Refugees as Weapons in a Propaganda War
By Eric Draitser | New Eastern Outlook | 21.11.2015
In the wake of the horrific terror attacks in Paris, world attention will once again be focused on the issue of refugees entering Europe. While much of the spotlight has been rightly pointed at Syrian refugees fleeing the western-sponsored war against the Syrian government, it must be remembered that the refugees come from a variety of countries, each of which has its own particular circumstances, with many of them having been victims of US-NATO aggression in one form or another. Syria, Afghanistan and Libya have of course been targeted by so-called ‘humanitarian wars’ and fake ‘revolutions’ which have left the countries fractured, divided, and unable to function; these countries have been transformed into failed states thanks to US-NATO policy.
What often gets lost in the discussion of refugees however is the fact that a significant proportion of those seeking sanctuary in Europe and the US are from the Horn of Africa: Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea primarily. While there is some discussion of this issue in western media, it is mostly ignored when it comes to the first three countries as news of fleeing Sudanese, Somalis, and Ethiopians does not bode well for Washington’s narrative as the US has, in one way or another, been directly involved in each of those countries.
However, in the case of Eritrea, a fiercely independent nation that refuses to bow to the diktats of the US, the country is presented as a seemingly bottomless wellspring of refugees fleeing the country. Were one to read solely the UN reports and news stories, one could be forgiven for thinking that Eritrea has been mostly depopulated as hordes of Eritrean youth flee the country in droves. But that narrative, one which is periodically reinforced by distorted coverage in the media, is quickly being eroded as increasingly the truth is coming out.
Countering the Eritrean Refugee Propaganda
The popular understanding of Eritrea in the West (to the extent that people know of the country at all) is of a nation, formerly ruled by Ethiopia, which has become the “North Korea of Africa,” a systematic violator of human rights ruled by a brutal dictatorship that uses slave labor and tortures its citizens. As such, Eritrea is immediately convicted in the court of public opinion and, therefore, becomes a convenient scapegoat when it comes to migration. In fact, it seems that the propaganda against Eritrea has been so effective, with the US and Europe so keen to take in anyone fleeing the country, that it has become the stated country of origin for thousands upon thousands of refugees from a number of countries. It seems that African refugees, regardless of their true country of origin, are all Eritreans now.
Take for instance the comments by the Austrian ambassador to Ethiopia who unabashedly explained that, “We believe that 30 to 40 percent of the Eritreans in Europe are Ethiopians.” Depending on who you ask, the numbers may actually be even higher than that. Indeed, being granted asylum in Europe is no easy feat for African refugees who, knowing the political agenda of Europe and its attempts to isolate and destabilize Eritrea through promoting the migration of its citizens, quickly lose their passports and claim to be Eritreans fleeing political persecution.
But who can blame these people when the US itself has established specific policies and programs aimed at luring Eritrean youths away from their country? As WikiLeaks revealed in a 2009 diplomatic cable from the US Embassy entitled “Promoting Educational Opportunity for Anti-Regime Eritrean Youth,” the former US ambassador to Eritrea Ronald K. McMullen noted that the US:
… intends to begin adjudicating student visa applications, regardless of whether the regime is willing to issue the applicant an Eritrean passport and exit visa …With an Eritrean passport and an F1 visa in a Form DS-232, the lucky young person is off to America. For those visa recipients who manage to leave the country and receive UNHCR refugee status, a UN-authorized travel document might allow the young person to travel to America with his or her F1 in the DS-232.…Due to the Isaias regime´s ongoing restrictions on Embassy Asmara, [the US] does not contemplate a resumption of full visa services in the near future. However, giving young Eritreans hope, the chance for an education, and the skills with which to rebuild their impoverished country in the post-Isaias period is one of the strongest signals we can send to the Eritrean people that the United States has not abandoned them…
Using the twin enticements of educational scholarships and escape from mandatory national service, the US and its European allies have attempted to lure thousands of Eritreans to the West in the hopes of destabilizing the Asmara government. As the Ambassador noted, the US intention is to usher in a “post Isaias [Afewerki, president of Eritrea] period.” In other words: regime change. And it seems that Washington and its European allies calculated that their policy of economically isolating Eritrea through sanctions has not effectively disrupted the country’s development.
And it is just such programs and guidelines which look favorably on Eritrean migrants which have motivated tens of thousands of Africans to claim that they all come from the relatively small Eritrea. The reality however is that a significant number of these refugees (perhaps even the majority) are actually from Ethiopia and other countries. As Eritrea-based journalist and East Africa expert Thomas Mountain noted in 2013:
Every year for a decade or more than a million Ethiopians, 10 million and counting, have left, or fled, their homeland… Why, why would ten million Ethiopians, one in every 8 people in the country, risking their lives in many cases, seek refuge in foreign, mostly unwelcoming, lands? The answer lies in the policies of the Ethiopian regime which have been described by UN investigators in reports long suppressed with words such as “food and medical aid blockades”, “scorched earth counterinsurgency tactics”, “mass murder” and even “genocide”… Most of the Ethiopian refugees are from the Oromo nationality, at 40 million strong half of Ethiopia, or the ethnic Somalis of the Ogaden. Both of these regions in southern Ethiopia have long been victims of some of the most inhumane, brutal treatment any peoples of the world have ever known.
There is little mention of this Ethiopian exodus which, for a variety of reasons, is suppressed in the West. Many of the refugees simply claim to be Eritrean knowing that they stand a far greater chance of being admitted into Europe or the US if they claim origin from a blacklisted country like Eritrea, rather than an ally such as Ethiopia, a country long seen as Washington’s closest partner in the region.
In fact, Ethiopia is consistently praised as an economic success story, with the World Bank having recently announced that the African nation is the world’s fastest growing economy for 2015-2017. Despite this alleged ‘economic miracle,’ Ethiopia is still hemorrhaging population as citizens flee in their thousands, providing further evidence that outside the glittering capital of Addis Ababa the country remains one of the most destitute and violent in the world.
The same can be said of South Sudan, a country created by the US and Israel primarily, and which has now descended into civil war sending more than 600,000 refugees streaming out of the newly created country, with another 1.5 million internally displaced. Somalia remains a living nightmare for the poor souls unfortunate enough to have been born in a country that is a nation-state in name only. According to the UN, Somalia boasts more than 1.1 million internally displaced refugees with nearly 1 million refugees located outside the country. Taken in total, Ethiopian, South Sudanese, and Somali refugees comprise a population greater than the entire population of Eritrea.
However, Somalia, Ethiopia, and South Sudan are all strategic allies (read clients) of the United States and its western partners; Eritrea is considered persona non grata by Washington. This fundamental fact far more than anything else accounts for the completely distorted coverage of the refugee issue in Eritrea. Put another way, refugees and human trafficking are a convenient public relations and propaganda weapon employed by the US to demonize Eritrea, and to tarnish its project of economic and political self-reliance.
Refugees as Pretext, Independence Is the Real Sin
Eritrea has been demonized by the US and the West mainly because it has refused to be subservient to the imperial system. First and foremost among Eritrea’s grave sins is its stubborn insistence on maintaining full independence and sovereignty in both political and economic spheres. This fact is perhaps best illustrated by Eritrean President Afewerki’s bold rejection of foreign aid of various sorts, stating repeatedly that Eritrea needs to “stand on its own two feet.” Afewerki’s pronouncements are in line with what pan-Africanist leaders such as Thomas Sankara, Marxists such as Walter Rodney, and many others have argued for decades: namely that, as Afewerkie put it in 2007 after rejecting a $200 million dollar “aid” package from the World Bank, “Fifty years and billions of dollars in post-colonial international aid have done little to lift Africa from chronic poverty… [African societies] are crippled societies… You can’t keep these people living on handouts because that doesn’t change their lives.”
Of course, there are also other critical political and economic reasons for Eritrea’s pariah status in the eyes of the so called “developed world,” and especially the US. Perhaps the most obvious, and most unforgivable from the perspective of Washington, is Eritrea’s stubborn refusal to have any cooperation, formal or informal, with AFRICOM or any other US military. While every other country in Africa with the exception of the equally demonized, and equally victimized, Zimbabwe has some military connections to US imperialism, Eritrea remains stubbornly defiant. I suppose Eritrea takes the notion of post-colonial independence seriously.
Is it any wonder that Afewerki and his government are demonized by the West? What is the history of US and European behavior towards independent African leaders who advocated self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist ideology? The answer is self-evident. Such ideas as those embodied by Eritrea are seen by Washington, London, and Brussels as not only defiant, but dangerous; dangerous not only because of what they say, but dangerous because they’re actually working.
Naturally there are legitimate concerns to be raised about Eritrea and major strides still to be made in the political and economic spheres. Social progress is an arduous process, especially in a part of the world where nearly every other country is racked with violence, genocide, famine, and a host of other existential crises. But the progress necessary for Eritrea will be made by and for Eritreans; it cannot and must not be imposed from without by the same forces that, in their humanitarian magnanimity, rained bombs on Libya and systematically undermined, destabilized, and/or destroyed nations in seemingly every corner of the globe.
Refugees should be treated with dignity and respect. Their suffering should never be trivialized, nor should they be scapegoated as terrorists. But equally so, their tragedies should not be allowed to be cynically exploited for political gain by the West. The flow of refugees is an outgrowth of the policies of the Empire – the same Empire that continues to transform this crisis into a potent weapon of destabilization and war.
Israeli Spin in The NY Times: The Annals of Absurdity
By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | November 20, 2015
Five men died in Israel and the West Bank yesterday, the victims of shooting and stabbing attacks by Palestinians. The assaults took place in Tel Aviv and in the Etzion illegal settlement bloc, and their deaths, according to The New York Times, marked “the deadliest day in the recent wave of violence.”
Deadliest day? For Israelis, yes, but not for Palestinians. As the Times has reported, Israeli soldiers shot and killed six young men in Gaza during demonstrations at the border fence on Oct. 9. Days later, on Oct. 20, five more Palestinians died at the hands of Israeli troops within the span of 12 hours (in this case, the newspaper remained silent and made no effort to report their deaths).
Nevertheless, Isabel Kershner in the Times today insists that the five deaths (one involving a Palestinian working in Israel and one involving an American visitor) are the high point in violence since a wave of lone wolf attacks against Israelis broke out at the beginning of October.
Nothing could provide more certain evidence of the Israeli bias in the Times. Palestinian deaths do not register on their tally of casualties; violence refers only to Palestinian aggression.
Kershner’s story acknowledges that some 90 Palestinians have died since the beginning of October, compared with 16 Israelis, but in explaining this discrepancy she manages once again to blame the victims. The Palestinians died, she says, while attacking or attempting to attack Israelis or “in clashes with Israeli security forces.”
Nothing is said of those who died in what human rights groups call apparent extrajudicial executions: the youth shot as he tried to extract his identity card from his pocket, the young woman killed as she stood with her hands over her head. It seems the Times wants us to believe the often dubious claims of Israeli forces responsible for Palestinian deaths.
Today’s story lists all of the victims by name and gives a detailed account of one of them, an American teenager who had “distributed food and candy to Israeli soldiers” the day he was killed. The Oct. 9 story about the deaths in Gaza gives the name of not a single Palestinian.
Kershner, however, has provided us with some context here, and the result is bizarre. She manages to link the five deaths to a long-awaited agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority “granting Palestinian cellphone carriers 3G high-speed cellular services in the West Bank.”
The attacks came “hours after” this agreement, she writes, and she goes on to imply that Palestinians should have taken this contract as something of a white flag, a sign that a truce is in effect.
“The move,” Kershner states, “intended to bolster economic development, had indicated a possible effect, or desire, to return to calm after weeks of violence.” She then quotes an Israeli minister who claims, “We always agree to confidence-building measures with the Palestinians to help with their economy.”
It is difficult to reconcile this assertion of goodwill with the fact that Palestinian cellphone carriers have been requesting the right to use 3G services since 2006 and only at this point has Israel agreed to allow this now outdated technology. Yet Kershner reports it without a hint of irony.
Readers are to take from this that the Palestinians have no right to protest, let alone to resort to violence. Israel, Kershner is saying, has their well-being at heart.
Missing, as usual, is the context of the brutal occupation, the ever-tightening pressure of settlement building that robs Palestinians of land, water, basic livelihoods and the right to move freely. Missing also are the arrests and abuse of young Palestinians, some as young as 6, and the heavy use of administrative detention, which denies detainees the right to a defense or even to know the charges against them.
If Kershner wanted to peg her story to recent developments, she could have mentioned the crackdown on the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel; the slap on the wrist meted out to the police officer who brutally beat an American Palestinian teenager last year; or the collective punishment of home demolitions, which can leave a wide trail of devastation beyond the stated targets.
Instead, readers are told that Israeli “goodwill” has been spurned by ungrateful Palestinians and that Israelis alone are the victims of violence. Thus, the Times and Kershner give dominance to Israel spin even as their efforts turn the news into an exercise in distortion and absurdity.
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CNN’s New ‘Source’: ISIS Magazine – Claims ‘Schweppes Bomb’ Brought Down Russian Airliner
Patrick Henningsen | 21st Century Wire | November 20, 2015
Just when you thought the mainstream media coverage couldn’t get anymore surreal.
Question: should ‘ISIS’ be considered a credible news source? Sadly, CNN does.
In the wake of the Paris Attacks, a most disturbing trend has suddenly emerged in the mainstream media’s ‘terror’ coverage – where CNN, FOX News, and other majors are now deferring to ISIS press releases as a primary news source.
Leading the charge on Wednesday was CNN’s intrepid reporter, Chris Cuomo, who seemed uncomfortably dazzled by a report in the latest English language issue of ‘ISIS Monthly’ aka DABIQ magazine (image, right), a glossy coffee table rag filled with colorful jihadi lifestyle features and career advice for aspiring young terrorists (if only it were a joke).
Schweppes Bomb
The DABIQ article proudly displays an image of a 16oz Schweppes Gold pineapple soda can with a few bits alongside it, claiming that this was the bomb that brought down Russia’s Metrojet Airbus A321 – a plane which broke up in midair 20 minutes into its journey after leaving Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt en route to St. Petersburg, Russia on Oct. 31st.
The DABIQ article goes on to reveal a grand plot (albeit, after the fact), saying, “After resolving to bring down a plane belonging to a nation in the American-led Western coalition against ISIS, the target was changed to a Russian plane”.
‘WORKING THEIR SOURCES’: Crack ‘journalist’ Chris Cuomo scored a major scoop from the ISIS propaganda magazine.
CNN even properly credits the terror group, as evidenced in the upper right hand corner ‘ISIS/Dabiq’.
Then comes the big DABIQ reveal: “A bomb was smuggled onto the airplane…”, although it doesn’t explain exactly how, or by whom. Seeing as the Sinai airline disaster took place almost 3 weeks ago, you’d think that ISIS might have boasted about this brilliant ‘job’ earlier. Maybe they were busy planning for Paris, or working on the magazine. Who knows. More reason to believe that the DABIQ article is nothing more than a very sick prank – unless of course you are a member of the mainstream media – then it’s good as gold.
‘What’s the take?’
Granted, most people are used to seeing this type of vapid reporting on TV, but it’s still astonishing to watch how CNN’s Cuomo seized upon his latest ‘scoop’ without even questioning the validity of the source. Later in their coverage, Cuomo tried to ‘walk it back’ somewhat, but still presented this ISIS propaganda as if it was actual ‘evidence’ of a bomb that brought down the Russian plane.
CHRIS CUOMO: “Joining us now is CNN’s Ian Lee. He’s in Cairo; he has the latest. Now, Ian, as you know, the early reporting was that this was a 1-kilogram explosive, that’d be about 2.2 pounds, certainly different than this soda can. What’s the take? ”
IAN LEE: “That’s right, this is a fairly primitive bomb. When you look at it, you do have that soda can. Now explosive experts have told CNN that that could hold about 500 grams, roughly a pound. But they say that’s enough to take down a plane. You also have the detonator and you have the switch.”
“Now we do not know if this is in fact the bomb. It could be ISIS trying to throw investigators off their trail. But all signs are pointing that that it was a bomb that took down the plane. Now, the one thing that is also very concerning about this bomb, it’s is that if you look at it, it cannot be remotely detonated. This was a suicide mission, if it was the bomb…”
CHRIS CUOMO: “Big point there at the end. Ian Lee, thank you very much for the reporting!”
‘TEAM COVERAGE’: David Soucie, Chris Cuomo and Josh Rogin (purple tie)
CNN then rolled out one of its many panels of ‘terror experts’, which on the occasion included Josh Rogin (Daily Beast ) and ‘Safety Analyst’ David Soucie, both of whom seemed to parrot Cuomo’s infatuation with the soda can images, all nodding in unison and seeming to agree that somehow, ‘Yes, it all makes sense Chris!’
Based on what’s been released so far from the official investigation into the Sinai airline crash, it’s clear that the soda can CNN and ISIS have been touting around this week could not have held the explosive material necessary to trigger the fatal explosion. According to Alexander Bortnikov, the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service, it’s estimated that the bomb TNT load was at least 2.2 lbs (1 kg). This would make DABIQ’s soda can claim even more impossible than it already is, unless of course, it was a Six Pack (now that would’ve been a real scoop!). Although CNN had access to this report at the time of their ‘Schweppes Bomb’ scoop, it didn’t slow down Cuomo and their crack news team from running with the ISIS version of events.
If ISIS says so, well then, that’s good enough for CNN.
Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there. CNN’s brain trust go on to ask, ‘is it possible that this soda can could have been detonated remotely?’, even though the crude switch looking like a detonator in the photo – looks nothing like a remote detonator. Hence, Ian Lee’s awkward deflection during his exchange with Cuomo.
While any real journalist would have immediately questioned the validity of this story if the source was a terrorist group with a history of fabricating claims of ‘credit’ for various events, this also begs the question of whether CNN is really in the business of journalism – or spreading fear and hysteria.
Even if the DABIQ article were somehow true (and who in their right mind would root for that?), there is something very weird about western TV networks whose ‘expert’ panels are comprised mainly of ‘former’ CIA operatives, Pentagon staffers, think tank fellows and private security executives – who rely on information supplied by what is supposed to be a ruthless international terrorist outfit. It’s a little obvious how easy it would be to deliver misinformation and disinformation directly to millions of viewers worldwide. Funny that we find CNN right in the middle of that very uncomfortable junction, often doing most the PR heavy lifting for a dubious media production like DABIQ.
Interestingly, Schweppes Gold (non alcoholic) Soda Facebook page has 169,000 ‘likes’. Coincidentally (or not), its last post was on Oct 30th, some 24 hrs before the Sinai crash, showing a rather dark depiction of a Schweppes Gold can, presumably for Halloween.
Spooky.
At any rate, you can expect full-sized soda cans to be banned from the in-flight drinks trolley.
‘Maybe, Could Be, ISIS’
Although Russia’s Security Council now admits, “we can say definitely that this was a terrorist act…”, there is absolutely no proof that ISIS is responsible for this mid-air tragedy, other than an insistence by the media and Washington’s ‘intelligence community’ (‘probably is’, ‘seems like’, ‘could be’, ‘most likely is’, ‘has the fingerprints’ and ‘has all the hallmarks” etc.), the usual political innuendos, and of course, spurious online claims of credit by various social media accounts claiming to be run by ISIS affiliates.
What should be more worrying about this and other ‘virtual’ terrorist exhibitions and corresponding propaganda, is the fact none of these terrorist social media claims could ever stand-up as forensic evidence in any homicide case in any criminal court of law. For US and European media outlets and hapless politicians, that seems to be just fine though. In other words, when it comes to the emotive subject of ‘ISIS’, there is almost no burden of proof for the mainstream media and US-European policy makers, so long as ‘security officials believe’, or ‘we’re told that it’s very likely from the Islamic State’. That and the fact that there is no real independently verifiable comprehensive record which defines or quantifies ISIS, its membership, where they come from, from where their money and arms are derived and where they reside. Until such a study is done, we are told to just accept certain people’s word as gospel (keeping it vague seems to be the trick here).
Why is the bar so low? Part of the problem is that passes for journalism in the corporate mainstream media these days is a far cry from anything which might have been taught in journalism schools or on the job 30, or 40 years ago. More than other recent event, the coverage of the Paris Attacks by the big networks embodies this terminal condition, one in which we are witnessing an erosion of facts, context and any real challenges to official statements. Instead, all we get is a bevy of anchors, correspondents and ‘experts’ (many of whom openly flaunt their ‘insider’ affiliations as if that’s meant to instill confidence in the viewer’s mind). If you went to sleep in 1985 and woke up in 2015, and turned on the TV, you would think you were living a repeating scene out of Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil.
Magic Passport?
Earlier in the week, 21WIRE asked a reasonable question regarding the ‘magic passports’ of the supposed suicide bombers on site, one which seems to have evaded the whole of the mainstream media and even much of the alternative media. Simply: is it possible that the alleged ‘Syrian’ passport was likely planted at the scene of the crime? Indeed, that’s what some European officials are now admitting.
Without the ‘Syrian Passport’ leg of the official story, then the whole ‘Terrorists Are Sneaking in With the Migrants’ talking point rapidly disintegrates, and wouldn’t that be a shame.
One gets the feeling that either:
A. The mainstream media is playing a dark practical joke on the public.
B. The mainstream media pundits and ‘anchors’ are too stupid to know the difference between what’s real, and what’s fabricated by ‘ISIS’, or someone else.
Either way, this is bad news for the public, especially in such an incendiary political environment where fear is the new order of the day, and where half the US political establishment is demanding a military “package” of ‘boots on the ground’ in Syria, which would almost certainly lead to a long-term occupation and wider region war in the Middle East.
The only thing we haven’t heard yet, is talk of deploying “nukes.” Judging by the looks of it, that’s not far off now.
It only takes some well-place disinformation and hysterical speculation to push this situation out of balance and into a regrettable state of all out war overseas, and at home. More than any other single entity, the mainstream media play the pivotal role in nudging public support either towards, or away from any war. In the age of mass media and consensus reality, they bear most of the responsibility in that troubling process.
So a message media elites… we can offer you some humble advice in these troubling times: a little restraint would go a long way.
READ MORE PARIS ATTACK NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Paris Attack Files
Death-Squad Organizer Is NYT’s Source on Ben Carson’s Lack of Foreign Policy Smarts
By Adam Johnson & Jim Naureckas | FAIR | November 19, 2015
In its effort to vet one of the leading GOP presidential candidates, Dr. Ben Carson, the New York Times didn’t properly vet its primary source in this vetting, former CIA officer Duane Clarridge—an indicted liar and overseer of Contra death squads in Central America.
While the Times’ Trip Gabriel briefly notes the former, he completely omits the latter, instead offering this starry-eyed description:
Mr. Clarridge, described by Mr. Carson’s top adviser, Armstrong Williams, as “a mentor for Dr. Carson,” is a colorful, even legendary figure in intelligence circles, someone who could have stepped out of a Hollywood thriller. He was a longtime CIA officer, serving undercover in India, Turkey, Italy and other countries, and sprinkles his remarks with salty language.
As head of Reagan’s CIA division in Latin America in the 1980s, Clarridge took part in the effort to overthrow Nicaragua’s Sandinista government by illegally supplying funds and arms to the Contras—a right-wing terrorist movement that committed brutal war crimes. This was not an unforeseen consequence, but the point of the operation; asked by CIA Director William Casey to come up with a strategy for dealing with the Sandinista revolution, Clarridge writes in his memoir A Spy for All Seasons :
My plan was simple:
- Take the war to Nicaragua.
- Start killing Cubans.
Clarridge acknowledges that his plan, “stated so bluntly, undoubtedly sounds harsh.”
He also boasts of having come up with the idea of mining Nicaragua’s harbors to interfere with shipping:
I remember sitting with a glass of gin on the rocks, smoking a cigar (of course), and pondering my dilemma, when it hit me. Sea mines were the solution…. To this day I wonder why I didn’t think of it sooner.
The mines were, as conservative icon Sen. Barry Goldwater pointed out, an “act of war”—and predictably resulted in the deaths of civilians, something that doesn’t trouble Clarridge overly much. Or, apparently, the New York Times.
The Times vaguely alludes to the Iran/Contra scandal but without mentioning what it entailed, namely that Clarridge had an operational involvement with terrorist death squads.
In addition to this bloodsoaked past, Clarridge has more recently been a freelance hit-list generator for the Defense Department in Afghanistan ( New York Times, 3/14/10)–part of what the Times referred to as “an off-the-books spy operation.”
The kid-glove treatment would even extend to ethnic slurs, which the Times glosses over without citing specifically. Gabriel quotes Clarridge dismissing the notion—spread by right-wing media—that there are Chinese troops in Syria, “using an ethnic slur for the Chinese.” If a top adviser to a leading presidential candidate is referring to Chinese people as “Chinks”—or the equivalent—isn’t that a newsworthy fact that the New York Times ought to report?
It’s not a surprise a New York Times Beltway insider like Trip Gabriel would whitewash Clarridge’s brutal resume to the point of unrecognizability, but it doesn’t make using a grotesque violator of human rights and a known liar to kneecap Carson any less sleazy. On the issue of policy knowledge, it is more than fair to point out Carson’s shortcomings. But the bigger story here—that a leading candidate’s primary international adviser is a CIA goon with a bloody (or as the Times would put it “colorful”) past—is buried in a story about a routine DC pissing match.
This is how America’s war crimes are laundered, by absorbing the most complicit and criminal into respectable circles by passing them off as “experts” with “legendary” pasts. The Times would have better served its readers by pointing out, in clear and honest terms, what this “colorful, even legendary” past amounted to. It would help put Clarridge’s testimony—and Carson’s potential nomination—into historical and moral context.
Ill-informed first words on Ukraine by Canada’s new prime minister
New Cold War – November 17, 2015
Canada’s new prime minister is sounding not-so-new when it comes to the civil war that has devastated the lives of millions of people in eastern Ukraine. CBC News reports that Justin Trudeau directed critical and ill-informed words to Russian President Vladimir Putin two days ago during the G20 summit meeting in Antalya, Turkey. Trudeau’s words portend badly for the people of Ukraine if continued.
CBC cites Trudeau speaking of his exchange with Putin: “I pointed out that although Canada has shifted its approach on a broad range of multilateral and international issues, we remain committed to the fact that Russia’s interference in Ukraine must cease; that we stand with the Ukrainian people and expect the president to engage fully in the Minsk peace process.”
The reference to the Minsk ceasefire agreement of Feb 12, 2015 (‘Minsk-2’) is ill-informed or malevolent. Russia was a key international sponsor and negotiator of the agreement, along with Germany and France. Canada and the United States were nowhere to be seen or heard from. The agreement was effectively a refutation of the aggressive egging-on of Kyiv’s civil war in which the U.S., Canada and Britain have engaged ever since Kyiv launched its civil war–‘Anti-Terrorist Operation’–in eastern Ukraine in April 2014.
Minsk-2 sets out 13 very specific clauses which must be met by the governing regime in Kyiv and the rebel, pro-autonomy forces in Donetsk and Lugansk. Kyiv has violated every single one of those clauses. Today, only the first two of the clauses are close to being met by Kyiv–a ceasefire, and a withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the front line of the conflict which runs through the heart of the Donbas region (Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts).
Clause four requires the holding of local elections in Donetsk and Lugansk which would recognize principles of local autonomy. Clauses 11 and 12 require constitutional changes that recognize autonomy for Donbas. None of this has happened. On the contrary, Kyiv has crafted new political measures which block and deny said autonomy.
Clauses five and six require Kyiv to provide amnesty to combatants who resisted its civil war and to conduct a full prisoner exchange with the rebel side. It has failed on the first count, and Kyiv continues to hold many combatants and political prisoners it refuses to exchange.
Clause eight requires Kyiv to end its economic sanctions (cutting of social payments) against the population of the east which it implemented in the summer of 2014 and to end its obstruction and blocking of economic transactions. This has not occurred. Indeed, in the the latest in a string of human rights reports critically examining the situation in Ukraine, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe Nils Muižnieks admonishes Kyiv for failing to end its economic blockade of eastern Ukraine. His report was issued on November 3.
Clause ten of Minsk-2 reads, “Pullout of all foreign armed formations, military equipment, and also mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine under OSCE supervision. Disarmament of all illegal groups.” Yet Canada, the U.S. and Britain dispatched soldiers to Ukraine in the months following February 12, under the guise of launching “training missions” of the Ukrainian army. And as for the disarming of “illegal groups” (referring to the extremist paramilitary battalions fighting alongside the Ukrainian army), Kyiv has solved that little problem by incorporating the battalions into its National Guard. This effectively worsens the situation by legitimizing the battalions and giving them more formal access to training and weaponry, including from the aforementioned NATO countries.
So if Ukraine has violated the clauses of Minsk-2 so widely, and if the human rights commissioner of the European Union(!) effectively acknowledges much of this, what is Justin Trudeau talking about when he blames a foreign country, Russia, for violations of the agreement?
Trudeau is either being played by the governing regime in Kyiv, or he and his government have decided to play along.
Last summer, Kyiv began to face up to the fact that it could not longer openly flout Minsk-2 and continue its shelling of Donbas. The military setbacks it suffered during 18 months of civil war cannot be easily fixed. Polls of Ukrainians show very high numbers of people wanting an end to the fighting. Kyiv’s economic and social disaster at home is looming ever larger, including an impending default on its foreign debt. And Berlin and Paris decided last summer that a continued war in Ukraine was not in their interest; they had bigger problems requiring their undivided attention. So as of September 1, Kyiv largely ceased its shelling and it began to match the withdrawals of heavy weaponry already begun by rebel forces. This was and remains a significant political setback to Kyiv’s efforts to crush resistance to its pro-Europe, anti-Russia and pro-austerity program.
The one card that remains for Kyiv to play in order to avoid its obligations under Minsk-2 and obfuscate the real situation is the enduring myth of a Russian invasion and occupation of eastern Ukraine. This is what Trudeau is talking about when he speaks of Russian violations of the agreement. He is parroting the wording to this effect that was begun by Kyiv as it faced its forced climbdown on September 1.
Trudeau can get away with uttering nonsense about Russia violating Minsk-2 because the Canadian population has been deeply misled and misinformed about the situation in Ukraine. Parliamentarians of all parties in Ottawa and the country’s corporate media are 100 per cent united behind a hostile, anti-Russia policy that blames all the ills in Ukraine on its large neighbour to the east. Much of the Canadian population knows of no other story of Ukraine than the one it has been aggressively fed for two years now. But the unfolding disaster of U.S., Canadian and European policy taking place in Syria and the Middle East, and the contrast to that of the apparent, early achievements of Russian diplomacy, have growing numbers of Canadians on full alert against more foreign policy deceptions and misadventures.
Justin Trudeau and his government, not to speak of the people of Ukraine, have nothing to gain and much to lose by a continuation of Stephen Harper’s aggressive and hostile policy towards Ukraine and Russia.
The Toronto Star report on Justin Trudeau’s encounter with Vladimir Putin explained, “Trudeau’s brief chat [with Putin] is in contrast with the lengthy discussion that unfolded here between Putin and U.S. President Barack Obama on the crisis in Syria.”
Corporate Sycophants and the TPP
By Yves Engler | ricochet | November 13, 2015
The hypocrisy of “free market” advocates is astounding. While they trumpet increased competition and the elimination of state imposed barriers as a means of spurring economic advancement, they ignore how the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and other “free trade” accords increase monopolistic intellectual property provisions.
In a recent CTV interview on the TPP Carleton business professor Ian Lee began by saying we’ve known for three centuries that “free trade” increases wealth while a Maclean’s editorial “celebrating” the accord noted “as with most things, the best sort of trade is free: free from tariffs, restrictions and other government-imposed barriers.”
But the TPP significantly strengthens many “government imposed barriers” to free exchange. The recently negotiated accord harmonizes intellectual property provisions upwards across the 12 nation zone. In Canada the deal will increase the length of copyright from 50 to 70 years after the death of an author. It will also increase (corporate) copyright holders’ capacity to compel Internet Service Providers to block content on websites and to pursue individuals who transfer content they own between devices or upload/repost highlights from trademarked work such as professional sports.
The TPP will also extend drug patent protections. Brand-name pharmaceutical companies in Canada will be given patent term restoration to compensate for time lost during the drug approval process.
In some other TPP countries the patent extensions will be even greater, along with the resulting social costs. Médecins Sans Frontières warns that “the deal will further delay price-lowering generic [drug] competition by extending and strengthening monopoly market protections for pharmaceutical companies.”
Intellectual property is also listed as an asset under the Investor State Dispute Settlement section of the agreement. This will give patent or copyright holders the ability to sue governments – in a private, investor-friendly international tribunal – for pursuing policies that interfere with their profit making. Techdirt editor blog Mike Masnick notes, “including intellectual property in the investment chapter is a poison pill designed to ensure that intellectual property can only continue to ratchet up, rather than back.”
And, one might ask, what does extending patent, trademark or copyright provisions have to do with free trade? In fact, as a type of monopoly, they stifle competition, which is supposed to be a pillar of free trade ideology.
The TPP isn’t the only “free trade” agreement that promotes anti-competitive monopolies. The Canada-Europe Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) gives patent holders the ability to appeal overturned patents, increases patent data protection terms and grants patent term restoration for any time lost during the approval process. The extension of Canadian patents under the yet to be signed CETA is expected to drive up already high pharmaceutical drug costs in this country by between $850 million and $1.65 billion a year, according to a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives study. This far surpasses the $225 million Canadian companies paid in tariffs to the EU in 2013.
To a lesser extent, other “free trade” accords such as the World Trade Organization and North American Free Trade Agreement also strengthened intellectual property monopolies. With patents, trademarks and copyright ever more important to big corporations, there’s been heavy pressure to extend intellectual property systems.
While the Maclean’s editors denounce “government imposed barriers”, they ignore how the TPP and similar agreements they promote extend state designated monopolies. I guess it’s preferable to consider oneself a “free marketer” rather than a “sycophant of corporate power”.
Someone Wants War with Russia
Victoria Nuland is not alone
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • November 17, 2015
Something very odd is going on in Washington. I recently attended and spoke at a conference in Washington on “realism and restraint” as a broad formula to reform U.S. foreign policy. Most presentations reflected that agenda more-or-less but oddly one of the speakers said that it was necessary for the United States to mark its place in the world while “carrying a big stick” while another panelist asserted that it was a core mission of the American people to “help other countries striving to be free.” Both were referring to how the U.S. should comport itself vis-à-vis Russia and one had to suspect that they had wandered into the auditorium by mistake, intending instead to visit the nearby American Enterprise Institute.
That such views should be forthcoming at a conference featuring “restraint” might not in fact be regarded as particularly surprising if one bothers to listen to either the Republican or Democratic so-called debates. Nationalism and American “exceptionalism” are easy products to sell at any time, but recently there has been a strain of bellicosity that is quite astonishing to behold, particularly as only one candidate has ever served in the military, and he was a lawyer. One might call it “Chickenhawks on Parade.”
It is useful to consider in their own words what the GOP candidates said last Tuesday night. Carly Fiorina led the baying pack with “One of the reasons I’ve said I wouldn’t be talking to Vladimir Putin right now is because we are speaking to him from a position of weakness brought on by this administration, so, I wouldn’t talk to him for a while, but, I would do this. I would start rebuilding the Sixth Fleet right under his nose, rebuilding the military — the missile defense program in Poland right under his nose. I would conduct very aggressive military exercises in the Baltic States so that he understood we would protect our NATO allies… and I might also put in a few more thousand troops into Germany, not to start a war, but to make sure that Putin understand that the United States of America will stand with our allies… We must have a no fly zone in Syria because Russia cannot tell the United States of America where and when to fly our planes. We also have a set of allies in the Arab Middle East that know that ISIS is their fight… but they must see leadership support and resolve from the United States of America… we have the strongest military on the face of the planet, and everyone has to know it.”
Ben Carson added his two cents, “And what we have to recognize is that Putin is trying to really spread his influence throughout the Middle East. This is going to be his base. And we have to oppose him there in an effective way… What we’ve been doing so far is very ineffective, but we can’t give up ground right there. But we have to look at this on a much more global scale. We’re talking about global jihadists. And their desire is to destroy us and to destroy our way of life. So we have to be saying, how do we make them look like losers? Because that’s the way that they’re able to gather a lot of influence… And I think in order to make them look like losers, we have to destroy their caliphate. And you look for the easiest place to do that? It would be in Iraq. And if — outside of Anbar in Iraq, there’s a big energy field. Take that from them. Take all of that land from them. We could do that, I believe, fairly easily, I’ve learned from talking to several generals, and then you move on from there.”
And Senator Marco Rubio added his own insights, saying that “I believe the world is a stronger and a better place, when the United States is the strongest military power in the world… I’ve never met Vladimir Putin, but I know enough about him to know he is a gangster. He is basically an organized crime figure that runs a country, controls a $2 trillion economy. And is using to build up his military in a rapid way despite the fact his economy is a disaster. He understands only geopolitical strength. And every time he has acted anywhere in the world, whether it’s in Ukraine or Georgia before that, or now in the Middle East, it’s because he is trusting in weakness… our allies in the region do not trust us. For goodness sake, there is only one pro-American free enterprise democracy in the Middle East, it is the state of Israel. And we have a president that treats the prime minister of Israel with less respect than what he gives the ayatollah in Iran… And we do have a vested interest. And here’s why. Because all those radical terrorist groups… they are coming to us. They recruit Americans using social media. And they don’t hate us simply because we support Israel. They hate us because of our values. They hate us because our girls go to school. They hate us because women drive in the United States.”
Governor John Kasich demonstrated why it would have been best if he had stayed in Ohio, saying “In the Ukraine, arm the people there so they can fight for themselves. In the eastern part of Europe, make sure that Finland and the Baltics know that if the Russians move, we move. In Syria, yes, a no-fly zone in the north on the Turkish border, a no-fly zone on the south on the Jordanian border. Anybody flies in the first time, maybe they can fly out. They fly in there a second time, they will not fly out… in the countries of the Gulf States of Bahrain, the Cleveland Clinic is opening an operation. Clearly we see the same with them. And in Israel, we have no better ally in the world, and no more criticizing them in public, we should support them.”
Governor Jeb Bush, running fast to make up for his lackluster campaign, added “I’d say it [the number one threat facing the U.S.] is Islamic terrorism, and, back to the question of what we are dealing with in Iraq, when we pull back voids are filled. That’s the lesson of history, and, sadly, this president does not believe in American leadership. He does not believe it, and the net result is that we have a caliphate the size of Indiana that gains energy each and every day to recruit Americans in our own country, and the threat to the homeland relates to the fact that we have not dealt with this threat of terror in the Middle East. We should have a no fly zone in Syria. We should have a support for the remnants of the Syrian Free Army, and create safe zones… Without American leadership every other country in the neighborhood begins to change their priorities. It is tragic that you see Iraq, and other countries now talking to Russia. It wasn’t that long ago that Russia had no influence in the region at all. And, so, the United States needs to lead across the board.”
I can almost picture the lads and lassies from the various neocon entities including the John Hay Initiative, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the American Enterprise Institute grinning as they brief the GOP candidates on foreign policy. What a treat to have a gaggle of perfect tabulae rasae possessing the combined intellectual curiosity of an aardvark dutifully waiting in line to have their empty heads filled with nonsense. Carly wins the prize for sheer venom and willingness to start a war. She would be firing at Russians on the ground and in the air. Why? So we can fly wherever we want.
But I think that Ben Carson wins the dummy prize for his brilliant plan to destroy the “Caliphate” by taking away their “big energy field.” And Rubio comes close with his claim that Putin is nothing but a gangster plus his George W. Bush-like assertion that terrorists hate us because of our “values,” allowing women to go to school in our country and also drive cars. Kasich meanwhile sees the Cleveland Clinic as a barometer of civilization while I challenge anyone to make sense out of what Jeb Bush said. He has apparently inherited the gift of tongues from his brother.
And then, of course, it never hurts to give the nod of approval to Israel, which is the only “pro-American free enterprise democracy” in the Middle East as well as “no better ally in the world.” Amen.
The outlier Donald Trump actually made some sense, saying “… If Putin wants to go and knocked the hell out of ISIS, I am all for it, 100%, and I can’t understand how anybody would be against it… Assad is a bad guy, but we have no idea who the so-called rebels — I read about the rebels, nobody even knows who they are. So, I don’t like Assad. Who’s going to like Assad? But, we have no idea who these people, and what they’re going to be, and what they’re going to represent. They may be far worse than Assad. Look at Libya. Look at Iraq. Look at the mess we have after spending $2 trillion dollars, thousands of lives, wounded warriors all over the place…”
There was also some pushback from Senator Rand Paul who counseled a defense policy linked to national interest as well as affordability, but many of the other candidates sought to outdo each other in terms of vilifying Russia and Putin while talking tough about how they would deal with him.
Indeed, the willingness to fight Russkies and Persians simultaneously has surfaced more than once in the current series of debates. But consider for a moment how a war with second rate power Iran would be something less than a cakewalk even if everything went perfectly, and one knows that in war little goes to plan. Iran has sophisticated air defenses and naval resources that could wreak havoc in the narrow waters of the Straits of Hormuz. An American carrier could easily be destroyed. It would be a replay of the worst experiences in Iraq combined with the worst of Afghanistan, given Iran’s terrain, size, resources and willingness to fight.
But Iran aside, the focus is invariably on Moscow. Backing Russia’s Putin into a corner where he felt that he had to strike first with his available military resources, to include tactical nuclear weapons, would be something on quite a different level and the word catastrophic comes immediately to mind. Even if Russia were only limiting itself to military targets, it could, in short order, sink all of America’s vaunted and highly vulnerable air craft carriers and destroy the satellite communications systems that the modern U.S. armed forces depend on. One leading military analyst even believes that the Russian Army is better designed to fight an actual ground war than is the vastly more expensive version fielded by the United States, which should surprise no one. Colonel Douglas Macgregor postulates that U.S. forces would likely be annihilated.
Many of those inside the beltway doing the pushing for confrontation argue that Washington and Moscow have long been restrained, in theory, by what is known as “mutually assured destruction,” meaning that a nuclear war is unthinkable because it would destroy both countries and possibly the world. But there might be some high up in both governments who think that a limited exchange could actually be somehow controlled, even while understanding that if a nuclear tit-for-tat were to escalate the targeting could easily shift to cities. Certainly the GOP candidates are flirting with entertaining that possibility, even if they are not completely aware of what they are implying.
In truth, the dangerous Washington consensus that Russia must for some reason be confronted and even destabilized truly boggles the mind, particularly as it has become dogma for both political parties and even for many critics of the global war on terror and all its tainted fruit. And the brinkmanship game with a nuclear weapon armed adversary that is being played is, as veteran diplomat William Polk has observed, “… moving closer to the danger point of provoking their use.” It is difficult to understand why it is so. Russia is, if anything, helping in Syria and could even broker some kind of negotiated settlement, while the situation with Ukraine and Crimea is far less Manichean that the U.S. media has depicted it to be. Russia does not threaten the United States and it does not threaten Western Europe, but push hard enough and long enough and a nightmare scenario could easily arise, driven by carelessly stoked fear and the thoughtless language employed by an array of presidential wannabes as well as their punditry enablers.
The Vienna agreement that no one seems to have noticed…
OffGuardian | November 15, 2015
On the day after the Vienna talks, and the announcement of a tentative agreement between the US and Russia over the Syrian crisis, this was the front page of the Guardian…
And this was the World page of the Guardian…
And this was the Middle East page of the Guardian
In fact, to cut a long story short we haven’t been able to find a single news item on the Graun about the Vienna talks at all.
We find this strange.
Other corporate outlets at least managed to squeeze in a mention. Bloomberg, for example, and even the WSJ. The Independent mentioned it, but apparently thinks it’s not as important as a Mexican theatre troupe lampooning Donald Trump, and their headline is pure fiction:
Yes, 129 people died in Paris, and yes this is tragic. We understand that the corporate media is required to promote these western European deaths as being much more relevant and terrible than the thousands upon thousands of non-European people dying in unimportant places such as Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria. We also understand that endless, prurient lip-smacking stories about “blood”, “grief” and “horror” are now considered appropriate rather than disrespectful, and there are only so many column inches to spare.
But surely the Graun could at least have mentioned the Vienna thing? Surely the media in general could have accorded it a slightly more prominent place?
Does anyone get the impression it doesn’t fit the current approved narrative? After all it basically consists of the US conceding to Russia, on paper at least. This is not cool for the Empire of Exceptionalism, and the lunatic faction in Washington no doubt wants no part of it.
Convenient for them that the Paris attacks happened just when they did isn’t it. Kerry has been effectively sidelined for the moment and the agreement he and Lavrov signed is now likely to be ripped up before the ink is dry, and without most readers of corporate news even knowing it happened.
Terrorism and the Question of Humanity
By Brenda Heard | Aletho News | November 16, 2015
On 15 November, The New York Times published an article entitled “Beirut, Also the Site of Deadly Attacks, Feels Forgotten.” It highlights the disparity between the global solidarity expressed for Paris following the deadly 13 November attacks and the lack thereof expressed for Beirut after it too was attacked the day prior. But the headline suggests a petulant attitude from Lebanese who “feel forgotten,” as though they were a bratty child or a sniveling spouse.
Granted The Times expresses a degree of compassion for Beirut’s victims, who like those in Paris “were killed at random, in a bustling urban area, while going about their normal evening business.” But The Times also seems to be trying to wiggle out of appearing heartless in a previous Times article’s headline–“Deadly Blasts Hit Hezbollah Stronghold in Southern Beirut”—a headline that it now explains was “changed to be more precise.” The Times withdrew the headline’s phraseology “Hezbollah Stronghold,” which it admitted, “risks portraying a busy civilian, residential and commercial district as a justifiable military target.”
With images of civilian victims in circulation, the casual sneer of “Hezbollah stronghold,” quickly trumpeted by Reuters and the Associated Press, did seem rather. . . misleading. Yet despite even The Times’ own characterization of the stricken Bourj el-Barajneh municipality as typical “working-class Beirut, where Palestinians, Christians and Syrian refugees (mostly Sunnis) live, work and shop,” these descriptions are colored with an overriding exemption: “Hezbollah maintains tight security control” of the area. Only Reuters gives slight mention to the contradiction of this so-called “Hezbollah Bastion” hosting numerous Lebanese Army checkpoints.
So with a curious twist, The Times manages to undo the cliché “innocent civilian” as victim of a terror attack. The Beirut victims may have been civilian, the article concedes, but how dare they consider themselves innocent and thus worthy of solidarity. After all, the article tells us, Hezbollah is highly popular there. So why change and half-apologise for the phrase “Hezbollah stronghold”? Because The Times asserts that a Hezbollah stronghold would be a “justifiable military target.” And that assertion comes dangerously close to approving of this ISIS bombing, dangerously close to the sentiment expressed by a commenter on one of the initial UK reports: “So one bunch of barbaric Islamist terrorists has declared war on another bunch of barbaric Islamist terrorists. We should be celebrating. A win-win for the West and the civilized world.”
Sadly, this comment is mild in comparison to many across the web. They laugh and they rage with a brute callousness that is diametrically opposed to the compassion and solidarity expressed toward the French. When The Times article discussed how the Lebanese felt “forgotten,” it missed the point. It quoted Lebanese blogger Dr Elie Fares saying that “When my people died, no country bothered to light up its landmarks in the colors of their flag.” But if you read his article in its entirety, you will see that he was not bemoaning a lack of attention. Equally disturbed by the lack of concern from his fellow Lebanese, Fares was lamenting a lack of shared humanity. As he stated in a previous article, “The politics maybe change, but with so many victims dying for so little, petty politics become irrelevant.”
As Westerners, of course we are sickened by the violence inflicted upon our neighbors in Paris. We rightfully feel sad and scared. But the challenge is to be able to feel the pain of non-Western societies as well. How many times do we scroll right past headlines of a bombing in an Iraqi marketplace? a mass shooting in Latin America? a typhoon in Asia? Their skin may be brown or black, they make speak what sounds like noise to us, they may even eat with their hands. But they are parents and children, friends and lovers, brothers and sisters. They enjoy a cup of tea and laugh at a funny television show. But even if they view god or government differently than we do, their falling victim to indiscriminate killing should be neither accepted, nor applauded. Unless we want to live forever in fear, we need to condemn brutality and to nurture the notion of live and let live—consistently.
Brenda Heard is the founder and director of Friends of Lebanon, London. She is the author of Hezbollah: An Outsider’s Inside View (2015). She can be contacted at: brenda.heard@friendsoflebanon.org.
The NY Times: In Praise of Israel’s Killing Squads
By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | November 13, 2015
In The New York Times it’s all part of a high stakes game, the good guys (Israelis) against the bad guys (Palestinians), and this time the good guys won, taking the prize through clever and audacious disguises.
Such is the tone of Isabel Kershner’s story today that tells of yet another outrage by Israel: Special forces invaded a hospital in Hebron, held the staff at gunpoint, killed a visitor point blank and kidnapped a patient recovering from surgery.
Condemnation of this atrocity and other recent attacks on Palestinian hospitals has come from Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, the International Committee of the Red Cross and a half dozen United Nations agencies, but none of their criticisms are included in the Times story.
Kershner, instead, only includes objections from Palestinians, and in the context of her writing, they come off as sore losers who would be expected to complain, in any case.
Her story opens with a description of the raid, as undercover Israelis disguised as Arabs enter the hospital, pushing a “pregnant woman” in a wheelchair, and it ends with several paragraphs looking back at other Israeli operations that involved masquerades: a 1972 action to foil a hijacking, a “famous” revenge assassination by former prime minister Ehud Barak, and a raid in Dubai to kill a Hamas commander.
In other words, it was all part of an illustrious Israeli tradition.
The Palestinians are described as “livid,” a term that implies a somewhat excessive rage and carries a hint of derision. It is not a neutral term in news writing, but Times editors apparently had no problem allowing it to stand.
The Israeli operation, on the other hand, is characterized as something of a breeze, not the bloody and outrageous affair that it was. They entered the hospital and then “about 10 minutes later they were on their way out.” They “whisked away” the suspect, Azzam Shalalda, leaving his cousin, Abdallah Shalalda, dead on the floor of the hospital room.
In describing a similar raid on a Nablus hospital last month, Kershner writes that Israeli forces “snatched” a suspect in a fatal shooting. Such vocabulary implies a kind of cinematic caper, devoid of real life complications.
Missing from her story is any mention of international humanitarian law, which forbids such violations of hospital and health care facilities. Amnesty International also noted that the killing of Abdallah Shalalda appeared to be a deliberate extrajudicial execution, and Tikun Olam blogger, Richard Silverstein, wrote that the undercover agents had entered the hospital expressly to kill Abdallah and arrest his cousin.
Kershner, however, is quick to quote the military, which claimed that “a suspect attacked the force, which responded to the assault and fired on the attacker.” Only later in her story does she note that hospital officials said he was shot not during an attack but when he emerged from a bathroom. Amnesty stated that his wounds were consistent with a deliberate execution.
Her story glosses over the recent raids on a Jerusalem hospital and UN demands that they cease. (Israel, however, has continued to invade the facility.)
In the eyes of Kershner (and the Times), it seems that there is no problem with Israeli violations of international law when the state wants to apprehend a Palestinian suspect. She writes that the raid was Israel’s way of saying that “there will be no safe haven for Palestinian suspects.”
By contrast, the Times has never bothered to report that Israel knows the identity of Jewish settlers responsible for burning to death three members of a Palestinian family but refuses to arrest them because it might reveal intelligence methods.
The terrible irony of this double standard is beyond the radar of Isabel Kershner and the Times editors. On the contrary, they present Israel’s lawless and bloody actions as evidence of ingenuity and daring, celebrating a “victory” over the ultimately helpless and endlessly oppressed Palestinians.
What the Videos Show: Israel is Killing in Cold Blood
By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | November 11, 2015
What is inspiring young Palestinians to attempt yet more stabbing attacks on Israelis? The answer, according to The New York Times, has nothing to do with the violence of military occupation, the abuse of Palestinian children or trigger-happy troops; it is merely a “loop-like dynamic” of attack and response inspired by video clips.
In a story today, Isabel Kershner reports that videos showing knife attacks and heavy-handed treatment of young detainees are inspiring Palestinian boys as young as 12 to attempt knife assaults. But in a significant omission, the article says nothing about disturbing videos that support a different take: Many Palestinians have been killed when they posed no possible threat.
Likewise, even as Kershner writes about youthful attackers, she (and the Times) have avoided any mention of the constant reports from rights groups over recent years that detail the abusive treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli custody. These include reports of troops arresting children as young as 6 and documentation of violence used against the young detainees. (Also see TimesWarp 1-13-14.)
Instead, readers are introduced to two cousins, 12 and 13, who played hooky from school yesterday in order to carry out a copycat stabbing attack in Jerusalem. Both were arrested; one was seriously wounded in the process; and both had watched video footage the night before of Israeli interrogators aggressively questioning another young teen, Ahmad Manasra, who was wounded after an alleged attack that left his cousin dead.
Kershner then devotes much of her article to rehashing the story of Manasra, who was featured earlier in a lengthy piece aimed at showing how Palestinians got it wrong when they claimed the boy had been killed. It appears to have the same purpose here: to undermine charges that Israeli troops have made false claims about knife attacks and have planted evidence.
She writes, “In several cases, with no video corroboration, Palestinians have insisted that no stabbings took place and have accused the Israeli authorities of planting knives at the scene.”
Several significant factors are missing from this statement: Although video evidence is unavailable in some cases, others are supported by credible eyewitness accounts contradicting official claims; rights groups, not only Palestinians, have charged Israeli troops with killing innocent victims; and video evidence does exist that bolsters many of the charges against Israeli forces.
In a press release last month, Amnesty International said Israeli soldiers and police had resorted to “extreme and unlawful measures” and had “used intentional and lethal force without justification.” The rights group highlighted four cases of “what appear to have been extrajudicial executions.”
Amnesty pointed up one “especially egregious case” in which Israeli forces killed 19-year-old Sa’ad Muhammad Youssef al-Atrash in Hebron on Oct. 26 as he tried to retrieve an identity card. As the youth reached into his pocket, a soldier behind Atrash shot him on the right side. The report continues, “The eyewitness said he was shot six or seven times and bled profusely as he lay on the ground for about 40 minutes afterwards, while soldiers failed to provide medical treatment.”
Times readers, however, are unlikely to know anything about Muhammad Atrash and how he died, nor are they aware of the Amnesty statements or of reports from other rights groups, including those in Israel and Europe, all of them charging Israel with unlawful killings.
Since the Amnesty release last month, Israel has continued to kill Palestinians, many of whom posed no possible threat, bringing the total to over 80 killed and some 8,500 wounded since the beginning of October. As of Oct. 31, eight Israelis had died and 115 had been wounded, according to the United Nations. These numbers, however, do not appear in Kershner’s story.
Last week Israeli forces shot and killed a 73-year-old grandmother as she drove through Hebron to meet her sister for lunch. A spokesman said she tried to ram soldiers with the car and that a knife was found in her car. Video footage shows a different scenario: Tharwat Sharawi was driving at a moderate speed and in no way aimed to hit soldiers when a barrage of bullets took her life.
The Times has made no mention of this video evidence, nor has it informed readers of other disturbing cases, also caught on video:
- A settler shoots and kills Fadi Qawasmi, 18, in Hebron on Oct. 17, and appears to hand a knife to a soldier, who drops it near the body.
- A mob chases Fadi Alloun in Jerusalem on Oct. 4, shouting, “Shoot him!” as he runs for his life. Police bring him down with a hail of bullets.
- Muhammad Ramadan al Muhtasib, 23, is shot multiple times and killed as he lies helpless on the ground in Hebron on Oct. 30. The army alleges that he tried to stab a soldier.
- Issra Abed, 30, is shot at a bus station in Afula as she stands with her hands over her head. After she lies wounded on the ground, a bystander approaches and kicks away a pair of sunglasses lying by her side. (Police said she was grasping a knife.)
- Dania Irsheid, 18, is shot and killed at a checkpoint in Hebron after passing through metal detectors and a revolving iron gate. Video footage show Israeli police giving her no assistance as she lies bleeding on the ground.
- Hadeel al Hashlamoun, 18, is shot at a checkpoint in Hebron on Sept. 22 and left to bleed to death. A video shows her being dragged by her heels along the ground.
In several of these videos the indifference of Israeli troops is striking. None of them attempts to help the victims, and in some cases witnesses report that settlers are allowed to take pictures of the dead and dying while Palestinian journalists and medics are turned away. One highly disturbing photo shows a smiling settler taking a photo of a dead Palestinian in Hebron on Oct. 29.
In this context, the report by Kershner is appalling. Although video evidence, eyewitness accounts and investigations by rights groups point to a pattern of trigger happy—even blood thirsty—security forces killing Palestinians with the slightest degree of suspicion, the Times has made no effort to inform readers of these findings. On the contrary, it places this misleading story by Kershner on page 1 above the fold.
Here we find another attempt to blame the victims, to paint Palestinians as the violent offenders, omitting even the numbers of dead and injured, which reveal a disproportionate death toll of 10 Palestinians for every one Israeli. The facts, however, seem to be of no account when it comes to protecting Israel. Given the choice between shielding this rogue state and reporting the news, the Times stands with Israel.
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Villains of Judea
Samuel Zemurray
The ruthless businessman who financed coups in Central America and shaped Israeli statehood
José Niño Unfiltered | May 7, 2026
Leftist commentators consistently push a shallow and economically reductive narrative that frames American foreign policy as the sole domain of greedy White capitalists while choosing to ignore the obvious Jewish power structure directing these events. When the veneer of this supposed corporate imperialism is stripped away, it becomes clear that the United States has often served as a vehicle for the specific goals of organized Jewry. The life of Samuel Zemurray stands as prime evidence of this hidden mechanism.
Few figures in American business history wielded power as ruthlessly or as secretly as Zemurray. Born Schmiel Zmurri on January 18, 1877, to a poor Jewish family in Imperial Russia, this teenage immigrant would rise from peddling rotting bananas off railroad cars in Alabama to become the controlling force behind the United Fruit Company, the most powerful agricultural corporation on earth. Along the way he overthrew governments, bribed presidents, hired mercenaries, and played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in the creation of the State of Israel. … continue
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- ‘Operation Fauxios’: Axios, Israeli spy, and $2 billion oil scam to prop up Trump
- Iran blasts US ceasefire violations, says Washington trapped in ‘self-created quagmire’
- Villains of Judea: Samuel Zemurray
- Billionaires and Officials Are Just Blatantly Ignoring the Will of the People Now
- Prof Marandi Warns: Blockade stays Until Israel Withdraws!
- Iranian forces strike US vessels in swift retaliation for tanker attack: Top military commander
- Israeli ‘double tap’ strike hits paramedics in south Lebanon hours after renewed bombing of Beirut
- Occupation Bulldozes Farmland, Uproots Vineyards
- ‘Israel’ kills Azzam al-Hayya, son of Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya
- If Americans Knew
- Israel earmarks $270M for Israeli-only roads (that’s apartheid) – Daily Update
- Two Supreme Court Justices were secret agents who helped Israel cover up its attack on the USS Liberty
- Bari Weiss ‘Meddles’ With ‘CBS Sunday Morning’ Story on Palestine
- Zionists Are Gunning for Your Freedom of Speech
- The horrors in Gaza continue: Here are the facts
- Israeli General Is Running a Sophisticated, Sociological Engine of Violence
- Israel has stolen $4.8 billion from Palestinians
- The pro-Israel political consensus is collapsing in both parties
- Prominent Christian Zionist Group Is Lobbying U.S. Lawmakers on Israel—Without Revealing It’s Funded by Israel
- “Most Moral Army” caught desecrating another Christian statue, as famine looms in Gaza – Daily Update
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Declining Trends In 1980-2023 Tropical Cyclone Frequency, Accumulated Energy
- 46 IPCC Scientists Break Rank, Publicly Challenge Long-Standing Dogmatic Climate Claims
- Another Study Links Warming To Cloud Forcing, Shortwave Radiation, Natural Atmospheric Circulation
- Wind Energy Is Toxic, Hazardous To Human Health, Scientific Review Shows
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
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