Climate Central just ran this piece, which the Washington Post picked up on. They claimed the US was “overwhelmingly hot” in 2016, and temperatures have risen 1,5°F since the 19th century.
The first problem with their analysis is that the US had very little hot weather in 2016. The percentage of hot days was below average, and ranked 80th since 1895. Only 4.4% of days were over 95°F, compared with the long term average of 4.9%. Climate Central is conflating mild temperatures with hot ones.
They also claim US temperatures rose 1.5°F since the 19th century, which is what NOAA shows.
The problem with the NOAA graph is that it is fake data. NOAA creates the warming trend by altering the data. The NOAA raw data shows no warming over the past century
The adjustments being made are almost exactly 1.5°F, which is the claimed warming in the article.
The adjustments correlate almost perfectly with atmospheric CO2. NOAA is adjusting the data to match global warming theory. This is known as PBEM (Policy Based Evidence Making.)
The hockey stick of adjustments since 1970 is due almost entirely to NOAA fabricating missing station data. In 2016, more than 42% of their monthly station data was missing, so they simply made it up. This is easy to identify because they mark fabricated temperatures with an “E” in their database.
When presented with my claims of fraud, NOAA typically tries to arm wave it away with these two complaints.
They use gridded data and I am using un-gridded data.
They “have to” adjust the data because of Time Of Observation Bias and station moves.
Both claims are easily debunked. The only effect that gridding has is to lower temperatures slightly. The trend of gridded data is almost identical to the trend of un-gridded data.
Time of Observation Bias (TOBS) is a real problem, but is very small. TOBS is based on the idea that if you reset a min/max thermometer too close to the afternoon maximum, you will double count warm temperatures (and vice-versa if thermometer is reset in the morning.) Their claim is that during the hot 1930’s most stations reset their thermometers in the afternoon.
This is easy to test by using only the stations which did not reset their thermometers in the afternoon during the 1930’s. The pattern is almost identical to that of all stations. No warming over the past century. Note that the graph below tends to show too much warming due to morning TOBS.
NOAA’s own documents show that the TOBS adjustment is small (0.3°F) and goes flat after 1990.
Gavin Schmidt at NASA explains very clearly why the US temperature record does not need to be adjusted.
You could throw out 50 percent of the station data or more, and you’d get basically the same answers.
One recent innovation is the set up of a climate reference network alongside the current stations so that they can look for potentially serious issues at the large scale – and they haven’t found any yet.
“Early in life I had noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper” – George Orwell
Recognizing that their time is up on January 20, 2017, global warming fraudsters have turned the volume up to eleven with fake news that the Arctic is hot at Christmas.
The Arctic is extremely cold, but there is a very narrow band of relatively mild air running along the Prime Meridian across the pole.
The fake news press has been pulling this same Arctic scam for as long as anyone can remember. Arctic conditions are the same as they were 60 years ago, and they have been predicting an ice-free Arctic for as long as anyone can remember.
If one wishes to believe NBC News’s «exclusive» report, President Barack Obama almost delivered the Halloween scare of all time on October 31, 2016, just a week before he accused Donald Trump of being «temperamentally unfit» to be commander-in-chief.
On Halloween, Obama activated the White House’s «Red Phone» – which is not a phone but a Washington to Moscow «hot line» communications link that was originally a teletype connection, then a fax, and, finally, email – that provides a direct line to the Russian President in the Kremlin – and informed the Russian president that if alleged Russian hacking of computers tied to the U.S. election did not stop, the United States would respond with «armed conflict» against Russia.
Not since another fateful October, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, had the United States come so close to an all-out war with Russia. However, in the case of President John F. Kennedy, the presence of Soviet offensive nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba were cited in U-2 photographic intelligence presented publicly by U.S. ambassador Adlai Stevenson before the United Nations Security Council. In the case of Obama, the only intelligence he possessed that alleged Russia was behind hacking Democratic National Committee (DNC) computers was a Secret report, not released to the public, ginned up by Obama’s Sunni Wahhabi-crazed Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan.
Obama, according to NBC News, warned Putin personally against hacking Democratic Party computers during the G-20 meeting in China in September. When Obama, obviously urged on by Brennan, felt the Russian hacking was continuing, he sent a stark message over the Red Phone to the Kremlin, in part stating, «International law, including the law for armed conflict, applies to actions in cyberspace». While Obama and Brennan continue to refuse to present to the public the contents of the CIA’s Secret report alleging Russian hacking of the DNC, they had no problem revealing that Obama almost pushed the nuclear trigger on Russia. Only a madman would resort to such action based on the flimsiest of intelligence from the Cold War-era troglodyte Brennan.
The only proof that the CIA and its contractors could offer up was that a group of hackers, known as «Fancy Bear», used an Android smart phone application developed by a Ukrainian artillery officer to target Soviet-era D-30 Howitzers that was purloined and re-purposed by the Russian military intelligence directorate against DNC computers. Even Hollywood movie producers would reject such a script as too silly for film audiences to take seriously.
The Fancy Bear operation was concocted by a company called CrowdStrike, co-founded by a Russian-American named David Alperovitch, who just also happens to be a senior fellow at the CIA-linked Atlantic Council. News articles about CrowdStrike strongly suggest it exists to ratchet up cyber-war tensions with Russia, China, and North Korea based on hyped-up network security «vaporware» products being sold at top dollar prices to tech-ignorant government customers.
Obama sent his war message to Russia based on his «Fancy Bear» intelligence over a special email channel to reduce the risk of nuclear war resulting from cyber-security threats. The cyber-security email link was installed in 2013 as part of the hot line network linking by satellite the Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers in Washington, DC and Moscow. Little did the architects of the nuclear hot line realize that it would one day be used to proffer a «Fancy Bear» scenario that could have led to nuclear war.
Obama was acting upon the policies crafted by the neo-conservative Cold Warriors who continued to dominate his administration’s diplomatic and intelligence infrastructures as they had those of George W. Bush. These same neocon circles saw hope in the presence on the Trump team of the arch-neocon war hawk John Bolton, Bush’s Senate-rejected ambassador to the United Nations.
Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post, a fierce neocon critic of Trump during and after the presidential campaign, wrote of her wish for Trump to follow the advice of Fred Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, a member of the infamously-neocon Kagan family and brother-in-law of Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, the architect of Obama’s «color revolutions» in Ukraine and Macedonia. Kagan believes that Russia’s worst «sin» has been to «redraft the global order» laid down by the United States and NATO following the fall of the Soviet Union.
Kagan, Rubin, Nuland, and others in their neocon circle of war mongers hope that Trump will confront Russia militarily, as Napoleon Bonaparte had done in the 19th century. The neocons are not very good students of history, as the fate of Napoleon’s foray into Russia is well-known to even the most basic reader of European history. At the very least, Kagan has called on Trump to set the clock back to the Cold War era of Washington challenging Russia militarily in all the world’s hotspots: The Middle East, Asia, and Africa. In another tip of the hat to the Cold War, Kagan recommends that Trump refuse to recognize the retrocession of Crimea, the result of an overwhelming popular referendum favoring such retrocession, «no matter how permanent it seems to have become».
That same line of thinking could be adopted by Russia, which could announce that it recognizes the independent Kingdom of Hawaii, regardless of its forced annexation to the United States in 1898. If the neocons want to return to 19th century big power politics, so can Russia. If the United States wants to continue to recognize Crimea as part of Ukraine, Russia can recognize Hawaii as an independent state and permit the «Hawaiian Kingdom Government» to establish an embassy in Moscow and accredit a Hawaiian government ambassador-in-exile. While such a dramatic measure might have been considered necessary had Hillary Clinton and her neocon war hawks won the U.S. presidential election, Trump’s oft-stated desire for much improved relations with Russia should render moot such extreme diplomatic countermeasures.
So far, Trump does not seem inclined to listen to the parasitical neocons who have infested every recent U.S. administration since Ronald Reagan’s. Trump would be wise to seek the counsel of those of his advisers who are not even remotely supportive of neocon dogma.
Trump will face the problem of cleaning house of the neocons currently embedded in the CIA and State Department. The neocon newspaper-of-record, The Wall Street Journal, has let it be known that the U.S. intelligence and foreign policy establishments should encourage anti-Russian protests by Islamic groups at Russian diplomatic missions in the Middle East and elsewhere. The paper appeared heartened by the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey and the outbreak of protests by Islamist groups at Russian missions in Istanbul, Beirut, and Kuwait. The Journal wrote the killing of the Russian ambassador «was glorified throughout the region».
The neocons would relish in the United States encouraging jihadist groups to target Russian interests in the Middle East and elsewhere as they did during the Cold War when they nurtured jihadist groups to fight the Soviet armed forces in Afghanistan. That gambit led directly to the creation of the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups. This would represent a turning back of U.S. policy to the late 1970s and 1980s, an era that represents the halcyon days for the war-mongering neocons.
The White House continues to insist that Obama’s Halloween war message to Putin sunk in, since the alleged hacking is claimed to have ceased on November 8, Election Day. However, DNC acting chair Donna Brazile claims the hacking continued on and past Election Day. If Brennan and his fellow war-mongers had actual evidence that Russia had been behind the hacks, then why do they continue to insist that the hacking stopped on November 8, when Brazile clearly claims they had not? The easiest explanation is that the Russian government was not the source of the computer hacking events and they were being carried out by some other party or were invented by the «Fancy Bear» fabulists at CrowdStrike. Perhaps some interests wanted an Election Day war to begin with Russia, which would mean a declaration by Obama of a national state of emergency and a postponement of the election, as had occurred in New York City on September 11, 2001, the previous time the Red Phone was used by the White House.
Had Obama authorized a military strike on Russia on Election Day, the civilian U.S. government would have morphed into the secret government where the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Defense’s Northern Command would have replaced the U.S. Congress and the courts as the government of the United States. It is likely that there would have never been an election, let alone a president-elect Trump.
The United Nations General Assembly today approved a historic resolution to launch negotiations in 2017 on a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons. The vote follows a decision on 27 October by the General Assembly’s First Committee – which deals with disarmament and international security matters – to begin work on the new treaty despite fervent opposition from some nuclear-armed nations.
The resolution was adopted by a large majority, with 113 UN member states voting in favour, 35 voting against and 13 abstaining. Support was strongest among the nations of Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. A cross-regional group comprising Austria, Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, Nigeria and South Africa initiated the resolution and are likely to lead next year’s negotiations.
At a UN budget committee meeting earlier this week, the United States attracted the ire of other nations when it objected to a funding request for the planned four weeks of negotiations on the treaty, to be held at UN headquarters in New York. But under intense pressure from supporters of nuclear disarmament, it eventually withdrew its objection, and the committee authorized the request.
In a leaked document distributed to all NATO members in October ahead of the First Committee decision, the United States – which possesses some 7,000 nuclear weapons – urged its allies to oppose the resolution and to boycott the negotiations, fearing that the treaty would erode the perception that nuclear weapons are legitimate for certain nations and make it more difficult for NATO to engage in nuclear war planning.
A number of close US allies that voted against the resolution or abstained have indicated their intention to participate in the negotiations anyway, in order to help shape the treaty. For example, the Netherlands, which hosts US nuclear weapons on its territory and abstained from voting, has confirmed that it will take part, and Japan’s foreign minister, despite opposing the resolution, wants his country to attend.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) is urging all nations to take part. “Every nation has an interest in ensuring that nuclear weapons are never used again, which can only be guaranteed through their complete elimination. We are calling on all governments to join next year’s negotiations and work to achieve a strong and effective treaty,” said Beatrice Fihn, executive director of ICAN.
ICAN stressed that the negotiations should proceed whether or not nuclear-armed nations agree to participate. “As a matter of principle, weapons that are indiscriminate in nature and are intended to cause catastrophic humanitarian harm should be prohibited under international law. This new treaty will place nuclear weapons on the same legal footing as other weapons of mass destruction,” said Fihn.
“We believe that, through its normative force, the nuclear weapon ban treaty will affect the behaviour of nuclear-armed nations even if they refuse to join it. It will also affect the behaviour of many of their allies that currently claim protection from nuclear weapons, including those in Europe that host nuclear weapons on their territory. It will contribute significantly towards achieving a nuclear-weapon-free world.”
The negotiations will be divided into two sessions, from 27 to 31 March and from 15 June to 7 July. ICAN plans to send a large delegation of campaigners to both sessions. The campaign is urging governments to make every effort to conclude the treaty by the end of the four weeks of negotiations, noting that much preparatory work has already been done, including by a UN working group that met in Geneva this year.
The treaty is likely to include provisions similar to those found in existing treaties banning biological weapons, chemical weapons, anti-personnel landmines and cluster munitions. These include prohibitions on use, development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention and transfer, as well as assistance, encouragement or inducement of anyone to engage in any of these prohibited activities.
Multilateral negotiations for nuclear disarmament have been deadlocked for two decades, as all nine nuclear-armed nations have invested heavily in upgrades to their nuclear forces. Alternative proposals for advancing a nuclear-weapon-free world have failed to gain traction or produce results. A majority of UN member states view the ban treaty approach as the most viable and promising pathway forward.
A senior Iranian diplomat emphasizes the need for a peaceful settlement of regional issues, saying warfare in the Middle East only benefits Israel through undermining the resources of regional nations.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Jaber Ansari made the remarks during a meeting with Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri in the Lebanese capital Beirut on Thursday.
“The solution to the region’s crises is not a military one. Not only doesn’t war lead to resolution of complications, but it will result in the erosion of the regional countries’ competencies, and has [hence] no winner other than the Zionist regime [of Israel],” the Iranian official asserted.
Addressing reporters after the meeting, Ansari also said the cure to the existent confrontations among the region’s political movements only lies in “serious dialog.”
Ansari described his talks with Hariri as “very favorable and constructive,” saying regional affairs as well as the expansion of Tehran-Beirut ties were discussed in the meeting.
The Iranian official further praised Lebanon’s positive role in the region as well as its “effective and proactive resistance against the Zionist regime’s occupation, expansionism and aggrandizement” over the past two decades.
The Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah is credited with defending the country against two wars launched by Israel, in 2000 and 2006. It has also been successfully helping the Syrian army fight Saudi-backed Takfiri militants in order to prevent the Syrian conflict from spilling over to Lebanon.
Hariri likewise said political solutions need the participation of domestic factions and the recognition of their views.
“If it were not for empathy and understanding among all Lebanese sides and political movements, we would not be witnessing their agreement and election of General Michel Aoun as president, the formation of a government, and the introduction of cabinet ministers,” he said.
On October 31, Lebanese legislators elected Aoun as president, ending a 29-month presidential vacuum. The Maronite Christian founder of the Free Patriotic Movement succeeded Michel Sleiman.
On Sunday, the country announced forming a new 30-minister cabinet led by Hariri. The government brought together the country’s whole political spectrum except for the Christian Phalangist party, which did not accept the portfolio it had been offered.
Ansari congratulated the Lebanese premier on the inauguration of the national unity government.
The Iranian official is to meet with other senior Lebanese political officials on Friday.
He arrived in Lebanon via Syria, where he had met separately with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Prime Minister Imad Khamis and Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem.
The bullets of an assassin shook the world on Monday. Shot from behind by a former Turkish police officer, at an art gallery in Ankara, right across the street from the US embassy, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrey Karlov, a man with a long and distinguished career in the Soviet and Russian Foreign Service, died on the spot.
Those who are behind this assassination, for no one can believe that this man acted alone, are exposed by the slogan he shouted after the murder, “Don’t forget Aleppo.” They are exposed by the words and photos which were quickly splashed across the front pages of the western media and set in an editorial context that implicitly condoned the act. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the BBC made sure those words were in their headlines and the lead paragraphs of their stories, as did the New York Times and the rest. The New York Times posted a photo of the assassin standing with his arm raised in the air, as if an actor in a Hollywood action film, beginning his transformation from terrorist assassin into a martyr “for Aleppo and the people of Syria.” A fanatic acted out his part in life and they will make sure he continues to act it out in death. A member of the Ukraine parliament has already called the assassin a “martyr.”
The western governments issued the required condemnations of the assassination but who can believe their sincerity? For years now the NATO governments have been attacking Russia through illegal economic blockades they call “sanctions,” have physically attacked Russia through Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine, have advanced NATO’s military forces right up to the Russian border, put out endless false stories about Russia’s actions and policies, generated a sewer of anti-Russian propaganda in the media and in NATO government statements, killed Russian officers and pilots trying to counter their proxy terrorists forces in Syria, attacked the Russian consulate in Damascus several times, fabricated stories of crimes, and during the American presidential election and its aftermath have descended into the depths of insanity by accusing Russia of trying to influence that process.
So, their regrets are worth nothing. It is obvious that this assassination was meant to delay a Turkish-Russian rapprochement, but it was also to punish Russia for its assistance to the government of Syria in liberating Aleppo. In light of President Obama’s ridiculous statement that he knew President Putin was behind alleged attempts to fix the US election while refusing to offer any evidence of this absurd claim, we must remember his dangerous promise to strike back at Russia in retaliation and must consider whether this was part of that retaliation, for the assassination took place within a few days of Obama making his “a time and place of our choosing” statement.
President Putin, along with President Erdogan referred to the murder “as a provocation aimed at derailing Russia-Turkey ties and the peace process in Syria.” Putin stressed, “We must know who steered the killer’s course.”
Since the only party conceivably interested in or could benefit from such a provocation is NATO and its allies, Russia is really saying that they are behind this, though caution is their watchword and the investigation has only begun. The Syrian Peoples’ Assembly in Damascus stated Tuesday that, “This cowardly act of terror is a stain on the forehead of the countries supporting terrorism and demands legal accountability at the international level.”
The Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, stated that, ““Both Turkey and Russia realize that the attack was aimed at damaging bilateral relations and compromising the achievements that have been made recently. Turkey and Russia should not let the organizers’ of this crime reach their goals. We should find out who is behind this heinous crime. We can succeed if we work together…the masterminds of the Russian ambassador’s murder wanted to harm the Russian-Turkish relations, but Moscow and Ankara should not allow terrorists to achieve this goal.”
The Russian foreign minister, Serge Lavrov, stated similarly, “The main aim of the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey is the desire to undermine the process of normalization of Russian-Turkish relations and to prevent the effective fight of the two countries against terrorism in Syria. We are confident that the main aim of those who plotted this barbaric thing was to undermine the process of normalization of relations between Russia and Turkey in order to prevent effective fight against terrorism in Syria.”
But we can be sure that it will not stop developing relations between Turkey and Russia. If the Turks convince the Russians they had nothing to do with it, that it was connected to the FETO organisation whose leader Fetullah Gulen is in the United States, living under American protection, though he has denied it, or to the terrorist organisations they have been supporting in Syria, and the western intelligence and military services supporting them, then it is likely to push Russia, Turkey and Iran, closer together against a common enemy. And, indeed, this appears to be the case as those three nations went ahead with talks in Moscow on Tuesday to forge a way ahead to a peaceful resolution of the war in Syria.
But the willingness to assassinate an ambassador means that we can expect the US and its allies to develop new actions in Syria against the Syrian government and Russia and their allies, just as they have reverted back to new sanctions against Iran in violation of their agreement with Iran. The Americans are still invading Syria every day, sending in forces, setting up camps flying American flags, acting as an occupation force along with British, French and other forces and so far the Syrians have not dared to touch them. But so long as those bases are allowed to remain, committing their act of aggression against Syria, they will be the source of more violence and chaos.
Would NATO be willing to assassinate an ambassador? We need only remind ourselves of their attempt to assassinate the Chinese ambassador Pan Zhan Lin in Belgrade in the NATO attack on Yugoslavia in 1999. Five guided missiles were fired at the Chinese embassy from an American aircraft. The one aimed at the ambassador’s room luckily did not explode but 4 other diplomatic staff were killed and 20 injured. Various reasons have been suggested for US bombing of the Chinese embassy but the Chinese ambassador stated later that it was meant to break the will of the Yugoslav government by making it clear to its allies that continuing to support the Yugoslav government was dangerous.
Similarly this assassination was also meant to break the will of Syria by making it clear to its Russian ally that continuing to support Syria in its war against the US proxy force attacking the country is dangerous on every level. It is a threat against President Erdogan as well, since it is clear that his purge of those who tried to overthrow him in July has not succeeded in eliminating those who want to bring him down and stop reconciliation with Russia. It also is an attempt to block President–elect Trump from advancing better relations with Russia, and at the same time can be used, along with the seemingly random terror attack on civilians in Berlin by unknown agents, to support the NATO countries push for more war in Syria, allegedly to root out “terrorists.” These events do not occur in isolation. One has to wonder further whether the assassination was a set up for something else, false flag operations in the Baltic or elsewhere conducted by NATO forces but to be blamed on a Russia intent on revenge for the murder of its ambassador. Nothing is beyond the pale for NATO and their secret services.
Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel “Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events.
Perpetrators of the breach of the US Democratic Party’s email system are still unknown, but the resignation of the chief of the party’s National Committee proves accuracy of information made public by the hackers, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during the annual press conference on Friday.
“Some hackers breached the email system of the Democratic Party leadership. As US President-elect said, who knows, who these hackers were. Maybe they were in some other country, not in Russia,” Putin said.
“The main thing is the information that the hackers provided to the public. Did they compromise or distort anything? No. The best proof of the fact that they revealed truthful information … was the resignation of the chief of the party’s National Committee. It means she acknowledged that the hackers showed the truth,” Putin said.
If Russia and the US are engaged in another nuclear arms race now, then it is the fault of George W. Bush, who started it by withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
“The prerequisites for a new arms race were created after the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. This is obvious,” he said on Friday during his annual Q&A session with the media.
Putin was referring to a key international agreement reached in 1972, under which the US and Soviet Union pledged not to undermine one another’s nuclear deterrent by developing the means to intercept each other’s intercontinental ballistic missiles.
President George W. Bush’s administration withdrew from the ABMT in 2002, resulting in its termination. Russia has responded by taking measures to ensure that America’s antimissile shield won’t work well against Russian ICBMs, Putin explained.
“When one party unilaterally withdrew from the treaty and said it was going to create an anti-nuclear umbrella, the other party has to either create a similar umbrella – the necessity of which we are not sure about considering its questionable efficiency – or create effective ways to overcome this anti-ballistic missile system and improve its strike capabilities,” Russia’s president told the journalists.
Putin was commenting on a report on the state of Russia’s military presented by Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu on Thursday, which included an update on the modernization of Russia’s nuclear deterrent.
Shortly afterwards, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted that the US “must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”
The comments from the leaders of the world’s two primary nuclear powers have made some commenters nervous about the prospects for nuclear arms reduction and the future of New START treaty. The agreement, which calls for the number of nuclear warheads deployed by the US and Russia to be reduced, was signed in 2010 by President Barack Obama and then-President Dmitry Medvedev.
Putin said the modernization of Russia’s military has been carried out “within the framework of our agreements,” including New START. He added that America has its own modernization program for nuclear weapons, including those deployed on foreign soil.
“In Turkey, in Britain, in the Netherlands a replacement of American tactical nuclear weapons is underway,” he said, addressing a BBC correspondent, who asked about the nuclear issue. “I hope that your program audiences and internet users know about that.”
The president added that, even if Russia is drawn into an arms race, it won’t spend more than it can afford, saying “we are fine with the situation and fulfill all our [military modernization] plans.”
Relations between Russian president Vladimir Putin and US president Barack Obama are poisoned and irretrievably damaged. It’s therefore a good thing that Obama is leaving office on 20 January.
Bad US-Russian relations are of course nothing new. Since the Anglo-American war against Iraq in 2003, the US-Russian relationship has been headed downhill.
For Obama, it appears that everything has gotten personal. The US president often acts like a petulant adolescent, jealous of a high school rival. You know, the kid who does everything better than he does. The lad takes it badly and won’t let it go. He challenges his nemesis to some new contest at every opportunity only to lose again and again. That’s got to be hard on the ego.
Between Obama and Putin there have been many such encounters.
Nor can it help that western cartoonists so often ridicule Obama as out of his depth in comparison to Putin.
Western cartoonists so often ridicule Obama as out of his depth in comparison to Putin
Let’s consider Obama’s remarks at his last press conference on Friday, 16 December. «The Russians can’t change us or significantly weaken us», said Obama: «They are a smaller country. They are a weaker country. Their economy doesn’t produce anything that anybody wants to buy, except oil and gas and arms. They don’t innovate». This was insulting both Putin and his country, but not enough apparently for Obama. «They [the Russians] can impact us if we lose track of who we are. They can impact us if we abandon our values. Mr. Putin can weaken us, just like he’s trying to weaken Europe, if we start buying into notions that it’s okay to intimidate the press, or lock up dissidents, or discriminate against people because of their faith or what they look like».
What on earth is Mr. Obama talking about? Intimidate the press? The Moscow newspapers and television media are loaded with «liberals». Many Russians call them «fifth columnists». They are «people with ‘more advanced’ worldview[s] who do not tolerate ‘Russian propaganda’ themselves», according to one colleague in Moscow. But Mr. Putin tolerates them and pays them no mind.
«Lock up dissidents… discriminate against people»? What alternate reality does Mr. Obama live in? Doesn’t produce anything people want to buy? The United States buys rocket engines that it does not now produce at home. Maybe the Americans, a Russian commentator joked, can use high tech trampolines to get into space and do without Russian technology.
In an interview the previous day with the American National Public Radio Obama ranted about Putin. It must have been a rehearsal for his press conference. «This is somebody, the former head of the KGB», said Obama, «who is responsible for crushing democracy in Russia… countering American efforts to expand freedom at every turn; is currently making decisions that’s leading to a slaughter in Syria». What stupefying hypocrisy; what utter nonsense. Putin was a lieutenant colonel in the KGB, but never its head, and he certainly has not «crushed democracy in Russia». He even treats his political opposition with respect compared to Obama who dismisses president-elect Donald Trump as some kind of Russian Manchurian candidate. The Russians, according to Obama, interfered in the US presidential elections, and helped defeat fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton. They hacked the Democratic National Committee’s hard drive and passed thousands of emails to WikiLeaks, although, according to others, an outraged Clinton insider leaked the cache of embarrassing emails. Obama has dismissed that possibility. The Russians did the hack, he insists, and Putin must be held personally responsible.
Where’s the evidence? In Moscow, an angry Putin challenged Obama to put up or shut up. This is a hard thing for Obama to do. The Russians, he says, «counter American efforts to expand freedom at every turn». One wonders where that would be. In the Ukraine where the United States and European Union backed and guided the coup d’état against the democratically elected Ukrainian government? Or in Syria where the United States and its NATO and regional vassals are waging a war of aggression against the legitimate government in Damascus, backing jihadist terrorists? How many democratic governments or popularly supported political movements has the United States plotted against or destroyed since 1945? The list is long, including the 1996 Russian presidential election.
In Syria, the United States and its NATO and regional vassals are waging a war of aggression against the legitimate government in Damascus, backing jihadist terrorists
Obama directly raised the issue of Syria during his NPR interview. The liberation of E. Aleppo from Al-Qaeda and other jihadists has infuriated the west. To the everlasting shame of France, the Eiffel Tower was darkened to mourn the defeat of Al-Qaeda. The Mainstream Media (MSM) is up in arms. Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, Palestinian and Iraqi militias have helped the Syrian Arab Army to cleanse Aleppo of jihadist terrorists, and thwart the United States and its vassals. This is what galls Obama, being outmanoeuvred by a lesser man than he and a lesser country than the United States. How deplorable to speak of the liberation of E. Aleppo as «a slaughter in Syria».
Remember 2013, when the US government started a propaganda campaign about Syrian chemical weapons and warned of «red lines» that could not be crossed?
Obama’s frustrations began several years ago. Remember back in 2013, when the US government started a propaganda campaign about Syrian chemical weapons and warned of «red lines» that could not be crossed? Apparently, the US government came within an ace or two of launching massive air attacks on Syria. Putin intervened and the Syrian government gave up its chemical weapons, removing the US pretext for intervention. The print media had a field day showing Putin helping Obama out of a corner of his own making. All the while, Putin kept urging Russian-US cooperation against the jihadists in Syria, trying to draw the United States away from its ruinous policies. To no avail. Who then acted with greater statesmanship, Putin or Obama?
In 2013, when the US government started a propaganda campaign about Syrian chemical weapons, Putin intervened and the Syrian government gave up its chemical weapons, removing the US pretext for intervention. The print media had a field day showing Putin helping Obama out of a corner of his own making.
Temporarily thwarted in Syria, the United States opened up a new front on Russia’s southern frontier in the Ukraine. It backed the coup d’état in Kiev and turned a blind eye to the fascist vanguard, which kept the new Ukrainian junta in power. «The fascists are just ‘a few bad apples’», officials said in Washington, thinking that NATO had scored a great victory in getting its hands on Sevastopol so it could kick the Russian Black Sea fleet out of its traditional home base.
You have to give credit to Obama; he was ambitious, aiming for a big prize and the humiliation of Russia and its president. Again, he was thwarted not so much by President Putin but by the Russian people of the Crimea who immediately mobilised their local self-defence units backed by «polite people», Russian marines stationed in Sevastopol, to kick out the Ukrainians with scarcely a shot fired. They organised a referendum to approve entry into the Russian Federation. Reunification was quickly approved by a huge majority and celebrated in Moscow. Putin gave a remarkably candid speech, explaining the Russian position. «NATO remains a military alliance,’ he said, «and we are against having a military alliance making itself at home right in our backyard or in our historic territory. I simply cannot imagine that we would travel to Sevastopol to visit NATO sailors. Of course, most of them are wonderful guys, but it would be better to have them come and visit us, be our guests, rather than the other way round».
«NATO remains a military alliance,’ he said, «and we are against having a military alliance making itself at home right in our backyard or in our historic territory», Putin said
It all happened so quickly, Obama must have looked on, dumbfounded, sputtering with angry frustration at having been outmanoeuvred by Crimean Russians who knew a thing or two after all about «innovating» and defending their land. Russians in the eastern Ukraine also resisted, taking up arms to defend themselves against Kiev’s fascist battalions.
That was too much. Putin became Obama’s nemesis. The US president struck back with economic sanctions, which his European vassals quickly endorsed. When Malaysian Airlines, MH17, was shot down over the eastern Ukraine, Obama and the EU at once accused Putin of being responsible without a shred of evidence. In fact, the available evidence points to the Kiev junta as the guilty party, but the MSM paid no attention. It ran an orchestrated propaganda campaign leading to harder sanctions against Russia intended to sabotage the Russian economy and break the Russian government.
Obama and his advisors again miscalculated. The Russian government instituted its own sanctions against the EU, and looked for other sources of supply or replaced foreign imports with Russian products. «We can do without Polish apples and French cheese», most Russians thought. «Liberals» sulked over the loss of their Camembert, but that’s a small price to pay for Russian independence. Obama was outsmarted again by Russians who, he insists, can’t innovate. As for the EU, it suffered huge economic losses because of sanctions at American behest in a classic case of shooting oneself in the foot. It’s getting to be a habit; the EU has again renewed its sanctions against Russia.
The EU has suffered huge economic losses because of its anti-Russia sanctions at American behest in a classic case of shooting oneself in the foot.
Whilst the Ukrainian crisis dragged on, Obama had to turn his attention back to Syria. In the autumn of 2015, Putin ordered Russian aerospace and naval forces to intervene on behalf of the hard-pressed Syrian government which asked for assistance against the western-backed jihadist invasion. The tide of battle slowly turned. Again, Obama was caught off guard; again, the US plan to overthrow the Syrian government was thwarted by Obama’s nemesis. The United States tried bogus truces to allow its jihadist mercenaries to refit and resupply. At first, the Russians did not seem to catch on, accepting American proposals as genuine. They had to learn the hard way, but they did eventually. The liberation of E. Aleppo, although overshadowed by the simultaneous loss of Palmyra, is another blow to Obama’s policies and to his fragile ego.
How could this «weaker… smaller country» outsmart the all-powerful Mr. Obama and the great US Hegemon?
No wonder the US president is lashing out at Putin, publically insulting him and his country. No wonder the MSM is up in arms. How could this «weaker… smaller country» outsmart the all-powerful Mr. Obama and the great US Hegemon?
Like the USSR before it, Russia has always had to pursue a politique du faible, a poor man’s policies, never having the abundant resources of it western adversaries. Russians learned early on to innovate. The fox has to make its way in a world full of dangerous wolves.
What Obama must hate most of all is Putin’s exposure of US support for Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Who indeed is responsible for the «slaughter» in Syria? Obama calls it fighting for democracy. «Airstrike democracy», Putin once derisively replied. «Do you realise what you have done?» Putin asked at the UN in 2015, shocking the MSM. Obviously not, if one is to judge by Obama’s remarks of the last few days. He’s still the obsessive adolescent with doubts about himself and in over his head against a real statesman. Thank heavens Obama is on his way out the door of the White House. It’s not a minute too soon. Olliver Cromwell’s famous remark in 1653 to the Rump Parliament seems apposite. «You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!»
In the week leading up to the brazen, cold-blooded murder of Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov in Ankara, Turkey, the United States repeatedly and publicly threatened “retaliation” against Russia for allegedly “hacking” the 2016 US presidential elections.
During the same week, Syrian forces backed by Russian air power and Iranian ground support, finally ended the occupation of the northern city of Aleppo by armed militants who invaded in 2012. The inevitable liberation of Aleppo was accompanied by apoplectic hysteria across Western political, policy and pundit circles calling for everything from additional sanctions on Russia to threats against the lives of Russians themselves.
While the Western media has since attempted to dismiss murmurs across Russian and Turkish media in the aftermath of Ambassador Karlov’s assassination implicating US involvement, they simultaneously appear incapable of concealing what can only be described as delight over the tragic attack.
The shooting was among the most brazen retaliatory attacks yet on Russia since Moscow entered the war in Syria on the side of President Bashar al-Assad, and unleashed a bombardment on Aleppo that has drawn international condemnation for what observers on the ground have called indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
The Washington Post also intentionally portrays labeling the incident as a terrorist attack as Moscow’s exclusive point of view, claiming:
But in Moscow, where the Kremlin has maintained that its aerial sorties and missile attacks have exclusively targeted “terrorists,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry called the shooting “a terrorist attack,” and President Vladimir Putin called it a “provocation aimed at rupturing ties between Russia and Turkey.”
The Washington Post is able to refrain from openly applauding the assassination, but does everything in its power to legitimize, even defend it within the context of an angry “police officer” provoked by what the Washington Post calls Russia’s “indiscriminate attacks on civilians.” Relegated deep within the article and beyond the attention span of most readers, are details that reveal Ambassador Karlov’s attacker as a participant in organized terror.
CNN, the BBC and the New York Times have also carried, almost verbatim, the same talking points and perspectives provided by the Washington Post, just falling short of openly defending the attack or praising the attacker.
The image of an assassin standing over the dying body of Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov is a shocking one — but not a surprising one.
As Vladimir Putin’s man in Turkey, Karlov was the public face of that murderous dictator’s war crimes around the globe and of oppression at home. Andrei Karlov is the human embodiment of policies that deployed bunker busters to kill babies, sent fighter planes on scorched earth bombing runs that destroyed a whole city, aided Syrian madman Bashar al-Assad in his campaign that has killed hundreds of thousands, and even ordered attacks on UN aid workers.
In addition to the baseless, even fully discredited accusations made, the New York Daily News compares Russian President Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler, and Ambassador Karlov’s attacker to a “soldier — not a terrorist.”
The Western media does not perform “journalism,” but rather reflects the thinking and designs of Western policymakers, politicians and power brokers. That the media appears unanimously spinning the attack as “retaliatory,” after spending the last week promising “retaliation” is if nothing else the worst case of institutional self-incrimination in recent memory. More likely, it is a blunt, ugly gesture toward Russia.
Unfortunately for the West, they find themselves threatening the world and celebrating the murder of ambassadors shot in the back by terrorists not from a position of strength, but from a position of profound and growing weakness. It is a vicious cycle that will only further undermine their legitimacy, diminish their influence and accelerate their decline.
Ulson Gunnar is a New York-based geopolitical analyst.
This is still a Christian country, as your colleague David Cameron reminded us not so long ago. But you wouldn’t think so when non-Christian creeds are given exceptional protection and privileges to smooth their ruffled feathers. Your government is even introducing new laws to stifle questions about Israel’s legitimacy and quash criticism of its criminal policies. We have entered a sinister era of censorship and harassment as the gulf between government and public widens.
In an excruciating speech to a Conservative Friends of Israel lunch earlier this month, you told 800 guests that the British government will be marking the centenary of the infamous Balfour Declaration next year “with pride”. Yet that ill-conceived letter by the British foreign secretary caused a running sore in the Middle East that has lasted a hundred years. And Britain’s failure to make amends continues to endanger the whole region and cause grief for millions.
You said some astonishing things too about Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestine. For example, Britain stands “very firmly” for a two-state solution and the two sides must “sit down together, without preconditions, and work towards that lasting solution”. It is plain to nearly everyone that this futile and lopsided mantra is a ploy designed to buy Israel all the time it needs to establish enough irreversible ‘facts on the ground’ to ensure permanent annexation. But like all leaders before, you go along with it, And you’re careful not to mention that international law has already spoken and it’s high time for enforcement – or sanctions.
There seems little comprehension among you and your colleagues of the consequences for the Middle East, and indeed the whole world, if Israel is allowed to achieve its ambition to expand its borders to the Nile and the Euphrates.
You even praise Israel for being “a thriving democracy, a beacon of tolerance”, when it is obviously neither. Maybe an ethnocracy, or a theocracy, but certainly no liberal democracy. As for your remark that it is only when you walk through Jerusalem or Tel Aviv that you see a country where people of all religions “are free and equal in the eyes of the law” and “Israel guarantees the rights of people of all religions, races and sexualities, and it wants to enable everyone to flourish”, have you ever walked through East Jerusalem?
What really offends me, though, is your belief that our two countries share “common values”. That’s straight out of Tel Aviv’s hasbara instruction manual. And it is deeply insulting to anyone who lives by Christian values, which are alien to the Israeli regime given its crimes against humanity and cruelty to the indigenous people it terrorises. I don’t suppose too many British people feel they have much in common with a criminal foreign power that tortures children.
However, the speech did provide mild amusement when you unwisely attacked the successful BDS campaign – that’s boycott, divestment and sanctions – calling it wrong and unacceptable and warning that your government would “have no truck with those who subscribe to it”. Two hundred legal scholars and practising lawyers from 15 European countries promptly slapped you down in a statement that BDS is a lawful exercise of freedom of expression and outlawing it undermines a basic human right. One expert pointed out that advocating for BDS is part of the fundamental freedoms protected by the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. Another said BDS is civil society’s response to the international community’s irresponsible failure to act. Repressing it amounts to support for Israel’s violations of international law and a failure to honour the solemn pledge by states to ‘strictly respect the aims and principles of the Charter of the United Nations’.
Of course, if your Israeli friends don’t like BDS, they only have to comply with international law like everyone else, get back behind Israel’s internationally recognised borders and leave the Palestinians alone.
Just think for a moment about the shredded remnants of Palestine, the endless misery in Gaza and the obscene 8-metre wall with gun towers imprisoning Bethlehem and its Christian community – all courtesy of Israel. Remember that in their 2014 blitz on Gaza Israel killed more than 500 children, injured 3,374, left more than 1,500 orphaned and 373,000 in need of psycho-social support.
There are 1.75 million people, including about 800,000 children under 15, packed into the tiny Gaza enclave with no escape. They have suffered horribly under Israeli blockade – a collective punishment which as you know is considered a war crime – for nearly 10 years. And your own ministers report that 90% of Gaza’s water is not fit even for agricultural use. The puzzle is why your government would have any truck with anyone who subscribes to an Israel fan club.
According to Wiki, you are the daughter of an Anglican priest and a regular churchgoer. The Holy Land is the well-spring of your religion, is it not? I wonder what the Good Lord, looking down on the hell-hole Balfour created and Western politicians have perpetuated, thinks of your performance this Christmas.
Stuart Littlewood’s book Radio Free Palestine can now be read on the internet by visiting radiofreepalestine.org.uk.
The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution titled “Oil slick on Lebanese shores” urging the Zionist entity to pay Lebanon some $850 mn compensation to cover the clean-up cost of an oil spill caused by the Zionist July 2006 war on the country.
The UNGA voted 166 in favor of the non-binding resolution to 8 against (Australia, Canada, the Zionist entity, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, United States), with 7 abstentions (Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Honduras, Papua New Guinea, South Sudan, Tonga, Vanuatu).
Taking into account the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, which in principle requires the polluter to pay environmental damage costs, the assembly found the Zionist entity guilty of the July 15, 2006 environmental disaster.
The disaster was caused by a Zionist strike on the oil storage tanks in the direct vicinity of the Jiyeh electric power plant in Lebanon. As a result an oil slick covered the Lebanese coastline entirely, stretching all the way to the Syrian coastline.
By that text, the Assembly considered that the oil slick had heavily polluted the shores of Lebanon with 15,000 tons of oil and partially polluted Syrian shores and consequently had serious implications for the Lebanese economy.
The Assembly decision followed the assessment report by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon which stipulated the value of damage to be $856.4 million. Now the Assembly is asking the Zionist entity to provide “prompt and adequate compensation.”
The oil slick made by the spill “has had serious implications for livelihoods and the economy of Lebanon,” the resolution read, accounting for inflation of a October 2007 estimate by the United Nations Secretary General that reported the spill caused $729 million in damage.
Lebanon bore the brunt of the spill, but the Syrian coast and other Mediterranean countries suffered as well, the UN said, asking Lebanon to continue clean-up efforts and the international community to increase funding for its environmental restoration.
The resolution noted that the UN chief expressed “grave concern at the lack of any acknowledgment on the part of the government of Israel of its responsibilities vis-a-vis reparations and compensation” to Lebanon and Syria for the oil spill.
Lebanon’s permanent representative to the UN Nawaf Salam hailed the resolution and called it a “major progress.”
“We affirm that Lebanon will continue to mobilize all resources and resort to all legal means to see that this resolution is fully implemented, and that the specified compensation is paid promptly,” he said.
“This resolution also paves the way for further compensation into other areas of damage (health, ecosystem services as habitat, potential groundwater contamination, and marine diversity), that were not considered in the current calculated amount,” Salam added.
For its part, the Zionist mission to the UN rejected the resolution, expressing wonder that it does not cover the environmental damage which occurred in the northern occupied territories following the attack on Lebanon, claiming that the entity launched the July 2006 war on the country as “a consequence.”
The Zionist entity waged a brutal 33-day war on Lebanon in July 2006, killing hundreds of Lebanese people and leaving serious damage to vital infrastructure. The war ended by a UN 1701 resolution which urged the Zionist entity to halt hostilities and withdraw behind the blue line drawn by UN forces after the liberation of most occupied Lebanese southern territories in May 2006.
An Open Letter to Terry Allen, Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, David Corn, Chris Hayes, George Monbiot, Matthew Rothschild, and Matt Taibbi.
[1]According to several left-leaning critics of the 9/11 Truth Movement, some of its central claims, especially about the destruction of the World Trade Center, show its members to be scientifically challenged. In the opinion of some of these critics, moreover, claims made by members of this movement are sometimes unscientific in the strongest possible sense, implying an acceptance of magic and miracles. … Full article
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