Krugman Joins the Anti-Putin Pack
By Robert Parry | Consortium News | December 19, 2014
When America’s opinion-making herd gets running, it’s hard for anyone to get in the way regardless of how erroneous or unfair the reason for the stampede. It’s much easier – and career-wise safer – to join the pack, which is what New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has done regarding Russia, Ukraine and Vladimir Putin.
In the latest example of the New York Times’ endless Putin-bashing, Krugman begins his Friday column with what you might call a “negative endorsement” of the Russian president by claiming that ex-New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has “an embarrassing crush on the swaggering statesman.”
But Krugman misleads his readers. Giuliani wasn’t really praising Putin when he said “that is what you call a leader” in commenting on Putin’s decisiveness. Some liberal defenders of President Barack Obama simply cherry-picked the quote to counter Giuliani’s attempt to disparage Obama by comparing Obama’s chronic indecisiveness to Putin’s forcefulness.
In the fuller context, Giuliani was not expressing a fondness for Putin at all. Indeed, he disparaged the Russian leader as “a bully” and urged a tough-guy response to Putin over Ukraine. “Instead of him pushing us around, we push him around,” Giuliani said in the Fox News interview. “That’s the only thing a bully understands.”
So, why did Krugman begin his Putin-bashing column by misrepresenting what Giuliani was saying? It may have been a form of “negative endorsement.” Since many American liberals hate Giuliani, Giuliani’s praise is supposed to translate into liberal hatred for Putin.
But “negative endorsements” are inherently unfair. Just because Josef Stalin might have liked Franklin Roosevelt and because we may hate Stalin, that doesn’t mean we should hate Roosevelt, too. The use of “negative endorsement” is akin to guilt by association. And, in this case, Krugman was playing fast and loose with the facts as well.
Krugman also opts for some of the most hyperbolic language that has been used in the U.S. mainstream media to distort events in Ukraine. For instance, Krugman claims that “Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine without debate or deliberation.” But that really isn’t true either.
The Ukraine crisis is far more complicated and nuanced than that, as Krugman must know. If he doesn’t, he should consult with fellow Princeton professor Stephen F. Cohen, who has bravely challenged the prevailing “group think” on both Ukraine and Russia.
Cohen, one of America’s premier Russia experts, has even warned that “American media coverage of Vladimir Putin … has so demonized him that the result may be to endanger U.S. national security. …
“[M]ainstream press reporting, editorials and op-ed articles have increasingly portrayed Putin as a czar-like ‘autocrat,’ or alternatively a ‘KGB thug,’ who imposed a ‘rollback of democratic reforms’ under way in Russia when he succeeded Boris Yeltsin as president in 2000. He installed instead a ‘venal regime’ that has permitted ‘corruptionism,’ encouraged the assassination of a ‘growing number’ of journalists and carried out the ‘killing of political opponents.’ Not infrequently, Putin is compared to Saddam Hussein and even Stalin.”
Yet, Cohen said, “there is no evidence that any of these allegations against him are true, or at least entirely true. Most seem to have originated with Putin’s personal enemies, particularly Yeltsin-era oligarchs who found themselves in foreign exile as a result of his policies – or, in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, in prison. Nonetheless, U.S. media, with little investigation of their own, have woven the allegations into a near-consensus narrative of ‘Putin’s Russia.’” [For details from Cohen’s article, click here.]
‘Shock Therapy’
Indeed, much of what Krugman finds so offensive about Putin’s Russia actually stemmed from the Yeltsin era following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 when the so-called Harvard Boys flew to Moscow to apply free-market “shock therapy” which translated into a small number of well-connected thieves plundering Russia’s industry and resources, making themselves billionaires while leaving average Russians near starvation.
When Putin succeeded Boris Yeltsin in 2000, Putin challenged some of the oligarchs and pushed others out of the political arena, while also moderating some of the extreme policies and thus making life somewhat better for the average Russian, thus explaining Putin’s broad popularity. Putin could be fairly criticized for not going further, but economist Krugman must surely know this history regarding how the Russian “kleptocracy” got started.
Yet, Krugman slides into the now common demonization of Putin. “Mr. Putin never had the resources to back his swagger,” Krugman smugly writes.
“It’s quite a comedown for Mr. Putin. And his swaggering strongman act helped set the stage for the disaster. A more open, accountable regime — one that wouldn’t have impressed Mr. Giuliani so much — would have been less corrupt, would probably have run up less debt, and would have been better placed to ride out falling oil prices. Macho posturing, it turns out, makes for bad economies.”
In other words, Krugman buys into the “group think” that blames Putin’s “macho posturing” over Ukraine for the current financial crisis in Russia, which has resulted from falling oil prices as well as the U.S.-led sanctions punishing Russia for its alleged “aggression” in Ukraine.
That puts Krugman in the same camp as the neocons who have pushed the bogus narrative that the megalomaniacal Putin is trying to reconstitute the Russian Empire. The actual facts, however, disprove that narrative. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Crazy US ‘Group Think’ on Russia.”]
Putin himself has a much better understanding of recent Russian history – and what Official Washington’s goals are regarding him and Russia – as he explained in an end-of-year news conference on Thursday.
Asked if the economic pain was the price for accepting Crimea back into Russia, Putin responded:
“No. This is not the price we have to pay for Crimea. … This is actually the price we have to pay for our natural aspiration to preserve ourselves as a nation, as a civilization, as a state. …
“I gave an example of our most recognizable symbol. It is a bear protecting his taiga. … [M]aybe it would be best if our bear just sat still. Maybe he should stop chasing pigs and boars around the taiga but start picking berries and eating honey. Maybe then he will be left alone.
“But no, he won’t be! Because someone will always try to chain him up. As soon as he’s chained they will tear out his teeth and claws. In this analogy, I am referring to the power of nuclear deterrence. As soon as – God forbid – it happens and they no longer need the bear, the taiga will be taken over. … And then, when all the teeth and claws are torn out, the bear will be of no use at all. Perhaps they’ll stuff it and that’s all.
“So, it is not about Crimea but about us protecting our independence, our sovereignty and our right to exist. That is what we should all realize.”
The Neo-Nazi Reality
There is another unpleasant reality about Ukraine that Krugman ignores — its neo-Nazi element — apparently not wanting to be out of step with his New York Times colleagues who have studiously looked the other way. Again, Krugman could learn something from his fellow Princeton professor Cohen, who has recounted the grim facts about neo-Nazism in Ukraine, facts that would put Putin’s supposed “invasion” in defense of Ukraine’s ethnic Russians in a different light.
In an article for The Nation magazine, Cohen wrote:
“Independent Western scholars have documented the fascist origins, contemporary ideology and declarative symbols of Svoboda and its fellow-traveling Right Sector. Both movements glorify Ukraine’s murderous Nazi collaborators in World War II as inspirational ancestors. Both, to quote Svoboda’s leader Oleh Tyahnybok, call for an ethnically pure nation purged of the ‘Moscow-Jewish mafia’ and ‘other scum,’ including homosexuals, feminists and political leftists.
“And both hailed the Odessa massacre [on May 2 when ethnic Russian protesters were trapped in the Trade Union building and burned alive]. According to the website of Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh, it was ‘another bright day in our national history.’ A Svoboda parliamentary deputy added, ‘Bravo, Odessa…. Let the Devils burn in hell.’
“If more evidence is needed, in December 2012, the European Parliament decried Svoboda’s ‘racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic views [that] go against the EU’s fundamental values and principles.’ In 2013, the World Jewish Congress denounced Svoboda as ‘neo-Nazi.’ Still worse, observers agree that Right Sector is even more extremist. …
“In December 2012, a Svoboda parliamentary leader anathematized the Ukrainian-born American actress Mila Kunis as ‘a dirty kike.’ Since 2013, pro-Kiev mobs and militias have routinely denigrated ethnic Russians as insects (‘Colorado beetles,’ whose colors resemble a sacred Russia ornament). More recently, the US-picked prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, referred to resisters in the Southeast as ‘subhumans.’ His defense minister proposed putting them in ‘filtration camps,’ pending deportation, and raising fears of ethnic cleansing.
“Yulia Tymoshenko — a former prime minister, titular head of Yatsenyuk’s party and runner-up in the May presidential election — was overheard wishing she could ‘exterminate them all [Ukrainian Russians] with atomic weapons.’ ‘Sterilization’ is among the less apocalyptic official musings on the pursuit of a purified Ukraine.”
By leaving out this troubling context, it’s much easier to mislead Americans about what is actually happening in Ukraine. Instead of understanding Russia’s interest in protecting ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine from these brutal neo-Nazis, the crisis can simply be presented as Putin’s “aggression” or – as Krugman says – how “Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine.” [For an earlier case of Krugman’s distortions on Ukraine, click here.]
More fitting Krugman’s expertise about the dangers of free-market extremism, he might do better looking at the consequences of those strategies on both Russia and Ukraine, where corrupt oligarchs also took power and have now moved to the center of Ukraine’s U.S.-backed regime.
And, if Krugman wants some current example of cronyism, he might look at the curious case of Natalie Jaresko, a former U.S. diplomat who parlayed $150 million in U.S. AID funds designed to help Ukraine develop an investment-based economy into a personal fortune and now into the post of Ukraine’s new Finance Minister.
According to corporate records, the U.S. government-funded investment project for Ukraine involved substantial insider dealings by Jaresko, including $1 million-plus fees to a management company that she also controlled. Meanwhile, the $150 million stake provided by the U.S. taxpayers appears to have dwindled to less than $100 million. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s Made-in-the-USA Finance Minister.”]
But critical reporting about the U.S.-backed Ukrainian regime would violate Official Washington’s narrative that prefers the Kiev authorities to be dressed in white hats while Vladimir Putin wears the black hat.
~
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
Bad Reporting and Nuclear Alarmism Return to The Guardian
By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | December 22, 2014
Tehran Bureau/Digarban/The Guardian article from December 17, 2014
Last week, the Iran-focused blog, Tehran Bureau, housed online by The Guardian, posted an alarming headline: “Senior cleric: Iran has knowledge to build a nuclear bomb.” The accompanying article, co-authored by Tehran Bureau‘s new partner Digarban, was posted below a guaranteed-to-scare image simultaneously containing three beardy clerics, two Supreme Leaders, and an angry looking partridge in a pear tree.
The report announced:
An official site belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has quoted a senior conservative cleric as saying that Iran has attained the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb but doesn’t want to use it.
The IRGC site of Kurdistan province today quoted Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a leading cleric who often leads Friday prayers in Tehran, as telling a group of IRGC commanders in Iran’s Kurdistan province that Iran had the expertise to enrich uranium not just to the 5% and 20% levels required for civilian uses but to higher levels required for a bomb. “[We] can enrich uranium at 5% or 20%, as well as 40% to 50%, and even 90%,” he was quoted as saying. But he said the Islamic republic believed that the building of a bomb is religiously forbidden.
Furthermore, Tehran Bureau boasts, “Khatami’s speech was widely covered by the Iranian press, but the remarks about Iran’s nuclear bomb-making capabilities were not reported.”
What an exclusive! What breaking news!
Except not really.
Before addressing the details of the disingenuous reportage, a larger point looms. Tehran Bureau‘s headline and lede claiming that, according to a senior cleric, Iran now has “the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb” are not only irresponsible and misleading, they are genuinely incorrect.
The reporting wholly conflates uranium enrichment with nuclear bomb-making; this is absurd. Obtaining enriched uranium at weapons-grade levels (90% or more) is but one component of manufacturing a nuclear weapon, but one that pales in relative comparison to mastering the detonation process, requisite missile technology, and making a bomb deliverable. It’s like standing next to a pile of steel, plastic and glass, and claiming an ability to make a Ferrari.
Iran has the technical ability to enrich uranium up to roughly 19.75%; it began enriching to this level in February 2010, under strict IAEA monitoring. By early 2013, Iran had already begun voluntarily converting its stockpile of 19.75% LEU to reactor fuel, a process rendering such material incapable of weaponization. Conversion of all remaining 19.75% stocks was agreed to under the multilateral interim nuclear deal struck between Iran and six world powers in November 2013. Earlier this year, the IAEA confirmed that Iran had completed the conversion process, leaving no 19.75% LEU in the country.
As is often pointed out, the technical capacity to enrich uranium to nearly 20%, “accomplishes much of the technical leap towards 90% – or weapons-grade – uranium.”
Last year, Rob Wile explained in Business Insider:
Uranium enrichment has a kind of momentum curve, where it takes much more effort to go from 0% enriched to 20% enriched than it does 20% enriched to 90% enriched. Here’s the chart: The vertical axis represents “effort” as measured in things called Separate Work Units, which is basically the given quantity of uranium measured in kilograms needed to reach a given level of enrichment. The horizontal axis is enrichment percentage.
By virtue of having functional uranium enrichment facilities and technical expertise to spin centrifuges, Iran – like any other nation with that technology – can create weapons-grade material if it decided to. But this doesn’t mean it can already “build a nuclear bomb.”
Moreover, Tehran Bureau‘s paraphrased quote from Khatami is itself misleading. The source of the quote can be found here, although Tehran Bureau does not provide a link over to it, a highly unprofessional reporting practice.
Mohammad Ali Shabani, a doctoral researcher at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), notes that the focus of Khatami’s speech before the IRGC gathering was not the nuclear issue, but rather Iran’s Kurdistan province and Syria. While Khatami is by no means an expert on nuclear technology, when he did touch briefly on the subject, this is what he said, according to Shabani’s translation:
[But] even if we could build a bomb, we would not do such a thing as our Guardian Jurist [Ayatollah Khamenei] deems use [of such weapons] impermissible (haraam). The West’s concerns are not about a bomb, but Iran’s capabilities; just as our nuclear scientists enriched uranium from 5% to 20%, undoubtedly they can [do so] to 40%, 50% and finally 90%, which is needed in order to build a bomb, and they [Iran’s scientists] posses this knowledge. Our role model is our Dear Prophet, who even forbade the poisoning of an enemy city, and this is our evidence [basis] for not building a bomb.
This is a political statement, not a technical declaration. Nowhere does Khatami state that Iran can build a nuclear weapon. Tehran Bureau‘s reporting also omits the fact that such statements about such scientific capabilities and the nation’s official, absolute prohibition on nuclear weapons are nothing new for Iranian officials.
For instance, in February 2010, then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that “right now in Natanz, we have the capacity to enrich uranium at high levels.” He added, “We have the capability to enrich uranium more than 20 percent or 80 percent but we don’t enrich (to this level) because we don’t need it.”
A couple years later, in April 2012, The Guardian itself reported on a nearly identical statement made by Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghadam, a minister of the Iranian parliament. The framing in both that piece and the latest report are very similar:
Iran has the technological capability to produce nuclear weapons but will never do so, a prominent politician in the Islamic republic has said.
The statement by Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghadam is the first time an Iranian politician has publicly stated that the country has the knowledge and skills to produce a nuclear weapon.
Moghadam, whose views do not represent the government’s policy, said Iran could easily create the highly enriched uranium that is used to build atomic bombs, but it was not Tehran’s policy to go down that route.
Moghadam told the parliament’s news website, icana.ir: “Iran has the scientific and technological capability to produce [a] nuclear weapon, but will never choose this path.”
The 2012 Guardian report sparked false conclusions and predictable reactions from Israeli officials, who eagerly exploited the non-news for political posturing. The following year, a number of different reports published by The Guardian contained bad analysis, dubious allegations and sloppy journalism.
Unfortunately, The Guardian, now in partnership with Tehran Bureau, is at it again.
Climate Policy Risk: Who’s In Denial?
By Marlo Lewis | Cooler Heads | December 19, 2014
Earlier this week, economist Roger Bezdek gave a presentation at the Ronald Reagan Building titled “Carbon Dioxide: Social Cost or Social Benefit?” Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank covered the event and published a short review titled “The new climate denialism: More carbon dioxide is a good thing.”
Granted, it’s hard to develop an argument about a complex, technical subject in a 760-word column, but Milbank doesn’t even try. He takes cheap shots and spouts off without knowing whereof he speaks.
Milbank starts with a snarky putdown, asserting that “though Bezdek is an economist, not a scientist, he played one on Monday.” How so? Some of Bezdek’s slides show the fertilization effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions on crop yields and plant growth. For example:
That is not playing scientist, it is citing scientific research.
Another slide shows that, over the past 250 years, CO2 emissions closely correlate with population growth, life expectancy, and per capita GDP.
Milbank retorts that “correlation is not the same as causation.” Deep! But does he really think unprecedented improvements in the human condition — a greater than doubling of average human life expectancy, an eight-fold increase in the sheer abundance of human life, and an eleven-fold increase in global per capita GDP — would have occurred without fossil fuels?
Milbank repeatedly misfires, as the excerpts below (indented in blue) and my comments (standard width in black) show.
For years, the fossil-fuel industries have been telling us that global warming is a hoax based on junk science.
Name a single CEO of any major energy company or trade association who says that! If there are any, they are outliers. Skeptics argue that predictions of catastrophic global warming are based on speculative interpretations of selective evidence and models projections that increasingly diverge from observations. That’s a different thesis — and much harder to refute. Milbank inveighs against a straw man.
But now these industries are floating an intriguing new argument: They’re admitting that human use of coal, oil and gas is causing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to rise — but they’re saying this is a good thing.
New argument? The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change has emphasized the ecological and health benefits of atmospheric CO2 enrichment since its inception in 1998. Founder Sherwood Idso’s first peer-reviewed paper on the subject was published in 1991.
I pointed out to Bezdek that increasing energy use fueled the economic growth, and CO2 was just a byproduct. So wouldn’t it make more sense to use cleaner energy?
CO2 does not dirty the air, so reducing/capturing CO2 emissions does not make energy cleaner. CO2 is not “just” a byproduct; it is the inescapable byproduct. Thus, UN emission reduction targets endanger both existing economic, health, and welfare benefits and progress towards a wealthier, healthier world.
He [Bezdek] went on to point out that “35,000 people every year in the United States die in automobile accidents, but the solution is not to ban automobiles. You try to make them safer.” And the solution to climate change is not to ban energy but to make it cleaner.
Making energy “cleaner” in the present context means banning (rapidly phasing out) the carbon-based fuels that currently supply 82% of U.S. and world energy consumption, and are projected — absent additional market-rigging interventions — to supply 80% of U.S. energy in 2040.
The presentation began as a standard recitation of the climate-change denial position, that “there’s been no global warming for almost two decades” and that forecasts are “based on flawed science.”
Milbank provides no evidence that the “standard recitation” is incorrect – very likely because he can’t.
So instead, he resorts to name calling and labels Bezdek a ‘denialist.’
Enough back and forth. What matters is the big picture. Some 1.3 billion people in developing countries have no access to electricity and 2.3 billion people face chronic electricity shortages.
Source: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
Even in Europe and the United States, millions of low-income households struggle with high energy costs. Many must choose between heating and eating.
Source: EU Fuel Poverty Network
Source: Bezdek (2014)
Forcing an energy-starved planet to abandon fossil fuels before cheaper substitutes are available is bound to have profound social costs. That is Bezdek’s thesis, and it is spot on. Milbank is in denial.
Regime-Change Makeover: Blaming Syria for the Rise of ISIS
By Finian CUNNINGHAM | Strategic Culture Foundation | 16.12.2014
If a recent report in the British Guardian is to be believed, then the West is angling for a new pretext to step up its covert war of regime in Syria. The new pretext, it would seem, is that the Damascus government of Bashar al Assad was the main driving force in the creation of the so-called Islamic State (IS) terror network.
The report by Guardian Middle East correspondent Martin Chulov, published on December 11, is riven with contradictions and anomalies. It raises more questions than answers that the author seems strangely indisposed to delve into.
But the upshot is the apparent conclusion that the Syrian government of President Assad is to blame for the rise of IS, or ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria). That the Syrian army has emerged as the main fighting force on the ground to defeat IS in the latter’s campaign to overthrow the Assad government is right away a troubling question mark over the credibility of the Guardian report.
Nevertheless, if we follow the dubious logic of this narrative, then it would seem to be aimed at providing a «just cause» for Western hostility towards Assad and for the objective of regime change.
IS, an offshoot of the Al Qaeda network, is portrayed in the Western media as «the world’s most menacing terrorist group». It has gained notoriety for its videos purporting to show the execution of Western hostages. The US government has appointed itself as the leader of an international coalition to «wipe out» IS with air strikes on its bases in remote areas of Iraq and Syria.
The efficacy and legality of these US-led air strikes are questionable, and as already noted, it is the Syrian state forces carrying out ground operations that are actually inflicting the heaviest losses on the IS network – the latest being in the eastern city of Deir al Zour.
So, it is at odds, to say the least, that the Guardian should now be casting the Syrian authorities as the originating sponsors of the very network that they are locked in mortal combat with.
The report, headlined ‘ISIS: the inside story’, informs readers that around early 2009 the Syrian government gave the group crucial help in ramping up its insurgency in Iraq. That insurgency, according to the Guardian, then «spilled over» into Syria in 2011, as if by accident. And so we can condemn the «dastardly Syrians» for their own maladroit blowback.
The main source of the story, we are told, is «one of the Islamic State’s senior commanders» who goes by the nom de guerre of Abu Ahmed.
The Guardian correspondent writes: «Syria’s links to the Sunni insurgency in Iraq had been regularly raised by US officials in Baghdad and by the Iraqi government. Both were convinced that the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, allowed jihadists to fly into Damascus airport, where military officials would escort them to the border with Iraq».
That «assessment» is largely based on «interrogations» of captured jihadists. In other words, by torture techniques that even the US Senate Intelligence Committee report last week described as «unreliable».
According to the Guardian, the Syrian plot to destabilise Iraq with Sunni extremists was hatched during two top-secret meetings near Damascus during early 2009. The meetings were between Syrian military intelligence, senior members of the Baathist party of President Assad and the jihadists of Al Qaeda in Iraq – the latter being the precursor to the IS network.
The Syrian objective was allegedly to «unsettle the Americans and their plans for Iraq». This was nearly three years before the Americans ended their military occupation of the country at the end of 2011.
Apparently, the Iraqis knew of Syria’s alleged covert involvement and that led to a «poisoning of relations» between the then Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki and Assad.
However, this is where the story does not add up. Why would the Alawite-Shia-led government of Bashar al Assad get into bed with Sunni extremists to fuel a sectarian war against co-religionists in Iraq? Why would the Assad regime cause mayhem in a neighbouring Shia country and to provoke enmity with regional allies in Baghdad and Tehran? Not only that but to fan an insurgency by Sunni extremists who avowedly harbour a death wish against Alawites, Shia and other Sunnis who have for centuries formed a stable social order in Syria? Such a gambit by the Syrians would be suicidal. It is completely counter-intuitive.
These are just some of the questions that throw serious doubt on the narrative put forward by the Guardian, which seeks to pin the blame on Syria for the rise of IS – «the world’s most menacing terrorist group».
Tellingly in this «in-depth exposé» on the origins of IS in Iraq, there is not a single mention of the well-documented role that Western ally Saudi Arabia played, and continues to play, in fuelling the network and its Wahhabi fundamentalist ideology.
Moreover, the report appears to go into great detail about how IS and its Al Qaeda forerunner came into being at the giant US prison in southern Iraq known as Camp Bucca. The detention centre opened in 2004 and brought together some 24,000 suspected members of various Sunni militia. According to several sources, the inmates were permitted by the Americans to freely associate.
Even the Guardian’s IS source, Abu Ahmed, noted the lax prison conditions under US command. «We could never have all got together like this in Baghdad, or anywhere else. It would have been impossibly dangerous. Here, we were not only safe, but we were only a few hundred metres away from the entire al-Qaida [sic] leadership».
One of the inmates to be given special attention by the US jailers was Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who is now leader of IS and self-proclaimed caliph of the Middle East. Al Baghdadi was seen by the Americans as a «fixer» and a figure who could sort out fractious disputes and «resolve conflicts among the inmates». It is obvious that the «emir» was being groomed by the Americans as a future leader. Al Baghdadi, who several sources believe is a US intelligence asset, was released from Camp Bucca at the end of 2004, less than a year after being first imprisoned and despite the fact of his past terrorist activities.
Incredibly, the Guardian affects a doe-eyed naivety in this account and spins a narrative that the IS terror group was formed under «the noses of the American jailers». That is, without US knowledge or intent.
The newspaper’s IS «source» is quoted as saying: «When [the civil war in] Syria became serious it wasn’t difficult to transfer all that expertise to a different battle zone. The Iraqis are the most important people on the military and Shura councils in Isis now, and that is because of all of those years preparing for such an event. I underestimated Baghdadi. And America underestimated the role it played in making him what he is».
Contrary to the spin, the American handlers didn’t underestimate anything. Baghdadi and his future IS role went to plan.
Camp Bucca has been rightly referred to by several other observers as a «terror academy» from which IS graduated. Some 70 per cent of the IS current senior commanders are believed to have passed through Camp Bucca and other American detention centres before they were shut down at the end of the US occupation of Iraq. That the IS group was inculcated and mentored by American intelligence seems without question – except to Western media like the Guardian.
But that Western media whitewash of the real American origins of IS is now overlaid with a new veneer of misinformation that purports to lay the blame for the rise of IS terrorism on the Syrian government. A classic case of the terrorists and their terror-master blaming the victim.
Why the Americans are now leading a bombing campaign against their own creation is a good question. But the answer has got nothing to do with defeating terrorism, as the ineffectual bombing campaign so far would suggest. As the Western media narrative evolves, it seems rather more to do with extending the mission of IS – regime change in Syria.
MTV Glorifies Venezuela’s Barricade Protests in New Reality TV Show
By Z.C. Dutka | Venezuelanalysis | December 18, 2014
Santa Elena de Uairen – US entertainment channel MTV has signed a contract with a Venezuelan media group to purchase extensive footage of the violent anti-government protests that wracked the South American nation earlier this year, to be featured in the new reality series Rebel Music.
The footage, captured by citizen reporters with GoPro cameras, show masked and shirtless men throwing handmade grenades and wreaking general havoc in a coordinated effort to force president Nicolas Maduro’s resignation that lasted from February to May this year.
43 people were killed during that time, the majority while trying to clear rubbish from or cross the barricades set up by demonstrators. Numerous public institutions including hospitals, universities, and transportation agencies were also burnt down in protest.
Reporte Confidencial became known for editing the GroPro material nightly, adding in a pumping dubstep track befitting a London club scene, and posting the finished videos to YouTube, where they received thousands of views from around the world.
It is this material MTV now seeks to own.
The reality show Rebel Music claims to be inspired by young people who “are raising their voices to demand change for a better future…. often putting their lives on the line,” according to the show’s website.
With this premise, many Venezuelans fear the show’s narrative will grant hero status to those hardcore protestors – whose tactics were so violent they effectively drove away a majority of opposition supporters, according to polls.
Furthermore, as the White House approves sanctions against Venezuelan government officials, others accuse the MTV program of dovetailing too neatly with US foreign policy. […]
The series, which first aired last month, will also feature voices of dissent in Myanmar, Iran, Senegal, Turkey and US Native American communities.
The US media has made no effort to hide its contempt of Venezuela’s socialist government since the Hugo Chavez’s election in 1999, while Chavez, in turn, repeatedly accused Washington of funding subversive movements to remove him from office.
Shepard Fairey and USAID
Venezuelan political analyst Luigino Bracci pointed out the paradoxical use of red stars and other archetypal communist symbols in an op-ed for Caracas newspaper Alba Ciudad last week, which he attributes to the show’s executive producer, Shepard Fairey.
Fairey is the pop art empresario behind the OBEY campaign and the red and blue stencil portrait of Barack Obama, which featured the word HOPE and was used universally throughout the US president’s initial campaign.
Though he calls himself apolitical, Fairey has been criticized for reproducing communist Cuban and Korean poster art with slight twists and selling them as his own. In a 2008 interview with the magazine Mother Jones, reporter Liam O’Donoghue also called the artist out on appropriating images from social movements, usually created by artists of color, and stripping them of their political messages.
In a promotional video, Rebel Music features Venezuelan reggae artist OneChot whose 2010 video for the English-language single “Rotten Town” generated controversy for its depiction of Caracas as an Inferno of crime and murder, replete with images of dead and dying children.
Though the reggae singer also claims to abstain from politics, his music is more popular with Venezuela’s privileged class, the same sector that widely supports the opposition.
“You are not free of violence anywhere. That is why I fight for change in Venezuela,” OneChot says to the MTV cameras.
While many Caracas artists would be eager for such international exposure, some mistrust the pre-determined script many reality shows are known to possess, believing it may spell out further US defamation of Venezuela’s socialist leaders.
After being approached by MTV correspondents to represent the pro-Chavez version of events, underground hip hop artist Arena La Rosa announced her refusal on her Facebook page.
“My dignity and my ideas are worth more than a million [page] views, so I have wisely decided not to participate,” the chavista rapper said.
On the same day La Rosa posted her response, the Associated Press released documents detailing the US government’s failed attempt at infiltrating the Cuban hip hop scene, by way of the developmental organization USAID.
According to the AP, Washington had sought to build a network of young people seeking “social change” to spark a resistance movement against the government of Cuban president Raul Castro.
Incidentally, Maduro has accused numerous opposition leaders of attempting the same kind of subterfuge during February’s unrest. A committee of victims and their families has even assembled to seek justice from those public figures who they believe encouraged such extreme tactics.
Meanwhile, Venezuela will have to wait for the MTV segment to be released to understand how their high-stakes reality will be adapted to meet the lofty demands of broadcast entertainment.
Why the Secrecy on the Mh17 Investigation?
By JAMES O’NEIL | CounterPunch | December 19, 2014
On 17 July 2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was shot down over the Eastern Ukraine.
Although the precise circumstances were at that point unknown the western media were quick to blame Ukrainian “rebels”. The means by which MH17 was destroyed, the media alleged, was a surface to air BUK missile supplied to the “rebels” by Russia. For a host of reasons it was almost certainly not a BUK missile that caused the crash. The stage was set however, for a demonization of Russia in general as the alleged supplier of the missile, and President Vladimir Putin in particular. The relentless propaganda enforcing this view has continued unabated to this day, although the evidential foundation for the allegations remains at best remote.
The Russians produced an initial denial of involvement. Four days after the tragedy however, as anti-Russian hysteria was escalating to extreme levels, the Russian military held a press presentation. The fact of this presentation was barely reported in the western media. The content, more importantly, was either ignored or misrepresented.
The Russians disclosed, inter alia, their radar and satellite data. These data showed that MH17 had been diverted from its scheduled route so that it flew directly over the war zone in eastern Ukraine. They asked for an explanation but one has never been forthcoming. These data also showed that MH17 had been shadowed during its last minutes by two SU25 fighter jets, a model flown by the Ukrainian air force. Again the Russians asked why this had happened.
The main response was a claim that the SU25 could not fly above 10,000 metres. Not only is this untrue, as an examination of military resources readily demonstrates, but the Wikipedia entry on the SU25 had been altered days before the shoot down to claim that the SU25’s operating ceiling was only 7000 metres. Again the western media ignored this obvious alarm bell.
The Russians further disclosed that at the precise time of the shoot down an American spy satellite was directly overhead the scene and would have recorded the sequence of events. The Russians invited the Americans to share these data with the official investigation that had been launched, but to date the Americans have failed to do so. Again, the western media are singularly incurious as to the reason for this lack of cooperation.
Under IATA Rules, the parties responsible for the investigation would be the Malaysians, as owners of the plane and home country of the airline, and the Ukrainians over whose territory the atrocity occurred. It was the Dutch however, who took the lead role, citing two facts: the plane had departed from Amsterdam; and they had suffered the largest number of their nationals as victims. The Malaysians were initially excluded from the inquiry for reasons that have never been satisfactorily explained. They were finally invited to join the Joint Inquiry on 2 December 2014.
Instead, the initial inquiry group consisted of Ukraine, the Netherlands, Australia and Belgium. The Australians suffered the third largest loss of life but had no standing to be one of the investigatory nations, and certainly less of a claim than the Malaysians. The Australian Prime Minister and some other politicians had been at the forefront of making extreme allegations against Russia and President Putin. Why Belgium was included remains a mystery.
On 8 August 2014 these four investigating nations signed an agreement that the results of the investigation would not be published unless all four countries agreed. This gave one of the prime suspects in the atrocity, Ukraine, an effective veto over any investigations result that attributed blame to them. This is an astonishing situation and probably without precedent in modern air crash investigations.
More significantly however, is that the existence of this secret agreement was not announced by the Australian government, nor to the best of my knowledge has any report about the existence of the agreement or its extraordinary terms, been published in any mainstream publication.
The Dutch magazine Elsevier, under Dutch Freedom of Information laws, sought a copy of the agreement. On 19 November they announced that the request had been refused on the grounds that it “could endanger the relations with other countries involved.”
An Australian citizen (name redacted) wrote to the Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Development (Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss) seeking a copy of the agreement. By letter dated 15 October 2014 the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) replied on behalf of the Minister, refusing the requester a copy of the agreement as its contents were “classified.”
The present writer wrote to DFAT on 21 August 2014 seeking a copy of the agreement of 8 August 2014 under the Freedom of Information Act. The department declaimed responsibility and said that they had passed my request on to the Attorney-General’s Department. This was odd, but even odder was advice from the Attorney General that my request had been passed in turn to the Australian Federal Police who were the responsible body.
This must be the first time in Australian history since 1901 that negotiations and agreements between sovereign nations had been conducted on Australia’s behalf by the Federal Police.
On 2 December 2014 the Australian Federal Police finally gave their decision on the FOI request. It was declined on the basis that disclosure of the document (which they acknowledged existed) under section 33 would, or could reasonably be expected to, cause damage to:
(i) the security of the Commonwealth; or
(ii) the defence of the Commonwealth; or
(iii) the international relations of the Commonwealth.
The refusal also relied upon section 37(1)(a) of the Act which exempts a document if it could reasonably be said to prejudice the conduct of an investigation.
Thirdly, the Federal Police relied upon section 37(1) (c) where disclosure could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of a person.
The fourth ground of refusal was under section 37(2)(b) which exempts disclosure where it might reasonably be expected to prejudice an investigation by disclosing methods of investigation or detection of unlawful activity.
In the circumstances of this case it is very difficult to see how any of those provisions would apply. The agreement, it should be remembered, is to give any one of the four investigating countries a veto over publication of the results. A final report would be entitled to withhold details of the investigation that would truly prejudice matters of national security.
An investigation of a crash of an aeroplane is however, carried out under IATA Rules and its procedures are well established and well documented. Whose life or safety might be endangered by releasing the agreement is unspecified.
One is left with the conclusion that 33 (iii) is the real ground and the “international relations” referred to are the difficulty Australia and other nations have got themselves into by prematurely blaming Russia when all of the emerging evidence points squarely at Ukraine.
Given the existence of this agreement it is difficult to see how anyone can have any confidence in whatever final report is published by the Dutch. The preliminary report was careful not to apportion blame or even state the cause of the crash other than to say that the plane was hit a by a large number of “high velocity objects” which were undefined.
Another major question is why have the mainstream media kept up a barrage of misinformation up to and including the recent G20 debacle, when they know, or ought to know that the investigation is a sham?
It is also difficult to see how the continued demonization of Russia and Mr Putin for manifestly geo-political reasons (and the probable reasons for the shoot down in the first place) represents any form of justice for the families of the 298 victims and in particular the 37 who were Australian citizens or residents.
It is clear that the Government’s professed support for Security Council Resolution 2116 (2014) for a “full, thorough, and independent international investigation into the incident in accordance with international civil aviation guidelines” is no more than window dressing for a much wider geopolitical agenda.
James O’Neill is a former academic who has practiced as a barrister for the past 30 years. He has a special interest in international human rights issues. He may be contacted at j.oneill@bigpond.net.au
Claims that Aleppo’s Synagogues have been destroyed are false
By Dr. Franklin Lamb | Intifada | December 18, 2014
Given the massive destruction in large parts of Aleppo, Syria’s former economic juggernaut near the Turkish border, including in the city’s Medina souk and Industrial zone, claims of even more dire damage to Syrian heritage sites would perhaps be understandable. Even if not backed up with probative material evidence and sometimes made for political purposes by opponents of Syria’s government.
In the wake of the continuing conflict, questions from some quarters have repeatedly surfaced regarding the status of the 5th- or 6th- century Byzantium period, Great Synagogue of Aleppo. Known locally as Joab’s Synagogue or Al-Bandara Synagogue, lore has it that the building’s foundation was laid by King David’s general, Yoav, whom Jewish tradition holds captured Aleppo. Maimonides, in his letter to the rabbis of Lunel, speaks of Aleppo as being the only community in Syria where Torah learning survived.
The Times of Israel reported on 10/16/2012 that “Aleppo, once a trading center for Muslims, Armenians and Syrian Christians, was also home to one of the world’s oldest Jewish communities with its Great Synagogue which is now destroyed.” One of the US based anti-Arab Zionist organizations, the notorious Anti-Defamation League (ADL) claims that the synagogue was bombed by the Syrian army, with similar false reports being circulated via politically motivated internet conspiracy theories.
Another writer for the Jewish Times lamented: “While we continue to hear of the damage inflicted on Aleppo, it is almost unfathomable what is happening to its treasure trove of Jewish antiquity and Synagogues within its borders.” Claims have been made that Syrian government barrel bombs destroyed the cultural heritage site nearly two years ago.
These accusations and statements are patently false.
Susan Harris wrote in November of 2012 about massive damage in Syria to Jewish heritage sites, including in Aleppo, but without offering specific data, the author implied a frenzy of antisemitism. “Not only are the antiquities of Islam being destroyed, but a site of great interest to Jews sits in the eye of a hurricane swept in by the Arab Spring. For hundreds of years the Great Synagogue of Aleppo was the home to the Aleppo Codex, written around 930 CE.” And that it was caught up in “A labyrinth of medieval Jewish structures recently set ablaze, and the last fragile structural remnants of earlier civilizations crumbling into ash heaps under the weight of prolonged violence.” This statement is also false. The Codex has not been burned.
Articles and alarmist propaganda on the subject of Aleppo’s synagogues have appeared with titles like: “What’s left of Jewish Heritage in Syria”, “Who will save the remains of Syria’s ancient synagogues?” (JTA ), “Jewish Aleppo, Lost Forever The Syrian diaspora in Israel watches its once-vibrant ancestral home fall to ruin in the country’s civil war” (Joseph Dana, 8/22/2012). They are all misleading.
There have however been thefts of Syrian cultural artifacts; most of them have been done by agents of Israel. During a 10-year period in the 1980s, a collection of Jewish objects were stolen and smuggled out of Syria to Turkey by then-Chief Rabbi Avraham Hamra. The collection included nine ancient Bible manuscripts, known as the Ketarim, each between 700 and 900 years old. In addition, there were 40 Torah scrolls and 32 decorative boxes in which the Sephardic Torah scrolls were held. Israel offered a bizarre rationale that the thefts of antiquities belonging to Syria were “necessary because official requests for permission to take them out of Syria were denied”. Were this excuse to be accepted our global heritage in Syria and elsewhere would likely soon disappear.
Another theft of Syrian cultural heritage is The Aleppo Codex, believed to be the oldest manuscript containing the entire Hebrew Bible. It was stolen from the Great Synagogue of Allepo according to locals by the Mossad and in 1957 it was smuggled out of Aleppo to Israel, where it was presented in 1958 to President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, and today it is housed in the Ben-Zvi Institute. The Aleppo Codex, part of Syria’s cultural heritage, is considered by some experts to be the most authoritative, accurate source document, both for the Biblical text and for the vocalization and cantillation. Some scholars claim it has greater religious and scholarly import than any other manuscript of the Bible. Unbeknownst to the thieves, 295 of the original 487 leaves of the Codex remain in Aleppo near the grand synagogue protected by a Syrian gentleman who was a volunteer caretaker and groundskeeper of sorts for many years. Apparently when the thieves pried open the vault underneath the basilica’s basement floor they failed to notice a cloth wrapping underneath what they stole or that the Codex had been divided for apparent study. The people of Syria and all who value cultural heritage await the return of the looted Codex from its thieves.
For over a week earlier this month, with the much-appreciated assistance of security personnel, this observer moved around Aleppo visiting endangered archaeological sites in order to chronicle some of them as part of a two-year research project across this cradle of civilization. Field visits and testimony of neighbors near Aleppo’s 11 synagogues present probative evidence that while they, as with many sites in Aleppo and elsewhere, are currently endangered, as of mid-December 2014 these places of worship, which are a valued part of Syria’s cultural heritage, are locked and secured. They do not exhibit signs of vandalism and are being watched over by authorities and by Syrian citizens in their respective neighborhoods.
With respect to the Great Synagogue of Aleppo, although situated in the district of the current front-line separating rebel from government forces, it has not been destroyed and as of 12/16/2014 shows no signs of damage. This may be partly due to the fact that both sides have been widely criticized for endangering Syria’s heritage and, with the exception of Da’ish (IS), appear to be taking greater care these days in selecting “military targets.” Another reason may be because the Great Synagogue is located on a side street of little apparent strategic import that has experienced no armed conflict. As recently as two decades ago it was in use until Aleppo’s remaining Jews left and as with other Jewish sites in Aleppo and across Syria, including cemeteries, schools, and communal properties, are now under government protection.
Rather than destroy Jewish heritage in Syria her government and people have preserved and repaired them when necessary. As of mid-December 2014 only 13 Jews remain in Aleppo according to Rabbi Avraham Hamra with nine men and eight women, all over sixty years of age. One of the last to depart Aleppo was Dr. Haim Cohen, a general practitioner who lived down the street from the Samoual Synagogue, which this observer visited on 12/11/2014. Dr. Cohen used to frequent a shop across from the entrance to the Samoual Synagogue, which I also visited and according to the shop owner who has been in the same location for 47 years and whose main work these days includes the mending of piles of military uniforms there has been no damage to synagogues in the Governorate and certainly not to the Great Synagogue of Aleppo.
In February of 2011, coincidentally the month before of the beginning of the current Syrian crisis, President Assad signed an executive order to repair the Al-Raqi Synagogue in the old Jewish quarter of Damascus by the end of the month as the renovation of 10 other synagogues in Syria’s major cities continued. On 12/11/2014 this observer photographed some randomly selected Aleppo synagogues, including the one in the Samoual district, and found them locked and saw no signs of desecration. Rather, normal citizens exhibit protective attitudes toward these heritage sites and even tend to keep the outside areas cleared of leaves and trash. Government workers also perform daily trash pickups along streets where the synagogues are located. Officials advised this observer that Syria sees the rebuilding of Jewish Damascus and repairs to synagogues across Syria in the context of preserving the secularism of Syria and its cultural heritage of which Jews were historically an important part.
Two months before the President signed the executive order to repair synagogues, Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, discussed the Jewish synagogues and cemeteries in Syria and he reported that he received a “very positive response from Assad.” Syrian Jews centered mainly in Brooklyn NY whose numbers are estimated at 85,000, maintain close ties with Syria. Some of them visit their birthplaces and conduct regular business relations in the country often experiencing criticism and pressure from the Zionist regime still occupying Palestine.
In November 1989, the Syrian government facilitated the emigration of 500 single Jewish women, who greatly outnumbered eligible Jewish men in Aleppo. During the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference Syria agreed to ease restriction on its Jewish population. As a result, Syria lifted many restrictions on its Jewish community, and allowed Jews to leave on condition that they not emigrate to Israel. Beginning on the Passover Holiday of 1992, more than 4,000 remaining members of the Aleppo and Damascus Jewish community were granted exit permits and within a few months, thousands more left for the United States, France or Turkey. Approximately 300 remained in Syria, most of them elderly all choosing to stay in the culture their families had lived in for many generations.
With the dawning of the 21st century, there was only a small, largely elderly community left in Aleppo. Jews were still officially banned from politics and government employment, and did not have military service obligations. Jews were also the only minority to have their religion mentioned on their passports and identification cards. Though some were occasionally subjected to harassment by Palestinian protesters during violence in occupied Palestine, the Syrian government took measures to protect them.
The government protected Jewish primary schools for religious studies, and Hebrew was allowed to be taught (today Hebrew is one of the languages SANA, the Syrian news agency presents its news item in). Every two or three months, a rabbi from Istanbul visited Aleppo to oversee the preparation of kosher meat, which most residents froze and used until his next visit. The community gradually shrank. From 2000 to 2010, 41 Syrian Jews left for occupied Palestine, and its numbers further dwindled as members of the largely elderly community died.
In 2001, Rabbi Huder Shahada Kabariti estimated that there were still 200 Jews in the country, of whom 150 lived in Damascus, 30 in Aleppo, and 20 in Qamashli. In 2003, the Jewish population was estimated to be fewer than 100. In 2005, the U.S. State Department estimated the Jewish population at 80 in its annual International Religious Freedom Report. In May 2012, one year into the Syrian civil war, it was reported that only 22 Jews still lived in Syria, all of them elderly and living in Damascus, in a building adjoining the city’s only functioning synagogue. This report was not accurate. As of December 2014, approximately 15 Jews remain in Aleppo according to Rabbi Avraham Hamra with nine men and eight women, all over sixty years of age.
Educators, Holocaust group join Sept. 11 museum in ‘teaching’ children official 9/11 lies
By Craig McKee | Truth and Shadows | May 15, 2014
The 9/11 official story is rooted in deception, distortion, and misdirection. Now all of its lies have been dressed up and put on display in an expensive federally funded monument for paying customers.
The National September 11 Memorial and Museum is more of a walk-in indoctrination center than a tribute to the victims of 9/11. It’s a piece of propaganda made of glass and steel that plays on emotions and on the sincere desire of people to honor those who sacrificed their lives in this false flag event.
The Memorial and Museum’s web site not only reiterates all the same lies, but it even explains a framework that educators will be using to indoctrinate children so they can grow up to be believers in the war on terror and the need for more wars and greater and greater security and surveillance. Even as the mainstream media turn their attention to misrepresenting other events, the museum and accompanying “lesson plans” for school children will continue to do their work.
On the site, we learn that: “The National September 11 Memorial & Museum has partnered with the New York City Department of Education and the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education to develop a robust set of 9/11 lessons for K-12 classrooms.”
The New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education (created by the State of New Jersey) is involved in creating lessons that teach children that Muslims are the bad guys and that they attacked America? Oh wait, I forgot – they are making it clear that it’s not all Muslims, just the “extreme” ones. These lessons are directed at all age groups, and the content will be used within a wide array of subjects and courses.
Through its exhibits, the museum purports to tell the story of what happened on September 11, 2001 – that 19 Muslim extremists led by Osama bin Laden killed nearly 3,000 people by hijacking four airliners and crashing them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. We will even be shown photographs of the 19 alleged hijackers” (although I guarantee they won’t use the word “alleged”), which will be interesting since several of those turned out to be alive after 9/11, and no proof has been presented that establishes that any of the 19 ever boarded any of the planes.
Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth has produced brochures in the same style as the official ones that teams of volunteers pass out to visitors to the museum, which it calls “an elaborate, taxpayer-funded, public relations campaign to forever cement the fantastic claims of the official conspiracy theory into the history books.”
I wish I’d written that.
In a fundraising email, AE describes what it wants to do in response to this PR campaign: “This historical revisionism needs to be countered with an all-out effort of the truth of 9/11. By printing thousands of educational flyers and distributing them via teams of AE911Truth volunteers at the memorial grounds entry, we can inform the public as to why the 9/11 Memorial Museum is largely a fraud.”
Muslim Americans have been the victims of increased bigotry and hate since they were tagged as the perpetrators of 9/11 more than 12-and-a-half years ago. Now, Muslim- and Arab-American groups fear this will happen all over again as a result of a seven-minute video called “The Rise of al-Qaeda” that is shown as one of the exhibits.
The film, they charge, perpetuates the myth that Muslims were responsible for 9/11, using terms like “Islamists” and “jihad” in the presentation. They say it fails to offer any nuance that would help people to understand that blaming Muslims in general for what happened is unjust and inaccurate. Based on the protest in New York in 2010 over the plan to open a Muslim cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero, their concerns appear justified.
“The Rise of al-Qaeda” is even being protested by the Memorial’s own Interfaith Advisory Committee, which reacted with alarm when it was allowed to watch the short film last year. The committee’s only Imam resigned in protest in March. As quoted in the New York Times, Sheikh Mostafa Elazabawy, the imam of Masjid Manhattan, wrote in a letter to the museum’s director: “Unsophisticated visitors who do not understand the difference between Al Qaeda and Muslims may come away with a prejudiced view of Islam, leading to antagonism and even confrontation toward Muslim believers near the site.”
The museum responded with some unintentional self-parody when they stated that they are standing by the film because it has been vetted by scholars of Islam and terrorism. What a relief to hear that scholars of the very lies that 9/11 represents are on the job, making sure the film sends the “proper” message.
A coalition of groups, including the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), wants changes to the video so that it is made clear that the extremist Muslims who it agrees carried out 9/11 are not portrayed as being representative of the more than 1.6 billion Muslims around the world.
In a letter to museum president Joe Daniels and director Alice Greenwald, the coalition raised concerns about the video, which neither they nor the media have been allowed to see. The letter states:
“We have learned that you have been aware, since at least June 2013, that viewers have found this video confusing and possibly inflammatory. The museum’s own interfaith religious advisory group has repeatedly asked that this video be edited, with their concerns being dismissed.”
According to their testimony, the video:
- Deploys haphazard and academically controversial terminology, in particular “Islamic” and “Islamist”, to generalize, unnecessarily, about al-Qaeda’s acts of terrorism.
- Does not properly contextualize al-Qaeda as a small organization in comparison to the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims.
- Uses stereotypical, accented English for speakers of Arabic in translation.
- May give some viewers, especially those not familiar with the subtleties of the terminology being used, the impression that Islam, as a religion, is responsible for September 11.
I completely support the Muslim- and Arab-American groups in their protest of the stereotyping that it appears that the film contains. But I’m concerned about the fact that the big lie – that any kind of Muslims pulled off 9/11 – is being accepted by these groups. I think they concede too much when they accept the premise that an extremist Muslim group called al-Qaeda was actually behind the alleged terrorist attacks when the evidence shows that this is just a smokescreen to disguise the real culprits and to hide their real motives.
The truth of the matter is that Muslims were not responsible for 9/11 – period. The evidence simply isn’t there to show otherwise. By putting the focus on the idea that Muslims as a whole are not violent and that al-Qaeda is not representative of what Islam is all about just falls into the trap set by the actual perpetrators.
Of course, that’s easy for me to say: I’m not a Muslim and I have not been victimized in the way that they have since 9/11. For them to argue that the official story is false would be very tricky and would certainly result in more hostility coming their way. And, of course, they may genuinely believe the official story. After all, Muslim Americans are subject to the same disinformation and propaganda that everyone else is.
The real purpose of the museum
A tour around the web site of the Memorial and Museum offers a good summary of the language of the 9/11 official story and its accompanying talking points. On the page “9/11 FAQ,” we get all the key elements of the story fed to us by the 9/11 Commission, NIST, and other official agencies. But they get the year of the London bombings wrong (it was 2005, not 2007), they offer the lie that al-Qaeda took responsibility for several terrorist attacks including 9/11 (the “confession” video features an Osama bin Laden “double” and contains serious inconsistencies).
The Memorial and Museum’s announced mission is to honor the victims and to “educate” future generations. It will not succeed in doing either, however. In fact, by perpetuating the 9/11 lie, it does exactly the opposite. The only way to meaningfully honor the victims is by telling the truth about what happened. And no one in officialdom is willing to do that more than a dozen years after the fact.
The memorial’s web site is full of “information” about the artifacts contained within its walls (actual twin WTC girders, an exposed portion of the “slurry wall” that keeps the site from being flooded, an actual staircase that was used to escape one of the towers). But the most disturbing thing the site addresses is the museum’s effort to direct its propaganda at children who have no choice in the matter. I wonder what kind of mark a student will get if they write an essay questioning whether the official story is true?
On the surface, the site has some useful and positive things to suggest: including pointing out how destructive it can be to “compare the suffering of one person to another” or to “assign blame to an entire group.”
Sounds good, but what is suggested is that parents and educators focus on the heroic efforts of both victims and rescuers on 9/11, because 9/11 is “actually thousands of individual stories.” That’s true: everyone who was in New York, and particularly those who had a connection to the World Trade Center site in some way experienced the event in their own way. Some were true heroes, risking and even giving their lives to help others. Some were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and paid with their lives.
But there is a bigger picture. And they don’t want you to look at that. They want you to stick to the emotion of the event, the stories, the courage, and the loss. Don’t look at whether the official explanation of the event fits with the evidence. Don’t “disrespect the victims” by questioning anything you’ve been told.
By the way, victims’ family members and recovery workers don’t have to pay the $24 adult entrance fee to the museum, while firefighters, the group that has paid a more terrible price than just about any other, gets a discount. That’s right, a discount.
Moscow to Sweden: Alleged ‘colliding’ jet 70km from civil route, used NATO tactics
RT | December 14, 2014
Russia’s Defense Ministry has dismissed Sweden’s accusation that an unresponsive Russian military aircraft nearly collided with a passenger plane over the Baltic Sea. The ministry added that NATO planes in the area also have their transponders turned off.
The Russian aircraft in question was 70 kilometers away from the flight path of a passenger jet taking off from Copenhagen, and thus there were “no prerequisites” for collision between the two, Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said in a statement. He also denied allegations that the military jet was flying right above southern Sweden, breaching its airspace.
“The flight was in strict accordance with international laws on the use of airspace and did not violate state borders while remaining at a safe distance from the routes of civil aircrafts,” Konashenkov said.
Earlier on Saturday, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist told local radio that the Russian jet had its transponders turned off so it could fly undetected, and claimed that it nearly crashed into a passenger plane over Sweden.
“This is serious. This is inappropriate. This is outright dangerous when you turn off the transponder,” Hultqvist said.
Konashenkov called Hultqvist’s assessment of the Russian jet being invisible – and thus dangerous – a “deception,” pointing out that none of NATO’s spy and patrol jets operating in the region have their transponders turned on. That, however, does not prevent Russia from detecting them.
“I want to particularly stress that the flights of NATO military planes in the international space on Russia’s borders – which have intensified more than threefold over the last months – are always conducted with disabled transponders. But that does not mean that the Russian airspace control are not able to detect them,” the spokesman stressed.
As recently as December 12, the country’s detection system spotted a NATO RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft in the same area where the supposed “incident” with the Russian jet took place – only closer to the civilian aircraft route, Konashenkov revealed.
NATO has recently stepped up its military flights in the region, due to a perceived Russian threat and the need to reassure the allied Baltic states. It comes against the backdrop of tensions over Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the defense minister of the non-NATO Sweden announced that the nation is planning to retrain about 7,500 reservists who have served in the Swedish army since 2004.
“The armed forces will be able to carry out fully-manned war preparations which will result in increased operational capacity,” Hultqvist explained, justifying the plans.
Peace activist Jan Oberg told RT that the move is in line with the anti-Russian mood in the country’s media and politics, triggered by the Ukraine crisis.
“The whole thing comes from the Ukrainian crisis – and that was predominantly not created by Russia, but by the West,” Oberg said. “It could be very much to show that we are doing something. You have to follow up on the fact that the Swedish media and political debate in this country are very anti-Russian and that the interpretation what happened in Ukraine has not been very balanced.”
“There is a very uniform media structure in this country. I am sad to say that it is the case. It has become worse over time.”
Back in October, Swedish media went on a wild goose chase for a phantom submarine, alleged to be Russian – even though the knowledge of identity was later denied by the Swedish military.
It all started with a blurry image. A week of searches led to nothing, but cost the Swedish taxpayers almost $3 million dollars.
NATO’s reach
NATO has recently launched a massive military build-up of troops in the Baltic states and other Eastern European NATO member states, following the crisis in Ukraine.
The alliance argues that the expansion is needed to show support and assure that NATO members are protected from a possible attack by Russia.
The US-led alliance has also been boosting its presence through military exercises held on a regular basis.
NATO’s new chief, Jens Stoltenberg, boasted of the bloc’s successes in December.
“We have already boosted our presence in the eastern part of our alliance. We have five times more planes in the air. Our forces start an exercise every two days. And we have also increased the number of ships in the Baltic and the Black Seas,” Stoltenberg told reporters.
One of the most recent war games included servicemen from nine NATO member states participating in nearly two weeks of military exercises in Lithuania.
However, Moscow sees NATO expansion towards its borders as an aggressive move, and a violation of post-Cold War agreements.
In early December, Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov called the build-up of NATO forces in Eastern Europe hostile and destabilizing to the Baltic, once the safest region in Europe.
In November, Moscow said that NATO exercises next to Russian borders have “a clearly anti-Russian nature,” and will scarcely contribute to European safety.
READ MORE:
Retraining reservists and rearming! Baltic countries got bellicose over ‘Russian threat’
Mistaken identity: French plane entered Swedish air space – not Russian as reported
Sweden confirms mysterious foreign vessel entered its waters back in October
Iron Sword 2014: NATO stages massive military drill in Lithuania
NATO destabilizing Baltic by stationing nuke-capable aircraft – Moscow
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From the Archives
On ‘conflict’, ‘peace’ and ‘genocide’: Time for new language on Palestine
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 12, 2021
On 25 May, famous US actor Mark Ruffalo tweeted an apology for suggesting that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
“I have reflected and wanted to apologise for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing ‘genocide’,” Ruffalo wrote, adding: “It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful and is being used to justify anti-Semitism, here and abroad. Now is the time to avoid hyperbole.”
But were Ruffalo’s earlier assessments, indeed, “not accurate, inflammatory and disrespectful”? And does equating Israel’s war on besieged, impoverished Gaza with genocide fit into the classification of “hyperbole”? … continue
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- Israeli Military Medics Are Training On Dead Americans
- SCOTT RITTER: Russia Retaliation on Europe No Longer In Doubt
- Guatemala Admits U.S. Pressure Over Cuban Doctors
- France investigates possible Israeli company interference in local elections
- If Americans Knew
- What Fuels My Revolutionary Optimism This Nakba Day
- Gaza elders who survived the Nakba reflect on being displaced by Israel again, 78 years later
- Israel (with US assistance) perpetuates the Nakba; Palestinians remain resilient – Daily Update
- Microsoft fires head of Israeli subsidiary and other managers over surveillance of Palestinians
- The world no longer loves Israel (or, coincidentally, the US) – Daily Update
- Nakba Day is almost here, but every day is also Nakba Day – Daily Update
- Gaza: ‘Doctors Under Attack’ Wins Top Award After Being Shelved by the BBC
- The Nakba at 78: A statistical snapshot of Palestine
- Israel Expels Father Louis Salman from Palestine
- How Israel Turned Eurovision’s Stage Into a Soft Power Tool
- No Tricks Zone
- German Expert: “No Climate Crisis” …”Warming Generally Better For Humanity”
- New Paleo Research: Modern ‘Climate Change’ Has Had No Apparent Impact On Precipitation Patterns
- 90% Subsidized… Bielefeld Germany’s €7 Million Hydrogen Garbage Truck Fleet Sits Idle
- 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
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