House passes bill about Taylor Force, ignores 34 other Americans who were killed by Israel
By Kathryn Shihadah | If Americans Knew | December 7, 2107
On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Taylor Force Act (text here), a bill that reduces funding to the Palestinian Authority. The bill next goes to the full Senate, where it is expected to pass.
The Taylor Force Act is named for U.S. army veteran Taylor Force, who was killed by a Palestinian in Tel Aviv in March, 2016 while Force was visiting Israel as part of a Vanderbilt University MBA program.
The bill targets the PA’s so-called “pay-to-slay” policy which Israel believes incentivizes terrorism, and would strip the PA of much of its US aid if local officials can not certify that they have stopped making these payments.
Nathan Diament, executive director for public policy of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, commented on the unanimous approval of the Taylor Force Act, calling it
a giant step toward ending the Palestinian Authority’s grotesque practice of ‘pay-for-slay.’ This system of encouraging and incentivizing terrorism has gone on for far too long, and the Taylor Force Act is a critical step toward ending this murderous scheme.
Diament’s statement is problematic.
First of all, the word “practice” implies that Palestinians are regularly killing Israelis and Americans. This is decidedly not the case.
In fact, since January of 2009, Palestinians have killed 168 Israelis, while Israelis have killed 18 times more Palestinians—a total of 3,143. In 2016, the year of Taylor Force’s untimely death, 16 Israelis died at the hands of Palestinians and 110 Palestinians—many posing no threat whatsoever—died at the hands of Israelis. If any group has a “grotesque practice” of killing, perhaps it is not the Palestinians.
Diament’s “pay-for-slay” phrase is also both inaccurate and offensive.
The family of Taylor Force’s killer did indeed receive a stipend after his death, as have the families of other terrorists. Such financial assistance is often crucial since Israeli forces demolish their family homes, even though the slayer’s children, wife, nieces and nephews (these homes are usually inhabited by extended families) had nothing to do with their violent action.
Most of the world has a practice of paying a “death gratuity” to the families of service members killed or injured in the line of duty. The US does; Israel does too. Both Israeli and U.S. forces have killed numerous civilians, yet families of fallen soldiers still receive funding.
The Palestinian Territories are forbidden from having armed forces: their resistance against the occupation is carried out by civilians. In the event of death, injury, or imprisonment, their families face the same financial struggles any service member’s family would face, and the Palestinian Authority provides for them.
Qadora Fares, who works with the system, explains, “This is a kind of social protection for the family. The children of the prisoners and martyrs and wounded have the right to go to schools, hospitals and get food.”
Moreover, the vast majority of recipients of payments in this program are made to families not of attackers, but of victims. Children injured by stray bullets while walking to school, young men detained while participating in a peaceful demonstration, husbands killed while sitting on their front porch – anyone killed, injured, or imprisoned as a result of Israel’s brutality.
“Straining out gnats, swallowing camels”
But the greatest problem with Diament’s statement—and many like it—is the hypocrisy behind it. It is absurd to suggest that the Palestinian Authority has a problem with violence and needs to be cut off financially from American aid, while Israel, which receives approximately one hundred times more aid ($3.1 billion/year vs. $363 million), is responsible for a significantly higher number of deaths (see above, and here, for example).
Israel and pro-Israel organizations say they care deeply about the death of American ex-serviceman Taylor Force at the hands of an outlaw Palestinian, but would rather not discuss the USS Liberty, in which 34 innocent American servicemen died and 174 were wounded by our “closest ally,” Israel.
Israel’s Arutz Sheva news organization reports “Jewish groups welcome Taylor Force Act,” noting that AIPAC (the American Israeli Public Affairs Council; the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America (OU), “the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization;” and the American Jewish Congress all lauded the legislation. The ADL (Anti-Defamation League) also applauded the bill.
If Americans Knew contacted these organizations to ask whether they also supported USS Liberty survivors, but did not receive replies. The ADL opposed a billboard near New Haven, Connecticut billboard honoring Liberty veterans; a similar billboard honoring Liberty veterans in New Bedford was taken down when the company received complaints from Israel partisans. It would appear that only certain service members’ deaths matter to these organizations.
Hypocrisy is alive and well in the US Congress too.
Our lawmakers – the same ones who rallied behind the Taylor Force Act – were silent about other Americans who were killed and maimed in Israel and refused to investigate the USS Liberty incident. When a Palestinian is at fault, we punish; when Israel is guilty, there is no accountability. We look the other way.
Our Senators and Representatives know full well how much money they have approved to be sent to Israel – no strings attached – year after year. They know how much is spent on advanced weaponry for use on an essentially unarmed Palestinian population. Our Congressmen and Congresswomen should know that occupation is illegal, but resistance to occupation is a legal right according to the Fourth Geneva Convention. Consequently, Israel should cease and desist its occupation, rather than expecting the Palestinians to cease and desist from their resistance against the occupation.
Instead of bowing to AIPAC and punishing the Palestinians for the violent actions of a a rogue young man with no terrorist affiliation against a young American man, Congress should assess the actual damage in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories and stop footing the bill for the ongoing murder of Palestinians.
Kathryn Shihadah is a staff writer for If Americans Knew
Related Reading:
The Legitimacy of Compensation for Family Members for Palestinians Killed, Injured, and Imprisoned
Instead of Taylor Force Act, Congress should consider Rachel Corrie Act, Orwah Hammad Act
Trump Team Didn’t Just Collude with Israel, Kushner was Acting as Foreign Agent for Tel Aviv
By Patrick Henningsen | 21st Century Wire | December 7, 2107
Much was made this week in the American media about Michael Flynn’s recent guilty plea to making false statements to the FBI, as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s never-ending “Russia probe.”
Although court documents show Flynn has acknowledged to previously giving false statements in reference to reaching out to Russia’s ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak – the mere act of reaching out to foreign officials is neither illegal, nor is it a violation of ethics. This is normal practice for members of any incoming US administration. Even if Flynn had promised to the Russian Ambassador, as claimed this week by Resistance leader Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, that a Trump government would “rip-up sanctions,” such a promise by Flynn would not be unlawful. Anyone can make a promise, we should point out here that neither Flynn, nor Donald Trump would be in any position to make good on such a promise without the blessing of the US Congress and Senate. Just look at what happened when Trump took office. Were any sanctions lifted?
That said, after 18 months of fabricating fake news about Russian hacking, Russian meddling and Russian collusion, it’s not surprising that the New York Times would get the Flynn story wrong too, and on an even bigger scale than many of their past made-up stories about Trump scandals. Here we have yet another hand-wringing Resistance writer, Harry Litman, claiming that Flynn’s testimony will go in down history next to Watergate and Iran-Contra:
“The repercussions of the plea will be months in the making, but it’s not an exaggeration to say that the events to which Mr. Flynn has agreed to testify will take their place in the history books alongside the Watergate and Iran-contra scandals.”
He might be right, if only the media coverage and the federal hearing would focus on the correct country with whom the Trump team was colluding, which unfortunately was not Russia. Funny how partisan writer Litman did not even mention the word Israel once in his report. In fact, we can now better see why certain persons in Washington like Adam Schiff and John McCain, along with their corrupt media counterparts like CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times have been incessantly pushing their fictional “Russia did it” narrative for the last 18 months – because Russiagate served as a convenient cover for Israelgate.
Mehdi Hassan from The Intercept writes:
“… Why aren’t more members of Congress or the media discussing the Trump transition team’s pretty brazen collusion with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to undermine both U.S. government policy and international law? Shouldn’t that be treated as a major scandal? Thanks to Mueller’s ongoing investigation, we now know that prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration, members of his inner circle went to bat on behalf of Israel, and specifically on behalf of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, behind the scenes and in opposition to official U.S. foreign policy. That’s the kind of collusion with a foreign state that has gotten a lot of attention with respect to the Kremlin – but colluding with Israel seems to be of far less interest, strangely.”
Yes, you heard that right. This was at minimum collusion with Israel. But it goes much deeper than that. If this story is accurate, and we every reason to believe it is (especially by the large silence in the American media, usually a positive indication of media avoidance), this would indicate that the then President-elect’s close advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was clearly acting as a foreign agent – on behalf of the state of Israel.
Granted, this is a very serious charge – which comes with some serious consequences if Kushner would ever be indicted, but the facts clearly demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt, that then President-elect’s son-in-law was using his proximity to the incoming Commander and Chief to execute a series of highly sensitive foreign policy maneuvers at the request of a foreign country.
The history of Israeli spying and outright meddling in US affairs is no secret to anyone willing to research it (unofficially a forbidden topic in US mainstream media), but this latest episode with Trump and Kushner is even more disturbing considering this week’s East Jerusalem announcement.
Beyond this, many will argue that the radical fundamentalist Zionist agenda which Kushner is aggressively pursuing on behalf of Tel Aviv is not in the interest of the wider Middle East, nor is it good for America’s European partners, and may even contribute to a further destablization of the region – as evidenced by recent violence which has erupted following Trump’s provocative move. That result is not necessarily in America’s interests, even if it is certainly in Israel’s interests.
Author Mehdi Hassan continues:
Here’s what we learned last week when Mueller’s team unveiled its plea deal with Trump’s former national security adviser, retired Gen. Michael Flynn. In December 2016, the United Nations Security Council was debating a draft resolution that condemned Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied territories as a “flagrant violation under international law” that was “dangerously imperiling the viability” of an independent Palestinian state.
The Obama administration had made it clear that the U.S. was planning to abstain on the resolution, while noting that “the settlements have no legal validity” and observing how “the settlement problem has gotten so much worse that it is now putting at risk the … two-state solution.” (Rhetorically, at least, U.S. opposition to Israeli settlements has been a long-standing and bipartisan position for decades: Ronald Reagan called for “a real settlement freeze” in 1982 while George H.W. Bush tried to curb Israeli settlement-building plans by briefly cutting off U.S. loan guarantees to the Jewish state in 1991.)
Everyone expected that the upcoming UN vote on illegal Israeli settlements was going to be a divisive issue, but with only weeks before Trump’s fast approaching inauguration, Israel had its trojan horse in position. Hassan goes on to explain Tel Aviv’s covert mechanism for manipulate the UN vote:
“On or about December 22, 2016, a very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team directed Flynn to contact officials from foreign governments, including Russia, to learn where each government stood on the resolution and to influence those governments to delay the vote or defeat the resolution,” reads the statement of offense against Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. “On or about December 22, 2016, Flynn contacted the Russian Ambassador about the pending vote. Flynn informed the Russian Ambassador about the incoming administration’s opposition to the resolution, and requested that Russia vote against or delay the resolution.”
So who was this very senior member of Trump’s team who sought to execute orders from the office of Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu? Hassan explains:
Who was the “very senior member” of the transition team who “directed” Flynn to do all this? Multiple news outlets have confirmed that it was Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and main point man on the Middle East peace process. “Jared called Flynn and told him you need to get on the phone to every member of the Security Council and tell them to delay the vote,” a Trump transition official revealed to BuzzFeed News on Friday, adding that Kushner told Flynn “this was a top priority for the president.”
According to BuzzFeed : “After hanging up, Flynn told the entire room [at the Trump transition team HQ] that they’d have to start pushing to lobby against the U.N. vote, saying ‘the president wants this done ASAP.’” Flynn’s guilty plea, BuzzFeed continued, revealed “for the first time how Trump transition officials solicited Russia’s help to head off the UN vote and undermine the Obama administration’s policy on Middle East peace before ever setting foot in the White House.”
Even during the height of the Neocon era, with multiple Israeli loyalists in the cabinet (including some dual passport holders) shaping White House Middle East policy – ultimately into a ditch with Iraq, the level of manipulation wasn’t this overt. Trump’s decision to reverse successive US administrations’ new policy on East Jerusalem is inconceivable, if not for some other x-factor which even the PNAC-dominated George W. Bush could not manage.
The facts of the case against Kushner have not been contested, and in fact Kushner has even been gloating out on the speaking circuit, with his doting wife Ivanka proudly advertizing her husband’s ‘accomplishment’ on behalf Israel.
“None of this has been contested. In fact, on Sunday, Kushner made a rare public appearance at the Saban Forum in Washington, D.C., to discuss the Trump administration’s plans for the Middle East and was welcomed by the forum’s sponsor, the Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban, who said he “personally wanted to thank” Kushner for “taking steps to try and get the United Nations Security Council to not go along with what ended up being an abstention by the U.S.” Kushner’s response? The first son-in-law smiled, nodded, and mouthed “thank you” to Saban.
Meanwhile, the Israelis have been pretty forthcoming about their own role in all of this, too. On Monday, Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. and a close friend and ally of Netanyahu, told Politico’s Susan Glasser that, in December 2016, “obviously we reached out to [the Trump transition team] in the hope that they would help us,” and “we were hopeful that they would speak” to other governments “in order to prevent this vote from happening.”
According to these reports, Kushner was using his position in the transition team to act on Israel’s behalf – outside of any governmental framework of accountability. If Flynn is guilty of anything, it would be going also with Kushner’s Israel First scheme ahead of the United Nations vote. What is odd though, is why the entire US mainstream media is not interested in this part of the story. Even the Never Trump “Resistance” seem to be afraid of taking this narrative on. I guess even the Resistance has its limits. Rather than go for a case where the evidence is sitting right there on a silver Salva, instead they will go for the Russian conspiracy theory. Alas, old habits die hard.
This series of events is all the more pertinent when considering this week’s announcement by President Trump that the US is to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and with be moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to East Jerusalem. Many are already calling this “the kiss of death” to the Israel-Palestine peace process. In a predictable succession of events, the Jerusalem provocation was a fait accompli after Trump had announced in October that the US would be withdrawing from support for UNESCO, the UN body which is meant to help maintain the neutrality of Jerusalem as an internationally protected area. The Trump administration justified its resignation from the key UN agency on the ground that is “biased against Israel.” But the neutrality of Jerusalem is an essential policy for maintaining peace in a less than ideal situation with Palestine still under a brutal military occupation by an illegitimate and illegal (by international law and successive UN Resolutions) Israeli jackboot.
In addition to all this, this past summer the United States announced the establishment of a permanent military installation inside of Israel. What’s scary is how many people do not know this has happened.
So Trump’s éminence grise, the wunderkind, who some people have called the President In-Law, is really Israel’s man inside the White House.
What is Jared Kushner’s experience in international affairs and diplomacy that he has been charged with negotiating Middle East affairs for the United States of America? His only visible qualification is that he’s married to the President’s daughter. That’s really it.
Credit where credit’s due though. Aside from marrying into the dynasty, Kushner is also the former owner of a mediocre website, The New York Observer, and has also managed to parlay his family status to help finance a number of high-profile New York City property deals (no doubt with the help of his father-in-law),
Isn’t that what Kushner is doing now – using his inherited clout to help “close friend” Benjamin Netanyahu secure a highly illegal property deal in the Middle East, with the United States as the guarantor? It certainly looks that way. The question is, will anyone in the US do anything about it?
When this latest episode of hubris by the White House and Israel eventually unravels, the public and the media might then turn on Kushner and Trump, but by then the damage will have already been done.
Until then, Netanyahu can feel safe in the knowledge that Israel, not Washington, is currently in control of US foreign policy.
One final note to brave Never Trump Resistance: if any foreign state actor is blackmailing this President or the White House, it’s probably not Russia.
***
Author Patrick Henningsen is an American writer and global affairs analyst and founder of independent news and analysis site 21st Century Wire, and is host of the SUNDAY WIRE weekly radio show broadcast globally over the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR). He has written for a number of international publications and has done extensive on-the-ground reporting of the conflict Syria, Iraq and the Middle East.
Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez Faces Pretrial Detention
Former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner
teleSUR | December 7, 2017
An Argentine judge has ordered that former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner be put in pretrial detention.
Federal judge Claudio Bonadio alleges that Fernandez committed crimes against the state in trying to “conceal” the possible involvement of five Iranian officials in Argentina in the bombing of the Israeli Argentine Mutualist Association, AMIA, building in Buenos Aires in 1994.
Eighty-six people were killed in the explosion. The bombing remains unsolved.
The judge claims that in signing a memorandum of understanding with Iranian officials in Argentina in 2013, Fernandez agreed to not investigate possible Iranian involvement in the attack, “aggravating” the inquiry and granting the alleged bombers impunity.
The 2013 memorandum was never legally enacted in Iran, but was by the Argentine Congress. However, an Argentine judge ruled the memorandum unconstitutional.
If convicted, Fernandez could face up to 10 to 25 years of jail time or even life in prison.
Fernandez, along with all other 23 newly-elected senators, are set to take up their congressional post this Sunday, Dec. 10. She and the other senators were sworn in last week.
Bonadio also ordered the arrest of former Argentine government official Hector Timerman. Already arrested for alleged involvement in the memorandum is former Secretary General Carlos Zannini, who served under Fernandez. He was questioned about the memorandum by Bonadio in October and denied any wrongdoing.
Also arrested today in the early morning were activists Luis D’Elia and Jorge “Yussuf” Khalil. As officials arrested D’Elía, he yelled “stop the Macri dictatorship!” alluding to current President Mauricio Macri.
Up to 12 other former government officials are suspected of playing a part in the so-called “cover up,” but are not being detained.
Fernandez says the memorandum attempted to advance the investigation and called for the creation of an international commission to investigate the bombing. She says the commission had orders of extradition pending for Interpol to deliver several accused who reside in Iran to Argentina. These extradition orders were never carried out.
An investigation into the memorandum was first ordered by a former attorney general in 2015, but was denied by a federal court in 2016.
Propaganda, Confrontation and Profit
By Brian CLOUGHLEY | Strategic Culture Foundation | 06.12.2017
The waves, the artificial tides of anti-Russian propaganda continue to beat upon the ears and eyes of Western citizens, spurred by Washington politicians and bureaucrats whose motives vary from deviously duplicitous to blatantly commercial. It is no coincidence that there has been vastly increased expenditure on US weaponry by Eastern European countries.
Complementing the weapons’ build-up, which is so sustaining and lucrative for the US industrial-military complex, the naval, air and ground forces of the US-NATO military alliance continue operations ever closer to Russia’s borders.
Shares and dividends in US arms manufacturing companies have rocketed, in a most satisfactory spinoff from Washington’s policy of global confrontation, and the Congressional Research Service (CRS) records that “arms sales are recognized widely as an important instrument of state power. States have many incentives to export arms. These include enhancing the security of allies or partners; constraining the behaviour of adversaries; using the prospect of arms transfers as leverage on governments’ internal or external behaviour; and creating the economics of scale necessary to support a domestic arms industry.”
The CRS notes that arms deals “are often a key component in Congress’s approach to advancing US foreign policy objectives,” which is especially notable around the Baltic and throughout the Middle East, where US wars have created a bonanza for US weapons makers — and for the politicians whom the manufacturers reward so generously for their support. (Additionally, in 2017 arms manufacturers spent $93,937,493 on lobbying Congress.)
Some countries, however, do not wish to purchase US weaponry, and they are automatically categorised as being influenced by Russia, which is blamed for all that has gone wrong in America over the past couple of years. This classification is especially notable in the Central Asian Republics.
The US military’s Central Command (Centcom) states that its “area of responsibility spans more than 4 million square miles and is populated by more than 550 million people from 22 ethnic groups, speaking 18 languages… and confessing [sic] multiple religions which transect national borders. The demographics create opportunities for tension and rivalry.” Centcom is deeply engaged in the US wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, and supports Saudi Arabia in its war on Yemen, and the extent of its influence in the Pentagon’s self-allotted geographical Area of Responsibility is intriguing, to say the least. Some of its priorities were revealed in March 2017 by the Commander of this enormous military realm, General Joseph Votel, in testimony to the Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives in Washington.
General Votel’s description of US self-allocated “responsibilities” was astonishing in its imperialistic arrogance.
As Commander of Centcom, General Votel gave the Armed Services Committee a colourful tour of his territory, describing nations in terms ranging from condescendingly supportive to patently insolent, and he devoted much time to describing relations with countries abutting Russia, Iran and China, which nations, he declared, are trying “to limit US influence in the sub-region.” That “sub-region” includes many countries immediately on the borders of Russia, Iran and China, and averaging 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometres) from Washington.
CENTCOM countries (coloured)
First he dealt with Kazakhstan with which the US has its “most advanced military relationship in Central Asia” in furtherance of which Washington is “making notable progress… despite enduring Russian influence.” It is obviously unacceptable to the Pentagon that Russia wishes to maintain cordial relations with a country with which it has a border of 6,800 kilometres. Then General Votel went into fantasyland by claiming that “Kazakhstan remains the most significant regional contributor to Afghan stability…” which even the members of the Congressional Committee would have realised is spurious nonsense.
But more nonsense was to follow, with General Votel referring to Kyrgyzstan in patronising terms usually associated with a Viceroy or other colonial master of a region that Votel describes as “widely characterized by pervasive instability and conflict,” which he failed to note were caused by the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He told the Committee that Kyrgyzstan “sees political pressure from its larger, more powerful neighbours, including Russia, hosting a small Russian airbase outside the capital, Bishkek. Despite ongoing challenges in our bilateral and security cooperation, we continue to seek opportunities to improve our mil-to-mil relationship.” He did not explain why Kyrgyzstan should be expected to embrace a military alliance with United States Central Command, but Viceroys don’t have to provide explanations.
Votel then moved to consider Tajikistan with which “our mil-to-mil relationship is deepening despite Moscow’s enduring ties and the presence of the military base near Tajikistan’s capital of Dushanbe, Russia’s largest military base outside of its borders.” Not only this, says Votel, but China (having a 400 Kilometre border with Tajikistan) has had the temerity to have “initiated a much stronger military cooperation partnership with Tajikistan, adding further complexity to Tajikistan’s multi-faceted approach to security cooperation.”
No: China hasn’t added any complexity to Tajikistan’s circumstances. What has complicated their relations is the fact that Afghanistan is in a state of chaos, following the US invasion of 2001, and drugs and terrorists cross the border (1,300 kilometres long) from Afghanistan into Tajikistan, which is trying to protect itself. During its sixteen years of war in Afghanistan there has been no attempt by the United States to secure that border.
None of these countries wants to be forced into a military pact with the United States, and Turkmenistan (border with Afghanistan 750 kilometres) has made it clear it doesn’t want to be aligned with anyone. But General Votel states that its “UN-recognized policy of ‘positive neutrality’ presents a challenge with respect to US engagement.” No matter what is desired by Turkmenistan, it seems, there must always be a way for the United States Central Command to establish military relations and, as General Votel told the Defence Committee, “we are encouraged somewhat by Turkmenistan’s expressed interest in increased mil-to-mil engagement with the US within the limits of their ‘positive neutrality’ policy.”
In the minds (to use the word loosely) of General Votel and his kind, it doesn’t matter if a country wants nothing whatever to do with the United States’ military machine, and wants very much to be left alone to get on with things without any interference. Adoption of such a policy by any nation presents a “challenge” and the United States, which in this region is overseen by General Votel’s Central Command, is determined to seek military “engagement” irrespective of what is desired by governments. Arms sales would swiftly follow.
Votel’s tour of his area of responsibility covered Afghanistan, about which his most absurd assertion was “I believe what Russia is attempting to do is they are attempting to be an influential party in this part of the world. I think it is fair to assume they may be providing some sort of support to [the Taliban] in terms of weapons or other things that may be there.”
There was not a shred of evidence provided, but the Committee accepted the pronouncement. Obviously if an allegation is made about Russia it doesn’t matter if it is false. It must be believed. But unfortunately for the imperial Votel and his deferential audience, a person with some sense of truth and balance came up two months later with a statement rubbishing Votel’s unfounded and provocative accusation. In May the Director of the US Defence Intelligence Agency told a Senate Committee that “We have seen indication that [Russia] offered some level of support [to the Taliban], but I have not seen real physical evidence of weapons or money being transferred.” The mainstream media gave no publicity to the truth, and continue to blame Russia for all the ills that befall the US Empire, at home and overseas.
The state of affairs was summed up admirably by Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation on December 4 when he wrote that “Central to any national-security state is the need for official enemies, ones that are used to frighten and agitate the citizenry. If there are no official enemies, the American citizenry might begin asking some discomforting questions: What do we need a national-security state for? Why not abolish the CIA and dismantle the military-industrial complex and the NSA. Why can’t we have our limited-government, constitutional republic back?”
The Motto of the Pentagon’s Central Command is “Prepare, Pursue, Prevail.” and the Central Asian Republics would be well-advised to bear in mind these threats and think hard about the underlying motif of the US military-industrial complex which is “Propagandise, Provoke, Profit.”
Remembering Brazil’s Leftist President João Goulart on Anniversary of His Death
João Vicente Goulart holds a portrait of himself, his father, João Goulart, and his sister, Denize. | Photo: João Vicente Goulart
By Edu Montesanti | teleSUR | December 6, 2017
“Jango was my best friend, a great partner, and the best father to my children. It is still hard to forget,” Jango’s widow, Maria Theresa Goulart told teleSUR.
On Dec. 6, 1976, former Brazilian President João Goulart, popularly known as “Jango,” passed away at 57 years old in his exile with family in Mercedes, Argentina. Officially, he died of a cardiac attack, but evidence points to poisoning.
“There are still some available tissue samples at the Federal Police Criminal Institute of Brazil for a new investigation, as new evidence is expected if we can have more documents declassified and testimonies that would bring new information,” João Vicente Goulart, Jango’s son told teleSUR.
“In the first results analyzed, a substance appeared in tiny amounts which should not be in a human body, called pentaerythritol tetranitrate or erythrin tetranitrate, also known as pentrite,” said Goulart. “It is a chemical with characteristics and end of explosives that, at the time, was only controlled as an exclusive weapon used by the American army,” added Jango’s son, pointing out that secret agents used to infiltrate the family’s house in exile.
“It has been proven that spies removed my father’s documents, they could have easily changed his heart medicine for a poison.”
Jango speaks to a large crowd accompanied by his wife, Maria Theresa Goulart. Photo: João Vicente Goulart
Jango’s body did not undergo an autopsy at the time of his death. His body was buried in São Borja, Brazil, after the assurance that the coffin would not be opened. According to Goulart, “There was severe military repression at my father’s funeral.” There were military officials everywhere, monitoring Jango’s coffin so it could not be opened. In 2006, Mario Neira, a former Uruguayan secret agent, told Goulart that his father had been poisoned.
Overthrown from the Brazilian presidency by a military coup d’état on April 1, 1964, the democratically-elected João Goulart, with more than 70 percent of an approval rating, was exiled three days later with family to Uruguay. In 1973, President Juan Domingo Peron welcomed him. The Goularts were constantly threatened in exile, so the son, João Vicente and Denize, the Goularts’ daughter, left to study in London. Some friends warned former president Jango several times, that he could be killed.
On March 13, 1964, 18 days before the coup, President João Goulart gave a speech to more than 200,000 people in Central do Brasil square in Rio de Janeiro, with his wife Maria Theresa Goulart beside him, for the first time since assuming the presidency. He promised an agrarian reform, reducing remittances of profits overseas, extending democratic rights, along with other very popular reforms.
“Goulart committed the crime of reforming the economy. That was more than (U.S. President) Lyndon Johnson could tolerate and he opted to destabilize the economy and assist a right-wing military takeover,” said the U.S. historian Peter Kuznick to teleSUR.
“The 1964 coup that toppled Goulart’s government was extremely significant,” added Kuznick. “Oliver Stone and I began our documentary about the invasion of Vietnam with a discussion of that coup. We then talk about the Dominican Republic, Greece, Indonesia, and Chile to show that the Vietnam War was part of a pattern.
“A National Intelligence Estimate in the summer of 1963 had warned that Goulart might be establishing ‘an extreme leftist regime, with a strongly anti-U.S. character.’ Johnson’s appointment in December of Thomas Mann as assistant secretary of state to coordinate Latin American affairs was another nail in the Goulart government’s coffin.
“When Goulart responded the next year to U.S. demands to impose austerity on the Brazilian people by instead offering land reform and control of foreign capital and by recognizing Cuba, the U.S. moved quickly to destabilize the economy. Goulart seized U.S. properties.
“Ambassador Lincoln Gordon and U.S. embassy officials urged right-wing Brazilian officers to overthrow Goulart. The U.S. backed Army Chief of Staff General Humberto Castelo Branco. The CIA assisted behind the scenes,” observed Kuznick, who is the director of the Institute of Nuclear Studies at the American University.
The Brazilian historian Victor Schincariol told teleSUR that in order to preserve national peace and people’s security, President Jango didn’t call for a military intervention to protect him. “Goulart was genuinely committed to democracy and social peace. He said that he could not tolerate the death of Brazilians in a virtual civil war.
“At the same time, he knew that the U.S. would support the right-wing forces, which would make the case for the defense of democracy very hard indeed to win,” added the Brazilian researcher at the University of ABC in São Paulo.
On Dec. 18, in the presence of the heads of the military and President Dilma Rousseff, the Brazilian Congress symbolically returned President João Goulart’s mandate, as the OAS exhorted Brazil in 2010 for the crimes against humanity never punished, committed by the military dictatorship that killed 475 people, left 144 “disappeared,” and tortured more than 30,000 people.
There is an Amnesty Act in Brazil, elaborated and passed in 1979 by Brazilian military officials themselves — never addressed in the country by politicians, mainstream media and local elites — that acquits the dictators of the crimes committed between 1964 and 1985.
“Goulart’s and Varga’s legacy was erased, physically and ideologically, by the military dictatorship between 1964-1985. The economy was “globalized;” the case for an industrialization with national capitals, social justice and national independence was substituted by dependence, fascist policies and censorship; the democratic and left-wing forces were imprisoned, killed or left the nation,” said Professor Doctor Schincariol.
“The most important legacy Jango left to Brazil was his tireless fight for workers’ right and social justice,” Jango’s widow, Maria Theresa Goulart told teleSUR. “And for us, his family, his generosity and partnership.”
The Tangled Threads of Russia-gate
By Robert Parry | Consortium News | December 5, 2017
A curious feature about the Russia-gate “scandal” is that its proponents ignore the growing number of moments when their evidence undercuts their narrative. Instead, they press ahead toward a predetermined destination in much the way that true-believing conspiracy theorists are known to do.
For instance, The New York Times ran a story on Monday, entitled “Operative Offered Trump Campaign Access to Putin,” detailing how a conservative operative “told a Trump adviser that he could arrange a back-channel meeting between Donald J. Trump and Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, according to an email sent to the Trump campaign” — and apparently described to the Times by a helpful source on Capitol Hill.
The Times quoted the email from National Rifle Association member Paul Erickson to Trump campaign adviser Rick Dearborn as saying, “Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump. … [Putin] wants to extend an invitation to Mr. Trump to visit him in the Kremlin before the election.”
An NRA conference in Louisville, Kentucky, was supposed to be the location for the “first contact” between the Russians and the Trump campaign, according to the email.
The Times treated its new information as further confirmation of nefarious connections between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Immediately after introducing this May 2016 email, which had the subject line, ”Kremlin Connection,” the Times reprised the background of former FBI Director Robert Mueller conducting a special-prosecutor investigation into “Russian interference in the election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.”
Note how the Times’ reference to “Russian interference” was treated as flat fact although the Times still hedges on “possible collusion” between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. Like much of the U.S. mainstream media, the Times no longer bothers to use “alleged” in front of “Russian interference” even though no solid evidence of a coordinated Kremlin effort has been presented.
But there is a bigger problem with this “scoop”: If the Russia-gate narrative were correct – that the Kremlin had identified Trump years earlier as a likely U.S. president and undertook a multi-year campaign to bribe and blackmail him to be Moscow’s Manchurian candidate or Putin’s “puppet” as Hillary Clinton charged – the Russians wouldn’t need some little-known “conservative operative” to serve as an intermediary in May 2016 to set up a back-channel meeting.
The Contradiction
In other words, assuming that the Times’ story is correct, the email suggests the opposite of the impression that the Times wants its readers to get. The email is either meaningless in that it led to no actual meeting or it contradicts the storyline about a longstanding Russian operation to plant a patsy in the White House.
Times reporter Nicholas Fandos noted that it was unclear what Dearborn did in response to this overture, although the Times reported that Dearborn had forwarded a similar proposal by Christian conservative activist Rick Clay to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who rebuffed the offer.
On Monday, I read the rest of the Times email story looking for some acknowledgement of the problems with its implied scenario, but found none. Fandos made references to other low-level efforts by Russians to make contact with Trump’s advisers (without noticeable success, I might add), but again these examples actually run counter to the image of Trump as the Kremlin’s prized chump.
If Putin had several years ago foreseen what no one else did – that Trump would become the U.S. president – then these ad hoc contacts with members of Trump’s entourage in 2016 would not have been needed.
The Times’ scoop parallels the story of the plea deal that Russia-gate prosecutors struck with low-level Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos who admitted lying about his contacts with an obscure academic in Stirling, Scotland, who supposedly offered to be another intermediary between Trump’s team and the Kremlin.
According to court documents, Papadopoulos, a 30-year-old campaign aide, got to know a professor of international relations who claimed to have “substantial connections with Russian government officials,” with the professor identified in press reports as Joseph Mifsud, who is associated with the University of Stirling.
The first contact between Mifsud and Papadopoulos supposedly occurred in mid-March 2016 in Italy, with a second meeting in London on March 24 when the professor purportedly introduced Papadopoulos to a Russian woman whom the young campaign aide believed to be Putin’s niece, an assertion that Mueller’s investigators determined wasn’t true.
Trump, who then was under pressure for not having a foreign policy team, included Papadopoulos as part of a list drawn up to fill that gap, and Papadopoulos participated in a campaign meeting on March 31 in Washington at which he suggested a meeting between Trump and Putin, a prospect that other senior aides reportedly slapped down.
In other words, at least based on the reporting about the Dearborn email and the Papadopoulos overture, there is no reason to believe that Trump was colluding with Moscow or had any significant relationship at all.
If these developments point to anything, it is to the opposite; that Russia was fishing for some contacts with what – however implausibly – was starting to look like a possible future U.S. president, but with whom they were not well-connected.
Gotcha Moments
There have been similar problems with other Russia-gate “gotcha” moments, such as disclosures of a possible Trump hotel deal in Moscow with Mikhail Fridman of Russia’s Alfa Bank. Though Trump’s presumed financial tie-ins to Russian oligarchs close to Putin were supposed to be fundamental to the Russia-gate narrative, the outcome of the hotel deal turned out to be a big nothing.
One source knowledgeable about the proposed deal told me it fell apart because Trump was willing to put little on the table beyond the branding value of the Trump name. However, if Putin were actually trying to buy Trump’s loyalty, money presumably would have been no obstacle. Indeed, you would think that the more money used to line Trump’s pockets the better. But the hotel deal collapsed; there is no Trump hotel in Moscow.
Other Russia-gate cases are equally disconnected from what had been the original narrative about senior Russians spending years cultivating Trump as their Manchurian candidate.
The accusations against Trump’s onetime campaign chief Paul Manafort focus on his alleged failure to report income from — and pay taxes on — work that he did for the elected government of Ukraine before any involvement in the Trump campaign.
Last week’s guilty plea from former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn related to purportedly false statements and omissions that he made when questioned by FBI agents about calls to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition, i.e., after Trump had been elected.
Despite the breathless coverage on MSNBC and the Times’ excited headlines about how the “inquiry grows,” there remain other core problems for the narrative. No matter how often the U.S. mainstream media asserts the suspicion of Russian “hacking” of Democratic emails as flat fact, no solid proof has yet been presented – and the claim has been denied by both the Russian government and WikiLeaks, which published the key emails.
Sleight of Hand
The Times and other mainstream media outlets play their sleight of hand on this key point by asserting that “U.S. intelligence agencies” have “concluded” that Russian intelligence services “hacked” the emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s campaign chief John Podesta, but that summary ignores the specifics.
First of all, by using this summary of the facts, the Times and other outlets continue to give the false impression that all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies concurred in the conclusion, a false claim that Hillary Clinton and the mainstream press have asserted over and over, although it is now clear that no such consensus ever existed.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified that the Jan. 6 report on alleged Russian interference was produced by “hand-picked” analysts from only three organizations: the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency.
And, even those “hand-picked” analysts stipulated that they were not asserting Russian guilt as fact but only as their best guess. They included the disclaimer: “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation, and precedents.”
Even New York Times reporter Scott Shane initially noted the absence of evidence, writing: “What is missing from the public report is what many Americans most eagerly anticipated: hard evidence to back up the agencies’ claims that the Russian government engineered the election attack. … Instead, the message from the agencies essentially amounts to ‘trust us.’”
Former senior U.S. intelligence officials, including the NSA’s ex-technical director William Binney, have raised further doubts about whether a “hack” occurred. Binney conducted tests on download speeds and determined that the extraction of one known batch of Democratic emails was not possible over the Internet, but did match the speed of a USB download onto a thumb drive, suggesting a leak from a Democratic insider.
So, rather than the many disparate strings of Russia-gate coming neatly together more than a year after last year’s election, the various threads either are becoming hopelessly tangled or flying off in different directions.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.
DOUBLE STANDARD: The Hill refuses to publish column about USS Liberty
USS Liberty crew members attacked by Israeli forces on June 8, 1967. Over 170 were wounded and 34 killed. This is reportedly the most decorated crew for a single engagement in US Naval history.
If Americans Knew | December 5, 2017
The Hill, a major Washington DC publication, published a guest column on November 15th entitled “Passing the Taylor Force Act Will Mark a Vital Step in the War on Terror.” The column called for the U.S. government to stop payments of $300 million aid to Palestinians, based on the murder of an American serviceman by a Palestinian individual who was unaffiliated with the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, or any other Palestinian organization. (Info here.) The authors of the column were officials of the pro-Israel advocacy organization JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security of America)
In response to that column, Marine veteran Geoffrey ONeill submitted a column suggesting that the $3.8 billion given by the U.S. government to Israel be suspended, based on the Israeli military’s killing of 34 American servicemen, injuring of 173+ American servicemen, and attempt to sink a US Navy ship with all men aboard. (Info here.)
The Hill would not publish that column. Below is O’Neil’s rejected article:
Cut off aid to Israel for killing American servicemen
By Geoffrey ONeill
This is a response to an article in The Hill recently titled “Passing the Taylor Force Act Will Mark a Vital Step in the War on Terror” by authors Michael Makovsky and Mark Fitzgerald. The authors are calling for the U.S. government to stop payments of $300 million dollars to Palestine based on the murder of American serviceman, Taylor Force by a Palestinian. While I condemn gratuitous violence, particularly murder committed by anyone on another person and would, if given a chance, express my condolences to the family of Taylor Force, I find it ironic that the authors would express such outrage of a murder committed by a Palestinian of ONE American serviceman. Perhaps the authors need be reminded of an act of terror committed years ago on an entire crew of American servicemen in international waters off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula on JUNE 8, 1967. It might put their outrage and demands in a different perspective. Of course I am referring to the unprovoked, ruthless attack by the IDF on the USS Liberty.
On that bright clear day, after surveilling the ship several times, with the American flag in plain view, the IDF attacked the Liberty killing 34 of its crew and wounding at least 173 others. The Liberty was an electronic surveillance ship, essentially defenseless with only two 50 caliber machine guns mounted on the decks to ward off pirates.
After jets strafed the decks with rockets, bombs and napalm, torpedo boats showed up to finish the job. Three torpedoes were fired. One was a direct hit on the side of the Liberty that killed 25 men. Meanwhile on deck, American sailors were lowering life rafts into the water to help the wounded to safety. The Israelis shot the life boats out of the water to ensure everyone stayed on board. Authors Makovsky and Fitzgerald I assume are educated enough to know that sinking life boats is a violation of International law and considered a war crime forbidden by the Geneva Accords.
The attack lasted for an hour and a half then was suddenly called off when the IDF intercepted an SOS from the Liberty sent by a sailor who managed to rig wires and get the message to the Sixth Fleet.
What happened next was typical, lies, obfuscation and cover up. The IDF immediately called the Pentagon claiming they MADE A MISTAKE. Suffice it to say, President Lyndon Johnson by caving to pressure from pro-Israel lobbying , ordered a media blackout and a cover up of the incident. In an incredible act of betrayal, the brave survivors were sworn to secrecy about the attack. They were told if they spoke of it to anyone, including members of their own family, they would face court martial and imprisonment. This was not only a betrayal to the crew of the Liberty but to all American servicemen, past and present, including yours truly.
If anyone is interested in a detailed, well sourced graphic summary of the attack on the Liberty, I suggest you read the second chapter of renowned journalist Alan Hart’s excellent, highly acclaimed book, Zionism The Real Enemy of the Jews. It refutes all claims of a “mistake” and the anti-semitism meme that follows any criticism of Israel.
The State Department demanded $17 million in reparations for the Liberty survivors. Israel offered $6 million which was accepted immediately by President Johnson in a cowardly sniveling way. The state-of-the-art ship was valued at $40 million.
In fairness I would like to suggest a compromise to Mr. Makovsky and Mr. Fitzgerald. I appreciate your outrage at the murder of an American serviceman by a Palestinian. Having said that, If you gentlemen are sincere and honest, you should be far more outraged about what your government did to an entire crew of American servicemen. So, here is the compromise I suggest. I will enthusiastically lobby my government to suspend payments of $300 million to Palestine if you guys lobby to suspend annual payments of $3.8 billion, not million, to the Israeli government. That way we save the American tax payer $4.1 billion annually. Millions of Americans are living in poverty and the $3.8 billion given to the Israeli government represents about $30,000 for each Israeli citizen. In all seriousness, do you need that much money from us in that so many here are homeless and living well below the poverty line? Really? What do you say fellas, do we have a deal?
Geoffrey ONeil is a retired business owner. He was a Marine officer during the Vietnam conflict with a 13 month forward area tour. Congress is debating the Taylor Force Act today, with the vote expected later this week.
RELATED:
The strange, sad saga of the Taylor Force Act
Instead of Taylor Force Act, Congress should consider Rachel Corrie Act, Orwah Hammad Act
Information on the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty
Documentary:
Jackboots in The Canadian Academy. Freedom of Expression And Inquiry Under Threat … Again. University of Lethbridge, Alberta.
Prof. Anthony Hall. Image credit: Jeremy Rothe-Kushel/ YouTube
By Robin Mathews | American Herald Tribune | December 4, 2017
Freedom of Speech battles in universities often mirror problems in the larger community, and the one being fought at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, is no exception. It is conducted, on one side, by convinced believers as a response to alleged Anti-semitic positions which have surfaced there and which, the believers think, need relentless, radical, extreme responses. Conversely, the conflict looks, to some others, perhaps, as a program to create a huge smokescreen behind which representatives or friends or sympathizers of the State of Israel can attempt to cut off any examination of that State’s activities which might bring it into disrepute. And the quickest method is to brand any adverse references to the accounts of history held by the State of Israel as well as to any of its actions and policies as acts of Anti-semitism.
Forces wishing to dominate and to dictate inquiry and to control “freedom of expression” always seek to repress certain kinds of knowledge, investigation, and expressions of opinion.
In the late 1980s I was proposed for a year’s exchange with a professor in Simon Fraser University’s English Department – at the time dominated by U.S. immigrants holding U.S. citizenship. They rejected my presence at SFU – and were backed belligerently by SFU’s Canadian president who was quoted in the Vancouver Sun saying that he wouldn’t have Robin Mathews on his campus and he didn’t know a university president in Canada who would! (Amusing slander, but slander nonetheless.)
(If William Saywell’s comment sounds like an utterance by present University of Lethbridge president Michael Mahon it may be because both men appear to have fallen to thinking they could dispose of human persons in any way a passing whim suggested … and to make no bones about it!)
The U.S. citizen chair of the SFU English Department wrote me a letter saying that many people in the Department disliked my views on literary and cultural nationalism in Canada and did not want to give me a place at SFU to utter them. That was a ban on free (scholarly) expression. I took it to mean, also, that U.S. citizens intended to decide what Canadians could say to Canadians in British Columbia.
There was a battle. It was long … months and months. The national faculty body (the CAUT) was strong. It declared SFU in violation of academic freedom. At that point, SFU admitted it had lost. The intensity of the battle is hard to think of now – the basis of it is so apparently minor. Reports, however, were that “grown men” at SFU interviewed on the matter almost burst into tears. And, indeed, passions were running so high the SFU Administration asked me if I would teach from the Centre for Canadian Studies rather than from the bent, bleeding, and discountenanced English Department.
That battle was won at SFU for freedom of expression and inquiry! But the personal victory was muted because president Saywell and a few of his closest underlings, I believe, did everything they could in the next years to limit my effectiveness. No surprise. “The fortunes” one might say “of (academic) war”.
At the University of Lethbridge twenty-six-year professorial veteran of Native American Studies, Liberal Arts, Globalization Studies … and more … Anthony Hall has responded with invention, far-reaching research, and creativity to the hugeness of the body of knowledge he has taken as his province. In two large, scholarly, and fascinating works (The American Empire and the Fourth World (2003), and Earth Into Property (2010) Hall traces the oppression and exploitation of the globe’s indigenous peoples since the historic voyage to “the new world” of Christopher Columbus in 1492.
As a result of his wide-ranging research (and travel) Anthony Hall couldn’t fail to see the power and to observe the participation of the U.S.A. in what he names “imperial globalization”. Nor could he evade the intimate ties between the State of Israel and the U.S.A. Nor, of course, could he fail to see the huge influence the State of Israel has upon U.S. policy in the Middle East (a region populated with indigenous peoples, like the Palestinians).
He is, moreover, a scholar who believes genuinely that no subject worthy of study can be declared ‘off limits’ – whether Canadian culture and literary nationalism or the complex “Holocaust” in Nazi Germany operated preceding and during what we choose to call The Second World War (1939-1945). Donning the apparel of true scholars everywhere, Professor Hall accepts that there is no historical, scientific, or cultural fact – however apparently sunk in concrete – that cannot be revisited, re-opened, re-weighed, re-examined, reassessed.
Closer to home, professor Hall has paid attention to the rising tide of voices in the U.S.A. and Canada which claims the “official” account of 9/11 (of, that is to say, the destruction of the Trade Towers in New York on September 11, 2001) was, has been, and is the product of a huge Conspiracy by complex powers (involving U.S. government) producing a Conspiracy Theory created to mislead everyone and to place the blame for the event on people of Islam, especially in the Middle East … people, incidentally, who have become, it would seem, ‘by the accident of history’, enemies – in fact – of both the U.S.A. and the State of Israel.
And so … if more and more authentic voices are saying “the official account” of 9/11 was created by government and Secret Intelligence Conspiracy Theorists wanting to pin onto Islam the guilt of 9/11 … a question forces itself forward. If the formally accused did not … then who did organize and carry out the destruction of the buildings of the World Trade Centre (and of the building which, a little later, simply appeared to collapse into rubble without any apparent cause)?
Also, since September 11, 2001 an increasing number of so-called “terrorist” events and attacks have occurred all over the Western World and have (by persistent and often careful and scholarly non government-approved examination) been called by investigators arising in the population “faked events” or what is called “False Flags” undertaken (it is alleged) to terrify innocent Western populations and to condition them to accept “Islam” (in a hundred different forms) as the over-arching enemy of the peace-loving and (mostly) Christian West. In answer to the very active, very numerous, and wholly ‘un-government’ on-going operations and investigations into those “terrorist” events, Anthony Hall has found himself a co-host of “The False Flag Weekly News”.
It is hugely relevant to the whole subject (and especially to Canadians) that in July, 2016, Madam Justice Catherine Bruce in the B.C. Supreme Court declared that an apparent attempted “Islamic Terrorist Event” at the B.C. legislature grounds on July 1, 2013, was, in fact, wholly the work of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, [a major False Flag event] entrapping socially challenged converts to Islam, counselling them, coaching them, assisting them, giving them money, and delivering them to the terrorist site … and then arresting them as terrorist criminals … caught in the act! For all those who say that people questioning terrorist events are ‘conspiracy theorists’ making up lies – the highly organized RCMP criminal action proves absolutely that at least one State – Canada – has engaged in a major False Flag event in order to slander Islam. It did so employing hundreds of RCMP and millions of dollars of Canadian taxpayers’ funds (during the Conservative government led by Stephen Harper).
Subsequently, in answer to a call for a Public Inquiry into the RCMP, (Liberal) Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Ralph Goodale, responding for the Liberal, Justin Trudeau cabinet, expressed, in effect, approval of organized criminal activity on the part of the RCMP… what he calls in his letter the RCMP’s “major crime technique”. Nowhere in the letter does he refer to the request for a Public Inquiry, instead urging understanding and support for the Force he gives evidence of accepting as a criminal organization….
If the officially declared Islamic men did not plan, organize, and carry out what we call 9/11 … then who did? All possibilities are open for consideration. One of them is that the State of Israel was involved, wanting to influence the U.S.A. towards an aggressive policy in the Middle East. The claim may be completely false. Naturally, the hosts running The False Flag Weekly News, Kevin Barrett and Anthony Hall, would air the possibilities (among many others) on their weekly program. And they did … and, apparently Professor Hall was not unsympathetic to the idea that the State of Israel may have had a hand in the events of 9/11.
Then: in an astonishing event on Friday, August 26, 2016 when Anthony Hall was out of Canada, someone placed a despicable, violently Anti-semitic cartoon on his Facebook Page … completely unknown to Hall. With truly remarkable speed, organizations and individuals, some apparently supporting the State of Israel went to work as if Anthony Hall was wholly guilty of the posting on his Facebook Page. People from outside the University, a few who would normally be thought of as related to the State of Israel in one way or another, pressed upon the University Administration, the police, officers of the Alberta government… and more. (The Alberta government, it seems, has insisted upon keeping secret some of the names of those complaining.)
If one were to suggest the possibility that a carefully staged campaign was unleashed against Anthony Hall, one might not be wrong to so suggest. The University Administration filed a complaint against Hall with Alberta Human Rights. The complaint was rejected. And so the University Administration filed another one.
In an action (some believe) marked by intemperance and folly – without having exchanged a single word with Professor Hall, a senior academic colleague – president Michael Mahon of the University of Lethbridge ordered Hall off every University of Lethbridge campus and suspended him without pay. He did those things while completely ignoring ALL carefully constructed processes within the university for managing complaints against professorial staff. The processes are written into almost every university faculty/administration agreement in Canada and have been honed and improved over many decades.
Slander and libel filled the Lethbridge air to match the wholly unacceptable actions of the University of Lethbridge Administration and Board of Governors. Nonetheless, the national faculty body, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, and the local Faculty Association held firm – the CAUT naming the University of Lethbridge in Violation of Academic Freedom, not a light designation in the university world in Canada. In a court procedure weighing the actions, a little later, the Administration of the university won over neither the judge presiding nor the Alberta government represented at the process.
And so on November 23, 2017, the University of Lethbridge Administration reinstated Professor Hall, lifting all sanctions against him and announcing it would also withdraw its complaint against him to Alberta Human Rights. After fifteen months of attempted Jackboot Justice, the Administration at the University of Lethbridge agreed to use the processes long set up to provide fair and impartial judgements of complaints against faculty members. At one level the return to civility by the University of Lethbridge Administration is a victory for democratic forces in Canada. But at another level its long hold-out, a period filled with injustice to Anthony Hall as well as being filled with violent language and slander, will long remain a scandal in the Canadian Academy.
On the same day – November 23, 2017 – a top B’nai Brith official declared that B’nai Brith is “outraged” at Professor Hall’s full reinstatement which is coupled with the move to due process in the examination of complaints against him.
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