Hillary Clinton and a Venezuelan Murder Mystery: Who Killed Luis Manuel Díaz?
By Mark Weisbrot | The Huffington Post | December 4, 2015
On November 30, Hillary Clinton stated that she was “outraged at the cold blooded assassination of Luis Manuel Díaz on stage at a rally last week.” She was referring to the killing of a local opposition leader in Venezuela on November 25. It was clear from her remarks that she was blaming the government for the murder. Her statement appeared to be part of an international campaign to delegitimize Sunday’s congressional elections in Venezuela, and it spread quickly throughout the global media.
Clinton is familiar with these types of international campaigns for regime change. In her recent book, “Hard Choices” she acknowledges her role in helping prevent the democratically-elected president of Honduras, overthrown in a military coup, from returning to office in 2009; and recently released emails add further detail.
This shooting and its aftermath are worth looking at in some detail because they provide a compelling, if typical, example of how the international media has been manipulated, for more than 15 years, to create an image of Venezuela that conforms to certain objectives of U.S. foreign policy.
Within hours of the killing, facts began to emerge that cast doubt on the widely disseminated version of events. Venezuelan authorities started investigating the murder, and issued statements claiming that Díaz was part of a local mafia and was killed by rivals in revenge for a murder that he was implicated in.
For a day or two, these statements did not even appear in the English language media. As the days passed, more details began to emerge. According to these reports, Díaz, the victim, who was the local secretary general of the opposition party Acción Democrática (AD) in Guarico state, was himself on trial for involvement in a murder. He was allegedly a member of a local criminal group, “Los Plateados,” involved in a turf war with a rival gang, “El Maloni.” The 2010 murder in which he was accused of participating involved two members of the rival gang. According to witnesses, he rarely went out of his house for fear for his life. The man accused of killing him at the political rally, Oscar de Jesús Noguera Hernández, was a member of “El Maloni.”
Clearly there are two narratives: the government narrative that this was a mafia killing, resulting from a dispute between rival gangs; and the Hillary Clinton/Venezuelan opposition/international media narrative that it was a political killing linked to the government, intended to intimidate the opposition. Which one is most likely true?
One clue can be found by looking at the Venezuelan opposition’s response to the news and investigative reports about the involvement of Diaz and his accused killers in organized crime. Opposition politicians, who had quickly blamed the government for the murder when it happened, haven’t said anything. They are normally not shy about ridiculing the government for putting its spin on events. According to press reports, politicians from Acción Democrática, a Venezuelan political party, did not show up at Díaz’s funeral. The overall silence has been deafening. This could be because everyone has concluded that the government’s version of the story is basically true.
And reporters for the international and Venezuelan opposition media have shown no interest in the criminal investigation or related facts. Since this was a major event that has shaped perceptions of the electoral process in Venezuela in the middle of a hotly-contested campaign, one might think it would be of interest to reporters covering the campaign. (Another missed story: how did Acción Democrática end up with an organized crime figure as their statewide secretary general?)
So far, no journalist has even bothered to ask opposition politicians, or supporters such as Hillary Clinton or OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, if they believe this was a political killing in light of the criminal investigation. Almagro has been campaigning against Venezuela since the election campaign started. Immediately after the murder, he issued a statement that strongly implied that the government was responsible.
On Thursday, Venezuela’s attorney general released a statement that one of the arrested suspects, Ronald Hernandez, had confessed to having fired the bullets that killed Díaz. As of this writing, no major English language news outlet has reported this news.
The wheels of justice grind slowly in Venezuela, so it will probably be a while before there is a trial of the accused perpetrators. But for the U.S. government, Hillary Clinton, and their opposition allies, it is mission accomplished. Probably 98 percent of the world who has heard anything about the Venezuelan elections now thinks that the Venezuelan government is assassinating political opponents. Proponents of “regime change” will take international public opinion into account when they decide whether to recognize the results of Sunday’s election, or take to the streets with violent demonstrations as they did in the 2013 presidential elections.
This is how public opinion is shaped when the U.S. government targets a country for regime change, whether it is a dictatorship like Iraq or a democracy like Honduras or Venezuela. It is good to keep this in mind when you are reading the international news.
Mark Weisbrot is a co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., and the president of Just Foreign Policy. He is also the author of the new book “Failed: What the ‘Experts’ Got Wrong About the Global Economy” (2015, Oxford University Press).
PBS Newshour Fails the Public
Biased and Misleading Analysis on Syria, Russia, Turkey
By Rick Sterling | Dissident Voice | December 4, 2015
PBS Newshour is considered high quality journalism by many North Americans. But is it? A test case is their report on November 24 when a Russian jet was shot down and one pilot killed as he descended in parachute.
This was a significant international event and the situation is still dangerous. The conflict in Syria could get even worse. PBS Newshour presented a discussion/analysis of the event with two guests: Nicholas Burns and Angela Stent. The PBS Newshour host was Judy Woodruff.
This critique applies to the PBS Newshour broadcast on November 24 but the essential points apply to the present. The assumptions and bias regarding the Syrian conflict are pervasive and persistent. How can US foreign policy change if the public is continually fed biased and false information?
Here are specific points:
PBS Newshour selected two analysts with essentially the same viewpoint – U.S. Government and military/security establishment
Nicholas Burns is a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO. In early 2003 he urged the “unity” of NATO as some NATO allies expressed doubts about the U.S. the invasion of Iraq. In 2006 he urged punishing sanctions on Iran. In 2011 Burns wrote, “President Obama was surely right to commit the United States, however reluctantly, to the NATO campaign [to overthrow Libyan President Gaddafi].” Burns has a track record supporting Western aggression against other countries. He evidently has learned nothing from the resulting chaos, devastation and death.
Angela Stent is associated with conservative think tanks. She is a former State Dept and National Intelligence Officer. She is also author of the 2015 book The Limits of Partnership: US-Russian Relations in the 21st Century. Written in non-academic prose, the book explores what she considers four efforts by the US to reset or start new relations with Russia following the Cold War. Unfortunately the bias of the author is apparent and inconvenient history is not mentioned. For example, the Project for a New American Century and aggressive U.S. foreign policy under its influence have been “disappeared”. It’s a biased history which ignores or white-washes examples of US collusion and support of violent coups- from Venezuela to Honduras to Ukraine and Libya.
The analysts make false or exaggerated claims.
- Burns says the Russians “did violate Turkish air space” but he offers no evidence, and it now appears the Russian jet was shot down over Syrian air space.
- Both Burns and Stent claim the Russians violated Turkish air space “several” times or “repeatedly”. Woodruff refers to them as “invasions”. Contrary to the allegations, the only confirmed Russian violation of Turkish air space was on September 3 in bad weather when they were beginning the campaign.
The analysts failed to include relevant information
For instance:
- Air space violations occur frequently and Turkey is a major perpetrator.
- The normal practice is to usher an intruding plane out of the air space not shoot it.
The program fails to consider Putin’s comments that the action was “a stab in the back, carried out by the accomplices of terrorists”
Why wasn’t this comment discussed? A Columbia University researcher lists proof of Turkish collaboration with ISIS here. Another lengthy list is here. American Lebanese journalist Serena Shim documented Turkey’s pivotal role in this video . She was killed the day after publicly expressing fear of the Turkish Intelligence Agency (MIT). Why did the guests not mention any of this?
The analysts also ignore Turkey’s economic support of ISIS
For example, the son of the Turkish President, Bilal Erdogan, has been implicated in purchasing ISIS oil from Syria, mixing it with Iraqi Kurdish oil and shipping it abroad. Bilal is co-owner of BMZ oil and chemicals shipping company which has been buying additional ships. Burns talks about the importance of “history and context” but he leaves out essential facts and history about the conflict.
The analysts distort facts to support their biases
Analyst Burns claims “The Russians have been bombing Syrian Turkmen, ethnic Turkmen villages” Evidence indicates the Russians are not bombing random villages; they are bombing specific terrorist groups in the area. We know that terrorists are in the area because they have been raining missiles into Latakia city, killing 23 students and civilians on November 10. We know the terrorists are there because they video recorded themselves. Other video shows the downing of the aircraft, the pilots descending, the “rebels” shooting at the parachutists, and then the captured dead Russian pilot. Article 42 of Geneva Convention says, ““No person parachuting from a plane in distress shall be made the object of attack during his descent.” Why should Russia and Syria be criticized for attacking these terrorists? It has since emerged that the most vocal “rebel” leader in the video is a Turkish citizen.
Analyst Burns conflates a sectarian extremist fringe with an entire religious branch.
When he refers to “Sunni” groups he actually means the Wahabi/Takfiri opposition such as Jabhat al Nusra, Ahrar al Sham, ISIS, etc. Most Sunni Muslims in the world oppose the bastardization of their religious faith by the fanatic Wahabi element. Characterizing the jihadis as being “Sunni groups” is comparable to identifying the Ku Klux Klan as representing the “Christian group”. It’s additionally false and misleading because the majority of Syrian Army soldiers are Sunni.
The analysts are hypocritical about air space violations.
Burns claims that Russia’s alleged 17 second violation of Turkish air space “is clearly illegal under international law”. Yet the analysts say nothing about the frequent and much longer violations of Syrian air space by American jets and bombers that have NOT been authorized by the Syrian government.
The analysts ignore the fact that Syria has been the victim of severe violations of international law for over four years
Turkey, USA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France and UK have been training plus supplying weapons, logistics and salaries to armed opposition groups trying to violently overthrow the Syrian government. As confirmed by the International Court at the Hague in their ruling filed by Nicaragua against the United States, this is in breach of international law.
The analysts convey the confusion and contradiction of Western policy toward Syria
Stent says, “We disagree with the Russians on the fate of Assad and we disagree on who the enemy is.” In short: Stent and Burns think the West should be able to dictate who can be President of Syria; they also think Russia should refrain from bombing any group except ISIS. They want Russia to refrain from bombing Nusra/Al Qaeda, Ahrar al Sham and other terrorist groups. It is a duplicitous strategy.
The Russian position is much more logical. They have been clear from the start: They are there to oppose sectarian terrorists threatening the Syrian people and state. ISIS is one of these groups but there are many others. What is common among them is sectarianism and reliance on outside funding. One group consists of Uighurs of Chinese nationality. They are part of the “Army of Conquest” that made a big advance in northern Syria in Spring 2015. The idea that these sectarian terrorist groups should be allowed to roam free is illogical if your goal is to overcome terrorism. There are tens of thousands of sectarian fighters who are not in ISIS. Some of these groups threaten major population areas including Latakia and government controlled Aleppo. Other groups control border zones which allow for inflow of more weapons and jihadis. It is logical that the Russian Air Force and Syrian Army would prioritize attacks on these groups near major population centers and controlling border zones.
Regarding the “fate of Assad”, the Russians believe the Syrian Presidency should be determined by Syrians not foreigners. They have indicated they would accept internationally supervised elections. That policy is in keeping with international law. The policy of the West trying to dictate who can or cannot be President of Syria is a violation of the UN charter and International Law.
Stent engages is amateur psychology instead of policy analysis.
She speculates that Russia is intervening in the Syrian conflict because “they want the U.S. to come to them, they want to be the leader … There is some reckless behavior obviously.” It’s a silly analysis that ignores serious issues such as the US policy of “regime change”, the historic links between Syria and Russian, and the credible belief that the attack on Syria is a step toward attacking Iran.
Analyst Burns concludes with call for war via “No Fly Zone”
He says:
If the Russians don’t restrain the Syrian government from firing barrel bombs into civilian neighborhoods the US ought to consider a No Flight (sic) Zone with Turkey and other countries to shut down the Syrian Air Force. That’s what Secretary Clinton has been advocating and I think she’s right…. The way to save civilians and reduce the number of refugees is to shut down air traffic in the northern part of Syria. That’s an idea that the administration has to consider now given these events.
Thus Ambassador Burns goes from criticizing Russia for a 17 second intrusion into Turkish air space to calling for the take-over of northern Syrian air space. It’s a call for more war masquerading as a call for peace.
We can see where his call would lead by looking at consequences of the “No Fly Zone” in Libya. It has resulted in vastly more conflict, deaths, displaced persons and refugees. Since the NATO driven “regime change” in Libya, terrorism has exploded into neighboring countries.
Does Burns really want to take the US into a potential war with Syria and Russia by trying to take over northern Syria? What is wrong with following international law and letting the Syrian people determine their leader?
With Russian air support the Syrian Army is advancing on nearly all fronts. Is that what Turkey and other enemies of Syria are concerned about?
Conclusion
The US has been invading or surreptitiously overthrowing governments around the globe for the past 65 years. The US aggression has usually ended badly, especially for the target country but also for the US economy and population.
Why do these wars keep happening? To some extent it is media failure to expose what’s going on and encourage serious debate.
The PBS Newshour program on November 24 is an example of why the US public is confused about Syria.
PBS Newshour could have presented one of the analysts, Burns or Stent. They could have presented another analyst who would give a different analysis and challenged the biased perspective. It could have been someone from Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity like Ray McGovern or someone from Russia or someone from Syria like the Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations. Instead we had a propaganda presentation, biased and misleading.
PBS Newshour is failing the public.
If you agree, consider letting the Ombudsman know. His email and phone contact is at here
Rick Sterling is a retired engineer and co-founder of Syria Solidarity Movement. He can be emailed at: rsterling1@gmail.com.
San Bernardino Media Hoax: CNN, Media, ‘Victims Families’ All Ransack Suspects Family Home, Faux FBI Crime Scene
By James Tracy | 21st Century Wire | December 4, 2015
Today saw another new low-point in American broadcast journalism, as members of the media and public ransacked the shooting suspects family home in Redlands, California. On closer examination, however, what is on display here has very little to do with journalism, and everything to do with staged ‘synthetic terror’.
It appears that both mainstream media and law enforcement are becoming increasingly desperate to sell an ever-more embellished and fantastic story line surrounding this latest alleged ‘Mass Shooting’ event that we’re told took place on Wednesday in San Bernardino, California.
Earlier, CNN’s official “terrorism analyst”, Paul Cruickshank, stated that San Bernardino’s staged event was, “the deadliest Islamist terrorism attack on US soil since 9/11”. If that was true, then any venues or sites related to this investigation would still be secured by law enforcement – and yet, less than 48 hours after what we’re told was a ‘mass shooting’ and ‘international terrorism’ event – members of the mainstream media and unidentified members of the public were let loose completely unsupervised, inside what authorities are claiming to be “the killers’ home” located in Redlands, California.
More than any other aspect of the contrived narrative currently being assembled by the mainstream media – this latest bit of media exhibitionism has provided clear proof that much of this story is a staged production – completely engineered by the media and members of certain government agencies…
‘PRESS GANG’: Media and public barge into the family home of alleged shooters.
This gives a new meaning to the term “press gang”. The media frenzy at the family’s Redlands home can only be described as a disturbing spectacle broadcast LIVE this morning over ten different major networks.
Today’s bizarre media stunt came only two hours after authorities and the media claimed it now had ‘evidence’ that Wednesday’s attack was “ISIS-inspired”. In a rush to establish a motive for Wednesday’s ‘Active Shooter Drill’ and staged terror event, a new piece of ‘virtual evidence’ appears to be as bizarre as it is laughable:
“We have evidence that while the attack was underway, the female shooter (Tashfeen Malik) is believed to have posted her allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – but not on her own Facebook account, rather on another different named account believed to be linked to her Facebook account.”
As 21WIRE pointed out, authorities are intentionally not showing any photo or image of the alleged female shooter, Tashfeen Malik. It’s likely that this is because Malik was not actually involved in the shooting as the authorities are currently claiming. Based on this, we might expect investigators to turn around at a later date and claim that she “wasn’t actually one of the two shooters.’
Then things began to get even more ridiculous.
CNN’s reporter Victor Blackwell began today’s news segment joined by a large group of at least 150 persons, including 30-40 unidentified people filming on their cell phones which CNN claimed were “members of the victims’ families”, as well as at least 75-100 media personnel and cameramen, all of whom followed behind the property’s landlord, Doyel Miller, who appears to have given an unsupervised, guided tour to the media and unidentified members of the public.
Blackwell even admitted that locals from the neighborhood and their dogs could also be seen wandering through the property.
CNN’s Blackwell claimed to have simply walked into the house, and by chance, finds a 4 paged FBI Seizure Document dated 12/3/15, which details evidence removed in the supposed federal terrorism investigation. CNN’s Blackwell then goes on to read out loud on air, in what he describes as a list which paints “a really clear picture”, before reading out all the items:
“… ammunition, hard drives, laptops, thumb drives, rifle cleaners roll-a-dex, gun cleaning kit, bolt for M-4 style rifle, boxes of ammunition.”
Although CNN and others appear to have gone to great lengths to portray this bizarre news event as authentic, it’s quite clear the FBI or police had left their classified investigation documents and various items as staged, props for the media.
It is not yet clear whether or not members of the media had paid a sum of money to Miller for access to the property.
In what authorities have claimed is a crime scene and “federal investigation related to terrorism”, the alleged home of the shooters has no police tape and has already been opened to random members of the public and the media – who could be seen rummaging through the alleged shooters belongings with no police or federal agents to supervise what can only be described as a free for all.
“passports, driving license, an FBI evidence docket list of items removed from the house [just laying around for the media, we’re told]…”
MEDIA AGIT-PROP: CNN’s Anderson Cooper conducted today’s desperate media play, designed to shore-up the media’s latest “ISIS-inspired” narrative for this week’s ‘mass shooting’ staged event.
The entire fiasco was being stage-managed by the highly dubious CNN operative, Anderson Cooper, who is then flanked by CNN junior ‘reporter’ Stephanie Elam who clearly states, “I was the first person who walked into this room [bedroom] and saw how it was before everyone started touching it… I don’t want to show you these ID’s over here [as the camera then shows] just because I don’t want to show you those addresses on there, but I do believe they belong to the mother based on the ages that were there.”
So Elam had access and tampered with the entire crime scene. If it were a real federal crime scene, then this would be a violation of numerous state and federal laws, including a violation of the family’s rights to privacy. In addition, under California state law, all media members and public present are in violation of breaking and entering, vandalism, and theft as well in the event that any personal items were removed from the scene. The fact that no one has been arrested or charged is proof that this is not a real federal crime at all.
MEDIA VANDALISM OR STAGED ‘PRESS’ EVENT? Less than 48 hours after ‘the biggest attack since 9/11’, CNN’s Stephanie Elam leads a mob of media and public in ransacking the alleged family home of dead suspect Syed Farook.
CNN Reporter Carelessly Tosses Religious Prayer Beads, Religious Books
CNN’s Stephanie Elam then starts picking up and throwing the family’s personal religious items. “When I first walked in this group of prayer beads was sitting on the edge of the bed, Several prayer books that were all around, some business cards, receipts for store purchases, lotions and creams…”.
CNN’s Elam then picks up a set of prayer beads for the camera, before carelessly tossing religious items aside onto the bed below, and moving on to ransack the house along with the other members of the “press”. She clearly states that, “these items belong to the shooters’ parents” – as she and others carelessly rifle through the family’s personal belongings.
A media entourage of at least 40 reporters and 50 random members of the public (who the media claim were “victims’ family members”) appear to have been involved in a forced entry, or “breaking and entering”, as the entourage followed the landlord who, according to CNN junior reporter, “We watched him come back with a crow bar… and a drill… to remove the door that had been barricading with a piece of wood. Then everyone came in right after that.”
She then claimed that, “The police were ‘done’ with this building.”
Under the remote direction of Cooper, CNN’s on site cameraman then moves in for a close shot at a desk with a number of documents neatly arranged – including a passport, presumably belonging to family member of the alleged shooters.
STAGED: Passports were neatly on display for the media camera, in what appears to be staging of the supposed ‘crime scene’.
FRAMING THE STORY: CNN’s Elam claims as, “clear evidence of religious faith”.
San Bernardino: A Media Production
CNN’s law enforcement analyst Harry Houck then came on camera with Cooper to display some outrage, seemingly bedazzled and upset over, ‘how the FBI have allowed dozens of people to destroy the crime scene’.
What Houck and other media operatives are not asking is the real question here: if this were a real federal investigation and crime scene then, obviously there would be police tape, and the property would be supervised as it is less than 48 hours after such a high-profile ‘mass shooting’. Clearly, this is not a real crime scene – and by extension – we can conclude now that this entire event was likely to be a staged one.
One of the most incredible media reports was turned-in by Democratic Party-affiliated media outlet MSNBC, who could be seen going through the family’s personal effects and photographs, and showing “Muslim items” on camera. Shamelessly, MSNBC reporter Kerry Sanders rifles through childrens’ personal belongings in the room of Farook and Malik’s 6-month-old daughter (allegedly), and points out her crib and what appeared to be a “Muslim prayer rug”. The following viewing is disturbing, and almost unbelievable:
The bumbling MSNBC reporter Sanders seemed to be a bit desperate to make a case that these were ‘Islamic terrorists’, and whoever staged all the ‘evidence’ laying around the home – has clearly arranged passports and photos prominently in place for the media – in order for the hapless media to draw their own conclusions. One planted item is meant to be photos of Tafsheen Malik, shown here:
PLANTED PROP: Mystery photos: viewers are meant to think these photos belong to Tafsheen Malik, but “cannot be confirmed”.
MYSTERY WOMAN OR FBI HANDLER? The FBI and media have intentionally hidden the identity of the female suspect.
Once again, based on the FBI’s continued hiding of her identity, we can almost conclude that their supposed female suspect, Tafsheen Malik, was not involved in the staged shooting event at Inland Regional Center on Wednesday, but rather, could have been the FBI female handler of male suspect Syed Farook – a very similar scenario to a carbon copy modus operandi seen with Boston Bomber suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his illusive white American, Muslim convert and CIA -linked wife, Katherine Russell.
Not surprisingly, not CNN, nor any other mainstream media organization, will ever chase up any of these leads, and after today’s debacle – we should all know why.
CNN Goes on Defensive After Calling Man Killed by Police the ‘Son of an Illiterate Heroin Addict’
By John Vibes | The Free Thought Project | December 3, 2015
Baltimore, MD – When reporting on the case of police brutality victim Freddie Gray, the man that was killed by police in Baltimore earlier this year, a CNN writer described Gray as “the son of an illiterate heroin addict.” The article quickly drew backlash and CNN attempted to edit the article, but it was too late, screenshots of the article had already gone viral.
CNN president Jeff Zucker later said that it was simply a mistake and insisted that there was no intent to slander the dead victim Freddie Gray.
“This was a mistake, the digital team removed it last night and inserted an editor’s note to be completely transparent. The editorial intent as the digital team has laid it out to me was to make clear he had a difficult upbringing. But clearly it did not come across that way when it was written and published. We recognize that. It did not work and we removed it. And were transparent about that. That was a mistake,” Zucker said.
Zucker said that the comments were taken “out of context,” however, the context was clear, they were attempting to assassinate the character of a dead man with accusations that were not even relevant to the case. This type of smear campaign is typical for victims of police violence, which is one big part of the reason why people in America are so confused about the police. When the victim is demonized, it allows the police to maintain the moral high ground and it absolves them of their crimes in the eyes of the public.
According to police, Gray was first stopped and arrested by officers at 8:39 am on April 12, and was thrown in the back of a police van 15 minutes later. An entire hour later an ambulance was called to give him medical care, but he sadly fell into a coma died soon after. He suffered broken vertebra and an injured voice box, which required emergency spinal surgery that he never recovered from.
Many suspect that Gray was the victim of a “Nickel Ride”, a horrific police torture tactic where a suspect is handcuffed and placed in the back of a police van without restraints, and driven recklessly around town by police officers. This practice has also been called a “Rough Ride” or a “Cowboy Ride.”
Grays death resulted in the protests and riots that took place in Baltimore earlier this year. The police officers involved in his death are now standing trial for their crimes.
Israel: The Willing Executioner
By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | December 2, 2015
Rasha Oweissi, 23, was a good 30 feet back from a West Bank checkpoint when she was shot and killed, clutching a knife and a bag with a suicide note. Hadeel Awwad, 16, waved a pair of scissors at a Jerusalem security guard and was brought down in a hail of bullets. Ashrakat Qattanani, 16, was killed as she lunged at a woman near a military post.
Their names appear in a New York Times story today, which informs us that some 20 percent of alleged attackers in the past two months have been women, a new and surprising turn of events in the annals of resistance to the Israeli occupation. The article goes on to examine why so many young women in the current Palestinian uprising are “wanting to be killers.”
But the story avoids the obvious question here: How is it that some Palestinians are now courting martyrdom by showing up at checkpoints armed with kitchen knives?
Diaa Hadid and Rami Nazzal skirt this issue throughout the article. There are quotes from Ashrakat’s father who proudly states that his daughter chose to be a martyr, and there is talk of the “romantic” aura of dying for the cause of Palestinian freedom, but nothing is said of the Israeli role here: the summary executions carried out under the thinnest pretexts.
The practice is well known to Palestinians, however, and B’Tselem, the Israeli monitoring group, recently wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanding an end to a “horrific string” of unlawful killings. The letter states, “There can only be one outcome in cases that combine an individual with Arab appearance and a knife: execution on the street.”
As a result, any troubled young person looking for martyrdom knows she has only to hold a knife in hand and walk toward a checkpoint to achieve her goal. Thus, Rasha Oweissi could write her suicide note, confident that the executioners would do their job.
The real story here, so carefully avoided in the Times, is the presence of willing executioners at the checkpoints. This angle, however, does not fit into the narrative of Israeli victimhood, so we find this print headline on the article today: “Palestinian Women Assert Role in Uprising,” as if we are celebrating their emancipation as they take up arms.
But there is little to celebrate. The story reports that most of the would-be female attackers have been killed in the two months since the recent spate of knife and vehicular assaults began and that those who survived have been taken into custody. At the same time, not a single Israeli has died at their hands.
Readers do not learn, however, that several of these women died under disputed circumstances. Hadeel Hashlamoun, 18, was the first victim of the trigger-happy forces in this recent surge in violence. She was shot in late September at a checkpoint in Hebron, and although Israeli officials reported that she had a knife, eyewitnesses dispute this. B’Tselem noted the discrepancies and called her death an extrajudicial execution.
The Times story today, however, asserts that Hadeel “pulled out a knife,” ignoring the controversy surrounding her killing.
Hadid and Nazzal note that B’Tselem called the deaths of Hadeel Awwad and Ashrakat Qattanani “public, summary street executions,” but the full import of the B’Tselem charges are not to be found in the Times.
In fact, the organization asserts that the highest levels of the Israeli government are responsible for the series of unlawful killings. “Your government permits—and encourages—the transformation of police officers, and even of armed civilians, into judges and executioners,” B’Tselem writes in its open letter to Netanyahu.
The letter notes that senior members of the government have incited this violence through “inflammatory statements,” and it continues, “A new pseudo-normative reality has effectively emerged in which a ‘shoot to kill’ approach must always be adopted, no matter the circumstances, even when the suspect no longer presents any danger whatsoever.”
Thus reports show that Ashrakat Qattanani was killed after she had been run over by a car and that Nourhan Awwad was shot at close range after being beaten to the ground by a man wielding a chair. Likewise, Hadeel Hashlamoun stood behind a barrier and several feet from heavily armed officers when a hail of bullets ended her life.
A careful reader of the Times story might have noticed that security forces indulged in overkill, emptying rounds of bullets into the bodies of young women after they were already immobilized and lying wounded on the street, but the article avoids any close look at the behavior of police and soldiers, not to mention the provocative comments of government officials.
Once again the Times averts its gaze from the reality on the ground in Palestine. Here we had an opportunity to look at the tragic intersection of youthful romanticism and Israeli brutality, but the newspaper can provide only one side of this equation: Israel gets a pass, as usual, even when the evidence for its crimes is in plain sight.
Follow @TimesWarp on Twitter.
New York Times propaganda article on Ukraine’s blockade of Crimea
By Roger Annis – New Cold War – December 2, 2015
Western media has published yet another doom and gloom article on Crimea, repeating a worn theme that surely, by now, the people of Crimea must be reconsidering their vote 21 months ago to secede from Ukraine and rejoin the Russian Federation.
The article was published in the New York Times on Dec 1 and is titled, ‘Months after Russian annexation, hopes start to dim in Crimea‘. This one has to skate around a new, added twist to the Crimea story: the electricity and commercial road transport blockade that has been mounted by small numbers of the extreme-right in Ukraine but endorsed by the governing regime in Kyiv while Western governments turn a blind eye.
The article begins:
SHCHYOLKINO, Crimea–When residents in this typical Soviet factory town voted enthusiastically to secede from Ukraine and to become Russians, they thought the chaos and corruption that made daily life a struggle were a thing of the past. Now that many of them are being forced to cook and boil drinking water on open fires, however, they are beginning to reconsider.
The article employs time-honored methods for when a pre-determined, negative theme is required and important facts must be obscured.
One, find disgruntled citizens in the street and cite them. That’s not difficult to do–is there a country in the world without many unhappy citizens? The Times writer cites two such people in his article.
Two, make it appear that the disgruntled citizen(s) speaks for large numbers of his or her fellow citizens.
Three, negative imagery is important. Thus we read in the Times article, “Twenty months after the Kremlin annexed the Black Sea peninsula amid an outpouring of patriotic fervor by the ethnic Russian population, President Vladimir V. Putin’s promise in April 2014 to turn it into a showcase of his rule now seems as faded as Crimea’s aging, Soviet-era resorts.” Very evocative–‘aging, Soviet-era resorts’. This recalls the decades of New York Times reporting of aged-looking buildings in Cuba during the decades of the U.S. embargo of the island. The embargo made it difficult for Cuba to manufacture or obtain paint and building materials; such things as public health care, public education, international aid and solidarity, and national defense took priority. So yes, this writer visited Cuba three times during the 1990s and, indeed, many buildings in Havana looked aged. But the spirit of the people and the outlook for the country was anything but tired and worn out. To my eyes, the people were much more spirited and forward looking compared to what I experienced in wealthy Canada.
Four, the key word in all reporting of Crimea is “annex”, as per the above citation. The people in Crimea voted overwhelmingly in March 2014 for secession from Ukraine, following a violent, right-wing coup against the elected president of that country (a president for whom a large majority of Crimeans had voted in 2010). The secession referendum was organized by the elected and constitutional Crimean legislature, whose legality contrasted sharply with the illegal, coup regime which came into power in Kyiv on Feb 21, 2014. Crimeans have affirmed in survey after survey that they are satisfied with the secession decision. Yet, Crimeans are presented in the Times as hapless people who have been “annexed” by Russia. The Times reference to the secession as happening “amid an outpouring of patriotic fervor” suggests that the people were so swept away by fervor as to be too dumb to realize what was really taking place. They were not choosing a future of their own free will; no, they were undergoing “annexation” without even being aware.
Five, blame the victims for their plight. Thus we read in the Times article , “… people here are not sure whom to blame more for their predicament: the Crimean Tatar activists and Ukrainian nationalists who cut off Crimea’s link to the Ukrainian power grid or the local government officials who claimed to have enough power generators stored away to handle such an emergency.” Here we have an absurd spectacle of the Crimean government being blamed for failing to foresee and prepare for the day that right-wing extremists in Ukraine would blow up the electricity transmission lines serving the peninsula. Even more recklessly, the Crimean government failed to foresee that the blowing up of transmission lines by right-wing terrorists (oops, “cutting off of Crimea’s links” by “activists”) would be endorsed and escalated by the regime in Kyiv and that Western governments would turn a blind eye and Western media would largely be silent.
Six, and finally, choice of headline to convey the negative message is key. In this case, we have “hopes start to dim”. In reality, the Times headline joins a long parade of such headlines. Pick a typical, negative word, use it alongside the word “Crimea” in an internet search, and, voilà, you arrive in a world of negativity over prospects for Crimea. Here is a small sample of the trade in negative Crimea headlines and stories:
- Crimea’s football fans shiver at prospect of their team playing in Siberia (The Guardian, March 2014)
- Why Russia’s Crimea move fails legal test, (BBC, March 2014)
- Crimea after annexation: ‘We feel utterly discouraged,’ resident says (Belsat TV, in Belarus, April 2014)
- Crimea euphoria fades for some Russians (Reuters, July 2014)
- Tourism suffers in Crimea as Ukraine shuns breakaway region (Washington Post, Aug 2014)
- Kremlin preparing to combat demos as signs of Crimea-fatigue appear, (‘Euromaidan Press‘, Sept 2014)
- Human rights in decline in Crimea (Human Rights Watch, Nov 2014)
- To many in Crimea, corruption seems no less at home under Russian rule, New York Times, Aug 2015)
Oddly–well, not so oddly–the last article in this list was about Crimean citizens trying to take back into public control Black Sea waterfront land which had been lost during Crimea’s time in post-1991 Ukraine.
Funnily enough, the Times article concludes with a quotation from a Crimean woman that is supposed to show that Russians are naïve and habitual complainers who always blame others for their failings and shortcomings. But the quotation is the closest thing to truth in the entire article (leaving aside the suggestion that the extreme rightists in Ukraine who blew up electricity lines are “Tatars”):
As often happens in Russia, some blame Washington rather than Moscow or Kiev.
“If it wasn’t for the Americans, none of it could have happened. The Tatars, who are supported by the United States, would not do a thing,” said Tatyana Bragina, 57, an energetic woman who also once worked construction at a nearby, unfinished nuclear plant.
“Please write that we are not desperate. On the contrary, we are full of joy,” Ms. Bragina said, standing near a black iron kettle boiling away in the courtyard of her apartment block.
Russian legislator Konstantin Kosachev has said that Kyiv’s electricity and road-transport blockades against Crimea constitute a “gesture of final farewell” to Crimea.
Russia is racing to construct electricity, natural gas, road and rail links to Crimea across the 3 km wide Kerch Strait, which separates the Sea of Azov from the Black Sea. The first of the electricity will begin to flow in a few weeks. Crimea will be fully supplied with electricity by the summer 2016. Soon after that, it will be producing its own electricity courtesy of the gas pipeline under construction. By 2019, the road and rail bridge will begin to operate.
Russian Bombing
By Bryan Hemming – offguardian – November 30, 2015
“At least 18 people killed in Russian airstrike on town in Syria – reports” reads a headline in this morning’s Guardian.
According to the corporate media when Russian bombs kill, they kill people. On the other hand, US and NATO bombs kill terrorists and extremists. That some collateral damage is caused in the process is only natural and hardly worth the column inches of mentioning. After all’s said and done ‘you can’t make an omelet …’ The fact that one person’s collateral damage is another person’s grandmother is highly regrettable and easily deniable. As one loving grandmother once remarked, “the price is worth it”.
The Guardian’s Mark Tran goes on to describe the jihadists holding the town of Ariha in Northwest Syria as ‘insurgents’. That’s novel way of describing al-Qaida-led rebels, which is how one article in the Telegraph described them on May 29th of this year. Headlined “Al-Qaeda-led rebels take Idlib’s last Syria regime bastion” an accompanying photo shows a tank flying the flag of ISIS. In fairness, the caption doesn’t say the photo was taken in Ariha, there again, neither does it say it wasn’t.
Another article published by the Guardian on July 4th this year carried the headline “Syrian mosque blast kills at least 25 with al-Qaida links”. Note the headline omits the word ‘people’. Are we supposed to think there were no ‘people’ killed in that attack? Just 25 somethings; every last something a signed up member of a terrorist group linked to al-Qaida, I suppose. Back then the Guardian told us: “Syrian Observatory, which tracks the war, said the explosion in Salem mosque in Ariha, also killed a senior non-Syrian member of the hardline jihadist organisation.” In less than six months, and with a bit of Russian bombing, we are expected to swallow the unlikely idea that “hardline” members and somethings of a “jihadist organisation” have morphed into “people” and “insurgents”. People or insurgents, whatever they are now, one thing we can be sure of is that they must certainly be moderate ones.
Russki bombs; unbelievable, eh?
War Returns to Ukraine
Tensions escalate as Ukraine tries to regain international attention diverted by Syria
By Alexander Mercouris | Russia Insider | November 29, 2015
Whilst all eyes are on Syria there has been a steady deterioration of the situation in Ukraine.
In violation of the ceasefire, shelling of the territories of the two people’s republics has resumed, and the OSCE has confirmed that the Ukrainian military has moved heavy weapons back to the contact line.
The Ukrainians meanwhile have extended their ban of commercial flights to and from Russia by also banning transit flights.
Ukraine has placed Crimea under a food blockade. To the intense embarrassment of its Western backers (see this editorial in the Financial Times, headlined “Kiev should act to end the blockade of Crimea”) it has enlarged this to an energy blockade.
Ukraine claims the power lines to Crimea were destroyed by Crimean Tatar “activists” backed by Right Sector.
Even if this were true, the Ukrainian authorities have done little or nothing to take control of the situation, arrest and punish those responsible for what was after all an act of criminal damage, or carry out the necessary repairs.
Characteristically most Western governments have said nothing, save that there has been some muted criticism from Germany.
Contrast this silence with the furious – and wrong – accusations regularly made in the West against Russia for its supposed use of energy as a political weapon.
All of this is happening to a drumbeat of demands in the Ukrainian media for the country to renounce the Minsk II agreement.
The Russians for their part have responded by stopping coal supplies to Ukraine. Since Ukraine is again failing to pay for its gas, it seems the Russians intend to stop supplying Ukraine with gas on Tuesday.
The two people’s republics have also announced they are stopping their own coal deliveries to Ukraine.
These steps increase the prospects of severe power shortages in Ukraine during what is predicted to be a harsh winter.
The Russians are also due in January to impose sanctions on Ukrainian food imports to Russia. This is in retaliation to Ukraine joining EU sanctions against Russia, and imposing sanctions of its own.
Bizarrely, this systematic severing of trade links with Russia is being hailed in parts of the Western media as proof Ukraine is “successfully reorienting” its trade to the EU and away from Russia, and is becoming “less dependent” on Russia. This of course takes no account of the damage these actions are doing to Ukraine’s economy.
There has also been an orchestrated attempt in recent weeks on the part of some sections of the Western media to talk up Ukraine’s economic situation, with claims that it is “stabilizing”. The US credit agency Moody’s has joined in the game by upgrading Ukraine’s credit rating.
To the very limited extent this is true, it is wholly the consequence of the August ceasefire, which stopped the drain of fighting the war on the civilian economy.
The actions the Ukrainian government and “activists” have been taking over the last few weeks puts this in jeopardy.
What is causing this sudden deterioration in the situation?
At its simplest, it is growing alarm in Ukraine that Western – especially European – support for Ukraine is flagging.
It is now widely accepted that Merkel and Obama are becoming increasingly isolated in their insistence that the sanctions against Russia be extended.
In France Nicholas Sarkozy, Hollande’s likely conservative opponent at the Presidential election, has clearly signaled his opposition to sanctions, aligning himself on this issue with Marine Le Pen.
More to the point, in Germany, Merkel’s coalition partners – the SPD and the CSU – are both becoming openly critical of a sanctions policy with which one senses they both privately always disagreed.
Russia Insider has already discussed the increasingly rebellious line being taken by Sigmar Gabriel, the SPD’s leader and Germany’s Vice Chancellor.
Possibly even more important is the call from Horst Seehofer, leader of the CSU – the CDU’s right wing coalition partner in Merkel’s coalition – for a rapprochement with Russia.
Whilst Seehofer’s comments seem to have been specifically triggered by the migrant crisis and the conflict in Syria, their tone suggests a wider rapprochement.
Interestingly, Seehofer has been forging increasingly close links in recent weeks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban – a bete noir in Washington – who is known to be a strong advocate of good relations between Europe and Russia.
Back in September – as the migrant crisis was starting to spiral out of control – Orban made another call for a new relationship between Europe and Russia. Significantly he did this straight after a meeting with Seehofer.
The mounting opposition in Europe to the sanctions is being picked up by the “realists” in the US.
Russia Insider recently republished an article in The National Interest – the main publication in which the US foreign policy “realists” express their views – which should be read as a call to the Obama administration to take the lead in diplomatic discussions with Moscow before the sanctions regime collapses, leaving the US looking isolated and humiliated.
A number of our readers misunderstood this article, taking literally its ritual claims about the sanctions’ effectiveness and Putin’s supposedly “desperate situation”.
The sad truth about policy debate in the US today is that it cannot admit defeat, so that even when it retreats it has to claim “victory”.
The key point about the article in The National Interest is not what it says about Putin and Russia.
It is its call for the US to initiate diplomatic negotiations with Moscow to find a face-saving way to end the sanctions before Europe splits away and they fall apart.
The gradual shift towards an improvement in relations with Russia began before Russia’s intervention in Syria.
In fact it has been underway ever since the Minsk II agreement was reached in February. We have discussed the process at length in various articles here on Russia Insider.
However the Russian intervention in Syria and the Paris attacks have markedly accelerated the process, with Western public opinion showing increasing signs of backing Russia.
All of this is causing in Ukraine growing alarm. The Ukrainians must be seething as international attention is refocusing away from them, and as Russia shows signs of winning over Western public opinion to its side.
The consistent response of the Maidan movement whenever it senses it is losing is to double down and escalate and that is what we are now seeing.
A way to rationalise it would be to say that the Ukrainians are trying to provoke Russia into an overreaction, so as to reignite the conflict in order to shore up Western support and get the sanctions – due for renewal in December – extended.
Though this is at a certain level true, it seriously underestimates the purely visceral aspect in Ukrainian behaviour.
For the Maidan movement any sign Russia is gaining credit with the Western public is like a red rag to a bull. There is no need to look for calculation in Ukrainian behaviour in order to understand it.
The underlying problem – as we have said many times – is that the Maidan movement is inherently incapable of the sort of compromise that Minsk II envisages.
To see how that is so, consider what has happened since the October summit in Paris where the Europeans in effect ordered Poroshenko to implement Minsk II within a revised timetable.
The Ukrainians have done nothing of the sort, and the new timetable for carrying out the terms of Minsk II is already slipping.
Any discussion of the internal aspect of the Ukrainian conflict – as opposed to its external aspect – has to proceed from the fact that the present Ukrainian government is simply incapable of compromise unless overwhelming external pressure is brought upon it.
The Russians long ago grasped this. Over the last few weeks there are clear signs the Europeans belatedly are starting to grasp it as well.
The question that remains is for how much longer the Europeans will be prepared to go on making their relations with Russia hostage to the ideological obsessions of the Maidan movement and its neocon supporters.
The mounting evidence – judging from comments by people like Sigmar Gabriel and Horst Seehofer in Germany, Sarkozy in France, and from what happened during the summit in Paris – is that European patience is wearing thin.
Is David Brooks Pushing For Another Vietnam?
By Chris Rossini | Ron Paul Liberty Report | November 23, 2015
A few years ago, New York Times columnist David Brooks wanted the U.S. government to wave its magic wand and turn the Syrian civil war into a Vietnam for Iran:
We should be trying to turn the Syrian civil war into Iran’s Vietnam. We should make them waste money and effort trying to back their client… I’m thinking that maybe it’s time for a more active U.S. role. I have no clue how to do that.
Brooks was apparently modest enough to admit that he had “no clue” as to how the U.S. should mold Syria to achieve such a nefarious goal.
Well, a few years have now gone by, and Brooks has experienced his eureka moment! He apparently tuned into a warmongering speech from Hillary Clinton and now (at long last) has a clue:
Clinton… gestured to the reality that you can’t really deal with ISIS unless you are also willing to deal with Assad. Assad is not some secondary threat who we can deal with after we’ve tamed the ISIS monster. Assad created the failed state and the power vacuum that ISIS was able to fill.
Some of Clinton’s specific prescriptions were a little too limited and Obamaesque for my taste (she didn’t even call for more American Special Operations forces to improve the bombing campaigns, though she said she would be open to it).
Aha! Brooks, who wanted to turn Syria into Iran’s Vietnam, has changed to turning it into America’s Second Vietnam! Brooks wants American troops in there fighting both ISIS and Assad. He’s come to the conclusion that it is America that should “waste money and effort”!
But wait! There’s more:
The grand strategy of American policy in the Middle East, therefore, should be to do what we can to revive and reform Arab nations, to help them become functioning governing units.
The “grand strategy”?
America has destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, leaving them in virtual chaos with nothing resembling “functioning governing units.” Syria needs to be number four on the lucky list?
That begins with stepped-up military pressure on ISIS. But it also means going hard on Assad, creating no-fly zones for sanctuaries for Syrian refugees to limit his power, ratcheting up pressure on Iran and Russia to force his departure.
Brooks no longer wants a Vietnam for Iran, but a second one for the U.S. In addition to American troops, he wants the U.S. to create a no-fly zone in Syria that would put America in a direct confrontation with Russia (a country that has a nuclear arsenal that’s just as large as America’s).
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From the Archives
Left-leaning despisers of 9/11 Truth movement: Do you really believe in miracles?
David Ray Griffin | Global Research | 06 Jul 2010
An Open Letter to Terry Allen, Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, David Corn, Chris Hayes, George Monbiot, Matthew Rothschild, and Matt Taibbi.
[1]According to several left-leaning critics of the 9/11 Truth Movement, some of its central claims, especially about the destruction of the World Trade Center, show its members to be scientifically challenged. In the opinion of some of these critics, moreover, claims made by members of this movement are sometimes unscientific in the strongest possible sense, implying an acceptance of magic and miracles. … Full article
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