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US Senator dismisses Israeli military probe on Abu Akleh’s murder

Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh
Press TV – September 7, 2022

A US Senator has dismissed an Israeli military investigation that claims there is a “high possibility” that veteran Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was “accidentally hit” by an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank four months ago.

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen for Maryland posted a tweet on Wednesday, saying the existing evidence did not support the claim that a soldier accidentally killed Abu Akleh in the midst of a gun battle in Jenin.

Van Hollen said the United Nations and reconstructions by major news outlets had found the female journalist was not in the immediate vicinity of fighting with the Palestinian resistance fighters and could not have been caught in the crossfire.

“The crux of the ‘defense’ in this military report is that a soldier was ‘returning fire’ from armed Palestinians” when Abu Akleh was struck, Van Hollen said. “But investigations … found no such firing at the time. This underscores need for independent US inquiry into this American journalist’s death.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists has labeled the Israeli report “late and incomplete.”

“They provided no name for Shireen Abu [Akleh’s] killer and no other information than his or her own testimony that the killing was a mistake.”

Palestinian officials, rights advocates, and family of the slain journalist have already denounced the findings of the Israeli inquiry.

The journalist’s niece, Lina Abu Akleh, said the family had no confidence in the report. “We could never expect any type of accountability or legitimate investigation from the very entity responsible for gunning down an unarmed and clearly identifiable journalist.”

The family said an independent American investigation was “the bare minimum the US government should do for one of their own citizens.” The family also said Abu Akleh’s killing was a “war crime.”

On Monday, the Israeli military admitted that the journalist was “accidentally” killed by the regime’s gunfire on May 11, saying, however, that it will open no criminal investigation into the assassination.

The acknowledgement came after a final Israeli investigation concluded there was a “high possibility” the journalist had been shot dead by an Israeli soldier who mistook her for an armed Palestinian.

The report claimed she could have been shot by Palestinian gunfire even though all independent investigations on the shooting have totally dispelled the allegation.

Wearing press attire, the 51-year-old journalist was murdered in cold blood while covering an Israeli military raid. Later, her funeral was also attacked by the regime forces.

Israel’s account shifted several times over the four months. However, eyewitness accounts and videos of Abu Akleh and the area around her at the time of her killing do not show a gun battle.

A United Nations investigation earlier found Israeli soldiers fired “several single, seemingly well-aimed bullets” at Abu Akleh and other journalists.

Investigations by the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN have questioned the official Israeli version of the episode.

Abu Akleh’s tragic death sent shock waves across the region, drawing global condemnation. Critics say the Israeli military has a long history of dissembling and making false claims over the killings of civilians.

September 7, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | 7 Comments

Presidential Record Racketeering

By Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute | August 30, 2022

Former President Donald Trump is supposedly one of the biggest scoundrels in American history for allegedly retaining documents from his presidency at his Mar-a-Lago home. Trump denies wrongdoing but the Justice Department is targeting him for violating the Espionage Act and other laws. DOJ is refusing to reveal the affidavit and the specific charges that the feds claimed justified a massive, heavily-armed raid on Trump’s Florida base.

Much of the media commentary on the raid castigates Trump for conspiring to block Americans’ access to official records. But the federal government has done thousands of times more damage on that score than Trump.

Trump is suspected of violating the Presidential Records Act, a law Congress enacted in 1978 after former President Richard Nixon claimed his secret Oval Office tapes and other records were his personal property. The law asserts, “The United States shall reserve and retain complete ownership, possession, and control of Presidential records…The Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records.”

“The Presidential Records Act is critical to our democracy, in which the government is held accountable by the people,” Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero declared earlier this year. But the statue is a pseudo-disclosure law that keeps far more secrets than it exposes.

All records from former presidents are kept secret for at least five years, and presidents can also slap a 12-year automatic delay on other records. After that deadline, people can file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to see specific records. But as Politico reported in March, “At many presidential libraries, the queues for processing FOIAs stretch for years,” and requests “involving classified information can take more than a decade.”

The disclosure of Barack Obama’s records could be delayed practically indefinitely because his lawyers concocted a new legal doctrine, “White House equities,” to justify vetoing FOIA requests that could tarnish the image of the Obama presidency. At the end of the Obama administration, a congressional committee report aptly titled “FOIA is Broken” noted that journalists had completely abandoned “the FOIA request as a tool because delays and redactions made the request process wholly useless for reporting.”

Federal disclosure logjams are increasingly the topic of ridicule on social media. When Pfizer submitted an application to the Food and Drug Administration for a new COVID vaccine in 2020, the FDA approved it in 108 days. But when a group of scientists and professors filed a FOIA to see the application and the data on injury from the vaccine, FDA told them it would take 75 years to fully release the data. A federal judge smashed FDA and is requiring them to complete disclosure a hundred times faster than they planned—releasing 55,000 pages a month instead of 500 pages. But unless people can afford to pay massive legal fees to fight the feds in court, FOIA is mostly a mirage.

As soon as presidents leave office they can collect king’s ransom advances for writing a memoir. Former president Bill Clinton received a $15 million advance for his memoir; George W. Bush received a $10 million advance; and Barack Obama and his wife Michelle received $60 million for a two-book memoir deal. Presidents can practically use any information they please—including info that no one else can use—to write their memoirs with expedited clearance of classified information.

The rigging of presidential records enables politicians to profit massively from lying about their time in office. When George W. Bush was president, he vehemently denied that he ever authorized torture, which is considered a war crime under U.S. and international law. But in his 2010 memoir Decision Points, Bush bragged about ordering torture. Bush wrote that when he was requested to approve the CIA’s waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he responded, “Damn right.” Six months before his memoir was released, in a speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he told the audience, “Yeah, we water-boarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. I’d do it again to save lives.” But there is no evidence that torture saved any Americans’ lives. Actually, torture helped send 4000+ Americans to their death in Iraq, since the Bush administration relied on false confessions gained via torture to justify toppling Saddam Hussein. The United States had classified waterboarding as torture since the Spanish-American War, and the U.S. government had classified waterboarding as a war crime since 1947.

If all of the Bush administration’s records were made public, Bush and plenty of his subordinates might be indicted for war crimes. But Bush doesn’t need to worry because the U.S. government blindfolds Americans from learning of their rulers’ crimes.

Sham transparency is “close enough for government work.” At the end of the Obama administration, 30 million pages of his records were trucked to a warehouse near Chicago. The Obama Foundation promised to pay to have those records scanned and made accessible online but that never happened. The Obama Foundation says that 95% of the non-classified Obama records now held by the Archives are already digitized. The Archives could push a few buttons and make them accessible, but that would put a lot of bureaucrats and lawyers out of work. Instead, each document needs to be “reviewed” by bureaucrats before release—assuring that the vast majority will not see the light of day until long after Obama collects tens of millions of dollars in additional speaking fees.

In a 2017 Politico article headlined, “Presidential Libraries are a Scam,” author and former congressional staffer Anthony Clark observed, “Presidential libraries are perfect examples of just how far presidents will go to control their own legacies. Since the first one was created in 1941, what were intended to be serious research centers have grown into flashy, partisan temples touting huckster history.” Unfortunately, most politicians prefer “huckster history” to the real thing. Clark notes that the National Archives and Records Administration “has increasingly become reliant, for ongoing financial support and political cover, on the private foundations presidents create to build the libraries. Which means that [the Archives] cozies up to these organizations, working side by side to help fulfill the foundations’ legacy-polishing ambitions.” The result is the Archives putting its stamp of approval on policies and exhibits that are as deceptive as the typical White House press conference.

If honesty is the goal, then separating state and history is necessary. Presidential records should be automatically and speedily accessible to Americans on the day a former president signs a lucrative contract to write his memoirs. Former presidents should be stripped of any prerogative to limit or delay the disclosure of 99.99%+ of the non-classified records from their administration.

It remains unclear what, if any, legal violations that Trump may have committed with the records seized by the FBI. But there is enough on the table to know that the Presidential Records Act is an ongoing crime against self-government. Federal judge Amy Berman Jackson declared in 2019, “If people don’t have the facts, democracy doesn’t work.” But our current system of government is designed to blindfold Americans on the vast majority of federal crimes. If democracy depends on transparency, and government transparency is an illusion, then what is U.S. democracy?

Jim Bovard is the author of Public Policy Hooligan (2012), Attention Deficit Democracy (2006), Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (1994), and 7 other books. 

August 31, 2022 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

DC Mayor: No vaccine passport, no education – even for virtual learners

By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | August 26, 2022

The District of Columbia mayor Muriel Bowser said kids who do not have a vaccine passport within the first 20 days when schools resume next week Monday will not be allowed to get educated, even for those doing virtual learning from home.

A press release on the District of Columbia Public School’s website states: “The Coronavirus Immunization of School Students and Early Childhood Workers Amendment Act of 2021, which the Council passed in 2021, requires students ages 12 and older to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to attend school.”

The vaccine mandate applies to staff and also private schools.

Asked by The Daily Signal what the plan was for unvaccinated students, Bowser said: “They can go to school on Monday. But they need to get their vaccinations… and their families will be alerted as to the dates.”

The Office of The State Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia recently announced that “all students must have up-to-date immunization certification on file with the school within the first 20 school days or they will not be allowed to attend school or school activities until the immunization certification is secured by the school.”

“If the student does not come into compliance within a 20-school day period, the school must remove the student from school until the immunization certification is secured by the school,” the office added.

The vaccine mandate will likely affect the education of black students as 47% of black children aged 12-15 in DC have not received the primary vaccination needed to attend school, according to government data. And 42% of black kids aged 16 and 17 are not vaccinated.

August 26, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , | 3 Comments

Inhumane acts committed by Azov terrorists will be made public in International Tribunal

Samizdat – 25.08.2022

Washington is afraid that crimes committed by Ukraine’s Azov neo-nazi regiment will come to light during the international tribunal for war criminals in Mariupol, the Russian Embassy to the US said.

The Russian embassy noted that the upcoming tribunal against Ukrainian war criminals, which is being prepared by the DPR authorities, will hold Ukrainian Neo-Nazis accountable.

“We have taken note of another groundless accusation against our country related to the Tribunal over Ukrainian war criminals. The upcoming Trial is aimed at bringing justice to war criminals, among which there are Nazis from the Azov Regiment. Washington is clearly afraid of making public the evidence of the inhumane acts committed by the members of this terrorist organization,” a statement read.

“The International Tribunal in Mariupol can shed light on the true essence of the Kiev regime, of which the United States diligently creates a bright and heroic image. American citizens will finally learn that in reality, their government is helping those who purposefully kill and torture the Russian people of Donbass and Ukraine,” it said.

The embassy said Russia fully complies with the Geneva Conventions and guarantees Ukrainian captives proper conditions of detention.

Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) leader Denis Pushilin earlier said that the suspected war criminals captued by the Donbass militias would face an international tribunal, which is to be held in Mariupol. He noted that the DPR authorities would not delay the trial, adding that the Foreign Ministry is working to invite the international community to take part in the tribunal.

Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) leader Denis Pushilin earlier said that the suspected war criminals captured by the Donbass militias would face an international tribunal, which is to be held in Mariupol. The politician stated that among suspects are neo-Nazis and some troops who committed atrocities in Donbass over the past 8 years.

He noted that the DPR authorities would not delay the trial, adding that the Foreign Ministry is working to invite the international community to take part in the tribunal.

August 25, 2022 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

France launches climate change police force

By Keean Bexte | The Counter Signal | August 23, 2022

Much like Canada, France has begun recruitment efforts to launch a new climate change police force to enforce strict climate laws.

As reported by Breitbart, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin is hiring 3,000 “green police” officers to go after those who violate “green-related criminal issues” to safeguard the country from disasters supposedly caused by human-related climate change.

In an interview with Le Journal du Dimanche, “Faced with this, we must improve the work of judicial investigation,” Darmanin said. “We have therefore decided to massively reinforce the resources of the Central Office for the Fight against Damage to the Environment and to launch 3,000 ‘green police’ posts.”

He continued, saying that the climate change police force “will be a revolution.”

The announcement comes after the EU crisis management tsar Janez Lenarcic called for the rapid creation of a Europe-wide “Civil Protection Force” to enforce climate laws across the EU.

What such a force would mean for the sovereignty of member states hardly needs to be mentioned, and the call for an international police force was heavily criticized.

“Handing these irresponsible and unaccountable bureaucrats even more power would just simply be irresponsible,” said MEP Cristian Terhes.

“What Europe needs is a rebirth of national and sovereign democracy, with creativity and power for local people rather than one size fits all bureaucratic control from the centre of Brussels.”

Of course, Europe isn’t the only place planning to create a police force that specifically handles offences related to climate change. Canada is getting in on the action, too.

As reported by The Counter Signal, it appears that the Ministry of Environment & Climate Change Canada (ECCC) is currently working on a building to house such officers.

And if that wasn’t enough evidence, ECCC has posted an ad on Indeed.com for an “Enforcement Officer – Environmental (pollution) enforcement.”

According to the ad, “Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Enforcement Branch ensures that organizations and individuals respect laws administered by Environment and Climate Change Canada that protect the natural environment, its biodiversity and the health of Canadians.”

Duties include “conducting inspections to ensure compliance with federal environmental laws,” as well as “conducting investigations into alleged violations of federal environmental laws, including taking statements from witnesses or accused persons, preparing and executing search warrants, reviewing and assessing evidence, and preparing court briefs.”

Officers will further be required to wear uniforms and carry safety equipment, including body armour, handcuffs, batons, and even prohibited weapons.

France’s climate change officers will likely be similarly equipped.

August 23, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Israeli Soldiers Kill Two Palestinians, Injure Nineteen, In Nablus

IMEMC | JULY 24, 2022

Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians and injured nineteen, including one who suffered a serious gunshot wound to the head, in the Old City of Nablus, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank on Sunday at dawn.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has confirmed that the soldiers killed Abboud Sobeh, 29, and Mohammad al-Azizi, 22, in the al-Yasmina neighborhood in Nablus’s Old City.

The PRCS added that the soldiers shot nineteen other Palestinians, including ten who were shot with live fire, among them one who was shot in the head and is in critical condition.

The incidents took place after undercover Israeli soldiers infiltrated Nablus before many armored military vehicles invaded it from several directions, resulting in exchanges of fire between the invading soldiers and Palestinian resistance fighters.

The soldiers surrounded a home where several Palestinian resistance fighters were located and exchanged fire with them for several hours before the army fired a few missiles at the property, killing the two young men, while the five others managed to escape unharmed.

The missiles caused excessive damage to the home and several surrounding homes, buildings, and mangled cars parked on the sides of the street.

The soldiers withdrew from Nablus a few hours after killing the two Palestinians and wounding twelve, leaving massive destruction to homes and buildings.

Nablus Abu Rudeina, the spokesperson of the Palestinian President, denounced the invasion, the killing of the two Palestinians, and the injuring of the twelve and said that Israel is only interested in escalation and more violence.

July 24, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | 2 Comments

Ukraine frees warlord sentenced for torture

Samizdat | July 12, 2022

Ruslan Onishchenko, former commander of the notorious Ukrainian Tornado battalion, whose fighters were convicted of torturing people in Donbass, has reportedly been released from jail and may join the fight against Russia.

Ukraine began selectively releasing inmates who want to serve on the frontline shortly after Moscow attacked the neighboring state in late February.

The now-disbanded Tornado unit was formed in 2014 to fight for Kiev during the conflict in Donbass. Despite the unit’s designation as a volunteer police battalion, former felons were allowed to become members. Onishchenko had three prior convictions before joining the unit.

In 2017, a Kiev court sentenced Onishchenko to 11 years in prison for kidnapping and torture. Several of his fellow fighters also received jail sentences for kidnapping, torture, rape, and looting.

On Monday, Roksolana Khmara, the wife of former MP Stepan Khmara, wrote on Facebook that Onishchenko was released under the guarantees of her and her husband.

Khmara posted a photo of Onishchenko in a Kiev courtroom, while claiming his sentence had been politically motivated.

Newspaper ‘KP v Ukraine’ said that Onishchenko had asked to be allowed to join the fight against Russia.

According to the paper, Onishchenko’s original sentence had been commuted in accordance with a 2015 law that says one day spent in pre-trial detention counts as two days in jail. However, the former commander remained behind bars while awaiting trial for a 2018 prison riot.

“Nearly all of the battalion’s members are now back on the frontline, fighting in various units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” Viktor Pandzhakidze, the ex-spokesman for Tornado, told the paper.

July 12, 2022 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Biden regime lets Israel off the hook in the case of Palestinian-American journalist’s death

By Robert Inlakesh | Samizdat | July 10, 2022

The US State Department’s press release on Washington’s investigation into the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh has sparked outrage and triggered accusations of a whitewash.

Almost two months after the murder of the veteran Al-Jazeera reporter, Washington announced that an investigation by the US Security Coordinator (USSC) had concluded that Israeli gunfire was “likely responsible.” However, the statement asserted that the evidence was inconclusive and it could not say that Israeli forces were to blame, contradicting various other reports which had concluded the opposite. The US government also claimed that there is “no reason to believe” that the killing was intentional and instead was likely “the result of tragic circumstances,” to which Israel’s top human rights group B’Tselem responded by calling the investigation a “whitewash.”

“We are incredulous,” the family of Abu Akleh said in a statement of their own, in which they decried the State Department’s press release. What is perhaps most concerning about the State Department’s statement is its contradictory nature; it calls for accountability on the one hand, whilst simultaneously disagreeing with other reports that indicate Israeli guilt and making a poorly-substantiated assessment of intent. If the US government’s investigation cannot conclude Tel Aviv’s guilt or prove an Israeli soldier fired the shot, then how can it conclude that the “likely” culprit did not intend to kill Abu Akleh?

According to a CNN investigative report, Abu Akleh was killed in a “targeted attack by Israeli forces,” implying that the evidence suggested the killing was indeed intentional. The claim made by the Israeli government, that a firefight had occurred in the minutes leading up to the murder, was seemingly debunked by the Washington Post’s own investigation into the incident. This is important because the Israeli military’s argument as to why they say the shooting was unintentional is based upon their claim that Israeli soldiers were likely trying to fire at Palestinian militants. Furthermore, according to the Washington Post, “Abu Akleh and other journalists identified as press would likely have been visible from the IDF convoy’s position.”

The New York Times also conducted its own investigation, in which it “showed that there were no armed Palestinians near her when she was shot” and debunked the Israeli government’s claims as to how many bullets were fired in the journalist’s direction. The New York Times also stated that “the bullet that killed Ms. Abu Akleh was fired from the approximate location of the Israeli military convoy, most likely by a soldier from an elite unit.” The United Nations’ probe likewise came to conclusions “consistent with many findings out there that the shots that killed her came from Israeli Security Forces.”

The other troubling element surrounding the US investigation has been the White House’s flip-flopping on its approach to achieving justice. When news first broke of Abu Akleh’s death on May 11, State Department spokesperson Ned Price stated that “the Israelis have the wherewithal and the capabilities to conduct a thorough, comprehensive investigation,” and seemed to indicate that a US inquiry would not be necessary. Later, however, it was reported that Israel would not conduct an investigation into the killing, and then a statement from an IDF military lawyer suggested that if an Israeli soldier were to be found responsible for firing the fatal shot, they would not be guilty of any criminal misconduct “absent further evidence.”

The above information also has to be paired with the fact that Israel’s Foreign Ministry and various political figures distributed a video of Palestinian gunmen, following the killing, claiming that Palestinians had been responsible for the crime. The video that was being shared around was quickly debunked by B’Tselem, which proved through an on-the-ground investigation that the Palestinian gunmen shown in the video could not have possibly fired the kill shot. Then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett claimed that it was likely Palestinians who were responsible, later altering his rhetoric when it became more difficult for him to defend the claim.

To rub salt into the wound, after Israeli forces had harassed the family of Abu Akleh, police violently assaulted the pallbearers at the slain journalist’s funeral in Jerusalem. Making things even worse, it appeared that the Israeli police doctored footage from the scene of their attack, to make it appear as if Palestinians had thrown objects at the police, prior to the assaults on mourners.

The USSC has not provided any clarity on how it was able to draw the conclusions it did. Investigations from the UN, various human rights groups, CNN, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and others, all point to Israeli guilt, but none were able to determine the exact intention of the Israeli soldier who fired the bullet. The US assertion that there is no evidence to suggest the attack was intentional contradicts multiple eyewitnesses who say it was. If the US investigation relied on claims that Israeli soldiers were engaged in firefights with Palestinian militants (likewise contradicted by the investigations mentioned above), then their conclusion is questionable. Above all, the USSC’s judgment of intent has now given Israel a convenient excuse to sweep the killing of an American citizen under the rug. Some may call it a whitewash, but what it really looks like is the US siding with Israel once again over the lives of its own people.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.

July 10, 2022 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , | 5 Comments

Family of Shireen Abu Akleh asks to meet with Biden

Raşid Necati Aslım/Anadolu Agency
MEMO | July 9, 2022

The family of slain Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh has accused the United States of providing impunity for Israel over her killing and asked to meet President Joe Biden in person during his trip to Israel next week, reports Reuters.

In a letter to Biden posted on Twitter on Friday, the family said the administration simply adopted the Israeli government’s conclusions over her death, which it described as extrajudicial killing while falling short of its own stated goal of ensuring full accountability.

“Your administration’s engagement has served to whitewash Shireen’s killing and perpetuate impunity,” said the letter, signed by her brother Anton Abu Akleh on the family’s behalf.

“It is as if you expect the world and us to now just move on. Silence would have been better.” The family asked to see all the information the administration has collected on the issue.

Abu Akleh was killed on May 11 during an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin under bitterly disputed circumstances.

Last month the United Nations human rights office said evidence suggested Israeli military fire had killed Abu Akleh while she stood with other reporters and was identifiable as a journalist.

The State Department on Monday said she was likely killed by gunfire from Israeli positions but it was probably unintentional and independent investigators could not reach a definitive conclusion about the origin of the bullet that struck her.

Palestinian officials criticized the report and maintained she had been deliberately targeted by an Israeli soldier. Israel denied this.

In his first Middle East trip as president on July 13-16, Biden is expected to meet separately with Palestinian and Israeli leaders. The Abu Akleh case will be a diplomatic and domestic test for new Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid.

A group of 24 US senators in Biden’s Democratic Party last month urged him to ensure direct U.S. involvement in the investigation of Abu Akleh’s killing.

July 9, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | 5 Comments

Dutch officer present at shooting incident goes into hiding

TCS Wire | July 7, 2022

A Dutch police officer present at the shooting incident on Tuesday (likely the one who shot at Jouke Hospes) has reportedly gone into hiding.

According to Leeuwarder Courant, at least one officer has been rehoused because the “atmosphere around him became too grim.”

“The man lives in a village in the municipality of Opsterland. He left the village under guard on Wednesday evening. His house will be secured on Thursday,” reports Leeuwarder Courant.

The incident occurred late Tuesday night, just before midnight, wherein fired two rounds at an unarmed teenager in his tractor who was leaving the scene of a protest.

Jouke Hospes, the 16-year-old that was shot at by Dutch police for participating in a distribution centre blockade, says that he is currently under investigation for attempted manslaughter.

In a message obtained by The Counter Signal, Hospes says that he was shocked to see video of the incident that led to his arrest after being released from prison.

“I still can’t figure out why the police fired. The images [and video] show very well that I’m not doing anything wrong… I’m lucky that I survived.”

He continues, saying that he is now under an active investigation for attempted manslaughter.

“I have been released for the attempted manslaughter and am still a suspect tonight in my own bed,” Hospes says. [translated from Dutch]

Police are claiming that the teen attempted to ram into police and vehicles and [that they] had fired warning shots before firing two “targeted shots.”

“At about 10:40 pm, tractor drivers attempted to drive into officers and service vehicles. This happened at the entrance Mercurius/A32 in Heerenveen. A threatening situation arose. Warning shots were fired, and targeted shots were fired,” Politie Fryslân tweeted following the incident. [translated from Dutch]

“A tractor was hit. A tractor drove away from the incident and was stopped shortly afterwards on Jousterweg. Three suspects have been arrested. No one was injured.”

However, while police claim that Hospes attempted to ram into them before they fired two shots at him, video taken by onlookers tells an entirely different story.

Video shows that Hospes was driving very slowly in his tractor, was as far away from the officers as he could be without going off the road, and was clearly attempting to leave the scene without incident.

Hospes describes the moments leading up to his arrest, saying when farmers heard that a mobile police unit was going to do a sweep of the distribution centre blockade, they collectively decided it was time to break it up and were already starting to leave when police arrived on the scene.

“Behind me, it was clear, so I decided to go around it. I calmly crossed the sidewalk and drove very calmly. I went to see if traffic was approaching and if I could cross the road. I was driving [slowly], and suddenly I heard a PANG in my right ear. I thought there soon would be a second one.”

“I didn’t have any damage, so I thought it was a rubber bullet… However, I stopped for a while at Oudehaske, and when I was walking around the tractor, I saw a hole in the iron. All kinds of thoughts went through my head.”

Images taken after the shooting show clear bullet holes, suggesting that officers were using live rounds against protesters.

Hospes was later arrested and subsequently freed the next day after Dutch protesters showed up in droves outside the prison holding him.

As previously reported by The Counter Signal, the police’s actions come after several municipalities declared emergency ordinance orders, bestowing upon police unprecedented powers to deal with protesters blockading food distribution centres.

Since the orders were declared, police have been seen wearing military-style equipment, have used tear gas against protesters, and have now shown that they’re willing to fire on anyone, even a teenage boy.

Moreover, several videos have been taken across the Netherlands of heavily armed police waving pistols around at traffic stops, signifying a dark turn in the protests.

July 7, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Subjugation - Torture | , | 1 Comment

Crime and Punishment

Government officials must be held accountable

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JULY 5, 2022

Quite likely a majority of Americans would agree that it is wrong for the government or police to torture someone, though some would surely accept the “ticking time bomb” exemption, where a detainee is withholding information that could save many lives. It is in fact illegal to torture someone as well as it being morally wrong. Indeed, it could constitute a crime against humanity or a war crime depending on circumstances. The United States, which has signed the United Nations Convention Against Torture and is bound by it, has thereby accepted legal sanctions to back up the view that torture is never permissible. Under US law, torture committed by “government officials and their collaborators upon a person restrained by the government is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison, and its fruits are inadmissible in all courts.” Given that background, one is astonished to learn that some in the government have not taken the obligation seriously. To be sure, the US has been quick to react when lower ranking officials, contractors and ordinary soldiers have reportedly been involved in torturing prisoners, as occurred with Abu Ghraib prior to 2004, but the higher one goes up the ladder of power the less do laws apply to even the most egregious misbehavior.

It has long been known that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in the wake of 9/11, resorted to torture in its overseas “black” prisons, but details of what took place and anything that would stand up in court as evidence has been difficult to discern as it has been easy for the Agency to shroud its more nefarious deeds through claims of protecting “states secrets.” But now some more details have emerged. The news that former Donald Trump appointed CIA Director Gina Haspel during her tour overseeing a prison in Thailand in 2002 personally observed at least one terrorist suspect being tortured by waterboarding, which simulates being drowned repeatedly until a confession is obtained. Waterboarding was used by the Japanese on prisoners of war in the Second World War and was subsequently considered to be torture, a war crime.

The new information came from one of the creators of the Agency’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” program, psychologist James E. Mitchell, who was testifying in a May pretrial hearing at Guantanamo Prison relating to the treatment of Saudi al-Qaeda linked terrorist suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who has been accused of being complicit in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 that killed 17 American sailors. Al-Nashiri, who was shipped to Gitmo in 2006 and who has been waiting sixteen years for his trial, could face the death penalty if he is convicted. His defense is seeking to demonstrate that the evidence against him was obtained by torture and should therefore be inadmissible.

Al-Nashiri was subjected to four months of waterboarding as well as to what have been described as “other coercive techniques” during his questioning in Thailand. According to testimony, the hooded interrogators repeatedly slammed al-Nashiri’s head into a wall and forced him naked into a small confinement box. When he briefly went on a hunger strike due to his treatment he was fed rectally. It is not known how frequently Gina Haspel, the senior officer in charge of the base, observed the torture, which she allegedly watched but did not participate in, but she drafted up the classified cables detailing what had occurred and what information had been developed. Oddly, al-Nashiri was freely answering the questions from the interrogators, who recommended that the extreme measures be stopped, but CIA Headquarters insisted that the torture continue in the belief that nothing is “true” until it is verified under torture. Rather than resigning to demonstrate her disagreement, Haspel allowed the process to continue, which is why in part some of her former Agency colleagues regularly refer to her as “Bloody Gina.”

Videotapes were made of the torture but they were subsequently destroyed. Haspel participated in the November 2005 destruction of hundreds of hours of recordings contained on 92 tapes showing at least two interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and al-Nashiri. She did so while serving as chief of staff to the Director of the National Collection Service Jose A. Rodriguez Jr. At her Senate confirmation hearing as Director in 2018, she said “I would also make clear that I did not appear on the tapes.” Rodriguez, who made the decision to destroy the tapes, also reportedly determined how to handle a suspected terrorist detainee Gul Rahman. Rahman was chained, nearly naked, to a concrete floor for an extended time and then froze to death. There was an internal CIA investigation but no officer on-site nor at the Agency headquarters was punished – let alone prosecuted. In fact, Rodriguez, who was in charge of the detention site, received a $2,500 bonus for his “consistently superior work.”

The Agency currently regards the existence of the black prisons and the procedures used to elicit information as a “state secret” even though the existence of the sites is widely known and has been reported on extensively. After serving as Director of Central Intelligence Haspel retired from CIA in January 2021. She currently works for a major Washington law firm King & Spalding L.L.P., a typical transition for senior officials who are able to exploit the revolving door between government and the private sector. She reportedly is part of the firm’s Government Matters practice where she “advise[s] clients on cybersecurity and information technology, among other issues.”

Every instance of torture by the federal government or its agents is by law a separate felony. Beyond that, what went on in the Agency’s black overseas prisons is shocking even in a Washington where no crime is too low to be contemplated by the governments we have unfortunately placed into power. Some might object that Gina’s actions amounted to oversight of a dreadful necessity, but there is something particularly loathsome about a powerful Administration intelligence officer finding time to watch the horrors performed on a suspect who undoubtedly was not afforded any due process before he arrived in his cell to be experimented on by a team of modern-day Torquemadas.

The unfortunate fact is the Gina Haspel is not alone. She committed what are undeniably felonies and now enjoys a well-paid sinecure with a law firm that deals extensively with the government. One might recall similar trajectories relating to the former CIA Director George Tenet who lied America into a war with Iraq that is regarded as the greatest foreign policy failure since the Second World War. He was rewarded with a professorship at Georgetown. And then there is his partner in crime Paul Wolfowitz, he of the fabricated intelligence, who was named head of the World Bank only to subsequently step down after an unacceptable sexual relationship with a subordinate whom he rewarded with promotions was exposed. He is now a Senior Fellow at the neocon affiliated American Enterprise Institute think tank. George and Paul just might consider how the Nuremberg Trials regarded starting a war of aggression as “the ultimate war crime.” And they might suggest a bit of retrospection from their friends George Bush, Doug Feith, Scooter Libby, and Condi Rice, all of whom have been complicit in the same infamy. And then there is Donald Trump’s assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani based on a lie that he was seeking to kill Americans. They are all doing quite well, thank you, either still active or ensconced in highly respected retirement positions, shielded by their wealth and power.

As long as there is no accountability in Washington the farce of government “of the people, and for the people” will continue. That a government can use the “secrets privilege” to conceal and avoid any consequences when killing people without any due process is despicable. If you use government resources to murder someone, you should be tried and go to prison. If you start a war through deliberate lying, you should stay in prison forever. Those who make the decisions to commit crimes are wired into the system and are in a sense bullet-proof, while the public has been completely brainwashed and the beat goes on. Another recent story tells how the CIA was apparently planning to kill currently imprisoned journalist Julian Assange in London. It reportedly included scenarios for a possible shoot-out in the heart of the city, the ramming of Russian diplomatic vehicles and the disabling of any airplane that might be involved in an escape attempt. Who came up with that one? It dates back to 2010, when the noted constitutional lawyer Barack Obama was president. Didn’t he or his advisers know that murder is against the law?

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

July 5, 2022 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | 3 Comments

Russia says Ukraine ‘tortured’ captured soldiers

Press TV – July 5, 2022

Russia says its soldiers recently released as part of a prisoner swap with Ukraine were “beaten” and “tortured with electricity in captivity.”

The Russian Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said in a statement on Tuesday that it was “verifying facts of inhuman treatment of Russia soldier prisoners in Ukraine.”

Moscow and Kiev exchanged 144 prisoners of war each last week.

The investigative committee said the freed Russian soldiers had told investigators about “the violence they had suffered.”

One of the soldiers, according to the Russian statement, said Ukrainian medics had treated him without applying anesthetics and that he was “beaten, tortured with electricity in captivity.” He said he was left without food and water for days.

Another Russian soldier said he was badly beaten and had his wound irritated by Ukrainian medics.

The Russian committee said the testimonies of the freed soldiers were examples of “violations of the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war.”

July 5, 2022 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

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