Trump pulled the trigger, but instead of a “bang!” what the world heard was a demure “click”. Considering that we are talking about playing a most dangerous game of potentially nuclear Russian AngloZionist roulette, the “click” is very good news indeed. But, to use the words of Nikki Haley, the US “gun” is still “locked and loaded”.
There are a number of versions out there about what really happened, but I think that the most likely explanation for that “click” is a combination of two events:
The US did go out of its way to avoid even giving the appearance of attacking the Russian or Iranian forces in Syria. With these kinds of rules of engagement, the target list and flight trajectory of the US missiles was easy to predict for the Syrian air defenses.
The Syrian air defenses, now integrated with the Russian C4ISR networks and probably upgraded, performed way better than most people had expected.
I honestly don’t know who in the US should get the credit for doing the right thing, but that person(s) deserves our collective gratitude. Rumors say that Mattis was the man, others point to Dunford and some even to Trump himself (I doubt that). Again, I don’t know who did it, but this action deserves a standing ovation. The fact that this (predictably) dismal performance was then covered up with silly statements about a “perfect strike” and “all missiles hit their target” is standard operating procedure, a basic exercise in face-saving and an attempt to appease the always bloodthirsty Neocons. The most important lesson from this latest development is that there are still some people in key positions in the US who did what had to be done to avoid a catastrophic escalation in Syria. The question now is how long can these “sane forces” (for lack of a better identifier) continue to resist the “crazies”?
Needless to say, the Israel Lobby and the Neocons are absolutely furious. And just to add insult to injury, the Russians are now saying that they will provide the Syrians with S-300 batteries (which would be able to track and engage Israeli aircraft practically from their take-off). I would argue that the Israelis did that one to themselves with their own missile strikes at the worst possible time, but the fact this is self-inflicted does not make it less painful for the Israelis.
But the biggest problem is that this outcome, while very positive by itself, really solves nothing. The key unresolved issues are
Does anybody, especially the UNSC or/and Russia get to “veto” the AngloZionist Hegemony’s actions anywhere on the planet? The official US position is a categorical “no!”. The outcome in Syria, however, does strongly suggest a “yes”.
Is the US willing to come to terms with the fact that the Hegemony has failed to overthrow the Syrian government and that the Syrians have won the war? The official US position on this has flip-flopped a number of times, but I would argue that the “no” camp is much stronger than the “yes” camp. The current US posture in Syria strongly suggests that the USA is not quite ready yet to “declare victory and leave”.
Have the Skripal and Douma false flag chemical (pseudo-) attacks been sufficient to re-subordinate the post-Brexit EU to the Anglosphere and have the AngloZionists been successful in forging a united front for a “Crusade against Russia”? The majority of EU governments have been willing to endorse any nonsense or violation of international law under the pretext of “solidarity”, but there are still quite a few cracks in this apparent unity.
At this moment the situation is extremely fluid and there are too many potential variables which can determine the next developments in order to make a prediction better than a wild guess. The only thing which is certain that this confrontation between the AngloZionist Hegemony and Russia is far from over, both in Syria and elsewhere (the Ukraine).
Fundamentally, our entire planet has to make a choice between two mutually exclusive world orders.
AngloZionist Hegemony
Multipolar world
Civilizational model
Single “western”
Diverse
Economic model
Capitalism
Diverse
Political model
Plutocracy
Diverse
International Relations
Regulated by the Hegemon
Regulated by International Law
National sovereignty
Fictional
Real
Social and Cultural model
Postmodernist secularism
Traditional and local
Right now the “collective West” is engaged in a truly titanic effort to preserve the Hegemony, but the writing is very much on the wall, hence the kind of silly histrionics we now see from the likes of Trump, May and Macron. In this context, the war in Syria is primarily a war over the right of the USA to do whatever the hell it wants irrespective of international law, facts, logic or even common sense. Nikki Haley’s message to the world has been beautifully simple, consistent and blunt: “we are the Hegemon, we are above everything and everybody, above you and above any of your laws or principles. We are even above facts or logic. Bow down and worship us or else!“.
The problem for the AngloZionists is that while most western leaders have agreed to these terms (this is what “solidarity” means nowadays), the rest of the planet is quietly but actively seeking ways to explore other options and even some relatively weak and/or small countries (Bolivia for example) are still willing to openly reject this AngloZionist diktat. As for Russia and China, they are already de-facto creating a new, alternative, multi-polar world order where the Anglosphere will be limited to be only “one amongst many” and not the kind of planetary master-race its leaders fancy themselves to be.
It is interesting that the main tactic chosen by the “collective West” to respond to these challenges has been to basically go into deep denial and worry about perceptions much more than about facts on the ground. Hence the “perfect strike”. Karl Rove put it best when he said “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do”.
In the 1990s there used to be a popular, but unattributed, quote which said “you have not won until CNN says that you won”. Today, we are witnessing something similar, just reversed: you have not lost until CNN says that you lost. I felt an eerie sense of déjà vu when Trump tweeted “mission accomplished” repeating the exact same words Dubya spoke on his aircraft carrier just before all hell truly broke loose in Iraq (I can imagine how the folks at CENTCOM, who are reportedly really upset, must have cringed when they heard this!). I hope that Marx was right when he said that “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce”. The long-suffering Middle-East has surely gone through enough tragedies, but I am afraid that what we have just witnessed with the latest US strike in Syria was the farce, and that a very real tragedy still might be in the making.
The Neocons can roughly be separated into two types: first, those stupid enough to believe that the latest strikes were, indeed, a magnificent success, and those who are just smart enough to realize that it was a pathetic flop. The first type will be emboldened by the sense of total impunity (and the US did, in fact, get away with this grievous violation of all the norms of civilized behavior and international law) while the second type will continue to demand a much stronger attack. Combine the two and you have a perfect recipe for a very dangerous situation.
And now here is the really bad news: the US ground forces (Army) are pretty much useless, while the US Navy and Air Force are in big, big trouble: the USN surface fleet is now quasi obsolete due to the Russian Kinzhal missile, while the USAF doesn’t seem to be able to operate in an environment with modern Russian surface to air missiles. None of them appear to be able to get anything done other than wasting an immense amount of money and killing a lot of people, mostly civilians. Just like their Israeli and Saudi allies, the US armed forces are just not capable of taking on any meaningful enemy capable of defending itself. There is only one segment of the US armed forces which is still fully capable of accomplishing its mission: the US nuclear triad. Hence all the attempts by US force planners and strategists to find a doctrine not only for the use of nuclear forces as a deterrent, but to re-conceptualize them as a war-fighting capability (missile defense, micro-nukes, etc.). Think of it this way: the only credible (real world) means of aggression left to the Empire are nuclear weapons. Many (most?) people don’t realize that (yet), but with each failed conventional attack this reality will become harder and harder to hide.
Will the people who this time around succeeded in foiling the Neocon plans for a real, hard, strike on Syria, and possibly even on the Russian task force in Syria, succeed the next time? I don’t know. But I can’t ignore the fact that each “click” brings us one step closer to the “bang”. And that suggests to me that the only real solution to this extremely dangerous situation is to find a way to remove the finger pressing on the trigger or, better, take away the gun from the nutcase threatening us all with it.
MOSCOW – Britain may well be described as the holder of the world’s genocide record, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Thursday in response to claims by UK ambassador in Moscow Laurie Bristow to the effect Russia was allegedly behind a number of contract killings.
“Britain is the world’s worst genocider,” she said. “The thought of how many millions of innocent people were put to death in the British colonies is terrifying.”
Zakharova recalled that according to various estimates, British colonists exterminated up to 90%-95% of the aborigines in the process of colonizing Australia.
In the 1870s, Britain conducted genocide against the Zulus in Cape Colony, and in 1954-1961, against the Kikuyu people in Kenya, she recalled.
“In retaliation for the killing of 32 white colonists the British authorities exterminated 300,000 members of the Kikuyu people and drove another 1.5 million into concentration camps,” she said.
In all, Zakharova made public 17 pages of archive information describing Britain’s unseemly actions in the world scene over many years.
Heather Stewart, The Guardian’schief stenographer political editor, has copied and pasted a press release written a new article all about “Russian bots”. The trouble is she doesn’t seem to know what either of these words actually means.
Russia used trolls and bots to unleash disinformation on to social media in the wake of the Salisbury poisoning, according to fresh Whitehall analysis. Government sources said experts had uncovered an increase of up to 4,000% in the spread of propaganda from Russia-based accounts since the attack,– many of which were identifiable as automated bots.
She simply directly quotes Whitehall via anonymous “sources”. Does she interrogate the veracity of these claims? No. Does she offer evidence to support them? Of course not. Does she question the agenda behind them? I doubt she even remembers how.
Ctrl-C, ctrl-V. It must be true the government says so.
This is modern media in a nutshell. This new take on the meaning of “journalism” has hurt the world in general and press in the specific. Refusal to abide by its rules has pushed important voices out of the mainstream – the careers of many decent people of principle – John Pilger and Seymour Hersh for example – are forced out into alternate sources.
Kowtowing to the government line has its own cost though – the unquestioning acceptance of government authority has a price – and very often it’s looking incredibly foolish.
Heather seems happy to pay this price.
She cites only two examples of “Russian bots” in her article, a revelation tainted only by the fact that neither of them are Russian and neither of them are bots.
Now, before we refute the specifics Ms Stewart’s bizarre claims, let’s take a look at the definition of a bot, from wikipedia:
An Internet Bot, also known as web robot, WWW robot or simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone.
Simply put – bots are automated, internet based software programs that do simple repetitive tasks faster and more efficiently than humans. It’s not a difficult concept.
Spamming ads? Bots.
Automatic likes/retweets? Bots.
Writing tweets that reflect complex political realities? NOT bots.
Heather clearly doesn’t know exactly what a “bot” is, and perhaps even worse, can’t even be bothered to do some incredibly easy research to familiarise herself with the term. The government says so, so it must be true. Copy. Paste.
So, who are these non-bots, you ask? Well… apparently there’s millions of them, but Heather only mentions two:
One bot, @Ian56789, was sending 100 posts a day during a 12-day period from 7 April, and reached 23 million users, before the account was suspended. It focused on claims that the chemical weapons attack on Douma had been falsified, using the hashtag #falseflag. Another, @Partisangirl, reached 61 million users with 2,300 posts over the same 12-day period.
Now, anybody who follows alt-news sites on twitter – or who pays attention to the Syria situation – is probably more than familiar with these two names.
Ian56789 is not a bot. Anybody who follows him can see that. Is he Russian? There’s nothing to indicate that, he claims to be a Brit living in the US, and his English is perfect. Take a look at this completely randomly chosen tweet as an example:
Fake excuse by @GuardianHeather printing pure lies about me.
Basic Journalism says you at least do basic research validating what you are about to print from at least two credible sources.
Parroting lies from KNOWN liars, War Criminals & NON credible sources is NOT Journalism. https://t.co/wmc3OJBxK2
There is nothing whatsoever to indicate he is “Russian”… except his opinions. Still, his account was suspended, because saying the wrong things has you branded an enemy in the land of the free. Thankfully he has since been reinstated.
However that pales in comparison to the absurdity of listing Partisangirl as a “Russian bot”. Partisangirl – or Maram Susli – is a real person. There can be no disagreement on that front. She gives interviews, she makes videos, there are hundreds of photographs of her. Only slightly less ridiculous than the idea she’s a “bot”, is the idea she’s “Russian”. She’s a Syrian-Australian woman. She has a Syrian name, and a Syrian flag in her bio and talks – almost exclusively – about Syria.
Disregarding these established facts is bizarre, dishonest and incredibly insulting.
So why label these people “Russian” – when they’re probably not – and “bots”, when that’s patently absurd? Is it simply ignorance? Perhaps.
But in this age of focus groups and media relations and public image, words and language are carefully chosen. Is it not more likely that this is a buzz-phrase selected to make a point? It at once dehumanizes dissent and makes breaking the consensus a partisan act, rather than a rational one.
An angry citizen is awake, alert and thinking. Much, MUCH more of a threat than a “Russian bot”. A being with no humanity, no objectivity, who is aligned with our “enemy”. It’s the othering of unacceptable opinions. It’s simple, dishonest, and dangerous.
… and people like Heather do it without a second thought. Copy, paste, repeat.
It must be right, the government says so.
In that way it is the ultimate irony, people who have thrown away their individuality and sacrificed their analytical mind to the government backed “truth”, labelling those who disagree as “bots”. There’s only one party in this situation who “performs simple repetitive tasks” to order, there’s only one group of people who automatically believe their programming and follow it without question. There’s only one automaton here.
An article in Newsweek last November shows that the U.S. national-security establishment’s animus toward Russia is nothing new. It was the guiding light for the Pentagon and the CIA during the entire Cold War.
This false-flag plan, which was developed in 1962, called for secretly building or acquiring Soviet planes that would then be used to attack the United States, which would then give the Pentagon the opportunity to fire nuclear missiles into the Soviet Union under the concept of “self-defense.”
Of course, this wasn’t the only time that the Pentagon presented the president with a false-flag operation. That was what Operation Northwoods was also all about. Also developed in 1962, it called for deadly terrorist attacks and plane hijackings here in the United States carried out by U.S. agents posing as Cuban communists. The plan would have enabled the Pentagon to invade Cuba, again falsely and fraudulently under the concept of “self-defense.”
What many Americans still do not realize is that the Pentagon and the CIA wanted to start a nuclear war against Russia and the Soviet Union. The animus against Russia, the Soviet Union, communism, and the rest of the communist world was so enormous that U.S. national-security state officials were convinced that nuclear war was inevitable anyway. Since it was going to happen anyway, they felt, better to start it in the hopes of lowering the costs of Soviet nuclear retaliation.
Why were Pentagon and CIA officials so convinced that war between the Soviet Union (including Russia) was inevitable in any event? Because they were convinced that the Soviets and Russians were leading a communist conspiracy to take over the U.S. and the world. It was a conspiracy, they believed, that was implacable. In their minds, this was a fight to finish. It could not end in any way but all-out war.
Thus, in the minds of U.S. national-security state officials, the only practical way out was either surrender or strike first. “Better dead than red” eliminated the possibility of surrender. And instigating nuclear war (using a fraudulent justification) was, they were convinced, the best way to win it.
Enter President John Kennedy, who came to reject everything the Pentagon and the CIA believed and stood for. At one meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he asked them about the anticipated American casualties in the nuclear war they were recommending. They responded 40 million dead Americans. They considered that to be winning the war because everyone in the Soviet Union would be killed. Leaving the meeting, Kennedy indignantly remarked to an aide, “And we call ourselves the human race.”
To his everlasting credit, Kennedy rejected the Pentagon’s false flag plans for invading Cuba and starting a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. In fact, after the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved, Kennedy entered into an all-out political and bureaucratic war with the Pentagon and the CIA over the future direction of the nation.
That’s when Kennedy declared that he was no longer part of the U.S. national-security establishment’s anti-Soviet, anti-Russia, and anti-communist crusade. In his now-famous Peace Speech at American University, he declared that from that day forward, the United States would live in peaceful, friendly coexistence with Russia and the rest of the communist world. It was a slap in the face of the national-security establishment.
JFK then proceeded to move things in that direction, including the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, proposing a joint trip to the moon (which would have meant sharing U.S. missile technology with the Soviets), and secretly negotiating with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban President Fidel Castro for normalizing relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba.
All of this, needless to say, was anathema to the Pentagon and the CIA. In their minds, Kennedy was hopelessly naive. His naiveté prevented him from realizing, they believed, that peaceful and friendly coexistence with the communist world was an absolute impossibility. This was a fight to the finish, they were convinced. In their minds, they had no doubt that Kennedy was traveling the road to surrender or defeat at the hands of the communist enemy.
That’s what made Kennedy such a grave threat to “national security” — a much graver threat than that posed by such leaders as Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran, Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala, Fidel Castro of Cuba, and, later, Augusto Pinochet of Chile. Like all of those leaders who were targeted by the Pentagon and the CIA for regime change, Kennedy was reaching out to the Soviets in a spirit of peace and friendship. Kennedy has to be removed from power, just as those other leaders were. The future security of America required it.
The records revealing that false-flag operation described in the Newsweek article were released last fall as part of that JFK Records Act, which was enacted in the early 1990s and required the Pentagon and the CIA to release all their JFK-assassination related records. While many of the records were released in the 1990s, the Act gave the Pentagon and the CIA another 25 years of secrecy for records that they wanted to continue keeping secret from the American people. That period expired last fall but the CIA, not surprisingly, convinced President Trump to continue keeping them secret, on grounds of “national security.” At the last minute, Trump agreed to extend the time for secrecy by another six months, which expires on April 26. One thing is certain: the CIA will request another extension of time for secrecy, again on grounds of “national security.”
Do you see why it was so important to keep those records secret after the assassination? They had to make it look like everything had been hunky-dory with Kennedy and that Lyndon Johnson was simply continuing Kennedy’s policies, when in fact Johnson had long been absorbed into the national-security establishment. The last thing they obviously wanted was for Americans to discover the depth and breadth of the political and bureaucratic war between Kennedy and the U.S. national-security establishment over the future direction of America.
In fact, do you see why it is so important to these people that they continue keeping the tens of thousands of records secret from the American people? Keep in mind that those records are more than 50 years old and that they are claiming that their release will pose a grave threat to “national security.” In other words, that the United States will fall into the ocean or that the federal government will be taken over by the communists or the Russians.
It’s hard to get more nonsensical than that. The reason they still don’t want those records to be released is because they will help to fill out the mosaic of the deep war that was taking place between Kennedy and his national-security establishment and why he needed to be removed from power via a domestic national-security regime-change operation, no different in principle from those taken against leaders in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, and many others.
Since the start of the latest massacre in Gaza — the killing with live fire of almost 40 and wounding of almost 3,000 unarmed Palestinian protestors during the March of Return — propaganda in service of Israel has been mobilized to cover up the blatant crime. Three days after the March began, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston issued an unbelievably twisted statement on the attacks. What follows is their statement, with comments inserted in italics:
“We see the events along the Gaza-Israel border this weekend as the continuation of one of the great tragedies of our time.” — This implies that Gaza is a sovereign country bordering Israel, not the prison for Palestinian refugees that Israel established decades ago in the south of Palestine.
“This is a situation where many are at fault, leaving individuals in impossible situations with impossible choices.” — When someone is morally at fault, the situation is always “complicated.” As we shall see, the “many at fault” are always Palestinians, not Israelis.
“It is a tragedy for the people of Gaza that, 12 years after the complete withdrawal of Israel from the Gaza Strip, they live under such difficult conditions.” — “Tragedy” in Greek theater held that events are written by our fate and could not have been otherwise. If Zionism had not chosen Palestine in the late 1800’s and then proceeded to steal land from Palestinians from then on, it could very much have been otherwise. There was an actor here; there was a cause, and an effect. The cause of the “tragedy” was Zionism. Ask the settlers to return to their own countries, and the “tragedy” would end. The sentence also implies that Israel made a noble gesture when it withdrew from Gaza, and that it is the fault of the Palestinians that they did not make the best of this generous gift. In fact, Israel left Gaza because it was more expedient for Israel to administer Gaza as a prison than to occupy it. The “difficult conditions” faced by the people of Gaza are the result of Israeli control over everything and everyone that goes into and out of it. The “difficult conditions” are the result of repeated Israeli bombings of critical infrastructure, and Israel’s clear plan for the complete immiseration of Gaza’s two million people.
“It is a tragedy for the Palestinians that Gaza was taken over by Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist organization that rules in a brutal dictatorship.” — Hamas was democratically elected by its people because it distinguished itself from the collaborationist leadership of the Palestinian Authority. Israel defines Hamas as terrorist because Hamas is determined to resist the Zionist entity. Israel’s minions in legislative bodies in other countries have been used to create the “designated terrorist” label. “Brutal dictatorship” is a buzzword applied to all political movements asserting independence from imperialist control.
“It is a tragedy that Hamas has chosen to direct its resources to the building of tunnels and rockets, rather than building hospitals, schools, housing, and factories that would create prosperity and opportunity for the Palestinian people.” — Are these the same hospitals, schools, housing and factories that Israel has been bombing since 2006? Are these the same tunnels that Gazans used to bring in vital humanitarian goods not allowed through Israeli checkpoints? Doesn’t Hamas have the right to its primitive rockets when Gazans are being periodically bombarded by Israel and its highly sophisticated fighter jets?
“It is a tragedy that, by squandering the opportunity to build a better future for the Palestinian people, Hamas has forced Israel and Egypt to secure their own borders with a blockade to prevent the further weaponization of Gaza.” — For choosing resistance against the Zionist occupier, the Palestinian people were punished by the Zionist occupier and his servants in Egypt. The blockade is not just against weapons, it’s against any freedom of movement, and any importation of needed goods. Even people in need of urgent medical care are refused. The main purpose of the Israeli blockade is to starve Gaza, to “put them on a diet”, as one Israeli official said. To its everlasting shame, the West-installed political class in Egypt – not the Egyptian people – has chosen to collaborate.
“It is a tragedy that the Palestinian people of Gaza have no recourse against their leaders, living without elections or even the ability to protest those in power openly on pain of death.” — Again, Hamas was democratically elected in 2006. One would think “the only democracy in the Middle East” would appreciate this. Stories of Hamas killing protesters have appeared only in the Israeli press – e.g., the Jerusalem Post, the Times of Israel. However, there are stories every day in the worldwide press of Israeli soldiers shooting Palestinian protestors all over the West Bank. Let’s also remember that the March of Return in Gaza is made up of protestors, and that Israel sent snipers there for the explicit purpose of killing and wounding them. This is not to mention the “recourse against” Hamas leaders employed over the years by Israel – namely, open assassination.
“It is a tragedy that they are deceived by their own leaders with the unrealistic promise of a destructive victory over the State of Israel – a victory that will never come. It is a tragedy that their own government chooses to use them as human shields, perpetuating their suffering for nefarious self-interest.” — As the Borg said, “Resistance is futile.” Isn’t the promotion of the idea of an unconquerable Israel the worst kind of war propaganda? The “human shields” argument has been used by Israel as an excuse for intentionally killing hundreds of civilians during its repeated bombing campaigns. What is the “nefarious self-interest” of Gaza’s leadership? — liberation from Israeli torture.
“It is a tragedy that the Israeli people look at Gaza and see the end of a dream; to live in peace with their neighbors.” — The “dream” of the majority of the Israeli people today is to remove Palestinians from all of historic Palestine, and completely erase Palestinian history. Israelis do not “live in peace with their neighbors.” They have repeatedly attacked Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria and they are the main instigators today of conflict and war with Iran.
“It is a tragedy that Israelis living near the border are terrorized by threats coming from tunnels under their homes and rockets over their schools.” –The main tactic of this propaganda piece is to blame the victim. Thus, nothing was done through the agency of the Jewish state and its obvious goals; everything was done as a reaction to injustices committed by Palestinians. It also turns reality on its head. Homes and schools have indeed been destroyed, but by Israel.
“It is a tragedy that when Israelis do what any other nation in the world would do – protect their border from being overrun – that they endure a condemnation that no other nation would receive.” — This is the “why pick on us?” argument. Why? Because Israel has the ugliest, most long-standing system of open colonization and oppression visible in the world today. The vast majority of the people of the world are disgusted. What Israel claims as its “borders” is stolen land.
“It is a tragedy that Israelis experience this singling out as a further example of an isolation, their status as “the Jew amongst the nations,” with only themselves to protect their inalienable rights to live in security.” — This is the “Jew as victim” argument, made possible by unrelenting Holocaust instruction since World War II, which provides a guaranteed pass for any and all crimes committed by Jews. Since 2001, Israel, the poor victim nation, has gotten the United States to attack a long list of countries in the Middle East which Israel feels threatened by, now including Russia because Russia has thrown a wrench into Israeli plans to destroy Syria. Israel also receives massive direct funding and political cover from the United Sates. If Israel resents its status as “the Jew amongst the nations” why does it call itself “the Jewish state”? Why does it display the Star of David on all its national symbols and armaments? This is an identity which Israelis promote – how can they now turn around and blame us for it?
“It is a tragedy because this weekend, young men and women of the Israel Defense Forces stared down the sights of their rifles and learned violence at a time when they should have been at home with their families celebrating freedom at the Passover table.” — The idea that it is the Israeli Occupation Forces who have suffered because they have had to kill and maim defenseless Palestinians is a perfect example of what Zionist supremacy and racism is. It is a form of self-worship and psychopathy in which one is never responsible for committing any wrong — it is always the fault of the other. This sentence is reminiscent of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir saying: “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.” In other words, the real crime has been committed against Jews, whose purity has been sullied by having to kill innocent people (as they were invading their land and homes). This belief of Jewish superiority above others is at the bottom of everything Palestinians have suffered for the past 70 years.
“It is a tragedy because Palestinians need some way to express their frustrations – at Israel and at their own government after years of wasted opportunities to build a better life for the people of Gaza. Instead they experienced more manipulation, and more loss.” –No, the ” frustration” Palestinians feel is from being consistently and sadistically blocked from life and liberty by the Israeli prison-keeper. The real manipulators are those who would have us believe the oppressive tactics of Israel are of the Palestinians’ own making, as this sentence implies.
“We see this weekend as the continuation of a tragedy that has not brought the people of Israel and Gaza any closer to a future of peace and hope for all of their children. As the Boston Jewish community continues to celebrate the Passover holiday this week, we are mindful of the lessons learned at our seders, that we do not rejoice over the tragedy of others and we are ever hopeful for peace and stability for all people.” — Again, no recognition that this “tragedy” might be in any way the fault of Israel. Israel is supported, not by “the Boston Jewish community” but by a cynically propagandistic Washington-based lobby for Israel, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, which provides the political line for 125 supposedly local Jewish Community Relations Councils in the US. In other words, a political lobby for a country 6,000 miles away says they speak for all Jews in Boston. In 2016 the Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston sponsored a deceptive anti-boycott bill in the Massachusetts legislature. They were successfully opposed by a large number of Jewish activists in the state, and many others. The Council now claims to represent the Jewish community of Boston in mobilizing opposition to a motion in the Cambridge city council to boycott Hewlett-Packard. When was the vote in which “the Boston Jewish community” elected this Council? Who is the real manipulator in this scenario? Doesn’t the Jewish Community Relations Council actually represent a foreign political movement — not Cambridge, not Boston, not Massachusetts? Israel, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t repeatedly murder people in Gaza in broad daylight and then piously claim you’re for “ peace and stability for all people.”
On Monday Theresa May came to the House of Commons to answer questions about the air-strikes she and her Cabinet authorised against Syrian targets last Saturday.
It’s a wonder she didn’t arrive by abseiling onto the roof of Parliament from a helicopter. Or, in the style of the Iron Lady, driving through the gates at the helm of a Challenger tank, chiffon scarf fluttering in the Westminster breeze.
Her party whips had been busy. An army of Conservative puppets danced to a rehearsed tune with plenty of carefully scripted questions. The situation was a minefield but nobody planted a truly high explosive charge in Mrs May’s path. Just a handful of harmless thunderflashes were lobbed. She was not held to account. And she came through it looking much more confident than when she faced the press on Saturday.
She started proceedings with this statement:
“Let me set this out in detail: we support strongly the work of the OPCW fact-finding mission that is currently in Damascus, but that mission is only able to make an assessment of whether chemical weapons were used. Even if the OPCW team is able to visit Douma to gather information to make that assessment—and it is currently being prevented from doing so by the regime and the Russians—it cannot attribute responsibility. This is because Russia vetoed, in November 2017, an extension of the joint investigatory mechanism set up to do this, and last week, in the wake of the Douma attack, it again vetoed a new UNSC resolution to re-establish such a mechanism…. For as long as Russia continued to veto the UN Security Council would still not be able to act. So we cannot wait to alleviate further humanitarian suffering caused by chemical weapons attacks.
“Secondly, were we not just following orders from America? Let me be absolutely clear: we have acted because it is in our national interest to do so. It is in our national interest to prevent the further use of chemical weapons in Syria and to uphold and defend the global consensus that these weapons should not be used, for we cannot allow the use of chemical weapons to become normalised—within Syria, on the streets of the UK or elsewhere.
“So we have not done this because President Trump asked us to; we have done it because we believed it was the right thing to do. And we are not alone. Over the weekend I have spoken to a range of world leaders…. All have expressed their support for the actions that Britain, France and America have taken.
“Thirdly, why did we not recall Parliament? The speed with which we acted was essential in co-operating with our partners to alleviate further humanitarian suffering and to maintain the vital security of our operations. This was a limited, targeted strike on a legal basis that has been used before. And it was a decision that required the evaluation of intelligence and information, much of which was of a nature that could not be shared with Parliament. We have always been clear that the Government have the right to act quickly in the national interest. I am absolutely clear, Mr Speaker, that it is Parliament’s responsibility to hold me to account for such decisions, and Parliament will do so. But it is my responsibility as Prime Minster to make these decisions—and I will make them.”
She went on to assure MPs that the military action “was not about intervening in the civil war in Syria or about regime change”.
Legality questioned
In reply, Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said: “I believe that the action was legally questionable, and on Saturday the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, said as much, reiterating that all countries must act in line with the United Nations charter, which states that action must be in self-defence or be authorised by the United Nations Security Council. The Prime Minister has assured us that the Attorney General had given clear legal advice approving the action. I hope the Prime Minister will now publish this advice in full today.”
As regards the disputed humanitarian intervention doctrine he remarked: “The Foreign Secretary said yesterday that these strikes would have no bearing on the civil war. The Prime Minister has reiterated that today by saying that this is not what these military strikes were about. Does, for example, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen entitle other countries to arrogate to themselves the right to bomb Saudi airfields or its positions in Yemen, especially given its use of banned cluster bombs and white phosphorus? Three United Nations agencies said in January that Yemen was the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, so will the Prime Minister today commit to ending support to the Saudi bombing campaign and arms sales to Saudi Arabia?
“Given that neither the UN nor the OPCW has yet investigated the Douma attack, it is clear that diplomatic and non-military means have not been fully exhausted.”
May responded: “The problem [re Douma] is that the investigation is being stopped. The regime and the Russians are preventing the OPCW from investigating. Moreover, again, the regime has reportedly been attempting to conceal the evidence by searching evacuees from Douma to ensure that they are not taking out of the region samples that could be tested elsewhere, and a wider operation to conceal the facts of the attack is under way, supported by the Russians….
“I think it important that this was a joint international effort. The strikes were carefully targeted, and proper analysis was carried out to ensure that they were targeted at sites that were relevant to the chemical weapons capability of the regime. We did this to alleviate further human suffering….”
MPs from all sides then piled in, as called by the Speaker.
Parliament “emasculated”?
Hostile questioning was generally too polite, causing May little discomfort. I missed many of the contributions while yawning, but there were some that I thought worth passing on.
Sir Nicholas Soames, Churchill’s grandson, asked: “My right hon. Friend will agree that the use of chemical weapons by anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances, is illegal, contrary to all the laws of war and utterly reprehensible. Will she therefore confirm that the Government will at a later date seek the arraignment at an international court of those who instigate these vile acts, whoever they may be?”
Soames is Pro-Palestinian and a sharp critic of Israel, so the thrust was obvious. But she sidestepped it, replying: “My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about the illegality of the use of chemical weapons and the impact of their use. We believe that those who are responsible should be held to account.”
But, clearly, her Government would be doing no such thing.
There are many Conservatives and Labourites in the House who voted for the Iraq war and are still too dim to repent or learn the simple lesson. They and many newcomers queued up to express support for the bombing. Among them was glamorous Priti Patel (Witham) (Con) who, only six months ago as former International Development Secretary, had numerous meetings with Israeli politicians (including prime minister Netanyahu and his security minister) during a family holiday in Israel without telling the Foreign Office, her civil servants or her boss Theresa May, and without government officials present – a gross breach of security.
She now seems anxious to rehabilititate herself in the corridors of power. “There are no words to describe the appalling nature of the humanitarian disaster that confronts Syria,” she told May, “which is why I commend my right hon. Friend for the strong action that she has taken and the support she is giving to the Syrian people. Will she assure the House that in the face of the abhorrent abuses perpetrated by the Assad regime, hers will continue to be a strong voice in favour of the international rules-based system, and will she show that Britain will not stand idly by when cruel weapons are used to murder innocent children and families?”
Patel had toured the Golan Heights (Syrian territory stolen in 1967 by the Israelis and illegally occupied ever since) with the thieving occupation army – another monumental diplomatic blunder. So this avid Israel stooge has little concern for international rules. Fellow stooge May managed to leave open the option to continue idly ignoring Israel’s crimes. “We will ensure that our voice is heard. It is absolutely right that it was the right thing to do and was in our national interest, but it is also important that we are standing up for that international rules-based order and continue to do so.” Words are cheap; we never see action.
Other MPs were suspicious of May’s I-did-it-my-way act. Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green) challenged her on the point that the legal basis relies on there having been no practicable alternative. She enquired whether the UK had asked the OPCW to inspect the Him Shinsar and Barzeh sites. The Prime Minister responded: “We have been very clear that we would like it to be possible for the OPCW to investigate sites in Syria, for there to be proper identification of the chemical weapons and for there to be proper accountability for the use of those chemical weapons.”
Caroline Lucas: “Did you ask?”
May: “Last Tuesday at the United Nations Security Council, there was going to be a proposal and resolution that would have enabled a proper investigative mechanism to be re-introduced to look at the use of chemical weapons and at what chemical weapons were available in Syria and held by the regime and at their capabilities and to be able to ascertain accountability for those chemical weapons? That draft resolution was vetoed by Russia.”
That’s not quite how I read the UN’s own account of the situation. However….
Laura Pidcock (North West Durham) (Lab) wanted to know whether the Prime Minister was planning to use Executive powers again with regard to military action in Syria—in breach of the commonly understood parliamentary protocol that would have given the House a say in a matter of war. “There is clear opposition from British people to airstrikes, and I think the public are right to be sceptical, so will the Prime Minister also explain how airstrikes have improved the safety and security of Syrian people practically, when we are aware that the bombing and violence is continuing unabated throughout the region?”
May replied: “The strikes that took place were about degrading the chemical weapons capability of the Syrian regime…. the assessment we have made is that the strikes were successful…. It is by degrading its chemical weapons capability that we can have an impact and ensure that we are reducing the likelihood of the humanitarian suffering in the future.”
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP): “The policy paper on the UK Government’s legal position says the UK is permitted under international law, on an exceptional basis, to take measures in order to alleviate overwhelming humanitarian suffering. It does not, however, cite any authority for that proposition: it does not quote the UN charter, and it does not refer to any Security Council resolution nor any international treaty of any kind. Will the Prime Minister tell us why that proposition is unvouched for in the policy paper?”
May replied: “The basis on which we undertook this action is one that has been accepted by Governments previously and one under which previous action has been taken. I believe that it continues to be the right basis for ensuring that we can act to alleviate humanitarian suffering, and I would have thought the alleviation of humanitarian suffering was something that should gain support from across the whole House.”
Fiona Onasanya (Peterborough) (Lab) quoted the Prime Minister from her statement that she was ‘confident in our own assessment that the Syrian regime was highly likely responsible’. Surely, she asked, “the burden of proof should be beyond reasonable doubt, as opposed to being ‘highly likely’? “In addition,” she said, “I would be interested to know who ‘we’ are, given that Parliament was not consulted.”
May replied: “The Government made their assessments. Those were not just the view of the UK Government; they were shared by our allies and on that basis we acted.”
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP) was quite bold: “So far today the Prime Minister has ducked out of questions about Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world—Yemen—and she has not answered why she did not wait until the outcome of the OPCW inspections. She has not explained why a parliamentary recall would jeopardise the action that President Trump had already tweeted about. She has not answered about providing further humanitarian assistance and additional support for refugees, and yet she talks about parliamentary scrutiny. How is a statement after the event parliamentary scrutiny when she will not answer any hard questions?”
To which the Prime Minister replied: “The hon. Gentleman talks about me not answering questions on refugees, but I have done so, or on the OPCW, but I have done so. I have answered many questions…. ”
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con) gave her a friendly lob: “Can my right hon. Friend reassure the House that, contrary to claims over the weekend, there is no evidence that any British defence export products have ended up in the wrong hands in Syria?”
The Prime Minister: “I can certainly give my hon. Friend that assurance.”
But is it true?
Attempt to rein in wayward prime ministers
For the record, the policy paper published by May’s Government setting out the case for military intervention states:
The UK is permitted under international law, on an exceptional basis, to take measures in order to alleviate overwhelming humanitarian suffering. The legal basis for the use of force is humanitarian intervention, which requires three conditions to be met:
(i) there is convincing evidence, generally accepted by the international community as a whole, of extreme humanitarian distress on a large scale, requiring immediate and urgent relief;
(ii) it must be objectively clear that there is no practicable alternative to the use of force if lives are to be saved; and
(iii) the proposed use of force must be necessary and proportionate to the aim of relief of humanitarian suffering and must be strictly limited in time and in scope to this aim (i.e. the minimum necessary to achieve that end and for no other purpose).
Of course this could just as easily apply to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where nearly 2 million starving people have been under the cosh of Israel’s vicious blockade and bombardments for more than 10 years. Or in Yemen. But UK parliamentarians and US Congressmen would wet themselves at any thought of air strikes against the despicable regimes they are in bed with.
May denied that she took orders from Trump yet had seemed desperate to fit in with Trump’s timetable and jump the gun on the OPCW inspectors’ reports. And she could easily have recalled Parliament during the week leading up to the strike had she wanted to.
The next day, Tuesday, in an emergency debate secured by Corbyn, MPs discussed Parliament’s role in (and exclusion from) approving military action in Syria. Corbyn used the occasion to accuse the PM of by-passing Parliament saying she had “tossed aside” the precedent set by the 2003 Iraq War vote because it was “inconvenient”, and it was now time for Parliament to “assert its authority” over UK military action and take back control. Otherwise, he said, authorising air strikes without Parliament’s approval, if it became the norm, could lead to more dangerous action in the future.
Corbyn called for a new War Powers Act that would require Parliament to be consulted on military intervention. Mrs May reacted angrily to suggestions that Donald Trump had been given more say in Britain’s part in the air-strike than the UK Parliament.
At the end of the debate, MPs voted in favour of a woolly motion that they had “considered Parliament’s rights in relation to the approval of military action by British forces overseas”, which of course moves us no further forward.
May was buffeted by the Syrian bombing affair but escaped the severe mauling she deserved. Within the Westminster bubble she emerges unscathed. Only time and the truth about Douma and Salisbury (when it is eventually known) will tell whether she can get away with it in the outside world.
In 2004 I published an article in the journal, Middle East Policy that was entitled “Drinking the Koolaid.” The article reviewed the process by which the neocon element in the Bush Administration seized control of the process of policy formation and drove the United States in the direction of invasion of Iraq and the destruction of the apparatus of the Iraqi state. They did this through manipulation of the collective mental image Americans had of Iraq and the supposed menace posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Not all the people who participated in this process were neocon in their allegiance but there were enough of them in the Bush Administration to dominate the process. Neoconism as it has evolved in American politics is a close approximation of the imperialist political faction that existed in the time of President William McKinley and the Spanish-American War. Barbara Tuchman described this faction well in “The Proud Tower.”
Such people, then and now, fervently believe in the Manifest Destiny of the United States as mankind’s best hope of a utopian future and concomitantly in the responsibility of the United States to lead mankind toward that future. Neocons believe that inside every Iraqi, Filipino or Syrian there is an American waiting to be freed from the bonds of tradition, local culture and general backwardness. For people with this mindset the explanation for the continuance of old ways lies in the oppressive and exploitative nature of rulers who block the “progress” that is needed. The solution for the imperialists and neocons is simple. Local rulers must be removed as the principal obstacle to popular emulation of Western and especially American culture and political forms. In the run up to the invasion of Iraq I was often told by leading neocon figures that the Muslims and particularly the Iraqis had no culture worth keeping and that once we had created new facts, (a Karl Rove quote) these people would quickly abandon their old ways and beliefs as they sought to become something like Americans. This notion has one major flaw. It is not necessarily correct. Often the natives are willing to fight you long and hard to retain their own ways. In the aftermath of the Spanish-American War the US acquired the Philippine Islands and sought to make the islands American in all things. The result was a terrible war against Filipino nationalists who did not want to follow the example of the “shining city on a hill.” No, the “poor fools” wanted to go their own way in their own way. The same thing happened in Iraq after 2003. The Iraqis rejected occupation and American “reform” of their country and a long and bloody war ensued.
The neocons believe so strongly that America must lead the world and mankind forward that they accept the idea that the achievement of human progress justifies any means needed to advance that goal. In the case of the Iraq invasion the American people were lectured endlessly about the bestialities of Saddam’s government. The bestialities were impressive but the constant media display of these horrors was not enough to persuade the American people to accept war. From the bestialities meme the neocons moved on to the WMD meme. The Iraqi government had a nuclear weapons program before the First Gulf War but that program had been thoroughly destroyed in the inspection regime that followed Iraq’s defeat and surrender. This was widely known in the US government because US intelligence agencies had cooperated fully with the international inspectors in Iraq and in fact had sent the inspectors to a long list of locations at which the inspectors destroyed the program. I was instrumental in that process.
After 9/11 the US government knew without any doubt that the Iraqi government did not have a nuclear weapons program, but that mattered not at all to the neocons. As Paul Wolfowitz infamously told the US Senate “we chose to use the fear of nuclear weapons because we knew that would sell.” Once that decision was made an endless parade of administration shills appeared on television hyping the supposed menace of Iraqi nuclear weapons. Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were merely the most elevated in position of the many vendors of the image of the “mushroom shaped cloud.”
And now we have the case of Syria and its supposed chemical weapons and attacks. After the putative East Gouta chemical attack of 2013, an OPCW program removed all the chemical weapons to be found in Syria and stated its belief that there were no more in the country. In April of 2017 the US-Russian de-confliction process was used to reach agreement on a Syrian Air Force strike in the area of Khan Sheikoon in southern Idlib Province. This was a conventional weapons attack and the USAF had an unarmed reconnaissance drone in the area to watch the strike go in against a storage area. The rebel run media in the area then claimed the government had attacked with the nerve gas Sarin, but no proof was ever offered except film clips broadcast on social media. Some of the film clips from the scene were ludicrous. Municipal public health people were filmed at the supposed scene standing around what was said to be a bomb crater from the “sarin attack.” Two public health men were filmed sitting on the lip of the crater with their feet in the hole. If there had been sarin residue in the hole they would have quickly succumbed to the gas. No impartial inspection of the site was ever done, but the Khan Sheikoon “gas attack” has become through endless repetition a “given” in the lore of the “constant Syrian government gas attacks against their own civilians.”
On the 4th of April it is claimed that the Syrian Government, then in the process of capturing the town of Douma caused chlorine gas to be dropped on the town killing and wounding many. Chlorine is not much of a war gas. It is usually thought of as an industrial chemical, so evidently to make the story more potent it is now suggested that perhaps sarin was also used.
No proof that such an attack occurred has been made public. None! The Syrian and Russian governments state that they want the site inspected. On the 15th of April US Senator Angus King (I) of Maine told Jake Tapper on SOTU that as of that date the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had not been given any proof by the IC or Trump Administration that such an attack had occurred. “They have asserted that it did” he said.
The US, France and the UK struck Syria with over a hundred cruise missiles in retaliation for this supposed attack but the Administration has not yet provided any proof that the Syrian attack took place.
I am told that the old neocon crew argued as hard as possible for a disabling massive air and missile campaign intended to destroy the Syrian government’s ability to fight the mostly jihadi rebels. John Bolton, General (ret.) Jack Keane and many other neocons argued strongly for this campaign as a way to reverse the outcome of the civil war. James Mattis managed to obtain President Trump’s approval for a much more limited and largely symbolic strike but Trump was clearly inclined to the neocon side of the argument. What will happen next time?
Colonel W. Patrick Lang is a retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces (The Green Berets). He served in the Department of Defense both as a serving officer and then as a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service for many years
In the wake of last week’s cruise missile attack on Syria, there was a joke going around the internet saying that it doesn’t matter who Americans vote for, they always wind up getting John McCain as President of the United States. The humor derives from the fact that the past three presidents all ran for office committed to reducing America’s interventionism overseas but once in office they reversed course and expanded US military commitments worldwide, turning them into facsimiles of John McCain, who has never seen a war he didn’t like.
President Donald Trump’s explicit pledges to avoid expanded engagement in Asia and the Middle East while also fixing the relationship with Russia are by now lost down the memory hole as he has increased troop levels in Afghanistan while, by his own admission, the relationship with Moscow is now even worse than it was during the Cold War. And regarding Syria, his Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Halley has confirmed that the US military will not be going anywhere because certain goals have to be met first. One objective, monitoring developments relating to Iran, is open-ended, implying that it will be impossible to leave for the foreseeable future and suggesting that another Afghanistan-style quagmire is in the making.
Pundits see the process whereby all new presidents turn into hawks as evidence of the pervasiveness of the Deep State in US foreign policy, but as the Deep State operates largely in the open in the United States, it might also be referred to as the Establishment consensus. The persistence of the Establishment view in what has become increasingly a national security state is largely due to the fact that there is little pushback against it. The media is fully on board and Congress, which should be serving as a brake on presumed presidential prerogatives to go to war, benefits substantially from the bloated budgets and other emoluments that derive from American imperialism. Defense and related budgets grow in spite of the lack of any real threat and the public is fed a steady diet of fear by the media and government regarding fabricated threats to US national security.
The combination of government and media lies renders most Americans completely ignorant about what is going in in Syria. First of all, the United States and its allies, who are occupying nearly one quarter of the country, are in Syria illegally. Under international law, attacking and occupying a country that is not directly threatening you without any justifying United Nations Security Council resolution is illegal. It is also a war crime as defined by the Nuremberg Trials that followed after the Second World War, which ruled that a war of aggression is the “ultimate war crime” as it inevitably leads to many other crimes. So the United States is undeniably an unindicted war criminal.
That the United States has not been indicted or brought to justice for its crimes is largely due to its political and military power, which few nations choose to challenge, but also because it is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and is able to veto resolutions criticizing it. There have been numerous motions condemning American behavior, but none of them have made it out of the Security Council. This is not a confirmation of US innocence but rather a result of the politics that operate at the United Nations.
The United States is also in violation of international law because it remains in Syria without the permission of the recognized and legitimate Syrian government. Iranian forces and those of Russia are present on the invitation of Damascus. The United States is not. The US has also been illegally working to overthrow the legitimate Syrian government, acting in collusion with groups of so-called rebels, some of whom are actually drawn from internationally recognized terrorist groups, violating its own laws regarding providing material assistance to terrorism.
Establishment politics has meant that the United States is now a rogue nation defined by its propensity to go to war. America’s bombing of Syria is illegal, immoral, ineffective and dishonest. It is past time for the United States to pull out its troops and leave the Syrians alone. Americans killing Syrians while hypocritically claiming that it is done to stop Syrians from killing each other is a recipe for disaster.
The United States Army wants to develop a system that can be quickly integrated and deployed into its weaponized drone fleet to automatically Detect, Recognize, Classify, Identify (DRCI) and target enemy combatants and vehicles using artificial intelligence (AI). This is an impressive leap forward, whereas humans still operate current military drones, this technology could foster a new era of autonomous drones conducting operations in hybrid wars — without human oversight.
The project is called “Automatic Target Recognition of Personnel and Vehicles from an Unmanned Aerial System Using Learning Algorithms,” — a very original name, which the details were recently released on the Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR)website. In other words, the Department of Defense (DoD) via the Army is requesting private and research institutions that have developed image targeting AI platforms to form partnerships with them for the eventual technology transfer.
Once the technology transfer is complete, these drones will use machine-learning algorithms, such as neural networks blended with artificial intelligence to create the ultimate militarization of AI. Currently, military drones have little onboard intelligence, besides sending a downlink of high definition video to a military analyst who manually decides whom to kill.
Here is the program’s objective:
“Develop a system that can be integrated and deployed in a class 1 or class 2 Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) to automatically Detect, Recognize, Classify, Identify (DRCI) and target personnel and ground platforms or other targets of interest. The system should implement learning algorithms that provide operational flexibility by allowing the target set and DRCI taxonomy to be quickly adjusted and to operate in different environments.”
A full description of the program:
“The use of UASs in military applications is an area of increasing interest and growth. This coupled with the ongoing resurgence in the research, development, and implementation of different types of learning algorithms such as Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) provide the potential to develop small, rugged, low cost, and flexible systems capable of Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) and other DRCI capabilities that can be integrated in class 1 or class 2 UASs. Implementation of a solution is expected to potentially require independent development in the areas of sensors, communication systems, and algorithms for DRCI and data integration. Additional development in the areas of payload integration and Human-Machine Interface (HMI) may be required to develop a complete system solution. One of the desired characteristics of the system is to use the flexibility afforded by the learning algorithms to allow for the quick adjustment of the target set or the taxonomy of the target set DRCI categories or classes. This could allow for the expansion of the system into a Homeland Security environment. ”
Once the Army selects a private or research institution in the form of a joint venture, the partnership will allow both entities to further technological innovation in AI drone killing. Before the commercialization of this new dangerous weapon, these three phases must be completed first:
“PHASE I: “Conduct an assessment of the key components of a complete objective payload system constrained by the Size Weight and Power (SWAP) payload restrictions of a class 1 or class 2 UAS. Systems Engineering concepts and methodologies may be incorporated in this assessment. It is anticipated that this will require, at a minimum, an assessment of the sensor suite, learning algorithms, and communications system. The assessment should define requirements for the complete system and flow down those requirements to the sub-component level. Conduct a laboratory demonstration of the learning algorithms for the DRCI of the target set and the ability to quickly adjust to target set changes or to operator-selected DRCI taxonomy.”
“PHASE II: Demonstrate a complete payload system at a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5 or higher operating in real time. On-flight operation can be simulated. Complete a feasibility assessment addressing all engineering and integration issues related to the development of the objective system fully integrated in a UAS capable of detecting, recognizing, classifying, identifying and providing targeting data to lethality systems. Conduct a sensitivity analysis of the system capabilities against the payload SWAP restrictions to inform decisions on matching payloads to specific UAS platforms and missions.”
“PHASE III: Develop, integrate and demonstrate a payload operating in real time while on-flight in a number of different environmental conditions and providing functionality at tactically relevant ranges to a TRL 7. Demonstrate the ability to quickly adjust the target set and DRCI taxonomy as selected by the operator. Demonstrate a single operator interface to command-and-control the payload. Demonstrate the potential to use in military and homeland defense missions and environments.”
Interesting enough, The Conversation believes once these AI drones are commercialized, there will be “vast legal and ethical implications for wider society.” Nevertheless, the sphere of warfare could soon expand to include technology companies, engineers, and scientists, who would be labeled as valid military targets because of their involvement in building code for the machines.
The Conversation makes a stunning revelation about the legal implications of Silicon Valley technology firms who provide lines of code to autonomous drone weapon systems. Under the international humanitarian law, “dual-use” facilities – “those which develop products for both civilian and military application – can be attacked in the right circumstances.”
“The prospect of totally autonomous drones would radically alter the complex processes and decisions behind military killings. But legal and ethical responsibility does not somehow just disappear if you remove human oversight. Instead, responsibility will increasingly fall on other people, including artificial intelligence scientists.
The legal implications of these developments are already becoming evident. Under the current international humanitarian law, “dual-use” facilities – those which develop products for both civilian and military application – can be attacked in the right circumstances. For example, in the 1999 Kosovo War, the Pancevo oil refinery was attacked because it could fuel Yugoslav tanks as well as fuel civilian cars.
With an autonomous drone weapon system, certain lines of computer code would almost certainly be classed as dual-use. Companies like Google, its employees or its systems, could become liable to attack from an enemy state. For example, if Google’s Project Maven image recognition AI software is incorporated into an American military autonomous drone, Google could find itself implicated in the drone “killing” business, as might every other civilian contributor to such lethal autonomous systems.”
The Conversation reminds us of the recent events of autonomous AI in society “should serve as a warning.”
“Uber and Tesla’s fatal experiments with self-driving cars suggest it is pretty much guaranteed that there will be unintended autonomous drone deaths as computer bugs are ironed out.”
If militarized AI machines are left to the decision-making of who dies… We ask one simple question: how many non-combatant deaths will count as acceptable to the Army as the AI drone technology is refined?
The US and its allies are doing practically nothing to help rebuild Raqqa, which is de-facto occupied, Russia’s UN Ambassador told the UNSC, after a UN representative reported on the mass-scale devastation of the Syrian city.
On average, an estimated 50 people a week are being killed in Raqqa, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator told members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), noting that virtually nothing is being done for some 100,000 repatriates who have returned to the destroyed city.
“Conditions are not conducive for return, due to a high level of unexploded ordnance and improvised explosive device (IED) contamination, and widespread and severe infrastructural damage and the lack of basic services,” Mark Lowcock said, reporting on the UN team’s findings after its April 1 visit to the Syrian city. “Up to 95 percent of households who have returned to Raqqa are food-insecure. Health services are lacking or severely limited.”
Noting that between 70-80 percent of buildings in Raqqa are “destroyed or damaged,” Lowcock called on the countries to act and help the residents of the city once proclaimed as the unofficial capital of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorist caliphate and later “liberated” by the US-led international coalition.
The situation in Raqqa, destroyed during a four-month battle that ended in October 2017, remains “disastrous,” Ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia said on Tuesday, after Moscow requested holding an open UN Security Council briefing on the humanitarian situation in Raqqa and the Rukban refugee camp on the border with Jordan.
“Rebuilding the city that was destroyed by airstrikes is not taking place. People have been returning at their own risk and are often being killed by mines and IEDs,” Nebenzya noted, reaffirming the observations voiced by Lowcock.
“American occupation hasn’t brought anything positive to the inhabitants. The only effective solution to the current situation is to reestablish state structures in Raqqa,” the envoy added, noting that people in the “de-facto occupied territory” have started to protest against the US presence there.
The city, recaptured by the Syrian Democratic Forces, is now under the loose control of the US-supported militias. Reconstruction of Raqqa and its suburbs is being carried out through a network of local councils, which Nebenzia called a gang of “completely incompetent people.”
“How can we entrust them with people’s safety and security?” he asked. “Raqqa is in ruins. Literally, there isn’t a building left standing. Thousands of bodies are still buried under the ruins.”
The Russian ambassador condemned the American-led intervention in Syria, noting that the April 14 strikes by the US-France-UK “troika” only set back the reconciliation process in a country ravished by a seven-year-old war. Moscow believes that there is no military solution to the Syrian conflict and that countries must work together to aid the peace process.
“By their acts of aggression, the troika, and those who supported or welcomed their actions considerably set back Geneva negotiations,” the diplomat said. “If the goal is to force the Syrian President under a hail of bombs to sit at the negotiation table, presented as a victory over him… such a task is not feasible… there should be no illusions.”
‘Go back to Raqqa & bury bodies’: Putin calls for investigation into strikes on civilians in Syria
The Russian ambassador urged all states to stop attempts to create “new realities” in Syria that undermine its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Nebenzia also demanded that the US and its allies stop “aggressive hatred rhetoric” addressed at Syria and Russia, and to cut out requests calling for regime change in Damascus. Militants, for their part, must refrain from provocations, including the use of chemical weapons, and drop attempts to provoke further “external aggression,” he added.
Meanwhile, the US called the UN meeting a farce, orchestrated by Moscow in an attempt to “distract” the international community from Bashar Assad’s crimes.
“Russia has called us here as part of a messaging campaign to try to distract from the atrocities committed by the regime,” deputy US Ambassador to the UN, Kelley Currie, said. “In order to do that, Russia has asked this council to focus its attention on the one part of Syria where the Assad regime isn’t pummeling civilians to death with barrel bombs or banned chemical weapons.”
In an interview with BFMTV, the leader of the right-wing National Front has cast doubt on the credibility of the claims made by French authorities in relation to missile strikes on Syria in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons in the city of Douma in Eastern Ghouta.
“First of all, the question is whether he [French President Emmanuel Macron] really bombed the factory, where chemical weapons had been produced and stored. I may not know much about it, but I go by national wisdom and common sense; when they bomb a factory where chemical weapons are stored, they run the risk of killing thousands of people living in the neighborhood,” Marine Le Pen told the broadcaster.
In the meantime, she put a premium on the fact that the Syrian government had not reported any casualties among civilians in the wake of the joint airstrikes, carried out by the United States, France and the United Kingdom.
“I think, they are telling us lots of different stories. But we’re already used to it, we’ve heard many stories like that, which the Americans have been telling us for many years, starting from Colin Powell [former US Secretary of State] with his tiny tube, who claimed there were weapons of mass destruction, which became the rationale for the Iraq war. Although everyone today admits that this war was based on a lie, and this was a trap, which, by the way, Jacques Chirac [former French President] did not fall into. Hence, I question every piece of information, transmitted from the United States,” Le Pen proceeded to say.
The National Front’s leader went on to say that the trilateral strikes against Syria violated international norms.
“I think he [Macron] violated international law, there’s nothing to argue about. He speaks of the “international legitimacy” that should replace international law, but I’m confused by this concept – there’s only international law,” Le Pen concluded.
Marine Le Pen previously criticized Macron’s decision to participate in the strikes, tweeting that the president had violated international law, and the strikes exposed France to “unpredictable and potentially dramatic consequences.”
On April 14, the United States, France and the UK fired over 100 missiles on several targets in Syria, justifying the strike as a retaliatory measure for the alleged use of chemical weapons by the country’s government against civilians in Douma that supposedly took place on April 7. The Syrian authorities have denied the accusations, insisting that the attack was staged by militant groups to justify potential foreign intervention in Syria.
While the US and its allies claimed that it was a “perfectly executed strike,” and the attack had hit most of the designated targets, the Russian Defense Ministry stated that 71 out of the 103 missiles were intercepted by the Syrian air defenses.
Washington reportedly wants Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar to replace the US in terms of troop deployments and funding in “stabilizing northeastern Syria,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
The US currently has two major points of military presence on the ground in Syria: one on the border with Jordan in the south and one in northeastern Syria in an area controlled by the predominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Force (SDF). President Donald Trump announced plans to withdraw American troops from Syria, apparently dismayed by the cost of the operation. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration wants to shift the burden of occupying northeastern Syria – which is touted as an effort to stabilize the area by the newspaper – to Arab countries.
The WSJ says John Bolton, Trump’s new national security adviser, called Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s acting intelligence chief, to see if the Arab nation with the largest standing army was willing to contribute to the planned changing of guard. Washington also asked Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to contribute billions of dollars into a buildup in northern Syria and asked to send troops as well.
“The mission of the regional force would be to work with the local Kurdish and Arab fighters the US has been supporting to ensure Islamic State [IS, formerly ISIS] cannot make a comeback and preclude Iranian-backed forces from moving into former Islamic State territory, US officials say,” according to the newspaper.
The plan is apparently meant as an easy way out for America, which found itself in a perilous situation in Syria, having troops there with no legal ground and balancing amid countering goals and interests. For instance, Washington’s NATO partner Turkey sees America’s Syrian Kurd allies as terrorists and a legitimate target for military action.
However, having the Americans replaced with other foreign troops would entail challenges, too. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are otherwise preoccupied with their stalled military involvement in Yemen and may find it politically awkward to deploy troops alongside Qatar, a nation they accuse of supporting terrorism and of being close to Iran.
Egypt’s troops are busy fighting against jihadist groups in the Sinai Peninsula in the east and securing the lengthy desert border with Libya in the west. Both regions became major security threats after the events of the Arab Spring, during which Libya was reduced with the help of NATO to a patchwork of warring militant groups. Egypt suffered several years of political turmoil and a military coup, after which the supporters of Muslim Brotherhood found themselves under government pressure again.
The willingness of the Kurds to accept foreign Arab troops is far from certain. With some Syrian Kurds already feeling betrayed by the US over Washington’s failure to protect them from Turkey, getting a foreign Arab force deployed near their lands may be too much to swallow. Especially since some of the Islamist groups that the Kurds fought against during the seven-year war were funded and armed by the same Arab countries.
The WSJ also points out that cost reduction expected by the replacement may not be as big as the Trump administration hopes. The Arab expeditionary force would still require air support, logistical supply and possibly at least some presence of US troops among their ranks.
By Daniel Ken | TCW Defending Freedom | May 20, 2023
Over more than two decades in the classroom I’ve taught thousands of children and teenagers: some were lovely and lots were hard-working. On the other hand, quite a number were disruptive and argumentative, and a number were violently opposed to learning. But I don’t think I’ve taught more than a handful of kids who could be properly described as having the symptoms of ADHD. And that handful could just as easily have had something else wrong with them. Because here’s the thing: despite the fact that the best part of a million children are medicated for the condition, ADHD doesn’t exist.
There’s no definitive medical test for it, experts can’t agree on what it actually means, and most of the symptoms disappear if the child in question has lots of exercise, good diet and, crucially, a set of clear behavioural boundaries, preferably set early in childhood and, for the boys at least, enforced by a stable adult male living at home. … continue
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