The West keeps all of its mercenary terrorists, including its “A -Team”— al Qaeda and ISIS – well equipped with sophisticated weaponry.
In 2014, for example, when Lebanese and Libyan terrorists captured the world-renowned Krak des Chevaliers, a UNESCO world heritage site, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) faced a daunting challenge, not only because the castle is located at about 700 meters above sea level, but also because the terrorists were armed with US-supplied Tow anti-tank missiles launchers, and Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) launchers.
Not only does UN Resolution 2253 specifically prohibit arming terrorists (with good reason), but using the aforementioned terrorists as proxies in a dirty war against a sovereign country constitutes the most egregious of war crimes according to Nuremburg principles. Consequently, whenever possible, Empire commits its crimes covertly.
A Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) document clearly reveals that, in the aftermath of the West’s destruction of Libya, the armouries were looted, and the weapons were sent to Syria, in what intelligence agencies refer to as a “ratline”.
“Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s, and 125 mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.”
During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the Qaddafi regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to the small amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able to hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo.” The report also details the type of weapons delivered:
“The weapons shipped from Syria during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s and 125mm and 155mm howitzers missiles. The numbers for each weapon were estimated to be: 500 Sniper rifles, 100 RPG launchers with 300 total rounds, and approximately 400 howitzers missiles [200 ea – 125mm and 200ea – 155 mm.]”
Professor Michel Chossudovsky demonstrates in “U.S. ‘Military Aid’ to Al Qaeda, ISIS-Daesh: Pentagon Uses Illicit Arms Trafficking to Channel Enormous Shipments of Light Weapons into Syria”, however, that the aforementioned ratline is the tip of the iceberg.
Chossudovsky explains that since one shipment of light weapons destined for terrorists inside Syria weighs 990 tons, “one can reasonably conclude that the amounts of light weapons in the hands of ”opposition” rebels inside Syria is substantial and exceedingly large.”
Simplified packing list for December 2015 arms shipment
Type
Weight (kg)
Aqaba
Agalar
Total
7.62×39 mm
85,190
48,998
134,188
7.62×54 mm
58,752
8,652
67,404
12.7 mm
81,468.40
36,713
118,181
14.5 mm
196,233.76
173,447
369,681
82 mm
53,885.34
53,885
PG-7VM
0.00
68,600
68,600
PG-7VT
36,795
88,224.00
125,019
9M111M
13,540
8,153
21,693
AK-47 & DShK*
12,250
12,250
AK-47 & PKM*
6,540
6,540
PKM
6,340
6,340
DShK & RPG-7*
3,585
3,585
RPG-7
4,120
4,120
Faktoria launchers
2,421.60
298
2,720
Total
550,996
443,210
994,206
The criminal West also uses its so-called “moderates” as vectors for weapons. In one instance, for example, the West delivered US anti-tank TOW missiles to the so-called “moderate” Harakat Hazm “rebels”, and within 48 hours the weapons were in the hands of al Qaeda/al Nursra Front.
Mainstream media (MSM) might paint such transactions as “mistakes”, but the Western war criminals and their MSM bullhorns always label their crimes as mistakes. Or have we forgotten the invasions of Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, and on and on?
All of these Western crimes advance and strengthen the reach of extremist Wahhabi terrorism and assault the very foundations of civilization.
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) alone has lost about 100,000 soldiers thanks to the West, its terror proxies, and their sophisticated weapons. It is Syria, not the Western governments and their allies, that represents civilization and the rule of law.
Hillary Clinton has been revealed to have a very cozy relationship with the US media, which has been found to work closely with Clinton’s campaign to present her in a favorable, transparent light – even planting stories, new email leaks suggest.
These facts are laid bare in the latest cache of classified Clinton campaign emails seen by The Intercept, which in turn received them from Guccifer 2.0 – the hacker who’s reportedly behind several high-profile intrusions.
The cache of emails includes campaign strategies aimed at keeping the public perception of Clinton favorable, focusing particularly on her transparency, especially in light of the FBI investigation into her use of a private email server. The strategies sometimes reveal the campaign presiding over stylistic points and emphasizing what is to be described as “on the record.”
Of particular note is one January 2015 document which includes references to Maggie Haberman. Formerly of Politico, Haberman now covers the presidential election for the New York Times. According to the leaked document, she’s a “friendly journalist” who has “never disappointed” in painting a positive picture of Clinton.
Haberman was seemingly put to good use, emerging with two stories which were meant to shed light, among other things, on how Hillary Clinton’s thought process works and how successful her cabinet members were. The New York Times piece entitled ‘Hillary Clinton Begins Process of Vetting — Herself’, talks about how open Clinton is to researching herself and how committed to transparency that makes her. Especially given how her opponents mainly focus on her foundation work, or the millions she’s received in paid speech appearances, as well as her relationship to Wall Street.
Neither Merrill nor Haberman responded to the Intercept’s requests for comment, nor did they deny that the document exists.
One of the documents, entitled ‘The Press and Surrogate Plan’, talked of willing personnel in the media who could always be put to good use, at CNN or elsewhere. Clinton staffers were also careful in distinguishing between “progressive helpers” and those who were potentially friendly, but could be further coerced.
These so-called media surrogates would often include TV pundits whose roles would appear to be neutral, but who were enrolled by the campaign. The metadata for the ‘surrogate’ document traces it back to its author Jennifer Palmieri – the Clinton campaign communications director.
Furthermore, as described in an April 2015 memo, there would be secret get-togethers involving media big shots and celebrity TV personalities – a notable one would take place in the aftermath of Clinton’s running announcement at the home of one of her strategists on the Upper East Side. The informal cocktail party was completely off-the-record, and intended to coordinate how Clinton’s campaign would be presented to the American public.
The strategies were not specifically formulated for the Clinton campaign, however. According to a March 2015 memo by campaign manager Robby Mook, the tried and tested tactic of constantly feeding the press positive stories in order to take away its ability to react to constant outside accusations was particularly important.
These controversial strategies have also been employed by the Republicans, although this latest cache of documents is the first glimpse into just how coordinated the effort is to use the media to political advantage.
The revelations from the Intercept come just as the second round of debating between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump has wrapped up, looking colder than ever, with not so much as a handshake exchanged.
The leak also comes amid the latest official attack on Russia by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. On Friday they released a statement claiming they are ““confident that the Russian government directed” the hacks of emails and documents and their posting on WikiLeaks, DCLeaks, and the blog of the hacker calling himself ‘Guccifer 2.0.’
Russia has been denying all complicity. The United States has still not presented any evidence of an official link to the Russian government.
The American election campaign never ceases to amaze in terms of twists.
The Clinton Foundation has again been the victim of a new hack carried out by Guccifer 2.0, leading to the revelation of some interesting details. Among them is an Excel file with a list of donors.
So far (let’s face it) there is nothing new. But the problem for Clinton, the banks and Barney Frank is the refrain «Tarp Funds»; basically the 2008 financial crisis. The Bush administration, with a $700 billion maxi-loan (made up by citizens’ taxes), granted instant cash and saved the big banks from bankruptcy.
The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a United States government program to purchase toxic assets from financial institutions, and actions to strengthen the financial sector. It was signed by US President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008.
A small detail to keep in mind: the loan was funded with taxes paid by US citizens.
However, the banks were saved, speculation continued, and two years later, a decree that negatively changed the American financial system was passed, the infamous Dodd-Frank.
The words of the Wall Street Journal thoroughly explain how the financial giants and the big banking conglomerates have profited from this other law-saving bank:
«Dodd-Frank was allegedly written thinking of Wall Street, but has hit Main Street. The financial community institutions, which make up most of loans to small businesses, are overwhelmed by the complexity of the new law. Government figures indicate that the country is losing an average of a community bank or credit union each day.
Before Dodd-Frank, 75% of banks were offering a free account. Two years later, only 39% of bank still offer that free-of-charge savings account.
Due to the Dodd-Frank, the financial markets will have less ability to cope with shocks and are more likely to panic [and panic = speculation = profits for banks and financial institutions]. Many economists believe this could be the source of the next financial crisis».
Two further details if you have not already guessed the extent of these revelations. The Frank in question is Barney Frank, the guy mentioned several times in the the donations. Guess who Frank received the money from. Banks, of course! The same banks for whom Frank significantly increased their revenue thanks to the law with his name. What better way for JP Morgan, Goldman, Bank of America and company to show appreciation for their future gains than by raising tens of thousands of dollars for Frank and his party?
The revelations are likely to be a disaster for Clinton and the Democrats. The large banking corporations have funded them using money from the TARP fund. They have given the Democratic Party money collected from taxes and granted for a completely different purpose (namely, to deal with the failure of the financial giants).
These hidden financial mechanisms reveal the backstory behind the US electoral system. An elite made up of financiers, bankers and lobbies are the real stakeholders and decisive contributors in presidential elections. They fund all central and vital aspects of democratic and republican campaigns, becoming an indispensable support for any candidate. In return, politicians allow direct procurement and assign huge projects to large industries, or turn a blind eye in case of financial fraud. The consequences are clearly visible in America’s deterioration, increasingly grappling with corruption cases, postponed projects, a lagging behind, and a general feeling of backwardness in vital infrastructure.
In the military field, for example, large lobby groups of weapons manufacturers have created a procurement system that threatens to squander forever the tactical and strategic advantage obtained by the United States over the last 70 years. Programs such as the F-35 were delayed and costs surged stratospherically due to likely corruption and a lack of competition in the procurement process. Similarly, a perpetual race to produce more and more weapons systems that are in the end unnecessary and redundant, instead of exploring new pathways, has enriched US policymakers and made the military-industrial complex much wealthier, but in the process has served to reduce the gap between the US and her peer competitors.
This whole process is a vicious cycle that can easily be summarized in the following manner. Politicians often derive their strategies and tactics from the reasoning and the conversations that take place in US think-tanks, which are funded and supported by companies involved in such industries as pharmaceuticals, insurance, the military, and the cyber and space spheres. In the case of war involving weapons systems, for example, it is easy to understand why policymakers are being influenced by their contributors, who often suggest courses of action and strategies based on the need to spend huge amounts of money to acquire their new products, thereby enriching said lobbies and manufacturers in the process. This triangular system – lobby-thinktank-policy – is one of the founding pillars of current American war doctrine that is failing miserably.
In the same manner, the banking and financial system of Wall Street also contributes and enjoys the same privileges. The banks were bound to return the favor, in the form of millions of dollars of donations, to the political class that was responsible for saving them from the 2008 financial crisis stemming from wild speculation and accounting deceptions. Within a few months, billions of dollars were transferred for free into the accounts of the banking giants thanks to the TARP decree, effectively preventing a major bankruptcy. The consequences were so devastating that today we are experiencing a systemic and endemic crisis of the financial sector that is likely to completely overwhelm Western economies the next time a too-big-to-fail scenario arises.
Politicians continue to enact laws in favor of the banking giants, pocketing large sums of money for their election campaigns in the process. The attention is constantly drawn towards effectively increasing the gap between the top 0.1% and the remaining 99.9%, and the politicians are the key factor in this strategy. Laws adopted in recent years have created an environment where banks have become untouchable and beyond reach. It is a situation that is exactly the opposite of what should have happened after the 2008 crisis, with increased oversight and transparency in financial transactions.
The extent of the degeneration of this system has been revealed in recent days with the information released by Guccifer 2.0. Even though nothing should any longer be surprising given what has transpired over the last few years, one is still taken aback by revelations that the banking giants are financing the Clinton campaign directly with American taxpayers’ money. If we add to this the funds that were freely handed over by the government to save those same banking institutions from bankruptcy in 2008, we take another step further into the theater of the absurd.
The Associated Press (AP) through a gimmick it calls “AP FACT CHECK,” claimed after a recent US presidential debate that presidential candidate Donald Trump was untruthful about Syrian President Bashar Al Assad fighting the self-proclaimed “Islamic State” (ISIS).
Not true. Syria’s President Bashar Assad considers the Islamic State group to be among numerous “terrorist” groups that threaten his government, but his military is not fighting them. It is focused on combatting Syrian opposition groups, some of which are supported by the United States. The fight against the Islamic State militants is being waged by a U.S.-led coalition, with help from Turkey, by training, advising and equipping Syrian Arab and Kurdish fighters.
However, despite AP’s claims, AP’s own reporting directly contradicts its “AP FACT CHECK,” as pointed out by Syrian activist and geopolitical commentator Mimi Al Laham in a recent Tweet.
A week after taking back the historic town of Palmyra, Syrian troops and their allies on Sunday captured another town controlled by the Islamic State group in central Syria, state media reported.
The push into the town of Qaryatain took place under the cover of Russian airstrikes and dealt another setback to the IS extremists in Syria. An activist group that monitors the Syrian civil war said that government forces are in control of most of the town after IS fighters withdrew to its eastern outskirts.
The advance came a week after Syrian forces recaptured Palmyra from IS and is strategically significant for the government side. The capture of Qaryatain deprives IS of a main base in central Syria and could be used by government forces in the future to launch attacks on IS-held areas near the Iraqi border.
Not only does AP directly contradict its own reporting on Syrian forces over the past year with its recent and clearly disingenuous “AP FACT CHECK,” it also contradicts claims that Russia is also uninterested in fighting ISIS – admitting clearly that Syrian government gains against the terrorist organization took place under the cover of Russian airpower.
Also, AP would even report that Russian ground forces were present at Palmyra, directly on the front with ISIS.
Russia has built a military encampment inside a zone that holds the UNESCO world heritage site in the ancient Syrian town of Palmyra, where Islamic State militants were driven out recently by pro-government forces.
The Russian military described the camp Tuesday as “temporary,” saying its few housing units were being used by explosives experts who are removing mines left behind by the militants, and that the Syrian government had given approval to build the camp.
It is uncertain why AP has resorted to such blatant, clumsy lies, especially under a series of articles it is boldly calling “AP FACT CHECK.” However, it is clear – based on AP’s own reporting – that they are in fact lying intentionally and in direct contradiction to their own reporting.
It is also interesting how AP boldly titles its recent series as “AP FACT CHECK” yet provides no citations or evidence for its “fact checking.”
AP has perpetuated intentional lies dressed up as news reporting for years, if not from its inception, deceiving global audiences regarding everything from “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, to the characterization of political conflicts ranging from the so-called “Arab Spring” to political instability in Southeast Asia.
Caught in a blatant lie contradicting its own reporting should put the world on notice that AP is not a legitimate news service, nor should it be trusted as a journalistic source until those responsible for “AP FACT CHECK” are exposed, condemned, and expelled from AP, and AP provides a proper explanation as to how such blatant lies could cross its pages in the first place.
For the Syrian and Russian soldiers and airmen who bravely died fighting ISIS in combat AP itself reported on, no greater disservice could be done than to deny such combat even took place. AP’s recent “AP FACT CHECK” was meant to portray recent political debates in a certain light, but instead, it has only managed to cast AP itself as illegitimate, deceitful, and untrustworthy.
France will build 32 new jails and one detention center to deal with overcrowding, largely fueled by mass arrests from counterterrorism operations.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls also said France would build 28 rehabilitation centers, reconstruct 12 prisons and build 16 more. The country’s prison population has soared to over 10,000 past capacity—at 140 percent overpopulation in some places—, disproportionately occupied by Muslims.
“In the 10 years to come, … you will see our prisons change,” said Valls. “You will see the carceral world evolve.”
Valls will spend about US$1.3 billion in the first phase to build nine prisons, using an elevated budget for the ministry of justice—up nine percent—allocated to counterterrorism. Once the ministry builds between 10,000 and 16,000 new cells, it will have spent up to US$3.5 billion.
Currently, prisoners sleep on floors and in cramped, rundown cells, drawing the attention of the European Union’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture to cite over a dozen institutions, including ones for “radicalized” prisoners, for the “deprivation of liberty.”
An EU report last year found, among other violations, “no complete compartmentalization of sanitary facilities, lack of heating, … mattresses on the ground, lack of privacy and risks of conflict within cells, greater shortage of access to work and activities; reduced possibilities of dialogue and care on the part of prison officers, reduced possibilities of relations (telephone, visiting room sessions) with the outside, deterioration of working conditions of staff, etc.”
While Valls said that “these conditions are not worthy for France,” he said nothing about slowing the pace of incarceration or expanding alternative forms of punishment.
For the Southeast Asian state of Thailand, overcoming corruption could be one of several essential steps required to fully tap the human and natural resources this already influential ASEAN state has benefited from for centuries. However, to tackle corruption, the nation must first define what it is, and what it hopes to achieve by confronting and overcoming it.
Currently, the focus unfortunately appears to be on addressing Thailand’s score upon the so-called Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) put out by alleged nongovernmental organisation (NGO), Transparency International.
Despite describing itself as an NGO, Transparency International’s funding is dominated by the governments of the United States and the European Union.
More specifically, as listed on Transparency International’s own website, its funding comes specifically from the US State Department, the European Commission, the US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and controversial Open Society, chaired by convicted financial criminal George Soros.
Such funding presents an alarming conflict of interest, considering that these are the same interests who, in Thailand and across the rest of ASEAN, have worked actively to overthrow governments and undermine local institutions, seeking to overwrite them with organisations and institutions promoted by and serving foreign interests via NED and Open Society specifically.
Transparency International Leverages CPI as a Geopolitical Weapon
Thus, Thailand’s score on the CPI is more a result of politically-motivated interference in Thailand’s internal affairs than it is an honest appraisal of the nation’s corruption. Thailand’s low score and pressure placed upon it by the West to improve this score results not from genuine concern regarding corruption, but instead from the fact that the current government successfully ousted a regime sponsored by and working for Western special interests.
Attempting to “improve” Thailand’s score on a politically-motivated and thus illegitimate index is, to say the least, an exercise in futility.
Despite this glaring reality, there are some in the government who believe improving the nation’s standings on this index should still be a priority. They do so not because a better score will actually address corruption in Thailand in any meaningful manner, thus giving Thais greater confidence and trust in government institutions, but to instead impress foreign investors who a nation like Thailand should not be depending on to begin with.
It is an approach doomed to fail because it is an approach that fundamentally misdiagnoses the problem and thus prescribes the wrong solution.
Alternative Paths
In reality, corruption in Thailand cannot be defined or addressed by Transparency International’s politically-motivated, thus meaningless metrics. Instead, corruption in Thailand, if understood as unprofessionalism and impropriety among government institutions, hindering both the efficient administration of the nation as well as the government’s interaction with the people and local businesses, must be confronted by local interests for local interests.
The Anti-Corruption Organization of Thailand (ACT) (website in Thai only), comprised of business leaders, local media and activists, seeks to confront corruption in Thailand not to improve the nation’s standings on a meaningless foreign-devised scale, but to improve the efficiency of government institutions to better facilitate their administration of the country, to make doing business easier and fairer as well as to improve faith and confidence across Thai society in the government institutions they depend on for the smooth functioning of society.
As ACT incrementally achieves these goals, it helps improve and strengthen Thailand, even if such efforts are not reflected on meaningless indexes like the CPI.
Their activities include exposing corruption using their ties to the media, holding events to raise public awareness regarding both their rights and how they are being violated by corruption and by working with the government to pass legislation to rein in corruption on various levels of society.
In the end, ACT is attempting to solve corruption for Thailand, with their “index score” determined by the improved efficiency of government institutions and the public’s trust in them.
ACT has so far proven itself impartial, calling out the previous government of Yingluck Shinawatra for its blatant and systemic corruption, as well as condemning impropriety and nepotism amid the current government. Unlike Transparency International and its CPI which only seeks to leverage “corruption perceptions” as a political weapon, ACT is fighting corruption for the sake of fighting corruption, because its membership is comprised of those directly affected by it, regardless of who heads the national government.
The current government should work (and is working) closely with groups like ACT to expose and rein in corruption toward very specific goals such as improving the efficiency of government institutions in the administration of their responsibilities and improving public trust in these institutions. Rather than citing the meaningless CPI devised by the politically-motivated Transparency International, Thailand should develop its own metrics for measuring both the level of corruption and gauge success in confronting it.
Thailand, and other developing nations, must also devise a means of communicating their progress in confronting corruption to the world in order to sidestep the “weaponisation” of indexes like Transparency International’s CPI.
By confronting corruption, nations strengthen themselves not only within by improving the efficiency with which resources are utilised toward the progress of their respective nations, they also strengthen themselves against foreign interests that would seek to exploit “corruption perceptions” and use it to seek leverage over them. In this sense, fighting corruption is not only good for business, it is essential for national security.
Mr. Daniel H. Schulman
President and CEO
PayPal
2211 North First Street
San Jose, CA 95131
Dear Mr. Schulman,
We are writing to urge you to extend PayPal’s services to Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza thereby removing a major limitation on the Palestinian technology sector, one of the only bright spots in the overall economy. More importantly, extending PayPal services would resolve the current discriminatory situation whereby PayPal’s payment portal can be accessed freely by Israeli settlers living illegally (per international humanitarian law) in the West Bank while it remains unavailable to the occupied Palestinian population.
PayPal’s absence is a major obstacle to the growth of Palestine’s tech sector and the overall economy. While other payment portals are available, there is no replacement for the trust and familiarity that PayPal inspires among potential users, particularly those that are unfamiliar with Palestine-based companies. Without access to PayPal, Palestinian entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and others face routine difficulties in receiving payments for business and charitable purposes. Moreover, PayPal’s absence is problematic for the overall Palestinian economy as tech is one of the only sectors with the potential to grow under status quo conditions of the Israeli occupation which severely restricts the internal and cross-border movement of goods and people. Indeed, by entering the Palestinian market, PayPal has the opportunity to make a significant contribution toward alleviating the destabilizing unemployment rates of over 25% in the West Bank and 40% in Gaza.
We have been told that PayPal is concerned about the compliance investments required to enter the Palestinian market. We believe such costs have been greatly overestimated. The U.S. Treasury Department has spent a great deal of time working with the Palestine Monetary Authority to strengthen safeguards against abuse. PayPal currently operates in over 203 countries including places with major problems of corruption and terrorism like Somalia and Yemen. We are confident that Palestine will prove a much easier place to profitably do business than these and other markets that PayPal has already entered.
In addition to business reasons, there are also ethical reasons for PayPal to enter the Palestinian market. PayPal’s decision to launch its service in Israel for Israeli bank customers means that it inadvertently made its services freely available to Jewish settlers living illegally in the occupied West Bank. Palestinians living in close proximity to those settlers do not, however, have access as PayPal doesn’t work with Palestinian banks and Palestinians are unable to establish Israeli bank accounts. We believe a company like PayPal, whose actions in North Carolina reaffirmed its commitment to equal rights, would agree that people living in the same neighborhood ought to have equal rights and access to its services regardless of religion or ethnicity.
We understand that entering a new market can be complex and would be more than happy to work with you, the Palestinian Monetary Authority, and any other necessary officials to pave the way for PayPal’s entry to the Palestinian market.
We very much look forward to hearing from you and working with you to ensure that Palestinian entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and others are free to participate in global commerce. Our point of contact in this matter is Ehsaneh Sadr, 408-306-2559, ehsaneh.i.sadr@gmail.com.
Sincerely,
Gaza Sky Geeks
Partners for Sustainable Development
Jaffa.Net Software
iConnect Technologies
Applied Information Management (AIM)
National Beverage Company
Palestine Tourism and Investment Company
Ibtikar Fund
Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy
Bethlehem Business Incubator
Advanced Technologies for Business
Kenz
BarakaBits
Al Nasher Technical Services
Leaders Organization
Bedejob.com
Netaqe.com
Indiepush
RedCrow Intelligence
Wirez
TechWadi
PinchPoint
Fadfid
Mashvisor
Arabreneur
Baskalet game studio
5qhqh.com
Myndlift
Nudge
Paltel
Arab Palestinian Investment Company (APIC)
Siniora Food Industries Company (Siniora)
Unipal General Trading Company (Unipal)
Medical Supplies and Services Company (MSS)
National Aluminum and Profiles Company (NAPCO)
Arab Palestinian Shopping Centers (BRAVO)
Palestine Automobile Company (PAC)
Sky Advertising, Public Relations, and Events Management Company (Sky)
Arab Leasing Company (ALC)
Arab Palestinian Storage and Cooling Company (APSC)
Peeks
CircleOut
Content Tech Inc.
After a visit to Hebron in 1996, the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said wrote, “The present situation cannot last, there are too many inequities and injustices at the heart of Palestinian life.” Two decades on, there is no end in sight to the wretched conditions he deplored back then. On the contrary, they have grown worse.
Not even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s controversial decision to attend the funeral of former Israeli President Shimon Peres was enough to bring about a token suspension of the daily torment of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Immediately after his return to Ramallah, Israel declared Tel Rumeida, a neighbourhood in the Governorate of Hebron, to be a closed military area.
As is always the case when such closures are imposed, Palestinian students and residents who attempted to attend classes or go about their daily affairs were told to return to their homes until the 600 illegal Jewish settlers living in Hebron had observed their religious festivities. These celebrations are expected to last several days and so the ancient Ibrahimi Mosque was also closed to Muslim worshippers for six days.
Like their Muslim compatriots who are routinely denied access to their mosques, Christian Palestinians in Bethlehem and Jerusalem must also have permits to worship in their churches from which they are separated by the eight-metre high “security” wall. Before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, Christians made up 18 per cent of Palestine’s population. Today, they account for less than 1.5 per cent. For reasons of political correctness, western politicians and church leaders have turned a blind eye to the real causes of this exodus; they have chosen instead to look for a scapegoat in alleged “persecution by Muslims”. That is palpable nonsense and plays into Israel’s nefarious hands.
In Hebron, life is far from normal for its 200,000 Palestinian inhabitants at the best of times. Every aspect of their lives is overshadowed by the activities of the settlers who now live illegally among them, with full military protection courtesy of the Israel Defence Forces. Palestinians must contend with the hideous road blocks and military checkpoints that swamp the old city and its environs. Recent reports confirm that more than 1,000 residential apartments have been vacated because of the harassment affecting the local Palestinian population. This was entirely predictable; Israel’s closure of more than 800 commercial businesses was meant to do exactly that — make life so intolerable for the locals that they will leave “of their own accord”. In Zionist terminology this is known rather sinisterly as “silent transfer.”
Elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, the system of inequity and injustice described by Edward Said is no less punitive. The predominantly farming community in Qalqiliya has been virtually encircled by Israel’s apartheid wall, with farmers separated from their land. More than 170,000 men, women and children are similarly locked in by the wall in Bethlehem. Former US President Jimmy Carter found it appalling that they had to obtain “permanent resident” permits from the occupation authorities in order to continue living in their own homes.
It does not take much to recognise the similarities between the Israeli permit system and the hated South African Pass Laws. Just as it was illegal for black Africans to enter designated “white areas” in South Africa so too is it illegal for Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza Strip to visit Jerusalem, for example, without military permission. At present, the general rule is that only those aged 45 years or over are considered for a permit. While there are, of course, subtle differences, the South African jurist John Dugard has pointed out that the common features between South African apartheid and Israel’s version are discrimination, repression and territorial fragmentation.
Under these repressive and degrading conditions it was only a matter of time before a third intifada erupted in the occupied territories. Israel’s determination to seize Palestinian land for its settlements; its closure and desecration of religious sites; and its extrajudicial killings have all provided the combustible mix that has fuelled the intifada for the past year. The sheer number of settlers (more than half-a-million) and military checkpoints scattered across the West Bank (more than 500) also make the conditions ripe for anger and disaffection to fester.
Throughout their long struggle against Zionist colonisation, Palestinians have staged several uprisings. Once in motion these have never been easy to suppress. Being the weaker of the two parties militarily and politically, the Palestinians have on every occasion suffered untold human and material losses. Yet, for every successive generation, it has been considered to be a price worth paying for their freedom from Israel’s brutal military occupation.
The nature and course of the uprisings have always been unpredictable. This is especially the case today since there is no single political faction that has emerged clearly to lead or coordinate events on the ground. In the absence of any serious political initiative, and given Israel’s determination to maintain its occupation and dominance over the Palestinians, it is only reasonable to expect the current intifada to continue well into the future. In this regard, Edward Said was right: there will be no end to Palestinian efforts to end the prevailing system of inequity and injustice of a kind which only happens in occupied Palestine.
The United States has called for trying Russia for committing war crimes in Syria. Secretary of state John Kerry said in Washington on Friday, “Russia and the (Syrian) regime owe the world more than an explanation… These are acts that beg for an appropriate investigation of war crimes. And those who commit these would and should be held accountable… We also need to keep the pressure up on Russia with respect to the implementation of the Minsk agreement (on Ukraine). And we… make it clear publicly that if we cannot implement Minsk in the next months or arrive at a clear plan as to exactly how it is going to be implemented… then it will be absolutely necessary to roll over the sanctions (against Russia).”
To be sure, the sub-zero temperature in US-Russia relations has dipped by another ten degrees centigrade. Even in the height of Cold War, when the former Soviet Union used to be an ‘evil empire’, Washington had never sought that the Kremlin officials should be tried for war crimes. Nor had the Soviet Union.
Even after killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi, Libyan and Afghan civilians and the wanton destruction of those countries in the past decade or so, and even though the US is actively taking part in the war in Yemen, Moscow never demanded that George W. Bush or Barack Obama – or even Hillary Clinton – should be tried as war criminals.
What has come over Kerry? He sounds a frustrated man who’s lost his cool. He realizes that his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov outwitted him, whereas he’d thought he’s clever by half.
The US hoped to somehow preserve the al-Qaeda affiliate Nusra in order to spearhead one more final push for ‘regime change’ in Syria – if not under the Obama presidency, at least under the next president. Indeed, Lavrov saw through Kerry’s ploy – ultimately, Kerry, a clever politician with some experience in diplomacy, couldn’t be a match for the immensely experienced career diplomat and intellectual in Lavrov. So, Lavrov played along with a poker face and entrapped ‘John’ in a peace agreement that Pentagon would never approve, which actually aimed at making mincemeat out of Nusra.
On the other hand, Kerry feels frustrated that President Barack Obama was not willing to open a parallel track of military intervention in Syria, which, he thought, would have given a much-needed swagger to his diplomatic track. Kerry belongs to the old school of power brokers in Washington, who subscribe to the notion that the Marines lead the way for diplomats. (He was a Marine himself once.)
But Kerry did not realise that the ground beneath the American feet had shifted in the Middle East. The US’ relations with Turkey as well as Saudi Arabia, the two key regional powers who fuelled Syrian conflict, are today embittered to the point that Washington is playing solo in the amphitheatre although the orchestra has walked out on the conductor. (Sabah )
What intrigues me is why Kerry wants only the Russian and Syrian leaders to be tried for war crimes. Why not Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as well, who commands the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps? But then, Kerry cannot utter that four-letter word – Iran – because the engagement with that country is supposed to be the finest legacy of Obama presidency. Yet, had it not been for the IRGC, which sacrificed so heavily in blood and treasure, the Syrian government could never have gained the upper hand in the fighting. (Times of Israel )
The third fascinating aspect of Kerry’s apocalyptic remark is that he seems to suggest that the US still intends to win the war in Syria. After all, it is a consistent trait of history that the winner dispatches the defeated to the war crimes tribunal – be it Slobodan Milosevic or Saddam Hussein.
Put differently, does Kerry mean that the US intends to defeat Russia in a war? Is it his prognosis that World War III is round the corner? Doesn’t he comprehend that the total annihilation of his own country in a nuclear showdown with Russia would make all this talk about war crimes irrelevant?
Kerry must be feeling frustrated that the Nobel went to the Columbian president! What a way to end a distinguished career in politics and diplomacy when there is no grand recognition for the good work done! Kerry leaves the stage of international diplomacy an embittered man.
Lavrov is unlikely to respond. What can he say, after all? Kerry overreached to reverse the tide of history and the result was fairly predictable. No matter his valiant attempts, he couldn’t erase the geopolitical reality that the US is a power in retreat. Not only in the Middle East, but also in Asia-Pacific.
The sight of a superpower walking into the sunset is never a pleasant sight. It was the case with Rome, Byzantines, Spain, Portugal, France, Britain. Look at the latest tiding from the South China Sea. (Wall Street Journal)
The struggles of the middle class are something Hillary Clinton once admitted in a paid speech she is “far removed” from, thanks to the “fortunes” she and her husband “enjoy,” a WikiLeaks-posted email shows. She also admitted she “did all she could” for Wall Street to prosper.
These are just two excerpts from the numerous paid speeches Clinton gave to Wall Street giants behind closed doors between 2013 and 2015.
“I’m kind of far removed because the life I’ve lived and the economic, you know, fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy,” Clinton told members of Goldman-Black Rock in February 2014. “I am not taking a position on any policy, but I do think there is a growing sense of anxiety and even anger in the country over the feeling that the game is rigged.”
Her remarks would never have seen the light of day, but an email found among over 2,000 “Podesta emails” has now shone a spotlight on what Clinton was telling Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and others in between her job as Secretary of State and the current presidential campaign.
“Team, attached are the flags from HRC’s paid speeches we have from HWA. I put some highlights below. There is a lot of policy positions that we should give an extra scrub with policy,” Tony Carrk, the research director of the Clinton campaign, wrote in the email to John Podesta, the campaign chairman, and others on January 25, 2016.
“HWA” stands for Harry Walker Agency, which calls itself “an exclusive speakers bureau” that has been representing Hillary Clinton’s husband Bill “for over a decade.”
The agency also arranged Hillary Clinton’s speeches, which earned $675,000 from three events at Goldman Sachs and reportedly $3 million for speaking at banks and financial firms.
Carrk “flagged” some 25 excerpts that he titled, presumably highlighting the parts the campaign had to take care of: “CLINTON ADMITS SHE IS OUT OF TOUCH,” “CLINTON SAYS YOU NEED TO HAVE A PRIVATE AND PUBLIC POSITION ON POLICY,” and “CLINTON ADMITS NEEDING WALL STREET FUNDING” to name a few.
Clinton’s links to Wall Street is something that she and her team have been trying to downplay since the start of her presidential campaign in April 2015.
However, excerpts from her speeches, most of which she gave in front of Goldman Sachs people, show the scale of her “cozy relationships” with Wall Street.
“When I was a senator from New York, I represented and worked with so many talented principled people who made their living in finance,” Hillary Clinton said in a speech at Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd in San Diego in September 2014. “But even though I represented them and did all I could to make sure they continued to prosper, I called for closing the carried interest loophole and addressing skyrocketing CEO pay.”
Prior to that, in 2013, Clinton was telling Goldman Sachs that running for office has its downsides, such as for example “bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives.”
“You know, the divestment of assets, the stripping of all kinds of positions, the sale of stocks. It just becomes very onerous and unnecessary,” she said, adding that is “part of the problem with the political situation.”
In 2014 speeches, Hillary Clinton expressed her pro-Keystone pipeline views, the opinion she appeared to have changed just recently.
Clinton has been known to have to changed her mind on big issues in recent years. However, in 2013 she told a housing trade group that she has “a public and a private position.”
“If everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least,” she said. “So, you need both a public and a private position.”
In her other speeches, which also surfaced from the recent WikiLeaks dump, Clinton discussed countries such as Saudi Arabia, which she said “exported more extreme ideology than any other place on earth” and Libya, where she said “they can’t provide security.”
She also spoke about the UK and the EU, predicting “some pretty unpredictable leaders and political parties coming to the forefront in a lot of countries.”
Clinton has long been under intense pressure to release transcripts of her paid speeches to corporations.
A poll released in June showed that nearly 60 percent of surveyed voters wanted transcripts of her speeches released.
Brussels, Belgium – The first thing to say about the U.S. presidential elections is that they are extremely anti-democratic. And here I’m not even talking about the manipulations that may have enabled Clinton to beat Sanders or about the fact that mainstream media spend their time deriding one candidate and covering up for the other. The most fundamentally anti-democratic aspect of the American elections is that a small fragment of humanity gets to elect someone who has an enormous influence over the rest of the world, someone who takes decisions that can drag us all into a generalized war, or at very least can aggravate tensions with Russia, Iran, and China, not to mention Syria, which are contrary to European interests.
From that point of view, Trump has an advantage over Clinton. That is, he says he wants to be President of the United States and not of the whole world, whereas she insists that the United States must exert world leadership.
Trump is berated as the latest incarnation of Evil (after Saddam, Gaddafi, Assad, the Brexiters): racist, sexist, Islamophobe, a friend of dictators, etc., in short the embodiment of all that arouses the righteous indignation of the human rights defenders.
I would like to suggest a different way of seeing Trump. He is above all a capitalist, almost a caricature of the sort of man capitalism produces, encourages and celebrates. He makes money and is proud of it. For him, the bottom line is cost-benefit. Everything comes down to that ratio. Defend the Baltic States? What does it cost, what do we gain? Defend Japan? What does it cost, what do we gain?
In his way, he is also patriotic. Of course, not enough to pay taxes, or to pay his subcontractors if he can get out of it. But he is no doubt seriously worried about the de-industrialization of the United States (a rational worry for a capitalist). He fancies he can solve the problem, in a capitalist way – making deals with the Chinese or with companies that take their jobs abroad.
As a capitalist, Trump succeeded. Of course, he didn’t start from nothing, but he considerably enlarged the fortune he inherited. He did so by all sort of morally and legally doubtful methods. So what? Are there many capitalists who get that rich otherwise?
It is almost laughable to see the horrified reaction of the respectable left (human rights defenders, feminists, anti-racists) to the sight of this phenomenon. After all, the respectable left is itself totally pro-capitalist, but it uses its own vocabulary to designate the system: free market, open society, liberalism. But it accepts capitalism as essentially the end of history. It directs its criticism solely against “exclusion”, whether due to supposed prejudice or rejection of immigrants, or against unfair competition. But perfect competition would be a capitalist dream come true.
When the respectable left is faced with such a pure product of the system it defends (in its own way), that is, someone who is very calculating, vulgar, who says what comes to mind without concern for what is politically correct, all of which is fairly typical of a successful capitalist pleased with himself, we hear cries of dismay.
For that well-mannered left, the pro-capitalist discourse must be wrapped in sweet words, such as freedom, human rights, equality of opportunity, whereas the system as it is produces something quite different. Trump, for example.
The point at which the conflict between Trump and the pro-Clinton left, including the lesser-evilists, becomes interesting is the issue of war and peace.
Here too, Trump calculates: almost six trillion dollars spent on wars in the Middle East. And what do we have to show for it? Practically nothing! Chinese companies among others exploit Iraqi oil without having spent a penny on those wars. The chaos in Libya or Syria is not profitable to anyone, notably not to oil companies (which profit from stability), while all reasonable capitalists are itching to do business with Iran and Russia.
Incidentally, even the anti-war left tends to get things wrong by attributing those wars to rational economic calculation. In reality, those wars are motivated by a mixture of human rights ideology, determination to destroy Israel’s enemies and American ambition to exert world hegemony.
However, that ambition is not rational in economic terms. It is expensive. If you neglect the costs, it can seem rational. But Trump, as a genuine capitalist, doesn’t neglect them, and figures the whole enterprise is not worth it. And there, he is absolutely right. By the same token, he doesn’t see any good reason to launch a jihad against Russia, which is what is being done by the same ideologues who support the Middle East wars. Russia is a capitalist country and someone like Trump can perfectly well make deals with the Russians.
What is fascinating about the Trump phenomenon is that those who denounce him as vulgar, dishonest, racist, and so on, have nevertheless to admit that his support comes from ordinary folks, inasmuch as all the media are against him, along with Wall Street, the Pentagon, and the left from Sanders to Chomsky. But the more violent that denunciation is, the more obvious becomes the total failure of the “third way”, or the “second left” (the Clintons, Blair, Zapatero, Schroeder, Jospin, Hollande, Renzi) which has totally lost popular support, and can now only rely on the support of the elites.
That “second left” has lost out because it is unable to solve economic problems due to its blind obedience to economic liberalism and because its international policy of endless interventions has only resulted in gigantic chaos, both in the Middle East and increasingly in Europe, by causing the refugee crisis. Intensifying tension with Russia or insisting on overthrowing the Syrian government, no matter what the price, can only make matters worse.
Finally, that “third way” finds nothing better to do than to insult the people as being a mass of “deplorables”, as Hillary Clinton put it, thus digging itself deeper into a hole.
However “deplorable” he may be, the Trump phenomenon is a current form of “the revolt of the masses” faced with the failure of Western elites, supported by the “third way” left.
As for those of us in Europe, the issue is not to support either Trump or Clinton, since there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. We need to wake up to our submission to the United States and try to free ourselves, which requires a long term effort at cultural, psychological and political liberation. From that angle, an eventual election of Trump could have a positive effect, at least in the short run, by the shock it would provoke among our America-idolizing media and political elites. But it’s up to ourselves to recapture our own independence. That never comes from outside.
The White Helmets: a heartfelt humanitarian NGO or an elaborate and cynical western PR stunt promoting illegal regime change in Syria? Does the wearing of white helmets mean they are the good guys supporting a just cause?
CrossTalking with Vanessa Beeley, Eva Bartlett, and Patrick Henningsen.
Butchered by “Healthcare” is Robert Yoho’s plain-spoken account of how American medicine stopped being a profession and became an industry. 341 pages. Over a thousand references. Thirty-eight chapters.
“Screening Tests Are Useless”, on tests that find diseases that would never have hurt you. “The FDA Protects the Big Drug Companies”, on an agency funded by the companies it regulates. “The Journals’ Sins Are the Editors’ Sins”, on ghostwritten studies and captured peer review. “Opioids and ‘Pain Management’”, on how a generation was prescribed its way into addiction. “Prozac and Relatives” and “Antipsychotics Are Disastrous”, on what psychiatry does to adults and children. “Surgery: Money Before Patients”. “Failed Cancer Treatments”. “Futile CPR and Overprescribing”. “Billing Scams & Specialty Warfare”. “Hospitals Are Sharks”. Each with a Patient Tips section at the end on how to survive it.
If you have ever walked out of a doctor’s office with a prescription you didn’t ask for, or watched a parent put through a treatment that made them worse, this is the book you want on your shelf before the next appointment. … Full review
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Butchered by “Healthcare” is Robert Yoho’s plain-spoken account of how American medicine stopped being a profession and became an industry. 341 pages. Over a thousand references. Thirty-eight chapters.
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