The United Nations General Assembly has approved a Russian-led resolution calling for nations to refrain from being the first to deploy weapons into outer space, in spite of U.S. resistance and European silence on the proposed measure, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The resolution was first drafted by Russia in 2014, but was rejected by the United States and other nations last year, and then again this year, when the draft resolution was considered by a GA committee focusing on issues of arms control.
On Tuesday, 129 nations represented in the General Assembly voted to adopt the measure, which was co-sponsored by 40 nations — including China and Syria — and is known as the “no first placement” initiative.
“It is noteworthy that the only government objecting to the substance of our initiative is the United States, which for many years has stood in almost complete isolation trying to block successive efforts of the international community to prevent an arms race in outer space,” the Foreign Ministry said.
The initiative calls on nations to refrain from being the first to place military weapons in outer space, thereby preventing a new and potentially devastating arms race between the world’s leading space-faring nations — Russia, China and the United States, who are all working on space weapons.
Europe, which has an effective multi-national space program of its own, has consistently abstained from ruling on the Russian proposal. The United States maintains that Russia’s resolution does not adequately define space weapons, and ignores an entire class of ground-launched space arms — such as anti-satellite missiles tested by China.
The resolution is nonbinding, but calls for negotiations held at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva to put forth a legally binding international treaty preventing weapons from being deployed in space, and calls on all states to adopt national commitments to the resolution.
A recent Globe and Mail article (reprinted on Rabble.ca) by Gerald Caplan detailing Canadian relations with Uganda made me mad.
Why?
It was not so much for what’s in the article, but rather what it ignores, which is reality. Any progressive author writing about Canada’s foreign affairs betrays his readers if he ignores the bad this country has done and feeds the benevolent Canadian foreign-policy myth.
“Canadians have had ties to Uganda for many decades”, writes Caplan, a self-described “Africa scholar” citing the establishment of diplomatic relations soon after independence. He also mentions many Canadians who “found their way to the country” amidst instability and the federal government taking in Asians expelled by Idi Amin. The former NDP strategist points to some private Canadian aid initiatives in the country and details a Canadian lawyer’s contribution to a suit over the Ugandan government’s failure to provide basic maternal health services, which may violate the Constitution.
But, Caplan completely ignores the unsavory – and much more consequential – role Canada has played in the East African country.
For example, he could have at least mentioned this country’s role during the “scramble for Africa” when Canadians actively participated in subjugating various peoples and stealing their land. This is necessary to acknowledge if we are ever to build a decent foreign policy.
In the late 1800s a number of Canadian military men helped survey possible rail routes from the East African Coast to Lake Victoria Nyanza on the border between modern Uganda and Kenya. The objective was to strengthen Britain’s grip over recalcitrant indigenous groups and to better integrate the area into the Empire’s North East Africa-India corridor.
Beginning in 1913 dozens of Canadian missionaries helped the colonial authority penetrate Ugandan societies and undermine indigenous customs. The preeminent figure was John Forbes who was a bishop and coadjutor vicar apostolic, making him second in charge of over 30 mission posts in Uganda. A 1929 biography describes his “good relations” with British colonial authorities and the “important services Forbes rendered the authorities of the Protectorate.”
In 1918 Forbes participated in a major conference in the colony, organized by Governor Robert Coryndon in the hopes of spurring indigenous wage work. The Vaudreuil, Québec, native wrote home that “it’s a big question. The European planters in our area, who cultivate coffee, cotton and rubber need workers for their exploitation. But the workforce is rare. Our Negroes are happy to eat bananas and with a few bits of cotton or bark for clothes, are not excited to put themselves at the service of the planters and work all day for a meager salary.”
British officials subsidized the White Fathers schools as part of a bid to expand the indigenous workforce.
Canadians were also part of the British colonial authority. Royal Military College of Canada graduate Godfrey Rhodes became chief engineer and general manager of Kenya and Uganda Railways and Harbours in 1928. The Victoria, BC, native was in Uganda for over a decade and was followed by Walter Bazley, a colonial administrator in Bunyoro from 1950 to 1963 (after Ugandan independence, Bazley joined the Canadian public service).
Throughout British rule Ottawa recognized London’s authority over Uganda. After fighting in the 1898 – 1902 Boer War Henry Rivington Poussette was appointed Canada’s first trade commissioner in Africa with “jurisdiction extending from the Cape to the Zambesi, including Uganda.”
Poussette and future trade representatives helped Canadian companies profit from European rule in Africa. By independence Toronto-based Bata shoes controlled most of the footwear market in Uganda while a decade before the end of British rule Falconbridge acquired a 70% stake in the Kilembe copper-cobalt mine in western Uganda. In a joint partnership with the London controlled Colonial Development Corporation, the Toronto company’s highly profitable mine produced more than $250 million ($1 billion today) worth of copper yet paid no income tax until its capital was fully recovered in 1965. In 1968, post-independence leader Milton Obote increased the country’s copper export tax and then moved to gain majority control of the mine. Falconbridge quickly stripped out $6 million in special dividend payments and threatened to withdraw its management from the country.
Falconbridge: Portrait of a Canadian Mining Multinational explains:
Although Kilembe Copper was both profitable and socially important in the Ugandan economy, this did not prevent the Falconbridge group from withdrawing capital as rapidly as possible just before president Obote forced it to sell Uganda a controlling interest in 1970. The implication was that its management team would be withdrawn entirely if the government did not restore Falconbridge’s majority ownership. Dislocation in the lives of Ugandan people was a price the company seemed willing to pay in this tug-of-war over the profits from Uganda’s resources.
The Kilembe mine also contaminated Elizabeth National Park and tailings seeped into Lake George, near Uganda’s western border with the Congo.
Upon taking office, General Idi Amin returned control of the Kilembe mine to Falconbridge. (This was maintained for several years, after which Amin returned the mine to his government.) He had managed to overthrow Obote’s government in January 1971 with the aid of Britain, Israel and the US. A British Foreign Office memo noted that Obote’s nationalizations, which also included Bata, had “serious implications for British business in Uganda and Africa generally… other countries will be tempted to try and get away with similar measures with more damaging consequences for British investment and trade.”
While this country’s “Africa scholars” have largely ignored Canada’s position towards Amin’s rise to power, the available documentation suggests Ottawa passively supported the putsch. On three occasions during the early days of the coup (between January 26 and February 3, 1971) the Pierre Trudeau government responded to inquiries from opposition MPs about developments in Uganda and whether Canada would grant diplomatic recognition to the new regime. Within a week of Obote’s ouster, both External Affairs Minister Mitchell Sharp and Prime Minister Trudeau passed up these opportunities to denounce Amin’s usurpation of power. They remained silent as Amin suspended various provisions of the Ugandan Constitution and declared himself President, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, Army Chief of Staff and Chief of Air Staff. They failed to condemn a leader, now infamous, for plunging the nation into a torrent of violence.
In African Pearls and Poisons: Idi Amin’s Uganda; Kenya; Zaire’s Pygmies, Alberta bureaucrat Leo Louis Jacques describes a conversation he had with the CIDA liaison officer in Uganda who facilitated his 1971-73 appointment to the Uganda College of Commerce. Asked whether the change in government would affect his CIDA-funded position, the aid agency’s liaison officer in Uganda, Catrina Porter, answered Jacques thusly: “‘Yes, there was a coup on January 25th, 1971 and it was a move that promises to be an improvement. The new administration favours Democracy and Western Civilization’s Democracy, while the former one favoured the Communists.’ I [Jacques] said, ‘I understand the present government is being run by the Ugandan army under the control of a General named Idi Amin Dada. What is he like?’ Porter said ‘General Amin’s gone on record as saying he loves Canada and the Commonwealth. He also vowed that his country of Uganda would have democratic elections soon. The British and Americans have recognized him as the Ugandan government and so do we.’”
Two years after the coup the Canadian High Commissioner in Nairobi visited to ask Amin to reverse his plan to nationalize Bata shoes. After the meeting, the High Commissioner cabled Ottawa that he was largely successful with Bata and also mentioned that “KILEMBE MINES (70 PERCENT FALCONBRIDGE OWNED) IS DOING WELL.”
But, just in case you think it’s just our unsavoury history that Caplan ignores, there’s more. He also also ignores more recent developments such as SNC Lavalin’s alleged bribery in the country, Montréal-based Canarail’s contribution to a disastrous World Bank sponsored privatization of the Kenya and Uganda railway systems or Ottawa’s “logistical support and some funding for the Uganda led [military] force” dispatched to Somalia to do Washington’s dirty work.
Why did this article make me so mad? Because it’s part of a pattern of the social democratic Left ignoring how Canadian corporations and governments impoverish the Global South. Too often social democrat intellectuals dim, rather than enlighten, progressives’ understanding of Canada’s role in the world.
To preserve his position at the Globe and Mail and CBC Caplan may feel he needs to feed the benevolent Canadian foreign-policy myth. But, he should at least show some decency and spare Rabble.ca from this nonsense.
In his novel 1984 George Orwell introduced the lexicon of Big Brother’s Doublespeak in which “War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength.” In today’s Western political circles and mainstream media coverage of Palestine/Israel and political Zionism, one may add a host of other phrases to this Orwellian Newspeak. Expressions that would fittingly describe this coverage might include “racism is democracy, resistance is terrorism, and occupation is bliss.”
If individuals were to rely solely on Western media outlets as their source of information regarding the increasingly volatile situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, especially Jerusalem, they would not only be perplexed by the portrayals of victims and oppressors, but also confused about the history and nature of the conflict itself. For instance, in the past few weeks, in their coverage of the latest Palestinian uprising, most Western mainstream media outlets, such as the New York Times, CNN, FOX, and BBC, virtually omit the words “Israeli occupation,” or “illegal Israeli settlements.” Seldom if ever do they mention the fact that Jerusalem has been under illegal Israeli control for the past 48 years, or that the latest confrontations were set off as a result of Israeli attempts to change the status quo and force a joint jurisdiction of the Islamic holy sites within the walls of old Jerusalem.
Oftentimes Israel and its enablers in the political and media arenas try to obfuscate basic facts about the nature and history of the conflict. Despite these attempts, however, the conflict is neither complicated nor has it existed for centuries. It is a century-old modern phenomenon that emerged as a direct result of political Zionism. This movement, founded by secular journalist Theodore Herzl in the late 19th century, has incessantly attempted to transform Judaism from one of the world’s great religious traditions into a nationalistic ethnic movement with the aim of transferring Jews around the world to Palestine, while ethnically cleansing the indigenous Palestinian population from the land of their ancestors. This is the essence of the conflict, and thus all of Israel’s policies and actions can only be understood by acknowledging this reality.
It might be understandable, if detestable, for Israel and its Zionist defenders to circulate false characterizations of history and events to advance their political agenda. But it is incomprehensible for those who claim to advocate the rule of law, believe in the principle of self-determination, and call for freedom and justice to fall for this propaganda or to become its willing accomplices. In following much of the media coverage or political analyses of the conflict, one is struck by the lack of historical context, the deliberate disregard of empirical facts, and the contempt for established legal constructs and precedents. Are the Palestinian territories disputed or occupied? Do Palestinians have a legal right, embedded in international law, to resist their occupiers, including the use of armed struggle, or is every means of resistance considered terrorism? Does Israel have any right to old Jerusalem and its historical and religious environs? Is the protraction of the so-called “cycle of violence” really coming proportionally from both sides of the conflict? Is Israel a true democracy? Should political Zionism be treated as a legitimate national liberation movement (from whom?) while ignoring its overwhelmingly racist manifestations? Is Israel genuine about seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict? Can the U.S. really be an honest peace-broker between the two sides as it has persistently promoted itself in the region? The factual answers to these questions would undoubtedly clear the fog and lead objective observers not only to a full understanding of the conflict, but also to a deep appreciation of the policies and actions needed to bring it to an end.
Occupation, Self-Determination, and International Law
There should be no disputing that the territories seized by Israel in June 1967, including east Jerusalem, are occupied. Dozens of UN resolutions have passed since November 1967, including binding Security Council resolutions calling on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories, which the Zionist State has stubbornly refused to comply with. In fact, if there were any “disputed” territories, they should be those Palestinian territories that Israel took in 1948, through a campaign of terror, massacres, and military conquests, which resulted in forcefully and illegally expelling over 800,000 Palestinians from their homes, villages, and towns, in order to make room for thousands of Jews coming from Europe and other parts of the world. Consequently, UN Resolution 194 mandated that these Palestinian “refugees wishing to return to their homes … should be permitted to do so.” This resolution has now remained unfulfilled for 67 years. There is also no dispute in international law that Israel has been a belligerent occupier triggering the application of all the relevant Geneva Conventions as the Palestinian people have been under occupation since their “territory is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.”
Furthermore, the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people and their right to resist their occupiers by all means are well established in international law. In 1960, UN resolution 1514 adopted the “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.” It stated that, “All peoples have the right to self-determination”, and that, “the subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights and is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations.” Ten years later the UN adopted Resolution 2625 which called on its members to support colonized people or people under occupation against their colonizers and occupiers. In fact, UN Resolution 3246 reaffirmed in 1974 “the legitimacy of the peoples’ struggle for liberation form colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle.” Four years later UN Resolution 33/24 also strongly confirmed “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, particularly armed struggle,” and “strongly condemned all governments” that did not recognize “the right to self-determination to the Palestinian people.”
As for occupied Jerusalem, the UN Security Council adopted in 1980 two binding resolutions (476 and 478) by a vote of 14-0 (the US abstained and did not veto either resolution.) Both resolutions condemned Israel’s attempt to change “the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure, (and) the status of the Holy City of Jerusalem.” It also reaffirmed “the overriding necessity to end the prolonged occupation of Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem,” and called out Israel as “the occupying power.” It further considered any changes to the city of Jerusalem as “a violation of international law.”
The Use of Violence, Resistance, and the Deceptive Peace Process
Living under brutal occupation for almost half a century without any prospect for its end, the Palestinian people, particularly in Jerusalem, have, since late September, embarked on new mass protests against the latest Israeli incursions on their holy sites and revolted once again against the ceaseless occupation. As a consequence, the Israeli army, aided by thousands of armed settlers roaming the West Bank, have intensified their use of violence, which resulted in over 100 deaths, 2,200 injuries, and 4,000 arrests in less than two months. The Israeli army and the settlements-based armed gangs, though forbidden under international law and the Geneva conventions, have regularly employed various violent means in order to force Palestinian exile or compel submission to the occupation. The Israeli harsh tactics include: settler violence and provocation under full army protection, targeting children, including kidnapping, killing, as well as arresting children as young as 5 , burning infants alive, the constant use of collective punishment and house demolitions, the use of excessive prison sentences for any act of defiance including throwing rocks, storming revered religious sites, and the deliberate targeting of journalists who dare to challenge Israeli hegemony.
The Palestinian people, whether under occupation or under siege, in exile and blocked by Israel from returning to their homes, or denied their right to self-determination, have the legitimate right to resist the military occupation and its manifestations such as the denial of their freedom and human rights, the confiscation of their lands, or the building and expansion of Israeli colonies on their lands. Although most Palestinians opt for the use of nonviolent resistance as a prudent tactic against the brutality of the occupation, international law does not, however, limit their resistance only to the use of peaceful means. In essence, the right to legitimate armed resistance, subject to international humanitarian law, is enshrined in international law and cannot be denied to any people including the Palestinians in their struggle to gain their freedom and exercise their right to self-determination. Furthermore, international law does not confer any right on the occupying power to use any force against their occupied subjects, in order to maintain and sustain their occupation, including in self-defense. In short, aggressors and land usurpers are by definition denied the use of force to subjugate their victims. Consequently, as a matter of principle embedded in international law and regardless of any political viability, strikes against military targets including soldiers, armed settlers, or other tools and institutions of the occupation are legitimate and any action against them, non-violent or otherwise, cannot be condemned or deemed terrorism.
Furthermore, the argument regarding the validity of using armed struggle against oppression and denial of political rights by tyrannical and colonial regimes is well established in its favor. Patriot Patrick Henry rallied his countrymen prior to the American Revolution in 1775 in his famous call “give liberty or give me death.” Civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. even rejected pacifism in the face of aggression. He only questioned its tactical significance when he stated “I contended that the debate over the question of self-defense was unnecessary since few people suggested that Negroes should not defend themselves as individuals when attacked. The question was not whether one should use his gun when his home was attacked, but whether it was tactically wise to use a gun while participating in an organized demonstration.” Mahatma Gandhi saw active resistance as more honorable than pacifism when he said “I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defence her honour than that she would, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour.” Nelson Mandela reflected on this debate when he asserted that he resorted to armed struggle only when “all other forms of resistance were no longer open”, and demanded that the Apartheid regime “guarantee free political activity” to blacks before he would call on his compatriots to suspend armed struggle. Accordingly, the debate over whether the use of armed resistance against Israeli occupation advances the cause of justice for Palestinians is not a question of legitimacy, but rather of sound political strategy in light of the skewed balance of military power and massive public support from peoples around the globe for their just struggle.
Yet, the reality of the conflict actually reveals that the Palestinian people have overwhelmingly been at the receiving end of the use of ruthless Israeli violence and aggression since 1948. With the exception of the 1973 war (initiated by Egypt and Syria to regain the lands they lost in the 1967 war) every Arab-Israeli war in the past seven decades (‘48, ’56, ‘67, ’78, ’82, ’02, etc.) was initiated by Israel and resulted in more uprooting and misery to the Palestinians. Still, since 2008 Israel launched three brutal wars against Gaza with devastating consequences. In the 2008/2009 war, Israel killed 1,417 Palestinians and lost 13 people including 9 soldiers. In the 2012 war, Israel killed 167 Palestinians and lost 6 including 2 soldiers. And in the 2014 war, Israel killed 2104 Palestinians, including 539 children, with 475,000 people made homeless, 17,500 homes destroyed, while 244 schools and scores of hospitals and mosques damaged. In that war Israel lost 72 including 66 soldiers. In short, since late 2008 Israel killed 3,688 Palestinians in its three declared wars and lost 91 including 77 soldiers. Shamefully the deliberate targeting of Palestinian children has been amply documented as over two thousand have been killed by Israel since 2000. This massive Israeli intentional use of violence against the Palestinians, especially in Gaza (which has been under a crippling siege since 2007) was investigated, determined to constitute war crimes, and condemned by the UN in the Goldstone Report, as well as by other human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
The 1993 Oslo process gave rise to the promise of ending decades of Israeli occupation. But the process was rigged from the start as many of its participants have recently admitted. It was an Israeli ploy to halt the first Palestinian uprising and give Israel the breathing room it needed to aggressively and permanently colonize the West Bank including East Jerusalem. It was an accord with a lopsided balance of power, as one side held all the cards and gave no real concessions, and a much weaker side stripped of all its bargaining chips. During this period the number of settlements in the West Bank more than doubled and the number of settlers increased by more than seven fold to over 600 thousand including in East Jerusalem.
The world has none other than Benjamin Netanyahu to acknowledge that Israel has no intention of withdrawing or ending its occupation. After serving his first stint as a prime minister, Netanyahu (shown here in a leaked video) while visiting a settlement in 2001, admitted to his true intention of grabbing as much as 98 percent of Palestinian territories in the West Bank and halting the fraudulent Oslo process. Believing that the camera was off, he spoke candidly to a group of settlers about his strategic vision, plans, and tactics.
On his vision he assured them that “The settlements are here. They are everywhere.” He stated, “I halted the fulfillment of the Oslo agreements. It’s better to give two percent than 100 percent. You gave two percent but you stopped the withdrawal.” He later added, “I gave my own interpretation to the agreements in such a way that will allow me to stop the race back towards the 1967 borders.” As for the tactics, Netanyahu freely confessed his strategy of causing so much pain to the Palestinians that they would submit to the occupation rather than resist. He said, “The main thing is to strike them not once but several times so painfully that the price they pay will be unbearable causing them to fear that everything is about to collapse.” When he was challenged that such a strategy might cause the world to consider Israel as the aggressor, he dismissively said, “They can say whatever they want.” He also implied how he was not concerned about American pressure. To the contrary he asserted that he could easily manipulate Israel’s main benefactor when he stated “America is something you can easily maneuver and move in the right direction. I wasn’t afraid to confront Clinton. I wasn’t afraid to go against the UN.” Even though world leaders consider Netanyahu a “liar” and they “can’t stand him” as shown in this exchange between former French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Barak Obama, no Western leader has stood up to Israel, even though a British parliamentarian stated that 70 percent of Europeans consider it a “danger to world’s peace.” But the obstructionist posture and expansionist policies of Israeli leaders are not restricted to the Israeli right. Former Labor leader Ehud Barak was as much determined in 2000 at Camp David not to withdraw from the West Bank, Jerusalem, or dismantle the settlements.
For decades the world waited for Israel to decide its destiny by choosing two out of three defining elements: its Jewish character, its claim to democracy, and the lands of so-called “greater Israel.” If it chose to retain its Jewish majority and claim to be democratic, it had to withdraw from the lands it occupied in 1967. If it insists on incorporating the lands and have a democracy it would have to integrate its Arab populations while forsaking its Jewish exceptionalism in a secular state. Yet sadly but true to its Zionist nature, Israel chose to maintain its Jewish exclusiveness over all of historical Palestine to transform itself into a manifestly Apartheid state.
Political Zionism and the True Nature of the Israeli State
For over a century political Zionism has evoked intense passions and emotions on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: its ardent supporters as well as its critics and hapless victims. Zionists hail their enterprise as a national liberation movement for the Jewish people while its opponents condemn it as a racist ideology that practiced ethnic cleansing, instituted racial and religious discrimination, and committed war crimes to realize its goals.
On November 10, 1975 the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 3379 that determined Zionism as a “form of racism and racial discrimination.” However, it was revoked 16 years later under tremendous pressure from the U.S. and other Western countries in the aftermath of the first Gulf war in 1991. Oftentimes, the public is denied unfiltered information about the true nature of political Zionism and its declared state. And unfortunately the media conglomerates rarely cover that aspect of the conflict, which contributes to the public’s confusion and exasperation.
Since its creation in 1948, Israel has passed laws and implemented policies that institutionalized discrimination against its Arab Palestinian minority. In the aftermath of its 1967 invasion, it instituted a military occupation regime that has denied basic human and civil rights to millions of Palestinians whose population now exceeds the number of Israeli Jews in the land within historical Palestine. In addition, in defiance of international law, Israel has obstinately refused to allow the descendants of the Palestinian people that it expelled in 1948 and 1967 to return to their homes, while allowing millions of people of other nationalities the right to become citizens of the Israeli state upon arrival simply because they are Jewish.
Zionist leaders from Ben-Gurion to Netanyahu have always claimed that Israel was a democracy similar to other Western liberal democracies. But perhaps the best way to examine this claim and illustrate the nature of the modern Zionist state is through a comparative analogy (a similar example could also be found in Israeli historian Shlomo Sand’sbook).
What if a Western country claiming to be a democracy, such as the U.S. or the U.K., were officially to change its constitution and system to become the state of the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs)? Even though its African, Hispanic, Asian, Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim citizens as well as other minorities would still have the right to vote, hold political offices, and enjoy some civil and social rights, they would have to submit to the new nature and exclusive character of the WASP state. Moreover, with the exception of the WASP class of citizens, no other citizen would be allowed to buy or sell any land, and there would be permanent constitutional laws that would forbid any WASP from selling any property to any members of other ethnicities or religions in the country. Its Congress or parliament would pass laws that would also forbid any WASP from marrying outside his or her social class, and if any such “illegal” marriage were to take place, it would not be recognized by the state. As for immigration, only WASPs from around the world would be welcome. In fact, there would be no restrictions on their category as any WASP worldwide could claim immediate citizenship upon arrival in the country with full economic and social benefits granted by the state, while all other ethnicities are denied. Furthermore, most of the existing minorities in the country would be subjected to certain “security” policies in order to allow room for the WASPs coming from outside. So in many parts of the country, there would be settlements and colonies constructed only for the new WASP settlers and consequently some of the non-WASP populations would have to be restricted or relocated. In these new settlements the state would designate WASP-only roads, WASP-only schools, WASP-only health clinics, WASP-only shopping malls, WASP-only parks or swimming pools. There would also be a two-tier health care system, educational system, criminal justice system, and social welfare system. In this dual system for example, if a WASP assaults or kills a non-WASP he would receive a small fine or a light sentence that would not exceed a few years, while if a non-WASP murders a WASP, even accidentally, he would receive a harsh or mandatory life sentence. In this system, where the police force is exclusively staffed by WASPs, the Supreme Court would routinely sanction the use of torture against any non-WASP, subject to the judgment of the security officers. Such a system would clearly be so manifestly racist, patently criminal, and globally abhorred that no one would stand by it or defend it. But could such a regime even exist or be accepted in today’s world? (I realize that some people may argue that many of these practices had actually occurred in the past against certain segments of the population in some Western societies. But no government today would dare to embrace this model or defend its policies.)
Yet, because of the Zionist nature of the Israeli state, this absurd example is actually a reality with varying degrees for the daily lives of the Palestinian people, whether they are nominal citizens of the state, live under occupation or under siege, or have been blocked for decades from returning back to their homes, towns, and villages. Such a system would not only be condemned but no decent human being or country that respects the rule of law would associate with it or tolerate it.
From its early days, prominent Jewish intellectuals have condemned the racist nature of the Zionist state. Albert Einstein and Hannah Arendt wrote in 1948 condemning Zionist leaders of Israel who “openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state.” Israeli scientist and thinker Israel Shahak considered Israel as “a racist state in the full meaning of this term, where the Palestinians are discriminated against, in the most permanent and legal way and in the most important areas of life, only because of their origin.” Renowned American intellectual Noam Chomsky considers Israel’s actions in Palestine as even “much worse than Apartheid” ever was in South Africa. Israeli historian Ilan Pappé argues that “The Zionist goal from the very beginning was to have as much of Palestine as possible with as few Palestinians in it as possible,” while American historian Howard Zinn thought that “Zionism is a mistake.” American academic and author Norman Finkelstein has often spoken out against the racist nature of the Zionist state and condemned its manipulation of the Nazi Holocaust to justify its colonization of Palestine. British historian Tony Judt described Israel as “an anachronism” because of its exclusive nature in comparison to its “non-Jewish citizens.” Former UN Special Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine Professor Richard Falk called Israeli policies in the Occupied Territories “a crime against humanity” and compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi treatment of the Jews and has said, “I think the Palestinians stand out as the most victimized people in the world.” Very recently, prominent American Jewish academics posed the question: “Can we continue to embrace a state that permanently denies basic rights to another people?” Their answer was an emphatic call for a complete boycott against the Zionist state.
Furthermore, Israeli politicians and religious leaders regularly use racist rhetoric to appeal to their constituents and articulate their policies. In the last Israeli elections in March, Prime Minister Netanyahu tweeted to the Israeli public, “The right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls.” Former foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman advocated new ethnic cleansing through “the transfer” of Palestinian citizens from the state. One prominent Rabbi considered “killing Palestinians a religious duty,” while another declared that “It is not only desirable to do so, but it is a religious duty that you hold his head down to the ground and hit him until his last breath.” Former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, one of the most senior religious leaders in Israel ruled that “there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza.” Racism in Israel is so pervasive that a Jewish settler stabbed another Jew, and another settler killed a fellow Jewish settler not because the perpetrators were threatened, but because the victims looked Arab. Israeli racism is so widespread among its population that noted journalist Max Blumenthal, who investigated the Israeli society’s attitudes towards the Palestinians, was himself surprised to “the extent to which groups and figures, remarkably similar ideologically and psychologically to the radical right in the US and to neo-fascist movements across Europe, controlled the heart of Israeli society and the Israeli government.”
In short, the ideology of political Zionism, as it has amply been demonstrated within the state of Israel, with its exclusionary vision and persistent policies of occupying the land and subjugating its people, has proven without any doubt that it represents a relic of a bygone era that utterly lacks civilized behavior or claims to a democratic system. Therefore, any discussion, coverage, analysis, or debate of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that sidesteps the nature and ideology of the Israeli state is not only disingenuous and lacks credibility, but also contributes to the deepening of the conflict, the continuous suffering of its victims, and the illusion of finding a potential just and peaceful outcome.
Dr. Sami Al-Arian is a Palestinian academic and intellectual. He lived for four decades in the U.S. before relocating to Turkey in 2015. Because of his long activism for the Palestinian cause and defending human and civil rights, he was a political prisoner in the U.S. and spent over a decade in prison and under house arrest until the charges were dropped in 2014. He can be contacted at nolandsman1948@gmail.com.
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has passed a resolution proposed by Iran aimed at bringing about the disarmament of nuclear powers.
On Monday, the Assembly voted 121 against 48 in favor of the non-binding resolution, which had already been cleared by its First Committee, aka Disarmament and International Security Committee. The voting saw 12 abstentions.
The resolution demands practical action by all nuclear-armed countries toward disarmament and the promotion of international stability and security for all.
It also demands unilateral steps by such countries to scale down their nuclear arsenals as well as more transparency regarding their nuclear arms capabilities and implementation of international agreements.
The Islamic Republic had devised the resolution based on the ratifications of the Review Conferences of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1995, 2000, and 2010.
The majority of the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement threw their support behind the resolution. The United States, Israel, Canada, Britain, Russia, France, and Germany were among those voting against it, while China, South Korea, Japan, India, and Italy, among others, abstained.
Speaking after the approval of the resolution, Iran’s Ambassador to the UN Gholam Hossein Dehqani (seen below) said, “It has been declared in Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that these countries are obliged to initiate negotiations for the disarmament and have been asked to put into force step-by-step measures for decommissioning nuclear weapons and then destroying them. Unfortunately, though, no effective or serious step has been taken in this direction.”
“The international community is insistent upon nuclear disarmament and the nuclear-armed countries’ implementation of their obligations. The current trend suggests that slowly, nuclear-armed countries and the Zionist regime (Israel), which possesses nuclear weapons, will move toward isolation in the General Assembly’s First Committee and other assemblies, and will certainly end up in worse circumstances every day,” the Iranian official added.
Israel is regarded as the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
Al-Khalil, Occupied Palestine – The 22nd of November, one month after the passing away of Palestinian activist and dear friend of the ISM, Hashem Azzeh, the team of al-Khalil (Hebron) visited his widow, Nisreen.
Nisreen with her late husband, Hashem Azzeh. Photo credit: Global Research
While sitting in her living room, Nisreen explained how, after her husband’s death, everyday life for her and her family has only gotten worse.
The Israeli army does not allow any visitors into the house. She also says that the army refers to them not by their actual names, but with numbers.
4 days before this conversation took place, Nisreen was coming back home to find the main access to the house closed. The Israeli soldiers had declared it a military closed zone. They asked her, “Why are you so nervous?” To which she replied, “Because the way is closed.”
The soldiers mockingly answered, “Call Mahmoud Abbas and tell him to stop the Intifada.” But Nisreen answered back to this cruel sarcasm, saying that this is H2 area, “which is ruled by Netanyahu.”
Since the main access to her home is now blocked, she is forced to use an alternative entrance where she must climb some very difficult rocks. Nisreen suffers from knee problems, and she can foresee that when the winter and the snow comes, this passageway will be very slippery, putting her in danger of falling.
Both Nisreen and her brother in law are afraid of their children going out alone on the street. They are especially afraid for Raghad, Nisreen’s oldest daughter who is 17, and her cousin, who is 19 years old. Because of their age, both of their parents are scared that the illegal Israeli settlers and Israeli army will shoot and kill them and place a knife next to their bodies, since this is what they have been doing, targeting youth of similar age, almost on a daily basis from the beginning of October. Read more about this here and here.
Therefore, Raghad is not going out of the house alone, and she had to stop walking her youngest sister to school. Now her mother has taken on that task.
Fear of settler violence is part of every day life for the inhabitants of Al-Khalil (Hebron). Nisreen will never forget how she suffered two miscarriages due to settlers’ attacks. During the first miscarriage, she was three months pregnant; the second time, she was four months pregnant.
After one of these miscarriages, which happened in 2003, she had decided to file a complaint to the Israeli Police. After waiting for 8 years, the case was finally brought to court in 2011. The settlers counted with three lawyers, whereas for her it was very hard to pay for all the necessary expenses.
She recalls how, during the first court hearing, the settlers did not show up saying they were sick. During the second court hearing, when the settlers came with three layers, she had presented a video showing how they had attacked her together with her son Younes, who was three years old at the time. The court even requested her to draw a map of the location where this took place. She did so, but the final decision of the court was that she was lying and she lost the case.
In the meantime, Nisreen continues her struggle to provide a life as normal as possible for her children.
For a deeper understanding of Al-Khalil’s daily life struggle, read an interview ISM made to late Hashem Azzeh in 2013 here.
… We have become so concerned about humanity’s slow response to this challenge that we have decided we must clearly set out what we see as the only viable path forward. As scientists we do not take advocacy positions lightly, but we believe the magnitude of climate change now presents an unprecedented moral challenge that compels us to speak out.
… The voluntary measures put on the table at Paris by over 100 nations are a welcome step, but unless there are strong measures to reduce emissions beyond 2030, global emissions would remain at a high level, practically guaranteeing that young people inherit a climate running out of their control. A new and intensified approach is clearly needed.
Everyone agrees that the most urgent component of decarbonisation is a move towards clean energy, and clean electricity in particular. We need affordable, abundant clean energy, but there is no particular reason why we should favour renewable energy over other forms of abundant energy. Indeed, cutting down forests for bioenergy and damming rivers for hydropower – both commonly counted as renewable energy sources – can have terrible environmental consequences.
Nuclear power, particularly next-generation nuclear power with a closed fuel cycle (where spent fuel is reprocessed), is uniquely scalable, and environmentally advantageous. Over the past 50 years, nuclear power stations – by offsetting fossil fuel combustion – have avoided the emission of an estimated 60bn tonnes of carbon dioxide. Nuclear energy can power whole civilisations, and produce waste streams that are trivial compared to the waste produced by fossil fuel combustion. There are technical means to dispose of this small amount of waste safely. However, nuclear does pose unique safety and proliferation concerns that must be addressed with strong and binding international standards and safeguards. Most importantly for climate, nuclear produces no CO2 during power generation.
To solve the climate problem, policy must be based on facts and not on prejudice. The climate system cares about greenhouse gas emissions – not about whether energy comes from renewable power or abundant nuclear power. Some have argued that it is feasible to meet all of our energy needs with renewables. The 100% renewable scenarios downplay or ignore the intermittency issue by making unrealistic technical assumptions, and can contain high levels of biomass and hydroelectric power at the expense of true sustainability. Large amounts of nuclear power would make it much easier for solar and wind to close the energy gap.
The climate issue is too important for us to delude ourselves with wishful thinking. Throwing tools such as nuclear out of the box constrains humanity’s options and makes climate mitigation more likely to fail. We urge an all-of-the-above approach that includes increased investment in renewables combined with an accelerated deployment of new nuclear reactors.
For example, a build rate of 61 new reactors per year could entirely replace current fossil fuel electricity generation by 2050. Accounting for increased global electricity demand driven by population growth and development in poorer countries, which would add another 54 reactors per year, this makes a total requirement of 115 reactors per year to 2050 to entirely decarbonise the global electricity system in this illustrative scenario. … Full article
George Monbiot – columnist with The Guardian newspaper in the UK, and author of Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning. “Atomic energy has just been subjected to one of the harshest of possible tests, and the impact on people and the planet has been small. The crisis at Fukushima has converted me to the cause of nuclear power.”
Tom Wigley – of Climate-Gate infamy, he’s a senior scientist in the Climate and Global Dynamics Division of the University Corporation of Atmospheric Research. “We need nuclear power to solve this problem … people don’t realise just how bad climate change is.”
James Hansen – author of Storms of My Grandchildren.
Barry W Brook – is the Director of Climate Science at Adelaide University, and Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change, is on the board of the Science Council for Global Initiatives and the International Awards Committee of the Global Energy Prize.
Gwyneth Cravens – novelist and journalist, author of Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy.
Ted Nordhaus – Chairman of the Breakthrough Institute, political strategist and author of Break Through, Why We Can’t Leave Saving The Planet To Environmentalists.
Mark Lynas – author of The God Species: How the Planet Can Survive the Age of Humans, also a frequent speaker around the world on climate change science and policy. “Let me be very clear. Without nuclear, the battle against global warming is as good as lost.”
Tom Blees – author of Prescription for the Planet (the seemingly “intractable” problem of nuclear waste is “nothing of the kind”) has “probably done more than anybody to move people to the cause of nuclear power.” Tom also heads the Science Council for Global Initiatives.
Professor Gerry Thomas – of the Imperial College, London, “I am very pro-nuclear as I realise that we have an unwarranted fear of radiation.”
James Lovelock – celebrated father of the Gaia principle.
Fred Pearce – an environment writer with The Guardian newspaper in the UK, and author of The Last Generation: How nature will take her revenge for climate change.
Stewart Brand – a prominent pro-nuclear “environmentalist” and author of Whole Earth Discipline: Why dense cities, nuclear power, transgenic crops, restored wildlands and geoengineering are necessary.
Ken Caldiera – with the Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution, recently co-authored an open letter to the environmental movement urging them to bring their support behind the development of new nuclear power.
Kerry Emmanuel – with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is known for his work on attribution of climate change to hurricane events.
Rachel Pritzker – is the founder and president of the Pritzker Innovation Fund. Rachel currently chairs the advisory board of the Breakthrough Institute.
Suzanne Hobbs-Baker – the brain behind Pop Atomic Studios, an organisation which uses the power of visual and liberal arts to “enrich” the public discussion on atomic energy.
Ed Davey – UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, “When I have listened to the arguments of pro-nuclear Liberal Democrats in recent years, the one argument I found increasingly difficult to answer is the climate-change argument, because climate change poses a real and massive danger to our planet. Not keeping a genuinely low-carbon source of electricity as an option looks reckless when we don’t know the future.”
The right-wing Jewish group ‘Lehava’ held a protest outside of the YMCA in Jerusalem, shouting at Palestinian Christian children and families as they were entering and leaving the annual Christmas-tree decoration party.
Lehava is a group that calls for the expulsion of the indigenous Palestinian population from their homes in what is now Israel, in Jerusalem and in the West Bank. At a protest last year outside of a business that had some Palestinian employees, the group chanted “Stop hiring Arabs,” “stop dating our women” and “employing Arabs equals Assimilation.”
The group, whose name in Hebrew stands for the “Organization for the Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land”, has also disrupted weddings between Palestinians and Israeli Jews, and handed out fliers saying they are trying to “save the daughters of Israel” by preventing them from dating or marrying Arab men.
A 2011 investigation by the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz found that around half of the annual budget of the controversial Lehava organization was funded directly by the Israeli government.
The leader of the group, Benzi Gopstein, was reportedly present at the YMCA protest on Friday. Gopstein is on the record voicing support for Pinhas Aburamed, an Israeli man who murdered a Palestinian who he thought was trying to flirt with a Jewish girl. Gopstein said that Aburamed is a hero and should receive a medal.
The event that the right-wing Jewish Lehava group chose to protest was a family event described on the YMCA’s website as “A festive evening in the YMCA lobby decorating the Christmas tree, singing carols and enjoying holiday treats.”
The protesters shouted anti-Palestinian and anti-Christian slogans at the children who came to decorate the Christmas tree, including, “The Arabs won’t defeat us with knifes, and the Christians won’t buy us with presents,” and “Jews want a hanukkiah [menorah], not a fir tree”, according to Israel National News.
Around 1% of the population of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza is Christian. The percentage had been higher before the Israeli military occupation and theft of Palestinian land began. The emigration of Palestinian Christians to other countries increased significantly after the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 and Israeli settlement expansion increased exponentially.
Many Palestinian Christians in Bethlehem, Jerusalem and Nazareth can trace their ancestry back to early Christians who have remained continuously on the land where Christians believe that Jesus was born, died and resurrected.
Is Turkey collaborating with the Islamic State (ISIS)? Allegations range from military cooperation and weapons transfers to logistical support, financial assistance, and the provision of medical services. It is also alleged that Turkey turned a blind eye to ISIS attacks against Kobani.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu strongly deny complicity with ISIS. Erdogan visited the Council on Foreign Relations on September 22, 2014. He criticized “smear campaigns [and] attempts to distort perception about us.” Erdogan decried, “A systematic attack on Turkey’s international reputation, “complaining that “Turkey has been subject to very unjust and ill-intentioned news items from media organizations.” Erdogan posited: “My request from our friends in the United States is to make your assessment about Turkey by basing your information on objective sources.”
Columbia University’s Program on Peace-building and Rights assigned a team of researchers in the United States, Europe, and Turkey to examine Turkish and international media, assessing the credibility of allegations. This report draws on a variety of international sources — The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Daily Mail, BBC, Sky News, as well as Turkish sources, CNN Turk, Hurriyet Daily News, Taraf, Cumhuriyet, and Radikal among others.
Allegations
Turkey Provides Military Equipment to ISIS• An ISIS commander told The Washington Post on August 12, 2014: “Most of the fighters who joined us in the beginning of the war came via Turkey, and so did our equipment and supplies.”
• Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), produced a statement from the Adana Office of the Prosecutor on October 14, 2014 maintaining that Turkey supplied weapons to terror groups. He also produced interview transcripts from truck drivers who delivered weapons to the groups. According to Kiliçdaroglu, the Turkish government claims the trucks were for humanitarian aid to the Turkmen, but the Turkmen said no humanitarian aid was delivered.
• According to CHP Vice President Bulent Tezcan, three trucks were stopped in Adana for inspection on January 19, 2014. The trucks were loaded with weapons in Esenboga Airport in Ankara. The drivers drove the trucks to the border, where a MIT agent was supposed to take over and drive the trucks to Syria to deliver materials to ISIS and groups in Syria. This happened many times. When the trucks were stopped, MIT agents tried to keep the inspectors from looking inside the crates. The inspectors found rockets, arms, and ammunition.
• Cumhuriyetreports that Fuat Avni, a preeminent Twitter user who reported on the December 17th corruption probe, that audio tapes confirm that Turkey provided financial and military aid to terrorist groups associated with Al Qaeda on October 12, 2014. On the tapes, Erdogan pressured the Turkish Armed Forces to go to war with Syria. Erdogan demanded that Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (MIT), come up with a justification for attacking Syria.
• Hakan Fidan told Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Yasar Guler, a senior defense official, and Feridun Sinirlioglu, a senior foreign affairs official: “If need be, I’ll send 4 men into Syria. I’ll formulate a reason to go to war by shooting 8 rockets into Turkey; I’ll have them attack the Tomb of Suleiman Shah.”
• Documents surfaced on September 19th, 2014 showing that the Saudi Emir Bender Bin Sultan financed the transportation of arms to ISIS through Turkey. A flight leaving Germany dropped off arms in the Etimesgut airport in Turkey, which was then split into three containers, two of which were given to ISIS and one to Gaza.
Turkey Provided Transport and Logistical Assistance to ISIS Fighters
• According to Radikal on June 13, 2014, Interior Minister Muammar Guler signed a directive: “According to our regional gains, we will help al-Nusra militants against the branch of PKK terrorist organization, the PYD, within our borders… Hatay is a strategic location for the mujahideen crossing from within our borders to Syria. Logistical support for Islamist groups will be increased, and their training, hospital care, and safe passage will mostly take place in Hatay… MIT and the Religious Affairs Directorate will coordinate the placement of fighters in public accommodations.”
• The Daily Mailreported on August 25, 2014 that many foreign militants joined ISIS in Syria and Iraq after traveling through Turkey, but Turkey did not try to stop them. This article describes how foreign militants, especially from the UK, go to Syria and Iraq through the Turkish border. They call the border the “Gateway to Jihad.” Turkish army soldiers either turn a blind eye and let them pass, or the jihadists pay the border guards as little as $10 to facilitate their crossing.
• Britain’s Sky News obtained documents showing that the Turkish government has stamped passports of foreign militants seeking to cross the Turkey border into Syria to join ISIS.
• The BBC interviewed villagers, who claim that buses travel at night, carrying jihadists to fight Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq, not the Syrian Armed Forces.
• A senior Egyptian official indicated on October 9, 2014 that Turkish intelligence is passing satellite imagery and other data to ISIS.
Turkey Provided Training to ISIS Fighters
• CNN Turk reported on July 29, 2014 that in the heart of Istanbul, places like Duzce and Adapazari, have become gathering spots for terrorists. There are religious orders where ISIS militants are trained. Some of these training videos are posted on the Turkish ISIS propaganda website takvahaber.net. According to CNN Turk, Turkish security forces could have stopped these developments if they had wanted to.
• Turks who joined an affiliate of ISIS were recorded at a public gathering in Istanbul, which took place on July 28, 2014.
• A video shows an ISIS affiliate holding a prayer/gathering in Omerli, a district of Istanbul. In response to the video, CHP Vice President, MP Tanrikulu submitted parliamentary questions to the Minister of the Interior, Efkan Ala, asking questions such as, “Is it true that a camp or camps have been allocated to an affiliate of ISIS in Istanbul? What is this affiliate? Who is it made up of? Is the rumor true that the same area allocated for the camp is also used for military exercises?”
• Kemal Kiliçdaroglu warned the AKP government not to provide money and training to terror groups on October 14, 2014. He said, “It isn’t right for armed groups to be trained on Turkish soil. You bring foreign fighters to Turkey, put money in their pockets, guns in their hands, and you ask them to kill Muslims in Syria. We told them to stop helping ISIS. Ahmet Davutoglu asked us to show proof. Everyone knows that they’re helping ISIS.” (See HERE and HERE.)
• According to Jordanian intelligence, Turkey trained ISIS militants for special operations.
Turkey Offers Medical Care to ISIS Fighters
• An ISIS commander told the Washington Post on August 12, 2014, “We used to have some fighters — even high-level members of the Islamic State — getting treated in Turkish hospitals.”
• Taraf reported on October 12, 2014 that Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat, a founder of the AKP, said that Turkey supported terrorist groups and still supports them and treats them in hospitals. “In order to weaken the developments in Rojova (Syrian Kurdistan), the government gave concessions and arms to extreme religious groups… the government was helping the wounded. The Minister of Health said something such as, it’s a human obligation to care for the ISIS wounded.”
• According to Taraf, Ahmet El H, one of the top commanders at ISIS and Al Baghdadi’s right hand man, was treated at a hospital in Sanliurfa, Turkey, along with other ISIS militants. The Turkish state paid for their treatment. According to Taraf’s sources, ISIS militants are being treated in hospitals all across southeastern Turkey. More and more militants have been coming in to be treated since the start of airstrikes in August. To be more specific, eight ISIS militants were transported through the Sanliurfa border crossing; these are their names: “Mustafa A., Yusuf El R., Mustafa H., Halil El M., Muhammet El H., Ahmet El S., Hasan H., [and] Salim El D.”
Turkey Supports ISIS Financially Through Purchase of Oil
• On September 13, 2014, The New York Timesreported on the Obama administration’s efforts to pressure Turkey to crack down on ISIS extensive sales network for oil. James Phillips, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, argues that Turkey has not fully cracked down on ISIS’s sales network because it benefits from a lower price for oil, and that there might even be Turks and government officials who benefit from the trade.
• Fehim Taştekin wrote in Radikal on September 13, 2014 about illegal pipelines transporting oil from Syria to nearby border towns in Turkey. The oil is sold for as little as 1.25 liras per liter. Taştekin indicated that many of these illegal pipelines were dismantled after operating for 3 years, once his article was published.
• According to Diken and OdaTV, David Cohen, a Justice Department official, says that there are Turkish individuals acting as middlemen to help sell ISIS’s oil through Turkey.
• On October 14, 2014, a German Parliamentarian from the Green Party accused Turkey of allowing the transportation of arms to ISIS over its territory, as well as the sale of oil.
Turkey Assists ISIS Recruitment
• Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu claimed on October 14, 2014 that ISIS offices in Istanbul and Gaziantep are used to recruit fighters. On October 10, 2014, the mufti of Konya said that 100 people from Konya joined ISIS 4 days ago. (See HERE and HERE.)
• OdaTV reports that Takva Haber serves as a propaganda outlet for ISIS to recruit Turkish-speaking individuals in Turkey and Germany. The address where this propaganda website is registered corresponds to the address of a school called Irfan Koleji, which was established by Ilim Yayma Vakfi, a foundation that was created by Erdogan and Davutoglu, among others. It is thus claimed that the propaganda site is operated from the school of the foundation started by AKP members.
• Minister of Sports, Suat Kilic, an AKP member, visited Salafi jihadists who are ISIS supporters in Germany. The group is known for reaching out to supporters via free Quran distributions and raising funds to sponsor suicide attacks in Syria and Iraq by raising money.
• OdaTV released a video allegedly showing ISIS militants riding a bus in Istanbul.
Turkish Forces Are Fighting Alongside ISIS
• On October 7, 2014, IBDA-C, a militant Islamic organization in Turkey, pledged support to ISIS. A Turkish friend who is a commander in ISIS suggests that Turkey is “involved in all of this” and that “10,000 ISIS members will come to Turkey.” A Huda-Par member at the meeting claims that officials criticize ISIS but in fact sympathize with the group (Huda-Par, the “Free Cause Party”, is a Kurdish Sunni fundamentalist political party). BBP member claims that National Action Party (MHP) officials are close to embracing ISIS. In the meeting, it is asserted that ISIS militants come to Turkey frequently to rest, as though they are taking a break from military service. They claim that Turkey will experience an Islamic revolution, and Turks should be ready for jihad. (See HERE and HERE.)
• Seymour Hersh maintains in the London Review of Books that ISIS conducted sarin attacks in Syria, and that Turkey was informed. “For months there had been acute concern among senior military leaders and the intelligence community about the role in the war of Syria’s neighbors, especially Turkey. Prime Minister Recep Erdogan was known to be supporting the al-Nusra Front, a jihadist faction among the rebel opposition, as well as other Islamist rebel groups. ‘We knew there were some in the Turkish government,’ a former senior US intelligence official, who has access to current intelligence, told me, ‘who believed they could get Assad’s nuts in a vice by dabbling with a sarin attack inside Syria – and forcing Obama to make good on his red line threat.”
• On September 20, 2014, Demir Celik, a Member of Parliament with the people’s democratic party (HDP) claimed that Turkish Special Forces fight with ISIS.
Turkey Helped ISIS in Battle for Kobani
• Anwar Moslem, Mayor of Kobani, said on September 19, 2014: “Based on the intelligence we got two days before the breakout of the current war, trains full of forces and ammunition, which were passing by north of Kobane, had an-hour-and-ten-to-twenty-minute-long stops in these villages: Salib Qaran, Gire Sor, Moshrefat Ezzo. There are evidences, witnesses, and videos about this. Why is ISIS strong only in Kobane’s east? Why is it not strong either in its south or west? Since these trains stopped in villages located in the east of Kobane, we guess they had brought ammunition and additional force for the ISIS.” In the second article on September 30, 2014, a CHP delegation visited Kobani, where locals claimed that everything from the clothes ISIS militants wear to their guns comes from Turkey. (See HERE and HERE.)
• Released by Nuhaber, a video shows Turkish military convoys carrying tanks and ammunition moving freely under ISIS flags in the Cerablus region and Karkamis border crossing (September 25, 2014). There are writings in Turkish on the trucks.
• Salih Muslim, PYD head, claims that 120 militants crossed into Syria from Turkey between October 20th and 24th, 2014.
• According to an op-ed written by a YPG commander in The New York Times on October 29, 2014, Turkey allows ISIS militants and their equipment to pass freely over the border.
• Diken reported, “ISIS fighters crossed the border from Turkey into Syria, over the Turkish train tracks that delineate the border, in full view of Turkish soldiers. They were met there by PYD fighters and stopped.”
• A Kurdish commander in Kobani claims that ISIS militants have Turkish entry stamps on their passports.
• Kurds trying to join the battle in Kobani are turned away by Turkish police at the Turkey-Syrian border.
• OdaTV released a photograph of a Turkish soldier befriending ISIS militants.
Turkey and ISIS Share a Worldview
• RT reports on Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks detailing Turkish support to ISIS.
• According to the Hurriyet Daily News on September 26, 2014, “The feelings of the AKP’s heavyweights are not limited to Ankara. I was shocked to hear words of admiration for ISIL from some high-level civil servants even in Şanliurfa. ‘They are like us, fighting against seven great powers in the War of Independence,’ one said.” “Rather than the [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] PKK on the other side, I would rather have ISIL as a neighbor,” said another.”
• Cengiz Candar, a well-respected Turkish journalist, maintained that MIT helped “midwife” the Islamic state in Iraq and Syria, as well as other Jihadi groups.
• An AKP council member posted on his Facebook page: “Thankfully ISIS exists… May you never run out of ammunition…”
• A Turkish Social Security Institution supervisor uses the ISIS logo in internal correspondences.
• Bilal Erdogan and Turkish officials meet alleged ISIS fighters.
Mr. Phillips is Director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights. He served as a Senior Adviser and Foreign Affairs Expert for the U.S. Department of State.
How is it possible that, in a matter of weeks, an obscure gang of thugs were able to seize control of a large swath of Syria, start an oil-export business while never coming under a credible threat by its alleged NATO enemies? There’s just one way.
Before we understand what is happening – and alas, not happening – in Syria a reality check is needed: The date is August 30, 2013 and British PM David Cameron has just suffered a historic loss in the House of Commons, which voted against the UK joining the US military in yet another Middle East misadventure, this time in Syria.
This unexpected reversal of fortune for NATO represented a humiliating blow to Washington’s Nobel-winning warlord, Barack Obama, who already has Libya’s head mounted above the executive fireplace.
But Cameron’s unexpected defeat cooled America’s jet engines, and Obama was forced to appear on television, telling the American people in a tear-jerking performance worthy of an Academy Award: “I have a deeply held preference for peaceful solutions.” Except, of course, when he is not attacking sovereign states, like Libya, and rudely crashing wedding parties with uninvited drone strikes.
Now this was right around the time that Russia – which wisely refused to get bogged down in the Ukrainian morass, thus giving NATO free play in the Middle East – was starting to make a real nuisance of itself as far as Washington was concerned.
Moscow, thanks to an alleged off-the-cuff remark by US Secretary of State John Kerry, managed to get the NATO dogs of war back on the leash as Putin convinced Syrian President Bashar Assad to surrender his chemical weapons to the United Nations.
As thanks for the commendable act of denying NATO yet another serial murder in broad daylight, Putin was recklessly vilified in a number of opinion pieces as the worst leader to walk the global stage since Hitler. Go figure.
For anybody who thought that would be the final chapter of the Syrian story does not understand the perseverance of the Western powers-that-be, especially when what it is at stake is one of the last countries on the planet that has not fallen under the domination of the global financial fascists.
ISIS, ISIS, who the heck is ISIS?
Suddenly, with all the fury of a sandstorm, a newly rebranded band of Islamic terrorists – ‘The Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIS)’ – appeared on the scene with displays of violence and savagery so fantastic it often required the suspension of disbelief.
Exhibit Number One. In August 2014, one year after the US invasion of Syria got bogged down in crazy peace talk, a string of Western journalists found themselves conveniently kidnapped and duly decapitated by an English-speaking thug nicknamed ‘Jihadi John’. Yet with each released video a number of experts came out to declare the slick productions “staged.”
Stranger still, perhaps, is that the actual moments of decapitation were politely censored for viewing audiences, who have certainly witnessed worse spectacles in their neighborhood theaters on any given Friday night. But thanks anyways, Islamic State, for not totally grossing us out.
Following the alleged decapitation of James Foley, a forensic analyst told The Times that the video production was “rather odd” since no blood can be seen, even though the knife is drawn across the neck area at least six times.
“After enhancements, the knife can be seen to be drawn across the upper neck at least six times, with no blood evidence to the point the picture fades to black,” the analysis said.
Sounds purportedly made by Foley at the time of his alleged execution “do not appear consistent with what may be expected.”
And during Foley’s speech, there is a break in the tape that seems to indicate the kidnapped reporter had to repeat a line. Come again? The ruthless scum of Islamic State, which have gained notoriety for destroying ancient works of art, have now acquired the artistic flair to request a retake in the middle of an execution video?!
What would the ruthless Jihadi John tell his doomed captive in such an improbable scenario: “Ah, sorry mate, can you repeat that last line and with a little more enthusiasm this time?”
One expert commissioned to examine the footage was reported as saying: “I think it has been staged. My feeling is that the execution may have happened after the camera was stopped.”
Yet despite the speculation that this tape, and the others that appeared later, was about as real as an episode of The Flintstones, a warning was duly issued to the British people that viewing the cartoon could be considered a criminal act.
“We would like to remind the public that viewing, downloading or disseminating extremist material within the UK may constitute an offence under Terrorism legislation,” said UK Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe in a statement.
A rather laughable statement considering that it is government-connected agencies disseminating these video productions in the first place.
Another western journalist, Steven Sotloff, was also reported to have been decapitated in the same type of videotaped execution given to Mr. Foley – that is, complete with the polite censorship of the actual beheading. It’s not that I personally would wish to watch such a grisly act, but rather that it does not follow Islamic State’s ultra-violent modus operandi to censor the action.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian hacktivist group that calls itself CyberBerkut dropped a bombshell, saying they hacked the cell phone of an aid to John McCain when the US Senator paid a visit to Ukraine in June. While it is impossible to prove the veracity of the claim, the video appears to show a stage-managed beheading scene of the sort we’ve seen on so many other occasions.
“An actor dressed as an executioner of IS is holding a knife to behead the prisoner, and the “victim” depicts to be suffering.The Islamic State for Iraq and Levant or IS executions are allegedly stage-managed,” reported TechWorm.
One asinine question leads to another: Why would a band of ruthless terrorists find it necessary to produce videos that were not the real McCoy? Why would the actual moment of the beheadings be censored for public consumption? Why would the authorities warn the public they could be committing a crime for watching such sterilized material? None of this makes much sense.
Although the mainstream media talking heads beseech us to believe that Western journalists were mercilessly killed by Islamic jihadists, nothing that has been presented to date would stand up in a court of law as irrefutable proof that a single murder has actually been committed.
Once again, the West’s NATO subjects are expected to cheer on the war on terror on the basis of nothing more substantial than hearsay and apparent horseplay.
Out of SITE, out of mind
The question must be asked where these finally crafted Islamic State videos come from. I give up, where do they come from? In the majority of cases, from the same people who brought Osama bin Laden looming into our living rooms: a privately owned group known as the SITE Intelligence Group, which tasks itself with the job of monitoring terrorist groups on social media.
The group has deep connections to the government, as well as a checkered past.
“One of SITE’s founders, Rita Katz, is a government insider with close connections to former terrorism czar Richard Clarke and his staff in the White House, as well as investigators in the Department of Justice, Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security, according to SourceWatch… ”
In October 2007, it was revealed that the SITE Intelligence Group discovered and issued to the Bush administration a copy of an Osama bin Laden video that had yet to be released by al-Qaeda.
“Katz issued the video via a private link to a SITE web page to White House counsel Fred F. Fielding and Joel Bagnal, deputy assistant to the President for Homeland Security. Within 20 minutes, computers registered to various parts of the Executive Branch began downloading the video, and within hours a transcript referencing SITE had appeared on Fox News,” Global Researchreported.
In 2004, The New York Timesreported that some Islamic groups feel unfairly targeted by the work of Ms. Katz and her group.
“Ms. Katz’s institute, which relies on government contracts and corporate clients, may be the most influential of those groups, and she is among the most controversial of the cyberspace monitors.
While some experts praise her research as solid, some of her targets view her as a vigilante. Several Islamic groups and charities, for example, sued for defamation after she claimed they were terrorist fronts, even though they were not charged with a crime.”
Is the US media, not to mention the US government, displaying a bit too much credulity in putting all of their terrorist video sources into one basket? Judging by Ms. Katz’s professional and personal background and experience, it may be much more prudent to let the government handle the work of tracking the terrorists as opposed to private organizations with their own axe to grind.
In any case, the twisted tale of Islamic State has produced the desired effect: Just one month after the first questionable videotape surfaced of Mr. Foley being decapitated, the United States was doing exactly what it wanted to be doing one year earlier: bombing Syrian territory.
On Sept. 22, 2014, The Los Angeles Times heroically described the opening wave of fearless attacks against the baddies of Islamic States: “The United States and several allies launched airstrikes inside Syria for the first time late Monday, the Pentagon said, a heavy bombardment against multiple targets that marked an aggressive expansion of President Obama’s war on Islamic State militants.
Waves of U.S. fighter jets, bombers and armed drones slipped behind Syria’s fortified air defenses to drop precision-guided bombs on militant positions, while Navy ships offshore fired lethal salvos of Tomahawk cruise missiles.”
However, as time would tell, even the Western attacks on Islamic State appeared to be equally staged, as the terrorist group was suffering no measurable toll from this “wave” of attack.
Only after Russia entered the fray did the terrorist group – together with its oil-exporting business – begin to suffer real losses.
Robert Bridge is the author of the book on corporate power, “Midnight in the American Empire”, which was released in 2013.
Next week, Part II: West opens invisible front against Islamic State
Today saw another new low-point in American broadcast journalism, as members of the media and public ransacked the shooting suspects family home in Redlands, California. On closer examination, however, what is on display here has very little to do with journalism, and everything to do with staged ‘synthetic terror’.
It appears that both mainstream media and law enforcement are becoming increasingly desperate to sell an ever-more embellished and fantastic story line surrounding this latest alleged ‘Mass Shooting’ event that we’re told took place on Wednesday in San Bernardino, California.
Earlier, CNN’s official “terrorism analyst”, Paul Cruickshank, stated that San Bernardino’s staged event was, “the deadliest Islamist terrorism attack on US soil since 9/11”. If that was true, then any venues or sites related to this investigation would still be secured by law enforcement – and yet, less than 48 hours after what we’re told was a ‘mass shooting’ and ‘international terrorism’ event – members of the mainstream media and unidentified members of the public were let loose completely unsupervised, inside what authorities are claiming to be “the killers’ home” located in Redlands, California.
More than any other aspect of the contrived narrative currently being assembled by the mainstream media – this latest bit of media exhibitionism has provided clear proof that much of this story is a staged production – completely engineered by the media and members of certain government agencies…
‘PRESS GANG’: Media and public barge into the family home of alleged shooters.
This gives a new meaning to the term “press gang”. The media frenzy at the family’s Redlands home can only be described as a disturbing spectacle broadcast LIVE this morning over ten different major networks.
Today’s bizarre media stunt came only two hours after authorities and the media claimed it now had ‘evidence’ that Wednesday’s attack was “ISIS-inspired”. In a rush to establish a motive for Wednesday’s ‘Active Shooter Drill’ and staged terror event, a new piece of ‘virtual evidence’ appears to be as bizarre as it is laughable:
“We have evidence that while the attack was underway, the female shooter (Tashfeen Malik) is believed to have posted her allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – but not on her own Facebook account, rather on another different named account believed to be linked to her Facebook account.”
As 21WIREpointed out, authorities are intentionally not showing any photo or image of the alleged female shooter, Tashfeen Malik. It’s likely that this is because Malik was not actually involved in the shooting as the authorities are currently claiming. Based on this, we might expect investigators to turn around at a later date and claim that she “wasn’t actually one of the two shooters.’
Then things began to get even more ridiculous.
CNN’s reporter Victor Blackwell began today’s news segment joined by a large group of at least 150 persons, including 30-40 unidentified people filming on their cell phones which CNN claimed were “members of the victims’ families”, as well as at least 75-100 media personnel and cameramen, all of whom followed behind the property’s landlord, Doyel Miller, who appears to have given an unsupervised, guided tour to the media and unidentified members of the public.
Blackwell even admitted that locals from the neighborhood and their dogs could also be seen wandering through the property.
CNN’s Blackwell claimed to have simply walked into the house, and by chance, finds a 4 paged FBI Seizure Document dated 12/3/15, which details evidence removed in the supposed federal terrorism investigation. CNN’s Blackwell then goes on to read out loud on air, in what he describes as a list which paints “a really clear picture”, before reading out all the items:
“… ammunition, hard drives, laptops, thumb drives, rifle cleaners roll-a-dex, gun cleaning kit, bolt for M-4 style rifle, boxes of ammunition.”
Although CNN and others appear to have gone to great lengths to portray this bizarre news event as authentic, it’s quite clear the FBI or police had left their classified investigation documents and various items as staged, props for the media.
It is not yet clear whether or not members of the media had paid a sum of money to Miller for access to the property.
In what authorities have claimed is a crime scene and “federal investigation related to terrorism”, the alleged home of the shooters has no police tape and has already been opened to random members of the public and the media – who could be seen rummaging through the alleged shooters belongings with no police or federal agents to supervise what can only be described as a free for all.
“passports, driving license, an FBI evidence docket list of items removed from the house [just laying around for the media, we’re told]…”
MEDIA AGIT-PROP: CNN’s Anderson Cooper conducted today’s desperate media play, designed to shore-up the media’s latest “ISIS-inspired” narrative for this week’s ‘mass shooting’ staged event.
The entire fiasco was being stage-managed by the highly dubious CNN operative, Anderson Cooper, who is then flanked by CNN junior ‘reporter’ Stephanie Elam who clearly states, “I was the first person who walked into this room [bedroom] and saw how it was before everyone started touching it… I don’t want to show you these ID’s over here [as the camera then shows] just because I don’t want to show you those addresses on there, but I do believe they belong to the mother based on the ages that were there.”
So Elam had access and tampered with the entire crime scene. If it were a real federal crime scene, then this would be a violation of numerous state and federal laws, including a violation of the family’s rights to privacy. In addition, under California state law, all media members and public present are in violation of breaking and entering, vandalism, and theft as well in the event that any personal items were removed from the scene. The fact that no one has been arrested or charged is proof that this is not a real federal crime at all.
MEDIA VANDALISM OR STAGED ‘PRESS’ EVENT? Less than 48 hours after ‘the biggest attack since 9/11’, CNN’s Stephanie Elam leads a mob of media and public in ransacking the alleged family home of dead suspect Syed Farook.
CNN Reporter Carelessly Tosses Religious Prayer Beads, Religious Books
CNN’s Stephanie Elam then starts picking up and throwing the family’s personal religious items. “When I first walked in this group of prayer beads was sitting on the edge of the bed, Several prayer books that were all around, some business cards, receipts for store purchases, lotions and creams…”.
CNN’s Elam then picks up a set of prayer beads for the camera, before carelessly tossing religious items aside onto the bed below, and moving on to ransack the house along with the other members of the “press”. She clearly states that, “these items belong to the shooters’ parents” – as she and others carelessly rifle through the family’s personal belongings.
A media entourage of at least 40 reporters and 50 random members of the public (who the media claim were “victims’ family members”) appear to have been involved in a forced entry, or “breaking and entering”, as the entourage followed the landlord who, according to CNN junior reporter, “We watched him come back with a crow bar… and a drill… to remove the door that had been barricading with a piece of wood. Then everyone came in right after that.”
She then claimed that, “The police were ‘done’ with this building.”
Under the remote direction of Cooper, CNN’s on site cameraman then moves in for a close shot at a desk with a number of documents neatly arranged – including a passport, presumably belonging to family member of the alleged shooters.
STAGED: Passports were neatly on display for the media camera, in what appears to be staging of the supposed ‘crime scene’.
FRAMING THE STORY: CNN’s Elam claims as, “clear evidence of religious faith”.
San Bernardino: A Media Production
CNN’s law enforcement analyst Harry Houck then came on camera with Cooper to display some outrage, seemingly bedazzled and upset over, ‘how the FBI have allowed dozens of people to destroy the crime scene’.
What Houck and other media operatives are not asking is the real question here: if this were a real federal investigation and crime scene then, obviously there would be police tape, and the property would be supervised as it is less than 48 hours after such a high-profile ‘mass shooting’. Clearly, this is not a real crime scene – and by extension – we can conclude now that this entire event was likely to be a staged one.
One of the most incredible media reports was turned-in by Democratic Party-affiliated media outlet MSNBC, who could be seen going through the family’s personal effects and photographs, and showing “Muslim items” on camera. Shamelessly, MSNBC reporter Kerry Sanders rifles through childrens’ personal belongings in the room of Farook and Malik’s 6-month-old daughter (allegedly), and points out her crib and what appeared to be a “Muslim prayer rug”. The following viewing is disturbing, and almost unbelievable:
The bumbling MSNBC reporter Sanders seemed to be a bit desperate to make a case that these were ‘Islamic terrorists’, and whoever staged all the ‘evidence’ laying around the home – has clearly arranged passports and photos prominently in place for the media – in order for the hapless media to draw their own conclusions. One planted item is meant to be photos of Tafsheen Malik, shown here:
PLANTED PROP: Mystery photos: viewers are meant to think these photos belong to Tafsheen Malik, but “cannot be confirmed”.
MYSTERY WOMAN OR FBI HANDLER? The FBI and media have intentionally hidden the identity of the female suspect.
Once again, based on the FBI’s continued hiding of her identity, we can almost conclude that their supposed female suspect, Tafsheen Malik, was not involved in the staged shooting event at Inland Regional Center on Wednesday, but rather, could have been the FBI female handler of male suspect Syed Farook – a very similar scenario to a carbon copy modus operandi seen with Boston Bomber suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his illusive white American, Muslim convert and CIA -linked wife, Katherine Russell.
Not surprisingly, not CNN, nor any other mainstream media organization, will ever chase up any of these leads, and after today’s debacle – we should all know why.
A Review of Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas by Cass Sunstein (based on an earlier paper co-authored with Adrian Vermeule); In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Nemeth; and Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them, edited by Joseph E. Uscinski
On January 25 2018 YouTube unleashed the latest salvo in the war on conspiracy theories, saying “we’ll begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways—such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, claiming the earth is flat, or making blatantly false claims about historic events like 9/11.”
At first glance that sounds reasonable. Nobody wants YouTube or anyone else to recommend bad information. And almost everyone agrees that phony miracle cures, flat earthism, and blatantly false claims about 9/11 and other historical events are undesirable.
But if we stop and seriously consider those words, we notice a couple of problems. First, the word “recommend” is not just misleading but mendacious. YouTube obviously doesn’t really recommend anything. When it says it does, it is lying. … continue
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
A Review of Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas by Cass Sunstein (based on an earlier paper co-authored with Adrian Vermeule); In Defense of Troublemakers: The Power of Dissent in Life and Business by Charlan Nemeth; and Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them, edited by Joseph E. Uscinski
