MSNBC: Evidence of Multiple Shooters, Night Raid in Sgt. Bales Case
By Ralph Lopez – War is a Crime – April 23, 2012
The first story was shaky from the start, that Sgt. Robert Bales “sneaked” off a combat outpost into hostile, landmined territory in the middle of the night, walked north a little over a half mile to a village, engaged in bloody murder, then walked back that half mile, past the base, and another mile south, killed more people, then turned himself in at the gate, all within an hour. Sharp-eyed bloggers did the math and recalled from other reports that Bales has part of a foot missing from a wound in Iraq, making the feat all the more remarkable.
Among the dead were a number of children, including a two-year-old.
Two weeks later the Pentagon’s story changed, and Bales had managed to sneak off the base twice over a longer timeline:
“Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who is suspected in the shooting deaths this month of 17 Afghans, sneaked off his remote outpost twice during his alleged 90-minute rampage in two Afghan villages, two senior U.S. officials told CNN on Monday.
The officials said that, after the March 11 shootings in one village in Kandahar province, Bales sneaked back onto his base. They said Bales was seen at that point by fellow troops.
One official said investigators believe Bales told other soldiers he had just killed military-aged Afghan men. The officials said they did not know whether those troops told anyone else.
Then Bales sneaked out again and headed to the second village; he was apprehended by a search party as he attempted to re-enter the combat outpost the second time, the officials said.
Before this account, an Afghan guard was believed to have been the sole person who saw Bales that night. The guard alerted U.S. troops on base.”
The UK Guardian noted around the same time:
“Members of the Afghan delegation investigating the killings said one Afghan guard working from midnight to 2am saw a US soldier return to the base around 1.30am. Another Afghan soldier who replaced the first and worked until 4am said he saw a US soldier leaving the base at 2.30am. It’s unknown whether the Afghan guards saw the same US soldier. If the gunman acted alone, information from the Afghan guards would suggest that he returned to base in between the shooting sprees.”
Never mind that this leaves open the question of whether security at a “hot” outpost is routinely left, in this era of attacks coming from inside the wire, to purely indigenous guard, while US troops sleep. Ho Chi Minh would have dreamed of this situation. CNN reported that a US official told them that Bales had returned to the base “unnoticed.”
“One U.S. official with knowledge of the investigation said an Afghan guard allegedly spotted Bales leaving his outpost around 1 a.m. It is not clear why Bales’ superiors weren’t alerted, and the official said Bales was not noticed when he allegedly returned to the compound an hour later.”
The NY Times report quoting one Afghan General Hameed seemed aimed at putting a bit of spin on how Bales could have sashayed on and off the base so easily, saying:
“In recent interviews, American and Afghan officials said that the outpost in the rural Panjwai district was guarded by Afghan soldiers that night, as it probably was on most nights, because there were relatively few American soldiers based there, possibly only a platoon. Platoons typically have between 25 and 40 soldiers. –“Details Offered on How Suspect Could Have Left Afghan Base”“
So let me get this straight. A base in one of the most hostile parts of a war zone is under indigenous guard at night because, out of 25 – 40 tough US soldiers, they all need to be get their beauty sleep? This isn’t the 21st Century Army. This is “F Troop.” If the Pentagon really wants to fool people, they should learn when to shut up.
Jefferson Morley of Salon.com was the first reliable American outlet to report President Karzai’s, and the members of an Afghan Parliament investigative team’s, insistence that there was more than one shooter:
“A group of Afghan parliamentary investigators has concluded that Bales was part of a group of 15-20 soldiers. As Outlook Afghanistan reported Monday, “The team spent two days in the province, interviewing the bereaved families, tribal elders, survivors and collecting evidences at the site in Panjwai district.” One of the parliamentarians told Pajhwok Afghan News that investigators believed 15 to 20 American soldiers carried out the killings.”
The Gulf Times reported the Afghan investigative team’s findings immediately after the shootings, as did other outlets of the regional press:
“After our investigations, we came to know that the killings were not carried out by one single soldier. More than a dozen soldiers went, killed the villagers and then burnt the bodies,” lawmaker Naheem Lalai Hameedzai claimed…..
“All the villagers that we talked to said there were 15 to 20 men (who) had conducted a night raid operation in several areas in the village,” said Hameedzai.”
Disputing this is the governor of the province and the local police chief. The provincial governor who upholds the one gunman scenario says:
“It is time for Afghanistan to calm down and not let the insurgents take advantage of this case. They want foreign troops to leave such areas like this so they can hold those areas. We should be aware of their intentions and try to help the government, not the insurgents.”
The governor does not say where in “try to help the government” the truth figures in.
Interestingly, the initial Reuters report on the scene immediately after the killings made numerous references to multiple shooters, in addition to reporting that one staff sergeant was in custody, and that US officials were insisting on one shooter
“Neighbors and relatives of the dead said they had seen a group of U.S. soldiers arrive at their village in Kandahar’s Panjwayi district at about 2 a.m., enter homes and open fire.
An Afghan man who said his children were killed in the shooting spree accused soldiers of later burning the bodies.
…
“They (Americans) poured chemicals over their dead bodies and burned them,” Samad told Reuters at the scene.Neighbors said they had awoken to crackling gunfire from American soldiers, who they described as laughing and drunk.
“They were all drunk and shooting all over the place,” said neighbor Agha Lala, who visited one of the homes where killings took place.””
Now the first western reporter to gain access to child witnesses in the shooting, which she says the military tried to block, gives accounts of many men with “flashlights” on the ends of their rifles and on their helmets. As carried by MSNBC:
“”the children told Hakim [Yalda Hakim, a journalist for SBS Dateline in Australia] that other Americans were present during the rampage, holding flashlights in the yard.
Noorbinak, 8, told Hakim that the shooter first shot her father’s dog. Then, Noorbinak said in the video, he shot her father in the foot and dragged her mother by the hair. When her father started screaming, he shot her father, the child says. Then he turned the gun on Noorbinak and shot her in the leg.
“One man entered the room and the others were standing in the yard, holding lights,” Noorbinak said in the video.
A brother of one victim told Hakim that his brother’s children mentioned more than one soldier wearing a headlamp. They also had lights at the end of their guns, he said.
“They don’t know whether there were 15 or 20, however many there were,” he said in the video.
Army officials have repeatedly denied that others were involved in the massacre, emphasizing that Bales acted alone.”
The interesting thing here is that Afghan children don’t have videogames. They don’t have TV. In most parts of the country they don’t even have electricity. So night-raid equipment like weapons lights are not likely to arise from their imaginations.
From SureFire catalog “Weapon Lights”, Standard night-raid equipment for US forces
VIDEO: The SureFire Story
Hakim told MSNBC that the reason American investigators gave for trying to prevent her from interviewing the children was that her questions could “traumatize them.”
Stop the presses. In this war of nightly drone attacks on compounds known to have children present, in which hundreds if not thousands of children have been killed, and killed in night raids on such compounds, the interviews might “traumatize” them. I am rarely at a loss for words. This is one of those times.
One story floated about a week after the killings puts down the sighting of more than one soldier to possible confusion with the search party looking for Bales.
“It is unclear whether the soldiers the villagers saw were part of a search party that left the base to look for Bales, who was reported missing.”
But numerous reports make clear that the search party never left the area of the base.
“About 3:30 a.m., the official said, a surveillance camera spotted Bales returning to the base, and the search team found him just outside the compound.”
The NY Times, quoting Afghan Gen. Abdul Hameed, the corps commander for the Afghan National Army in Kandahar, reported:
“When American commanders became aware that a soldier was missing, they first checked sleeping quarters, toilets and the kitchen area before organizing a patrol to look outside the compound, General Hameed said. But before the patrol left, a high-powered infrared camera on a small blimp spotted Sergeant Bales nearby.”
Salon.com’s Morley reports an “unnamed senior U.S. official’ telling the New York Times: “When it all comes out, it will be a combination of stress, alcohol and domestic issues,” leaving aside the question of how the senior official already knows how it will all “come out.”
Morley writes:
“The passing admission that two other soldiers face disciplinary action for drinking with Bales on the night of the massacre might cast doubt on the notion that no one else knew what Bales was going to do. Army spokeswoman Lt. Col Amy Hannah said in telephone interview that she could not confirm the Times’ account. “I am not aware of any releases of information” about other soldiers facing disciplinary action, Hannah said. If the U.S. official’s remarks to the Times were accurate, then the Army is refraining from disclosing how many soldiers are under investigation.
Then there is conflicting eyewitness testimony. In this CNN video, one man describes the actions of a group in carrying out the killings. “They took him my uncle out of the room and shot him,” he says. “They came to this room and martyred all the children.” But one boy seen on the tape says there was only a single gunman. Still other witnesses pointed out a place outside the home, where they said they found footprints of more than one U.S. soldier.
Journalists seeking to clarify the question have been thwarted. In Afghanistan, Pajhaowk Afghan News reports that Lewis Boone, the public affairs director for coalition forces, declined to answer questions about the massacre, saying that a joint Afghan-ISAF team was investigating the killings. As the Seattle Times noted yesterday, the Army has been struggling “to regulate information on the Afghanistan suspect.”
The laugh for the day in Morley’s report comes when Ryan Evans, who worked with ISAF in Afghanistan and is now a research fellow at the Center for National Policy in Washington, said he thought “a cover up is very unlikely.” Now why would anyone think that, after Lt. Col. Daniel Davis just told us in a major report on Afghanistan that:
“We seem significantly challenged to tell the truth in almost any situation.”
And in a fascinating McClatchy report, Karzai’s lead investigator seems to differ with the president’s conclusion of more than one shooter, but then apparently contradicts himself.
KABUL, Afghanistan — The chief Afghan investigator in last month’s slayings of 17 civilians says there’s strong evidence that only one killer was involved, a view that puts him at odds with Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai.
….
Afghan army chief Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi, whom Karzai sent to Kandahar to investigate the massacre, told McClatchy that two survivors he interviewed offered credible accounts that the killings were the act of a lone person.“They told me the same thing,” Karimi said. “They both said there was (only) one individual who came to their house.”
….
At a meeting at the presidential palace with relatives of the victims days after the massacre, Karzai openly questioned the U.S. account of a lone gunman. The president pointed to one relative and said: “In his family, in four rooms people were killed — children and women were killed — and then they were all brought together in one room and then set on fire. That, one man cannot do.”Karimi said he returned to Kabul to deliver his interim report but the villagers had spoken to Karzai before he did.
“And everybody said (to the president), ‘Sir, it was not one person. … How can one guy shoot people in four rooms, kill them, then lift them, bring them to one room and set them on fire?'”
Underscoring how the incident has become a political football, Karimi himself appeared to parrot Karzai’s line in an interview with an Australian television program broadcast last week, in which he said, “I’m guessing — assumption — that (the killer was) helped by somebody. One person or two persons.”
There are a couple of possibilities here. Karimi could be honestly saying, interpreted by McClatchy as a contradiction, that two survivors said “there was (only) one individual who came to their house.” This would not rule out other men going to other houses or taking positions outside, and McClatchy could be wrong in its interpretation. Or, as McClatchy suggests, Harimi could be trying to play both sides of the fence. However, the rest of Harimi’s witness to the Australian reporter is clear, and MSNBC views it differently than McClatchy:
“Gen. Karimi, assigned by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to investigate the murders, told Hakim that he, too, wonders whether Bales acted alone and how he could left the base without notice.
“Village elders said several soldiers took part and that there is boot prints in the area,” Karimi told Hakim. He said villagers told him that they saw three or four individuals kneeling and that helicopters were overhead during the rampage.
“To search for him?” Karimi said he asked them.
“No,” he said they told him. “They were there from the very beginning.””
Other soldiers who have been stationed at the same base paint a different picture of how hard it would be to sneak off the base. The NY Times tells us:
“A Green Beret who has spent time in Panjwai in the past year said the combat outpost would have been relatively small, protected by dirt-filled containers known as Hesco barriers, with guard towers and perhaps a blimp with a high-powered camera capable of capturing images more than a mile away. It would have been difficult, but not impossible, for Sergeant Bales to slip away at night unnoticed, as the Army says he did.”
Okay. Not impossible. But now it’s twice.
As if this brew needs anymore spice, Bales’ attorney claims the government is withholding evidence:
“UPDATE: The attorney representing the American soldier accused of slaughtering 17 Afghan civilians accused the U.S. government on Friday of withholding evidence that would be crucial to his defense.
Speaking to the Associated Press, lawyer John Henry Browne detailed what he said were numerous examples of the government going out of their way to “hide evidence,” including denying his team access to video allegedly taken from a surveillance blimp showing Staff Sgt. Robert Bales on the night of the killings.”
Perhaps most damning of all, one might ask, isn’t this a simple matter of interviewing the many wounded witnesses? After all, we know beyond doubt that they saw what happened first hand. But Bales’ attorney Brown issued the following statement at the end of March:
“We are facing an almost complete information blackout from the government, which is having a devastating effect on our ability to investigate the charges preferred against our client,” the defense team statement said.
“When we tried to interview the injured civilians being treated at Kandahar Hospital we were denied access and told to coordinate with the prosecution team. The next day the prosecution team interviewed the civilian injured. We found out shortly after the prosecution interviews of the injured civilians that the civilians were all released from the hospital and there was no contact information for them,” the statement said.”
The LA Times reports attorney Browne saying:
“People on our staff in Afghanistan went to the hospital where there supposedly were eyewitnesses to this … and we were told by the prosecutors to come back the next day, which is fine. We went back the next day, and they’d all been released from the hospital and they’d all been scattered throughout Afghanistan. That was a violation of the trust we had in the prosecutors,”…
“We’ve been misled greatly…. They were promised to be there, and they were not,” he said, adding that there isn’t much hope of finding the witnesses now. “People just disappear into the Afghan countryside.”
Finally the Global Post, a project of long-time Boston Globe journalist Charles Sennott, turns in a report which seems to attempt to discount the value of Afghan witness testimony, but in the end relates detail from a witness which corroborates the behavior of soldiers intent on committing war crimes:
“Baran’s brother was killed in the shooting spree, but he didn’t see the shooting happen. Baran said he told Karzai what his sister-in-law, who was at the scene, had told him.
When GlobalPost asked Baran to speak directly with his sister-in-law, he initially refused.
“You don’t need to talk her,” Baran said. “I did, and I can tell you the story.”
Eventually Baran relented, allowing GlobalPost to interview her by phone.
Massouma, who lives in the neighboring village of Najiban, where 12 people were killed, said she heard helicopters fly overhead as a uniformed soldier entered her home. She said he flashed a “big, white light,” and yelled, “Taliban! Taliban! Taliban!”
Massouma said the soldier shouted “walkie-talkie, walkie-talkie.” The rules of engagement in hostile areas in Afghanistan permit US soldiers to shoot Afghans holding walkie-talkies because they could be Taliban spotters.
“He had a radio antenna on his shoulder. He had a walkie-talkie himself, and he was speaking into it,” she said.”
BBC says villagers say they heard helicopters in the night, explained by “correspondents” in the same report by the fact that helicopters are heard often in that part of the country. However helicopters in support of an operation would be distinctly closer and louder than those passing by at altitude.
“A woman in one of the targeted villages told the BBC she first heard helicopters at 02:00 and then gunfire. Others said helicopters and gunfire could be heard from midnight….Some villagers say that helicopters were flying overhead as the killings took place. Many locals appear to believe that they were in fact supporting the operation rather than trying to stop the gunman.
But correspondents say helicopters are frequently heard overhead in parts of the country.”
Reports of Bales’ testimony and behavior seem an intriguing mix of admissions to guilt and confusion. Reuters:
“Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales initially asserted that he had shot several Afghan men outside a U.S. combat outpost in southern Afghanistan on March 11 and did not mention that a dozen women and children were among the dead, according to a senior U.S. official briefed on the case.
“He indicated to his buddies that he had taken out some military-aged males,” the senior official said. Soldiers normally use that term to denote insurgents.
But Bales’ story soon broke down when commanders on the base learned details of the pre-dawn shooting spree in which 16 Afghan civilians were killed in their homes. At that point, the 38-year-old Army veteran was taken into custody. He refused to talk further and soon asked for a lawyer, two officials said.”
Bales’ wife has stood steadfastly by her husband, saying that whatever he had done, he loved children and could never harm them.
In 2007 after a battle in Iraq, Bales told the Fort Lewis Northwest Guardian:
“I’ve never been more proud to be a part of this unit … for the simple fact that we discriminated between the bad guys and the noncombatants,” he told the after a battle in Iraq in 2007. “Afterward we ended up helping the people that three or four hours before were trying to kill us.”
The Christian Science Monitor reports words from Bales which are startlingly contrary to the charges:
“The charges run contrary to Bales’ own words in the 2007 interview with his local newspaper as well, when he expressed disdain for any insurgent would could put “his family in harm’s way like that,” he said. “I think that’s the real difference between being an American as opposed to being a bad guy.””
Publicintellligence.net notes the irony of the current lack of evidence against Bales when forensics against insurgents in Afghanistan are highly developed:
“A presentation from the U.S. Army’s Office of the Provost Marshal General indicates that as of August 2011 there were three Joint Expeditionary Forensics Facilities (JEFFs) throughout Afghanistan including one in Kandahar, the same province where Staff Sgt. Bales reportedly committed the massacre. These forensics facilities are capable of DNA analysis, latent print identification, photographic forensics, as well as chemical and ballistic analysis.
——-
… it remains to be seen whether the U.S. military will present the same level of forensic evidence that it routinely collects and analyzes when attempting to prosecute suspected insurgents.”
The families of the dead have been paid $50,000 for each victim, an extraordinary sum for most Afghans who often take work, when it is available, which pays one dollar a day. The country is the fifth poorest in the world and suffers a 60% rate of child malnutrition, according to Save the Children. Typical victim compensation in cases of civilian deaths is on the order of $2,000.
Dateline SBC interviews with child witnesses
Related articles
- RT: Bales in court as massacre body count mysteriously rises to 17 (jhaines6.wordpress.com)
UN Security Council Unanimously Adopts Resolution on Deploying 300 Unarmed Observers in Syria
SANA | April 21, 2012
NEW YORK, (SANA) – The UN security council on Saturday unanimously adopted a resolution on deploying 300 unarmed observers in Syria on preliminary basis for three months to monitor the ceasefire.
The resolution calls on the Syrian government to support the observers mission by helping deploy its members and provide transport for them without hindrances, calling upon the UN and Syria to reach an agreement on providing the planes needed by the mission.
The resolution also called on all sides in Syria to guarantee the safety of the mission members, stressing that the primary responsibility regarding the observers’ safety falls upon the government.
The Russian resolution stipulates that the deployment of the observer mission will be evaluated by the UN Secretary General based on relevant developments on the ground, including the cessation of violence.
The resolution called upon all sides in Syria to cease violence, saying that the cessation which has been achieved so far is clearly imperfect.
Al-Jaafari: Syria Showed Full Cooperation and Commitment to Annan’s Plan
In a speech during the Council session, Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari said that some of the statements made during this session called upon Syria to implement the Council’s resolution while those who made the statements themselves are moving away from it.
He said that he met with the UN Secretary General and senior aides on Saturday and appealed to him to exert good offices and be more involved in the efforts to guarantee applying the desired political and national solution to resolve the crisis, adding “this is a good opportunity to appeal to you all and address to you the same appeal which I addressed to the Secretary General.”
Al-Jaafari said that the Syrian government was open to any honest and neutral initiatives and efforts since the beginning of the crisis to help emerge from it while preserving Syria’s sovereignty, independent national decision, security and stability, with Syria showing great cooperation and commitment to Annan’s efforts.
He affirmed that Syria implemented its part of Annan’s plan and is still committed to this, and that it’s updating Annan on regular daily basis with written reports on steps taken in this regard, which includes releasing detainees who did not shed blood, delivering humanitarian aid to affected areas in cooperation with OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), and allowing over 600 media outlets to enter Syria.
Al-Jaafari said that the Syrian government on Sunday informed Annan that it carried out the second article of his plan completely, saying that police and law-enforcement forces will be charged with keeping peace and order and will show the utmost self-restraint while remaining ready to confront armed terrorist groups should they continue to breach the cessation of violence, while the Syrian Arab Army will remain prepared to defend Syria from any attack and secure strategic sites.
He noted that sending neutral observers was originally a Syrian demand based on self-confidence and a position of strength, and that the reason behind such a demand is to inform the world public opinion of the terrorists’ crimes away from media and political misdirection, noting that this happened with the Arab League observers who presented an objective report documenting the crimes of terrorists, which prompted Qatar and Saudi Arabia to withdraw their observers, suspend the entire mission, and ignore their report completely.
Al-Jaafari added that Syria renewed cooperation and openness by signing the preliminary agreement organizing the operations of UN observers in Syria, and that the Syrian government is ready to sign the protocol organizing the deployment of observers when the UN is ready, stressing that Syria has a true interest in ensuring the success of the observer mission, with emphasis on the need for the observers to be objective, neutral and profession.
“Some sides responded on this clear commitment by the Syrian government by carrying out a hysterical campaign of doubt that unveiled ill intentions on their parts on principle regarding Syria, accentuating their strong frustration over the signs of returning stability and calm to Syria,” he said.
He went on to note that terrorists answered the Syrian government’s commitment to Annan’s plan with a long series of violations, with them intensifying their terrorism and attacks against civilians, law-enforcement forces and public and private facilities, saying that the Syrian government provided Annan, Ki-moon and the Security Council with detailed information on the violations made by armed groups after the beginning of the ceasefire on April 12th, adding that the violations number over 593 as of Saturday.
Al-Jaafari voiced Syria’s deep concern over the continuing of the suspicious disregard of terrorist activities which were accompanied by a methodical media and political misdirection campaign aiming to demonize the Syrian authorities and army by blaming the terrorists’ crimes on the Syrian state and manipulate public opinion by twisting facts and employing a total media blackout regarding the terrorists’ crimes.
“All these practices aim at foiling Annan’s mission and ascribing the responsibility of this failure to the Syrian government in order to reach military action under humanitarian excuses, similarly to the lies that led to the destruction of Libya’s infrastructure and the death of 150,000 Libyan civilians at the hands of NATO with Qatar’s participation,” he said.
Syria’s Representative stressed the need for Annan and the Security Council to deal with the Syrian crisis comprehensively by exerting efforts to ensure that armed groups and those supporting them are committed to the cessation of violence in order for this cessation to be sustainable, reiterating that Syria’s support alone isn’t enough to ensure the success of Annan’s efforts, as Arab, regional and international sides must commit in words and actions to stopping the funding, arming, training and encouragement of armed groups, as well as stopping their instigation of the Syrian opposition to reject dialogue.
“Some who predict the failure of Annan’s plan are doing their best to fulfill this ominous prediction… the best example of this is the statements of the Emir of Qatar in Rome only two days after the Security Council adopted resolution no. 2042 when he said that the chances of Annan’s plan to succeed don’t exceed 3%,” al-Jaafari said, adding that some countries are also creating parallel tracks to Annan’s plan that could undermine it and waste the efforts for reaching a peaceful solution, with these tracks including the conferences held in Tunis, Istanbul and Paris which pass plans outside international legitimacy to arm the opposition, reject peaceful solutions, and imposing sanctions on the Syrian people.
He noted that sometimes there’s boasting of increasing sanctions as if harming the Syrians and taking away their livelihood and rights to development and stability is a major victory.
“It’s a paradox that after every Syrian openness in dealing with any political proposition, a conference is held in parallel to fan the flames of the crisis, push towards removing the solution from its peaceful outline, and undermine any positive solution to resolve the crisis without shedding the blood of Syrian civilians and military personnel,” al-Jaafari said.
He pointed out that the absolute truth among Syrians is their rejection of interference in their country’s internal affairs, commitment to protecting their country’s sovereignty, continuing with reform and national dialogue, and not allowing time to be turned back to any form of subjugation or custodianship or occupation, be it direct or indirect.
“The Syrians know full well that the forces who have ill intents for Syria are targeting them all and trading with their pain and legitimate ambitions in the bloody stock market controlled by the interests of Israel and its governments and allies,” he said.
Al-Jaafari concluded by addressing a statement made by Germany’s Representative who voiced his country’s commitments to protecting “minorities” in Syria, stressing that there are no minorities in Syria; rather only Syrians who are proud of their cultural and religious diversity and don’t want Wahabi and Salafi extremism to sneak among them through oil money and religious and sectarian incitement which is preached by some Qatari and Saudi channels.
Churkin: Countries that Have Influence on Opposition Should Encourage it to Stop Violence, Apply Annan Plan
Russia’s Permanent UN Envoy Vitaly Churkin stressed that the resolution adopted today by the United Nation Security Council (UNSC) on the deployment of UN observers in Syria sends an important international message.
In his speech before the UN Security Council, Churkin said this resolution shows that only the UNSC has the right to make resolutions for resolving regional crises such as the Syrian crisis.
The Russian Envoy added that any group of friends or countries with interests or any other party must clearly abide by the UNSC resolutions and not undermine the possibility of implementing it.
Churkin affirmed the importance of this resolution to push the process of peaceful settlement in Syria forward besides [its] being embodies a unity and consensus of the Council regarding Annan’s six point plan.
Churkin stressed that all external sides related to the crisis in Syria should act in a responsible manner, adding that “The Syrians themselves should determine the destiny of their country.”
He made it clear that any attempt to impose outside powers on the Syrian people could exacerbate the crisis, calling on countries that have an influence on the opposition to encourage it to stop violence and apply Annan’s plan.
Baodong Reiterates China’s Commitment to peaceful Solution to Syria’s Crisis
For his part, China’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Li Baodong, reiterated Beijing’s commitment to reaching a peaceful solution to Syria’s crisis and within the framework of respecting the will of the Syrian people and keenness on Syria’s territorial integrity.
In his speech before the UN Security Council, Baodong added that Annan represents an important channel to solve the crisis in Syria, calling upon all Syrian sides to completely cooperate with Annan in order to launch a political process led by Syria.
Baodong stressed his country’s rejection of all efforts and statements that could hinder Annan’s mission, hoping that the monitors’ mission will fully respect Syria’s sovereignty and work in accordance to the authorization granted by the Council.
For his part, South Africa’s Representative stressed the importance of supporting Annan’s plan in order to reach a peaceful solution for the crisis in Syria through political dialogue that meets the aspirations of the Syrian people and ensures the unity and the territorial integrity of the country.
In turn, Azerbaijan’s Representative stressed his country’s support to Annan’s mission and the importance of respecting Syria’s sovereignty and unity.
India’s Representative said that the efforts of Annan contributed to improving the situation in Syria, calling upon all sides to adhere to Annan’s plan in order to reach a full ceasefire.
He highlighted that the international observers should implement their duties in an objective and neutral manner with the aim of starting a comprehensive political process led by Syria to meet the aspirations of the Syrian people.
For his part, Pakistan’s Representative expressed his country’s hope that Annan’s plan will lead to a full cessation of violence and creating the appropriate circumstances to carry out a political process that will respect Syria’s sovereignty and lead to a peaceful solution to the crisis.
Guatemala’s Representative stressed his country’s support to Annan’s mission and to all efforts exerted with the aim of restoring peace and stability to Syria.
Colombia’s Representative also stressed his country’s support to the monitors’ mission in Syria, adding that the current proposal is ideal and typical.
As for the western countries’ representatives, they continued their deliberate disregard of the acts committed by the armed terrorist groups which claimed the lives of hundreds of citizens and army and law-enforcement personnel.
The French Representative renewed his country’s incitement against Syria, laying the responsibility of the armed terrorist groups’ violence on the Syrian government.
He urged the Syrian government to immediately adhere to Annan’s plan and mentioned nothing about the fact that the opposition didn’t show any commitment to the same plan until now.
Similarly, Germany’s Representative recited a stream of lies and false allegations against the Syrian government, twisting the facts by alleging that the Syrian government is the side that is committing kidnapping, torture and violence against children, women and “minorities.”
The U.S. Representative, oblivious to her country’s deception of the international community when it waged a war on Iraq under false allegations of nuclear weapons, announced the failure of the observers’ mission before it even started, alleging that their presence will not make the Syrian government stop violence.
The U.S. representative, whose country murdered millions of innocent around the world, defended the acts of the armed opposition, alleging that the opposition welcomed the presence of the observers.
Churkin: This is the First Time During the Syrian Crisis that the Security Council was Able to Express Itself in Support of a Positive Political Plan
In a press conference following the Security Council session, Churkin said that this session marks the first time during the Syrian crisis that the Security Council was able to express itself in support of a positive political plan and strategy and to support with practical steps through the deployment of observers.
Churkin said that when the Council adopted resolution no. 2043, it affirmed its responsibility for security and peace in the Syrian crisis, hoping that the international community and various groups will respect the Council’s decision and authority and act accordingly.
He welcomed the decision and hoped that the observer mission will play its role in supporting stability in Syria, noting that the resolution doesn’t address only the Syrian government, but also the opposition, asking it to cease violence, support observers and commit to Annan’s plan.
Churkin noted that the observer mission’s jurisdiction suits the arrangements made by the UN General Secretariat and the Syrian government, adding that the decision is the responsibility of the UN and the Syrian government and that they should work to make all necessary arrangements.
On the U.S. stance, Churkin said that he had hoped that the statements would be more in line with the spirit of the resolution, but some of the speakers wasted a chance to address the opposition, adding that negative expectations are more akin to predictions.
He added that Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem informed Annan that the Syrian government carried out the second article of the plan and withdrew armored vehicles and military forces from cities.
Churkin hoped that the political momentum is a positive sign, calling for abandoning threats and negative expectations and staying the course which the Security Council finally managed to support rather than returning to conflict scenarios which proved to be dangerous and likely to lead to further escalation.
He stressed that Russia isn’t against the opposition, saying “we’re doing the right thing and we’re comfortable for our stance,” noting that Russia worked hard to put the Security Council on the right track, adding that there are forces who don’t want this strategy to succeed and have other plans which aren’t useful and will weaken Annan’s plan.
Churkin said that the observers are facing monumental tasks, thus they must be respected and provided with all the conditions needed by them to carry out their work successfully.
On the observers’ nationalities, he said that there are no information of specific agreements in this regard, noting that the Syrian government approved of the candidates.
In response to a question on a full ban on weapons, Churkin said that even if such a ban succeeded with the Syrian government, then there will be those who deny that and continue to provide weapons to opposition groups, similar to what happened in prior experiences.
M.Nassr / Ghossoun / H. Sabbagh
Related articles
- Syria Welcomes New UN Resolution, Observers to Arrive Late Sunday (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- UN Security Council Votes To Send 300 Observers To Syria (eurasiareview.com)
- Security Council changed prerogatives in Syrian crisis – Churkin to RT (rt.com)
US Shelters Venezuelan Fugitive, Criticises Existence of “Drug Kingpins” in Venezuela
By Rachael Boothroyd | Venezuelanalysis | April 19th 2012
Caracas – A Venezuelan judge has fled to the United States after he was dismissed as a Supreme Court Magistrate on March 20th, when an investigation was launched into his links to Venezuelan drug lord Walid Makled. Venezuelan born Makled is currently on trial in the country for crimes including narco-trafficking and murder, after being extradited from Colombia to Venezuela in May last year.
According to the charges levelled at the ex-magistrate, Eladio Aponte, the judge granted a falsified identification document to Makled which named him as a member of the magistrate’s staff, permitting him free passage to anywhere in the country.
In an interview on Wednesday night for US television channel SOiTV, the ex-judge hit out at Venezuelan politicians and high ranking members of the army, accusing them of having intervened and manipulated the Venezuelan judicial system. He also added that he thought Makled to be a “reputable businessman”.
The government has categorically refuted the claims, which they say are an attempt to smear the Chavez administration.
“He is an ex-magistrate being prosecuted for his links to drug trafficking, and who has sold his soul to the devil,” said Venezuelan Foreign Minister, Nicolas Maduro, whilst defending the country’s judicial institutions as independent.
“We can say with total certainty that in the case of Aponte, the decisions taken by our public institutions were in total compliance with the law, demonstrating that there are laws in Venezuela, that here there or no privileges and that no one is protected by narco gangs”. “Aponte is a totally discredited man,” he added.
The minister also went on to criticise the role of the U.S.’s Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in engineering Aponte’s escape after it emerged that a DEA plane had transported the fugitive from Costa Rica to the United States.
“The DEA now takes away this man accused of being linked to drugs trafficking mafias to turn him into a spokesman against Venezuela… The United States continues to be a sanctuary for drug traffickers, the corrupt, traitors and terrorists,” he said.
Maduro’s sentiments have been echoed by other members of the Venezuelan government and armed forces, as well as by US- Venezuelan attorney and investigative journalist Eva Golinger, who said that Aponte’s claims were part of a “systematic” campaign by Washington to depict Venezuela as a “narco-state” using whatever means possible.
OFAC Criticises “Worrying Trend”
Aponte’s flight to the U.S. comes as the Director of the United States’ Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Adam Szubin, criticised a “worrying trend” in Venezuela, relating to the presence of “drugs kingpins” in the country.
In an interview with opposition newspaper El Universal earlier this week, Szubin stated that the organization was particularly concerned with individuals who were in violation of the “Kingpin Act,” which “goes after foreign persons” accused of financially aiding or supporting the international trafficking of narcotics. Several Venezuelan government officials have been controversially added to the organisation’s sanctions list since 2008.
“The designations made over the last two years,” said Szubin, “conform to the Kingpin Act and point towards a worrying trend in Venezuela.”
“Nobody is added to the list by mistake,” he continued, although conceding that 400 individuals had been removed from the list since 2009.
Szubin went on to cite current Venezuelan Defence Minister, Henry Rangel Silva, who was placed on the agency’s sanctions list in 2008 for allegedly attempting to increase cooperation between the Venezuelan government and Colombia’s FARC guerrillas as proof of this trend. To date, no evidence has been presented by the OFAC in support of these allegations.
As a division of the Treasury Department’s “Terrorism and Financial Intelligence” agency, the OFAC is responsible for administering and enforcing sanctions against states, individuals and groups accused of terrorism, such as those currently being enforced against Iran. The agency is described by the Washington Post as being an institution that “U.S. policymakers increasingly rely on to advance national security and foreign policy goals in the post-9/11 era”.
Since 2008, six other members of the Venezuelan government, including former Caracas mayor Freddy Bernal, have also been added to the OFAC sanction list.
Relations between the United States and Venezuela in the fight against the international drugs trade have been strained since the latter expelled the U.S.’s Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in 2005 for acts of espionage, with the Venezuelan government charging the agency with maintaining a consistent campaign against the left wing politics of the government, as opposed to focusing on counter-narcotics operations.
Western Journalist: Visa Denied
By Sharmine Narwani | Al Akhbar | 2012-04-21
Item number five on UN Envoy Kofi Annan’s 6-point plan for Syria is the following:
“(5) Ensure freedom of movement throughout the country for journalists and a non-discriminatory visa policy for them.”
At a delicate moment in the hard-fought Syrian conflict that could potentially destabilize the entire Middle East, the United Nations believes getting more journalists into Syria is one of the six most urgent actions to consider?
Why? Are foreign reporters trained in special “observer” skills – with unique truth-detecting abilities bubble-wrapped in bullet and mortar-proof goop? And what will they see that Syrians – who know Syria best – cannot observe for themselves?
What the UN is really demanding – let’s be honest here – is for the Syrian government to open up the country to “Western” journalists. Yet, in all the conflicts covered in recent years, I cannot recall one that has been more badly covered by the mainstream western media than this Syrian crisis.
Almost to a person, western journalists are blaming their substandard coverage on the fact that they have been denied entry into Syria. And also – to a person – they seem to think that the world needs them there to understand what is going on inside the country.
Paul Conroy, the Sunday Times freelance cameraman who was injured by an explosive in Homs in February, tells the BBC’s Hard Talk that Syrians need their events verified by people like himself and his now-deceased colleague, war correspondent Marie Colvin, in order to be believed:
“It is a sad state of affairs that it does need people to go in… and actually be Western and be official journalists to make it real in the public eye.”
Is that like a Western-journalist-verification-stamp of some sort? Does it come with a guarantee – for accuracy in reporting?
Because, right now, I honestly cannot think of a group of people less capable of verifying things in Syria than western journalists. And it is not because they aren’t physically there or can’t string together more than two words in Arabic. It is largely because they feast at the trough of their own governments’ narratives on All Things. Western journalists are heady with a sense of righteousness leached from the oxymoronic “western values” shoved down our collective throats. Those same western values that demand “accountability” and “transparency” from all nations – while offering cover for western governments to hack their way through Muslim and Arab bodies in endless “national security” wars.
Do tell… Which major mainstream western media outlet has ever fundamentally questioned their government’s narratives on these wars? Which major western journalist risked career for truth on affairs related to the Middle East? Give me the name of that brave western network reporter who disrupts press conferences regularly with inconvenient questions on weapons sales to Gulf dictatorships – and has his bosses go to the wall to ensure he remains in the White House press pool. Show me the western reporter at the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, BBC, France 24 who has made a career of doggedly questioning Israel’s disproportionate use of force against civilian populations – a journalist who sticks a microphone under Sarkozy, Obama or Cameron’s nose and bellows: “What fucking Peace Process are you chaps banging on about?”
No? Not one? Come on!
“No Syrian Visa” is just a convenient excuse for the lazy and sloppy reporting of western media in this Syrian conflict. It is a handy sound bite these days – one that quite deliberately ignores the Arab League Monitors’ January 2012 Report that 147 foreign and Arab media organizations were operating in Syria during their month-long observations.
“No Syrian Visa” tries hard to distract from the reality that most western journalists never actually go out to the front lines of conflict when filing their stories. Increasingly, reporters are sent out in organized pools by host governments – or in the case of recent US-initiated wars in the Middle East – by the invading armies.
“No Syrian Visa” selectively forgets that entering US-foe Syria as a journalist today is no more difficult than waltzing into US-ally Saudi Arabia – or US-ally Bahrain, when Formula One cars are not racing there.
And “No Syrian Visa” will blush hard when recalling that there was no similar collective western media outrage when the government of Israel declared “No Gaza Entry” as it pounded Palestinian populations in 2009.
Glossy Journalists Seek Content Not Facts
No. The problem with western reporters is that they are past their due date – remnants of an industry we once believed brandished standards of objectivity we never actually witnessed.
They are news-as-entertainment professionals – packaging glossy corporate content for maximum distribution and big bucks. The goal is not objective reportage. Their targets are quantifiable and highlighted in a business plan somewhere. Success is based on a simple formula: stay within parameters “understandable” to a wide audience that devours sound bites and familiar storylines on the hour, every hour. Like trained seals whose every desire, instinct and buying pattern has been measured by corporate media’s marketing department for the consumption of its advertisers, the audience demands satisfaction – and western media delivers it.
With the exception of a few proud holdouts, western media has made a beeline for the sexy story in Syria – which is essentially the fairytale of the “Arab Spring” with a little twist: Bad regime, good activists – but kick out this dictator and it’s a three-for-one, with Iran and Hezbollah tossed in as a bonus.
There are only three guiding rules for most western journalists inside or outside of Syria: 1) only quote anti-regime populations, 2) do not seek out independent domestic opposition figures, 3) evidence is unimportant, as long as you loosely “source” it:
They head straight for the Syrian activist, the anti-regime demonstration, the man with the gun in a “hot spot.” These are one side of the Syrian story, for sure. But you will not find mainstream western journalism broadcasting a pro-regime rally of tens of thousands, the national flag painted on the faces of Assad supporters – young and old – waving posters of their president. Pro-regime Syrians, a majority of whom voted in a national referendum in February to adopt constitutional reforms, are never interviewed by these reporters.
You will not find western journalists side-stepping the NATO-friendly Syrian National Council (SNC) “opposition” to interview the dozens of domestic Syrian opposition figures – most who have spent years in regime prisons – but who also unanimously reject the militarization and internationalization of the conflict; i.e., “non-Syrians butt out.”
And most importantly, you will never find mainstream western journalism seeking out “evidence” to support the false narratives of their governments. Who is included in the daily death count reported around the world? Who has killed thousands of Syrian soldiers? Who is killing children in Syria? Who is killing journalists in Syria? Who stands to gain from these deaths? Who stands to gain from this video footage or still photo emailed to my desktop? How do I know that plume of smoke was caused by a regime mortar? Who is the sniper? Why do so many Syrians still support Bashar al-Assad?
Propaganda As a Weapon of War
The “Big Lie” is a propaganda technique used liberally by western governments in the Middle East. The Big Lie refers to “the repeated articulation of a complex of events that justify subsequent action. The descriptions of these events have elements of truth, and the Big Lie generalizations merge and eventually supplant the public’s accurate perception of the underlying events.”
Using Big Lie techniques in the Middle East are particularly easy because western media is so happily complicit in propagating one-dimensional stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims. These assumptions are programmed so deeply, that even after months of watching on our TV screens disparate populations of all backgrounds and political convictions rally to reshape their governing systems… we still see regional events only through the prism of a one-size-fits-all Arab Spring.
The US Military’s Special Forces Unconventional Warfare manual describes ways to overthrow a government outside of a conventional combat format. In a section headlined Will of the Population, the manual explains ways to overcome popular support for the existing national government and alter natural hostility to foreign intervention:
“Information activities that increase dissatisfaction with the hostile regime or occupier and portray the resistance as a viable alternative are important components of the resistance effort. These activities can increase support for the resistance through persuasive messages that generate sympathy among populations.”
The manual expounds on this in another area:
“The USG (US Government) begins to shape the target environment as far in advance as possible. The shaping effort may include operations to increase the legitimacy of U.S. operations and the resistance movement, building internal and external support for the movement, and setting conditions for the introduction of U.S. forces. … The population of a recently occupied country may already be psychologically ready to accept U.S. sponsorship, particularly if the country was a U.S. ally before its occupation. In other cases, psychological preparation may require a protracted period before yielding any favorable results.”
The Syrian crisis is not about reforms any longer – it has become a geopolitical battle for influence in the Middle East, with NATO, the GCC and BRIC nations taking sides. Western media fails to address this larger picture, so glaringly obvious to people in the region. Instead it focuses almost entirely on the “David vs Goliath” or “good vs evil” themes that appeal to a broad audience of dumbed-down media consumers. These populations in turn become perception “leaders” when they back foreign military adventures in opinion polls broadcast back to us by – you guessed it – western media. And in that neat trick, your western government checks off a tick-box called “citizen approval.”
But Syrians have approved no such thing. More than a year after the first anti-government protests – which have never grown into the hundreds of thousands and millions experienced elsewhere in the region – Syrians have not ejected their leader, nor is there any evidence that the majority of Syrians wish to do so. The constitutional referendum in February, which a small majority of Syrians approved in an excellent turnout, should have been some indication for the media that popular sentiment is not necessarily reflected in an unverifiable cellphone image.
The daily casualty statistics coming out of Syria are deliberately misrepresented as regime “kills,” satellite photos of alleged regime shelling contradict the dominant narratives, activists faking events begs the question “why would they need to falsify evidence if the regime is so brutal?” But western media hears and sees nothing that doesn’t suit their formulaic narrative.
There is no better example of how mentally embedded western media has become with the Syrian “opposition” (itself a very broad and mixed bag), than a recent incident with CNN in Homs. Correspondent Arwa Damon and her non-Arab crew were tipped off about a potential pipeline explosion, so they pre-positioned their camera in a window frame facing the exact location of the anticipated bombing. When the pipeline explodes some time later, Damon and her crew look exultant – almost drunk on their success. Scoop? Try complicity in an act of terrorism. Can you imagine them doing this if the target was an American installation in Iraq or a NATO depot in Afghanistan? They would never live it down.
Reality Check
A year after the first small protests in Syria, the Syrian government stands strong, bolstered by its many constituencies, and spared the mass defections experienced by other Arab leaders. It appears that propaganda is not enough to shake the foundations of all Arab states. Now is the time for western media to ask why they got it so wrong. And some are indeed questioning their information, sources and assumptions.
There are western journalists who are doing a more than creditable job of writing about Syria from outside the country – the Independent’s Patrick Cockburn and The Guardian’s Seumas Milne come to mind. Please feel free to list other responsible, professional western journalists in the comments section below – I am sure we all want to celebrate their courage and increase their page views.
As for the others, their arrogance and cowardice is dangerous. False narratives have emboldened Syrians and other regional actors to act incautiously, angrily, even euphorically, when they might have benefited from nuance and calculation. People have died in the spinning of this conflict.
It is clearly time to challenge the dated concept that mainstream western media is impartial, objective or professional in their coverage of Mideast affairs. But we shouldn’t just bemoan this injustice in yet another stream of impotent essays and editorials. We must drag this industry of disinformation into the public arena, and make them accountable throughout the region by acting to affect ratings and readership.
Kofi Annan needs to immediately drop item number 5 on his Syria plan. While freedom of speech is important to uphold – even more so in times of strife – today, mainstream western journalism is nothing more than another face of the “external intervention” he so gravely warns against. Toss those western journos out of Syria unless they can demonstrate independent, objective, responsible reporting of this conflict. False narratives are costing Arab and Muslim lives. And media “combatants” need not apply to practice their craft in this region any longer.
Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow Sharmine on twitter @snarwani.
Related articles
- Foolishly Ignoring the Arab League Report on Syria (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Syrian opposition leader, in unprecedented interview with Israel Radio, says Syrians want peace with Israel (timesofisrael.com)
- UN ‘aid’ program to be used in establishing NATO ‘humanitarian corridors’ (activistpost.com)
No Justice for Muslims under Obama
By Margaret Kimberley | Black Agenda Report | April 18, 2012
The FBI and the Justice Department are still up to their old tricks. Not only do they continue to entrap Muslims in terror cases that wouldn’t exist without FBI involvement, but now they silence anyone who complains, charging them with trumped up offenses and insuring that the assault on law continues.
Khalifa al-Kalili is an American Muslim from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Beginning in January of this year he was stalked by a man calling himself Muhammad but who has now been identified as Shahed Hussain. Hussain was on the verge of being convicted of a felony when he became an FBI informant in 2002. It was Hussain who entrapped four African American men from Newburgh, New York, into a phony plot to bomb synagogues in the Bronx.
Al-Kalili was rightly suspicious when Hussain and another informant befriended him and spoke of the need for jihad. Al-Kalili was not as naïve as the Newburgh Four or the dozens of other people who were charged and convicted of committing terror acts which were created solely by the government.
Al-Kalili voiced his concerns very publicly, to the Albany Times Union newspaper and posted his fears on his Facebook page. He used Google to identify the cell phone number of the man who was stalking him and discovered that he was in fact Shahed Hussain. Al-Kalili’s attempts to protect himself were of no avail. After he scheduled a press conference to announce his plans to sue the FBI, he was suddenly arrested for a firearm violation and remains held behind bars without bail.
This case is one of many in which the American government has created a separate and decidedly unequal system of justice for Muslims. Shahed Hussain is now well known and notorious for tricking people into committing crimes. He is so brazen that he felt no need to hide or to even get a new cell phone number. Obviously he knows that the FBI is his protector and that he need not take any precaution to avoid detection. Even when his victims use legal means to avoid being ensnared, they go to jail anyway.
These entrapment tactics began during the Bush administration, but as in other instances, the Obama administration is nothing more than Bush part two. The president of the United States, the attorney general and the FBI director are all complicit in violating not only the protections granted to Americans in the constitution, but in establishing a system of separate and unequal justice for Muslims in this country. Once again, the value of having a former constitutional law professor sitting behind the desk in the oval office is less than negligible and an insult to anyone who cares about justice.
The story of Khalifa al-Kalili is an example of the rot which permeates the American political and judicial systems. Mass incarceration, selective prosecution, prosecutorial misconduct and police brutality all make a mockery of the claim that there is equal justice under American law. There have always been groups who were subject to brutality and injustice and now the first black president has proven that the system cannot be changed from within. It must be uprooted by people who first are willing to call the evil by its name and who are willing to dedicate themselves to eradicating it once and for all.
There are a multitude of reasons not to vote for Barack Obama, but his decision to continue a wholesale subversion of what is left of the justice system is one of the most important. How does anyone claim that the Democrats are our saviors and the Republicans are the evil doers, when all evidence points to criminality on both sides?
Neither Democrats nor Republicans are fit to govern this country. It is useless to continue revealing the injustices suffered by al-Kalili and others if the end result is a continuation of the status quo. Good journalism brought this case to light, but if must go further. A laundry list of people who have been turned into criminals by our government is useless unless a call to action comes along with it.
What will the call to action be for al-Kalili? Will people who excoriate Obama because of the injustice perpetrated by his Justice Department still make the case for his re-election? If so, they need not have bothered with al-Kalili at all. They should have swept his case under the rug and forgotten him. Voting for Obama and the Democratic party is tantamount to doing that anyway.
Margaret Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
Related articles
- US Muslim claims detention and torture by FBI (rt.com)
- Entrapment blues: Documents provide rare insight into FBI’s terrorism stings! (truthaholics.wordpress.com)
- Trouble follows some (miscellany101.wordpress.com)
- Interview: Infiltrator who spied on Muslims reveals FBI techniques (alhittin.com)
Robert Samuelson Shows that the Post Has no Fact Checkers on Its Opinion Pages
By Dean Baker | Beat the Press | April 8, 2012
Social Security and Medicare are hugely important for the security of the non-rich population of the United States. For this reason, Robert Samuelson and the Washington Post hate them.
As we know, this is a question of basic political philosophy. In the view of Samuelson and the Post, a dollar that it is in the pocket of low or middle class people is a dollar that could be in the pocket of the rich. And Medicare and Social Security are keeping many dollars in the pockets of low and middle class people.
Today’s column by Robert Samuelson tries to tell us that Franklin Roosevelt would be appalled by the current state of the Social Security program. Of course, he produces not a single iota of evidence to support this position, although it is very clear that Samuelson doesn’t like Social Security.
Samuelson begins by telling us that:
“It [Social Security] has become what was then called ‘the dole’ and is now known as ‘welfare.’ This forgotten history clarifies why America’s budget problems are so intractable.”
He later adds:
“Millions of Americans believe (falsely) that their payroll taxes have been segregated to pay for their benefits and that, therefore, they ‘earned’ these benefits. To reduce them would be to take something that is rightfully theirs.”
Of course Samuelson is 100 percent wrong here. Payroll taxes have been segregated. That is the point of the Social Security trust fund and the Social Security trustees report. These institutions would make no sense if the funds were not segregated.
Samuelson is welcome to not like the way in which the funds were segregated, in the same way that I don’t like the Yankees, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Yankees have a very good baseball team. Since its beginnings, the government has maintained a separate Social Security account. Under the law, no money can be paid out in Social Security benefits unless the Trust Fund has the money to pay for them.
In this sense, the funds are absolutely segregated. Samuelson doesn’t like this, but why should any of the rest of us care? The rest of the piece shows the same dishonesty and lack of respect for facts.
Samuelson later tells readers:
“But now, demographics are unfriendly. In 1960, there were five workers per recipient; today, there are three, and by 2025 the ratio will approach two. Roosevelt’s fear has materialized. Paying all benefits requires higher taxes, cuts in other programs or large deficits.”
Okay, let’s think about this for a minute. We went from five workers per retiree in the 1960s to roughly three workers for each retiree in the 90s. This ratio is projected to fall to roughly two workers per retiree by 2030 (not 2025, as readers of the Trustees report know).
On average we were much richer in the 90s than in the sixties, in spite of the fall in the ratio of workers to retirees. The same will be true in 2030, even assuming that we see the projected decline in the ratio of workers to retirees.
A small fact that Samuelson never mentions in this piece is that the Congressional Budget Office projects the program to be fully funded through 2038, with no changes whatsoever (i.e. no new taxes, contra Samuelson). If we want to make the program fully solvent for the rest of the century, a tax increase that is equal to 5 percent of projected wage growth over the next three decades should be roughly sufficient to do the trick. Are you scared yet?
There is an issue that most workers have not shared in the economy’s growth over the last three decades. This is indeed a problem. If recent trends in inequality persist then any increase in Social Security taxes will be a burden, but the problem here are the policies that have brought about this upward redistribution of income, not Social Security.
Then Samuelson gives us his coup de grace:
“Although new recipients have paid payroll taxes higher and longer than their predecessors, their benefits still exceed taxes paid even assuming (again, fictitiously) that they had been invested. A two-earner couple with average wages retiring in 2010 would receive lifetime Social Security and Medicare benefits worth $906,000 compared with taxes of $704,000, estimate Steuerle and Rennane.”
Okay, this is a really nice trick. Remember we were talking about Social Security? Note that Samuelson refers to “lifetime Social Security and Medicare benefits.” It wasn’t an accident that he brought Medicare into this discussion. That is because Steuerle and Rennane’s calculations show that this average earning couple would get back less in Social Security benefits than what they paid in taxes. That would not fit well with Samuelson’s story, so he brings in Medicare (remember this is the Washington Post).
And, the high cost of Medicare benefits is not due to their great generosity. The high cost is due to the fact that we pay our doctors, our drug companies, and our medical equipment suppliers way more than do people in any other country, and we have no better outcomes. If our per person costs for health care were comparable to costs in Germany, Canada, the UK or any other wealthy country, then workers would be paying far more for their Medicare benefits than the cost of what they are getting in care.
The story here is that Samuelson wants to punish ordinary workers for the fact that we pay doctors and the other big winners in this story too much. That may not make sense, but they don’t call this paper “Fox on 15th Street” for nothing.
Related articles
- Heaven Mourns Every Day the Washington Post Liquidation Is Delayed… (delong.typepad.com)
- Stan Collender Thinks Robert Samuelson Is a Reason the Washington Post Should Shut Its Doors Immediately (delong.typepad.com)
US-Israel War on Iran: The Myth of Limited Warfare
By James Petras :: 04.04.2012
Introduction
The mounting threat of a US-Israeli military attack against Iran is based on several factors including: (1) the recent military history of both countries in the region, (2) public pronouncements by US and Israeli political leaders, (3) recent and on-going attacks on Lebanon and Syria, prominent allies of Iran, (4) armed attacks and assassinations of Iranian scientists and security officials by proxy and/or terrorist groups under US or Mossad control, (5) the failure of economic sanctions and diplomatic coercion, (6) escalating hysteria and extreme demands for Iran to end legal, civilian use-related uranium enrichment, (7) provocative military ‘exercises’ on Iran’s borders and war games designed for intimidation and a dress rehearsal for a preemptive attack, (8) powerful pro-war pressure groups in both Washington and Tel Aviv including the major Israeli political parties and the powerful AIPAC in the US, (9) and lastly the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (Obama’s Orwellian Emergency Decree, March 16, 2012).
The US propaganda war operates along two tracks: (1) the dominant message emphasizes the proximity of war and the willingness of the US to use force and violence. This message is directed at Iran and coincides with Israeli announcements of war preparations. (2) The second track targets the ‘liberal public’ with a handful of marginal ‘knowledgeable academics’ (or State Department progressives) playing down the war threat and arguing that reasonable policy makers in Tel Aviv and Washington are aware that Iran does not possess nuclear weapons or any capacity to produce them now or in the near future. The purpose of this liberal backpedaling is to confuse and undermine the majority public opinion, which is clearly opposed to more war preparations, and to derail the burgeoning anti-war movement.
Needless to say the pronouncements of the ‘rational’ warmongers use a ‘double discourse’ based on the facile dismissal of all the historical and empirical evidence to the contrary. When the US and Israel talk of war, prepare for war and engage in pre-war provocations – they intend to go to war – just as they did against Iraq in 2003. Under present international political and military conditions an attack on Iran, initially by Israel with US support, is extremely likely, even as world economic conditions should dictate otherwise and even as the negative strategic consequences will most likely reverberate throughout the world for decades to come.
US and Israeli Military Calculations on Iran’s Capability
American and Israeli strategic policy makers do not agree on the consequences of Iran’s retaliation against an attack. For their part, the Israeli leaders minimize Iran’s military capacity to attack and damage the Jewish state, which is their only consideration. They count on their distance, their anti-missile shield and protection from US air and naval forces in the Gulf to cover their sneak attack. On the other hand, US military strategists know the Iranians are capable of inflicting substantial casualties on US warships, which would have to attack Iranian coastal installations in order to support or protect the Israelis.
Israel intelligence is best known for its capacity to organize the assassination of individuals around the world: Mossad has organized successful overseas terrorist acts against Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese leaders. On the other hand Israeli intelligence has a very poor track record with regard to its estimates of major military and political undertakings. They seriously underestimated the popular support, military strength and organizational capacity of Hezbollah during the 2006 war in Lebanon. Likewise, Israel intelligence misunderstood the strength and capacity of the Egyptian popular democratic movement as it rose up and overthrew Tel Aviv’s strategic regional ally, the Mubarak dictatorship. While Israeli leaders ‘feign paranoia’ – tossing clichés about ‘existential threats’– they are blinded by their narcissistic arrogance and racism, repeatedly underestimating the technical expertise and political sophistication of their Arab and regional Islamic foes. This is undoubtedly true in their facile dismissal of Iran’s capacity to retaliate against a planned Israeli air assault.
The US government has now overtly committed itself to supporting an Israeli assault on Iran when it is launched. More specifically, Washington claims it will come to Israel’s defense ‘unconditionally’ if it is “attacked.” How can Israel avoid being ‘attacked’ when its planes are raining bombs and missiles on Iranian installations, military defenses and support systems, not to mention Iranian cities, ports and strategic infrastructure? Moreover, given the Pentagon’s collaboration and coordinated intelligence systems with the Israel forces, its role in identifying targets, routes and incoming missiles, as well as integrated weapons and ordinance supply chains will be critical to an Israeli attack. There is no way that the US can dissociate itself from the Jewish State’s war on Iran, once the attack has begun.
The Myths of ‘Limited War’: Geography
Washington and Tel Aviv claim and appear to believe that their planned assault on Iran will be a “limited war”, targeting limited objectives and lasting a few days or weeks – with no serious consequences.
We are told Israel’s brilliant generals have identified all the critical nuclear research facilities, which their surgical air strikes will eliminate without horrific collateral damage to the surrounding population. Once the alleged ‘nuclear weapons’ program is destroyed, all Israelis can resume their lives in full security knowing that another ‘existential’ threat has been eliminated. The Israeli notion of a war, limited in ‘time and space’, is absurd and dangerous – and underlines the arrogance, stupidity and racism of its authors.
To approach Iran’s nuclear facilities Israeli and US forces will confront well-equipped and defended bases, missile installations, maritime defenses and large-scale fortifications directed by the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian Armed Forces. Moreover, the defense systems protecting the nuclear facilities are linked by civilian highways, airfields, ports, and backed by a dual purpose (civilian-military) infrastructure, which includes oil refineries and a huge network of administrative offices. To ‘knock out’ the alleged nuclear sites will require expanding the geographic scope of the war. The scientific-technological capacity of the Iranian civilian nuclear program involves a wide swath of its research facilities, including universities, laboratories, manufacturing sites, and design centers. To destroy Iran’s civilian nuclear program would require Israel (and thus the US) to attack much more than research facilities or laboratories hidden under a remote mountain. It would require multiple, widespread assaults on targets throughout the country, in other words, a generalized war.
Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stated that Iran will retaliate with a war of equivalence. Iran will match the breadth and scope of any attack with a corresponding counter-attack: ‘We will attack them at the same level as they attack us’. That means Iran will not confine its retaliation to merely trying to shoot down US and Israeli bombers in its airspace or launch missiles at offshore US warships in its waters but will take the war to equivalent targets in Israel and in US-occupied countries in and around the Gulf. Israel’s ‘limited war’ will become a generalized war extending throughout the Middle East and beyond.
Israel’s current delusional fetish about its elaborate missile defense system will be exposed as hundreds of high-powered missiles are launched from Teheran, Southern Lebanon and just beyond the Golan Heights.
The Myth of Limited War: Time Frame
Israeli military experts confidently expect to polish off their Iranian targets in a few days – some might think a mere weekend – and perhaps without the loss of even a single pilot. They expect the Jewish state will celebrate its brilliant victory in the streets of Tel Aviv and Washington. They are deluded by their own sense of superiority. Iran did not fight a brutal, decade-long war against the US-supplied Iraqi invaders and its western/Israeli military advisers, to just turn over and passively submit to a limited number of air and missile attacks by Israel. Iran is a young, educated mobilized society, which can draw on millions of reservists from across the political, ethnic, gender, religious spectrum, galvanized in support of their nation under attack. In a war to defend the homeland all internal differences disappear to confront the unprovoked Israeli-US attack threatening their entire civilization – its 5,000-year culture and traditions, as well as its modern scientific advances and institutions. The first wave of US-Israeli attacks will lead to ferocious retaliation, which will not be confined to the original areas of conflict, nor will any such act of Israeli aggression end when and if Iran’s nuclear research facilities are destroyed and some of its scientists, technicians and skilled workers killed. The war will continue in time and extend geographically.
Multiple Points of Conflict
Just as any US-Israeli attack on Iran will involve multiple targets, the Iranian military will also have a plethora of easily accessible strategic targets. Though it is difficult to predict exactly where and how Iran will retaliate, one thing is clear: The initial US-Israeli strike will not go unanswered.
Given Israeli-US supremacy in long and medium range sea and air power, Iran will probably rely on short-range objectives. These would include the highly valued US military facilities and supply routes in adjoining terrain (Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan) and Israeli targets with missiles launched from Southern Lebanon and possibly Syria. If a few Iranian long-range missiles escape the Jewish State’s much vaunted ‘anti-missile dome’, Israeli population centers may pay a heavy price for their leaders’ recklessness and arrogance.
The Iranian counter-strike will lead to an escalation by US-Israeli forces, extending and deepening their air and sea war to the entire Iranian national security system – military bases, ports, communication systems, command posts and government administrative centers – many in densely populated cities. Iran will counter by launching its greatest strategic asset: a coordinated ground attack involving the Revolutionary Guards together with their allies among the Iraqi Shia troops, against US forces in Iraq. It will coordinate attacks against US facilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the growing nationalist-Islamic armed resistance.
The initial conflict, centered on so-called military objectives (scientific research facilities), will spread rapidly to economic targets, or what US and Israeli military strategists refer to as “dual civilian-military” targets. This would include oil fields, highways, factories, communications networks, television stations, water treatment facilities, reservoirs, power stations and administrative offices, such as the Defense Ministry and headquarters of the Republican Guard. Iran, faced with imminent destruction of its entire economy and infrastructure (which occurred in neighboring Iraq with the unprovoked US invasion of 2003), would retaliate by blocking the Straits of Hormuz and sending short range missiles in the direction of the principle oil fields and refineries of the Gulf States including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, a mere 10 minute distance, crippling the flow of oil to Europe, Asia and the United States and plunging the world economy into deep depression.
It should not be forgotten that the Iranians are probably more aware than anyone in the region of the total devastation suffered by Iraqis after the US invasion, which plunged that nation into total chaos and devastated its advanced infrastructure and civilian administrative apparatus, not to mention the systematic obliteration of its highly educated scientific and technical elite. The waves of Mossad-sponsored assassinations of Iranian scientists, academics and engineers are just a foretaste of what the Israelis have in mind for Iran’s outstanding scientists, intellectuals and highly skilled technical workers. Iranians should have no illusions about the Americans and Israelis who seek to thrust Iran into the brutal dark ages of Afghanistan and Iraq. They will have no more role in a devastated Iran than their counterparts had in post-Saddam Iraq.
According to US General Mathis, who commands all US forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, ‘an Israeli first strike would be likely to have dire consequences across the region and for the United States there’ (NY Times, 3/19/12). General Mathis “dire cost” estimate only takes account of the US military losses, likely several hundred sailors on warships within missile distance of Iranian gunners.
However the most delusional and self-serving assessment of the outcome and consequences of an Israeli air attack on Iran, emanates from top Israeli leaders, academics and intelligence experts, who claim superior intelligence, superior defenses and supreme (if also racist) insight into the ‘Iranian mind’. Typical is Israeli Defense Minister Barak who boasts that any Iranian retaliation will at worst inflict minimal casualties on the Israeli population.
The ‘Judeo-centric’ view of re-ordering the balance of power in the region, which is prevalent in leading Israeli war circles, overlooks the likelihood that war will not be decided by Israeli air strikes and anti-missile defenses. Iran’s missiles cannot be easily contained, especially if they arrive several hundred a minute from three directions, Iran, Lebanon, Syria and possibly from Iranian submarines. Secondly, the collapse of its oil imports will devastate Israel’s highly energy dependent economy. Thirdly, Israel’s principle allies, especially the US and the EU, will be severely strained as they are dragged into Israel’s war and find themselves defending the straits of Hormuz, their army garrisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their oil fields and military bases in the Gulf. Such a conflict could ignite the Shia majorities in Bahrain and in the strategic oil-rich provinces of Saudi Arabia. The generalized war will have a devastating effect on the price of oil and the world economy. It will provoke the fury of consumers and workers rage everywhere as factories close and powerful shocks throughout the fragile financial system result in a world depression.
Israel’s pathological ‘superiority complex’ results in its racist leaders consistently overestimating their own intellectual, technical and military capabilities, while underestimating the knowledge, capacity and courage of their regional, Islamic (in this case Iranian) adversaries. They ignore Iran’s proven capacity to sustain a prolonged, complex multi-front defensive war and to recover from an initial assault and develop appropriate modern weaponry to inflict severe damage on its attackers. And Iran will have the unconditional and active support of the world’s Muslim population, and perhaps the diplomatic backing of Russia and China, who will obviously view an attack on Iran as another dress rehearsal to contain their growing power.
Conclusion
War, especially an Israeli-US war against Iran is indissolubly linked to the asymmetrical US-Israeli relationship, which sidelines and censors any critical US military and political analysis. Because Israel’s Zionist power configuration in the US can now harness US military power in support of Israel’s drive for regional dominance, Israeli leaders and most of their military feel free to engage in the most outrageous military and destructive adventures, knowing full well that in the first and last instance they can rely on the US to support them with American blood and treasure. But after all of this grotesque servitude to a racist, isolated country, who will rescue the United States? Who will prevent the sinking of its ships in the Gulf and the death and maiming of hundreds of its sailors and thousands of its soldiers? And where will the Israelis and US Zionists be when Iraq is overrun by elite Iranian troops and their Iraqi Shia allies and a generalized uprising occurs in Afghanistan?
The self-centered Israeli policy-makers overlook the likely collapse of the world oil supply as a result of their planned war against Iran. Do their Zionist agents in the US realize that as a result of dragging the US into Israel’s war, that the Iranian nation will be forced to set the Persian Gulf oilfields ablaze?
How cheap has it become to ‘buy a war’ in the US? For a mere few million dollars in campaign contributions to corrupt politicians, and through the deliberate penetration of Israel-First agents, academics and politicians into the war-making machinery of the US government, and through the moral cowardice and self-censorship of leading critics, writers and journalists who refuse to name Israel and its agents as the key decision makers in our country’s Mid East policy, we head directly toward a war far beyond any regional military conflagration and toward the collapse of the world economy and the brutal impoverishment of hundreds of millions of people North and South, East and West.
Related articles
- UK bows to Tel Aviv after warning it against attack on Iran (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- The Real Nuclear Outlaws (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Israel snubs warnings against Iran attack (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Israeli Experts Mum on Iran Attack to Support Bibi’s Bluff (middleeastatemporal.wordpress.com)
Iranian Diplomat Says IAEA Undermined Recent Talks to Satisfy Israel and West
TheRealNews | April 3, 2012
Gareth Porter: IAEA demanded to see Parchin on recent visit ahead of schedule to make Iran look uncooperative
Related articles
Featured Video
Seyed M. Marandi: Iran Ready With Overwhelming Retaliation
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Raffi Berg: BBC Middle East Editor Exposed as CIA, Mossad Collaborator
By Alan Macleod | MintPress News | January 3, 2025
A senior BBC editor at the center of an ongoing scandal into the network’s systematic pro-Israel bias is, in fact, a former member of a CIA propaganda outfit, MintPress News can reveal. Raffi Berg, an Englishman who heads the BBC’s Middle East desk, formerly worked for the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service, a unit that, by his own admission, was a CIA front group.
Berg is currently the subject of considerable scrutiny after thirteen BBC employees spoke out, claiming, among other things, that his “entire job is to water down everything that’s too critical of Israel” and that he holds “wild” amounts of power at the British state broadcaster, that there exists a culture of “extreme fear” at the BBC about publishing anything critical of Israel, and that Berg himself plays a key role in turning its coverage into “systematic Israeli propaganda.” … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Is Trump poised to restart the Iran war?
- UAE fuelling African conflicts while evading accountability, SWP finds
- Saudi Arabia is pulling Europe toward a “Gulf Helsinki” deal with Iran — because Washington failed
- The Biggest Breast Cancer Advance in the Last Twenty Years
- Raffi Berg: BBC Middle East Editor Exposed as CIA, Mossad Collaborator
- Seyed M. Marandi: Iran Ready With Overwhelming Retaliation
- EBM: Evidence-Biased Medicine
- US tech firm Cisco has deep ties with Israeli military, leaked documents show
- Palestinian families forced to demolish homes for Israeli theme park
- Al-Qassam leader Ezzeddin al-Haddad martyred in Israeli attack on Gaza
- If Americans Knew
- Settler attacks in West Bank hit a new low – Daily Update
- Medicine shortages amid siege leave people in peril
- Gaza’s students face a near impossible test to study abroad
- Israel kills a Hamas leader, plus 3 women, 1 child, and others (during “ceasefire”) – Daily Update
- We Can’t Curb Nuclear Proliferation If We Don’t Acknowledge Israel’s Nukes
- 43,000 people in Gaza suffered life-changing injuries since October 2023: WHO
- Israel’s 7 October narrative under fresh scrutiny after army accused of deleting footage
- Ex-CENTCOM chief headlines lavish Israeli-American Council gala
- Israel’s 7 October rape hoax gets a 300-page reboot
- Chants of ‘death to Arabs,’ calls for destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque in racist Jerusalem Day march
- No Tricks Zone
- Even The DNA Of Single-Celled Plankton Can Upend Alarmist Arctic Sea Ice Melt Claims
- Scandal: Although Climate Panic Is Canceled By IPCC, Europe’s Policymakers Continue With Their Crushing Policies
- How Once Hardcore Climate Alarmist Lucy Biggers Realized It Was All A Scam, Brainwashing
- 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
Aletho News 