regime change. Certainly one is left to wonder now, as many of us did at the time, whether those accounts weren’t simply fakes created by either a Pentagon computer program, or by paid trolls.
A recent example of the sort of social media disinformation that has been (and will continue to be) employed in the war on Syria/ISIS came in December 2014 when a prominent “ISIS twitter propagandist” known as Shami Witness (@ShamiWitness) was exposed as a man named “Mehdi,” (later confirmed as Mehdi Biswas) described as “an advertising executive” based in Bangalore, India. @ShamiWitness had been cited as an authoritative source – a veritable “wealth of information” – about ISIS and Syria by corporate media outfits, as well as ostensibly “reliable and independent” bloggers such as the ubiquitous Eliot Higgins (aka Brown Moses) who cited Shami repeatedly. This former “expert” on ISIS has now been charged in India with crimes including “supporting a terrorist organisation, waging war against the State, unlawful activities, conspiracy, sedition and promoting enmity.”
In another example of online media manipulation, in early 2011, as the war on Syria was just beginning, a blogger then known only as the “Gay Girl in Damascus” rose to prominence as a key source of information and analysis about the situation in Syria. The Guardian, among other media outlets, lauded her as “an unlikely hero of revolt” who “is capturing the imagination of the Syrian opposition with a blog that has shot to prominence as the protest movement struggles in the face of a brutal government crackdown.” However, by June of 2011, the “brutally honest Gay Girl” was exposed as a hoax, a complete fabrication concocted by one Tom MacMaster. Naturally, the same outlets that had been touting the “Gay Girl” as a legitimate source of information on Syria immediately backtracked and disavowed the blog. However, the one-sided narrative of brutal and criminal repression of peace-loving activists in Syria stuck. While the source was discredited, the narrative remained entrenched.
And this last point is perhaps the key: online manipulation is designed to control narratives. While the war may be fought on the battlefield, it is equally fought for the hearts and minds of activists, news consumers, and ordinary citizens in the West. The UK and US both have extensive information war capabilities, and they’re not afraid to use them. And so, we should not be afraid to expose them.
Gun attack on Turkish editor outside court during his trial for exposing Turkey-Syria weapons convoy
RT | May 6, 2016
An assailant has tried to shoot the editor-in-chief of Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper Can Dündar , before the court was to announce the verdict on his case, Reuters reported, citing witnesses. The paper had published reports implicating the Turkish government in having links with extremists.
An assailant has tried to shoot the editor-in-chief of Turkey’s Cumhuriyet newspaper Can Dündar , before the court was to announce the verdict on his case, Reuters reported, citing witnesses. The paper had published reports implicating the Turkish government in having links with extremists.
The gunman shouted “traitor” before firing at least three shots at the journalist, an eyewitness told Reuters, adding that Dündar, who was unarmed, was not injured in the incident.
Reportedly at least one journalist who was covering Dündar’s trial was injured, however.
Dündar, 54, and his colleague, chief of Ankara bureau of Cumhuriyet, Erdem Gul, 49, stand accused of trying to topple the government, something they allegedly attempted to do in May 2015 by publishing a video purporting to reveal truckloads of arms shipments to Syria overseen by Turkish intelligence.
The Cumhuriyet report in May 2015 claimed that Turkey’s state intelligence agency was helping to transfer weapons to Syria by trucks.
Both Dündar and Erdem spent 92 days in jail, almost half of that time in solitary confinement, before the Constitutional Court ruled in February that their pre-trial detention was a violation of their rights.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeatedly stated that the trucks really belonged to the MIT intelligence agency, but were carrying aid to Turkmens in Syria, who are fighting both Assad’s forces and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
The journalists remain under judicial supervision and are banned from leaving the country, according to the state-run Anatolia news agency.
Their detention fuelled criticism from international human rights groups, as well as from the EU. US Vice President Joe Biden said that Turkey was setting a poor example for the region by intimidating the media.
The journalists’ arrests and trial prompted numerous protests across Turkey.
READ MORE:
‘Govt. trying to hide’: Turkey closes then postpones trials of two leading opposition journalists
Jailed Turkish journalists say arrests were aimed at sending ‘clear message’ to the press
Erdogan: ‘I don’t respect court ruling to free Cumhuriyet journalists’
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From the Archives
Who Runs Our World?
Netanyahu addresses US Congress
By Richard Hugus | January 4, 2019
Our world is run by oligarchs, the holders of vast wealth from monopolies in banking, resource extraction, manufacturing, and technology. Oligarchs have such power that most of the world doesn’t even know of their influence over our lives. Their overall agenda is global power — a world government, run by them — to be achieved through planned steps of social engineering. The oligarchs remain in the background and have heads of state and entire governments acting in their service. Presidents and prime ministers are their puppets. Bureaucrats and politicians are their factotums.
Who are politicians? Politicians are people who work for the powerful while pretending to represent the people who voted for them. This double-dealing involves a lot of lying, so successful politicians must be good at it. It’s not an easy job to make the insane agenda of the powerful seem reasonable. Politicians can’t reveal this agenda because it almost always goes against the interests of their constituents, so they become adept at sophistry, mystification, and the appearance of authority. For example, wars for Israel have been part of the agenda of the powerful for years. Since 2001, wars for Israel have been sold as “the war on terror” and lots of lies had to be made up as to why the war on terror was a real thing. The visible faces promoting the war on terror were neoconservatives in the US, almost all of whom were advocates for Israel, or Zionists. Zionists are not the only members of the oligarchy, but they seem to be its lead actors. ... continue
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