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Syria’s Press Conference the United Nations Doesn’t Want You To See

Global Research News | June 20, 2014

Yesterday at 11am, the Syrian Mission to the United Nations convened a press conference featuring people from the US who observed the recent elections.

Five minutes into the opening comments of Syrian Ambassador Bashar Al-Jaafari, the UN webcast cut off. The thousands of journalists, political analysts, and others who view UN webcasts each day from all over the world were denied the ability to watch the press conference, and hear what was said.

This is not the first time this has happened when Bashar Jaafari is speaking. This occurred on June 7th earlier this year, and on numerous occasions throughout 2013. Reporters at Inner City Press reported that this is not accidental, but was ordered by Michele DuBach, Acting Deputy Director-News & Media Operations.

This comes in the context of other UN harassment of Syria. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon has met with Ahmad Jarba, a leader of violent insurgent groups in Syria, but has refused to meet with Bashar Jaafari. Though Syria pays over $1 million to the UN each year, it is not being treated as an equal member state.

Watch the important, UN Press Conference about Syria, that someone obviously doesn’t want you, or anyone else, to see:

June 20, 2014 Posted by | Video, Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

Mideast crises West bid to protect Israel interests: Jaafari

Press TV – June 19, 2014

Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Bashar Ja’afari says the current tumult in the Middle East, including the crisis in his country, is a scheme by the West to safeguard Israel’s interests, Press TV reports.

“This is a geopolitical plan that is not only targeting Syria exclusively, although Syria is very important for either the success or failure of this plan, but it is targeting the whole area,” said Ja’afari Wednesday in an exclusive interview with Press TV in New York.

He said the main goal of the Western plot “is to secure for a long time the interests of Israel and preventing the establishment of Palestinian state in Palestine.”

“So they need to open up a new front, a kind of deviation, from the focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian question to another focus which might be a war between Muslims and Muslims,” he added.

He further underlined that the West intends to incite divisions among Muslims under the false notion of a Sunni-Shia conflict to provoke wars between Muslim countries in the region.

The Syrian envoy went on to reiterate that the huge participation of Syrian voters in the country’s presidential election served as big “NO” message to foreign interference in their country’s internal affairs.

“Our message would be a friendly message… [that] we want to have friends and we want to have normal, bilateral relationship with everybody. We do not interfere into the American domestic affairs. Please don’t interfere into our own domestic affairs.”

According to official figures, President Bashar al-Assad won nearly 90 percent of the votes cast in Syria’s presidential race. Syria’s Supreme Constitutional Court announced that over 73 percent of the 15.8 million eligible voters had taken part in the election.

June 20, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Qwasmeh Family Story

CPTnet | June 17, 2014

The public so far knows very little outside of the alleged time that Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrach were kidnapped. But what we do know is the absolute mayhem the Israeli military has spread throughout the Hebron district among innocent families.  Additionally, routine night raids, day patrols, confiscation of public property for military outposts, and the blockades on all but two access points into Hebron have suffocated the livelihood of Hebronites.

Soldiers raided the home and took possession of the Al Awewe family home in Aqbet Taffuh for six hours on Sunday. Over fifty troops had occupied the home while three adults, four young girls, and a young boy were in the home. The Israeli military would not allow a one-year-old baby to leave the house and her mother had to sit outside helplessly wondering about the safety of her daughter, who was still nursing. The soldiers found no suspects connected to the kidnapping in the home.

In that same area on Monday morning, the IDF confiscated the security camera equipment the al-Natshe family had installed around their house for their protection, along with video footage the cameras had recorded.

Further down the road in the Aqbet Taffuh area, approximately fifty-five Israeli soldiers left the hilltop area of the Palestinian municipality, occupied several homes, questioned families, tore down a private Palestinian fence and occupied the neighborhood for several hours.

Throughout the afternoon, northeast of Bab i-Zaweyah, just outside of the H1/H2 intersection, a brigade of more than forty soldiers stationed themselves in four different homes and a supermarket within a two hour period, leaving families frightened and unsure of their intentions.

On 15 June at around 9:30 p.m., an Israeli raid on a Palestinian home ended with a seven-year-old Palestinian boy hospitalized after the Israeli military used an explosive device to blow open the front door of the Akram Al Qawasmeh home. The subsequent powerful blast shattered the tempered reinforced glass, shearing off the decorative steel and sending pieces of shrapnel into all corners of the home, which severely injured Akram Al Qawasmeh’s son.

After the explosion, Israeli soldiers did not allow Akram Al Qawasmeh to see his son, and according to reports, the military initially stopped medical personal from treating the victim. CPT arrived the following day and found a home turned upside down. (See video below.) Children’s belongings were spread and broken around the house.  Israeli soldiers demolished the kitchen, smashing fruits, vegetables, and other food items on the floor, and left feces on a rug in the basement.

These are just a few of the incidents that CPTers were able to report on directly. Other human rights organizations have also reported an increase in settler violence against Palestinians who live near the Hebron area settlements.

Historically, Palestinian violence has been the justification for settlement expansion in Hebron. Currently, the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee has identified over twenty-two locations of pending settlement expansion and settler activity. The behavior of the Israeli military and settlers in Hebron suggests the government may use the case of the three young kidnapped boys as an excuse to expand these settlements in the Hebron area or elsewhere in the West Bank while the international community is distracted.

See previous release, AL-KHALIL (HEBRON): Hijacking a kidnapping, Part I

June 19, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Killing without consequence

By Moira Jilani | June 19, 2014

East Jerusalem, Occupied Palestine – Ziad and I met at a party at the University of Houston. Six months later Ziad proposed, saying, “I’m a Palestinian. I am only here to get an education. After graduating I’ll return home to Jerusalem. Come with me.”

We married the following year and moved to Jerusalem. For nearly 20 years we lived happily, raising a family and enjoying our lives together. But my fairy tale came to an end on the afternoon of June 11, 2010. In the morning we made plans to take our daughters to the beach that afternoon, Ziad never made it home.

The Israeli border policemen who shot and killed my husband declared that Ziad was a “terrorist” shot dead from a distance.  But my husband was no terrorist.  He loved life. He loved people and animals and he loved us, his family, with a passion. We had to conduct our own investigation to find out how my husband died.

The Israeli unit that investigates police killings failed to interrogate any of the many eyewitnesses to Ziad’s death and only questioned the border policemen involved in the killing. By gathering evidence and testimonies independently we learned the truth. Ziad, while driving home in his pickup truck, swerved into the opposite lane, where a group of border policemen were walking on the road. Ziad’s pickup truck brushed against two of the border policemen causing scrapes and bruises.

Unfortunately, Ziad can no longer tell us exactly what happened, but eyewitnesses reported that there was stone-throwing in the area and that Ziad’s windshield was hit by a stone. This description explains a big dent in Ziad’s front windshield and accounts for his swerve.

The Border Policemen opened a massive barrage of live fire at Ziad’s vehicle. Surrounding cars were hit and a little girl was injured. Ziad fled from the bullets to a nearby dead-end alleyway where his uncle lives. Three Border policemen ran forward firing into the alley.

Ziad leapt out of the truck and ran in the direction of his uncle’s house, but was shot in the back and fell injured to the pavement. While the commander of the unit, Shadi Heir al Din, reported that the “terrorist” had been neutralized, border policeman Maxim Vinogradov walked up to my husband and confirmed the kill.

Vinogradov put his M16 to Ziad’s head and fired two shots. According to an eyewitness, Vinogradov placed his boot on my husband’s neck when he shot him. The practice of confirming killings is illegal under international law.

Twelve days before Vinogradov killed my husband, he responded to a Facebook message voicing support for annihilating “Turkey and all the Arabs from the world” by saying, “I am with you, brother, and with the help of God I will start this.” This is just one of many similar posts. In his profile on a social network website, he describes as a hobby “hitting and destroying things,” his favorite food as “Arabs,” and his favorite sport as “Undocumented Arab Workers.”

My lawyers appealed to an Israeli judge to exhume Ziad’s body in order for an autopsy to be performed. As it was clear that the autopsy would reveal the fact that Ziad was shot from point-blank range, Vinogradov completely altered his original testimony because he  “suddenly remembered” that as he was standing above Ziad he saw him move his hand and so had to shoot him in the head.

Despite Vinogradov’s misrepresentation and the fact that the investigations unit concluded that they “could not rule out that Ziad had swerved innocently and without the intention of running over the border policemen,” the case against Vinogradov and his commander was closed for lack of evidence.

My daughters and I have appealed to Israel’s Supreme Court, but when I asked the American Consulate to help me see to it that my husband’s killer stands trial they told me that their hands were tied since they had no jurisdiction in Israel. I disagree. Our government gives Israel more than $3 billion in annual military aid. It is our government’s responsibility to use its leverage with Israel to stop Israel from using these weapons to commit crimes.

The Israeli military has a history of ignoring the lives of Palestinians, and then supporting their killers. An example is the appointment of Brig. Gen. Roni Numa as the head of the Israeli army’s “Depth Corps” and the Military Colleges, as well as his promotion to major general, two weeks ago. This occurred despite the fact that the State Prosecutor’s Office and the Military Advocate General determined that, in 2001, Numa approved an operation in which Abdallah Jarousha, from Tul Karem refugee camp was shot in the back and killed in violation of the Israel Defence Forces’ rules of engagement. The criminal case in the matter was closed, though the Military Advocate General Corps noted in its decision that “in advance, the firing, as was approved, should not have been approved.” Roni Numa also changed his version of the events many times while the murder was being investigated, forgetting and then remembering that he had given the order. Like the case demanding accountability for my husbands murderer, the case Abdallah Jarousha’s family launched spent years in the Israeli courts, and despite an innocent civilian being murdered in cold blood ended, no Israeli was ever charged.

My husband was killed by a trigger-happy Israeli border policemen.  They ought to face trial for both the crime and the cover-up.  It’s time for the American government to step up, support American citizens such my daughters and I, and insist that Israel hold a proper trial.

Moira Jilani is an American citizen. She is the widow of Ziad Jilani who was killed by Israeli border policemen in 2010 while driving home. Moira and her daughters have appealed to Israel’s Supreme Court against the closing of the case against Ziad’s killers.

June 19, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli soldiers invade more Palestinian homes in Hebron

International Solidarity Movement | June 18, 2014

Hebron, Occupied Palestine – Yesterday the Israeli army invaded a family house in the H1 area, supposedly under full Palestinian Authority civil and security control, of al-Khalil (Hebron). The father of the family is very ill with heart disease; the family was forced in to one room and was not allowed to leave. The eight Israeli soldiers used the house as an unofficial army post, both to rest and to view the area. The soldiers stayed there overnight, terrifying the family, as they had no idea when the soldiers would leave. At approximately 11:00 am, the soldiers left the house, however they informed the family that they would return.

The soldiers then entered the next house, relatives of the same family, with four young children. First they searched the house, and then occupied the children’s room on the second floor. They moved the children’s beds to get more space and placed a black blanket to cover the doorway.

The soldiers took shifts, sitting in front of the room watching the family, while the rest were sleeping, eating, and viewing the area. The family told the ISMers present that the soldiers also took showers. The soldiers seemed very uncomfortable with the ISM volunteers in the house, and behaved very aggressively towards them, and the family members who were taking photos.

The family offered the soldiers to use the roof instead of the children’s room, but they refused.

The military presence in the house caused a lot of fear for the family, they were unable to carry out their daily routines, and the children were very upset that they could not enter their room; they were afraid the soldiers would take their belongings and break their toys.

After five hours the family convinced the military to leave, as they left, it was witnessed them joining with a much larger group of soldiers.

Since last Friday, there has been a large increase in home invasions all over the West Bank. This is part of the collective punishment inflicted on the Palestinian population, since the disappearance of three Israeli settler youth on Thursday.

June 18, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

In Memoriam: Michael Hastings January 28, 1980 – June 18, 2013

An American Resistance Fighter

Video Rebel’s Blog | June 17, 2014

Michael Hastings was a war correspondent. He knew he was at war with the American government. He said the following before he was murdered:

The Obama administration has clearly declared war on the press. Has declared war on investigative journalists (and) our sources. The only recourse to this kind of behavior by the government is to say back to the government we declare war on you. And from this point forward we should no longer as the media on the whole no longer cooperate in any manner with the government in terms of when we are doing National Security stories. We should withdraw all our cooperation and publish everything we know because it is a Free Press not a Free Press except when the government tells me what to do. And we’ve been way too easy going with these guys. We let them get away with this for years. We let them tell us what to print and what not to print. I say everybody get together and say we are done with it and fire back. No one else is going to defend the press.

That was his 55 second opening in one of the last interviews he ever gave. I hope that if we survive and do take over the government that the Joseph Pulitzer prize for journalism would be renamed the Michael Hastings award.

Michael Hastings also criticized NSA spying. The violation of the Fourth Amendment against illegal searches and seizures allows the NSA to record all of our emails and all of our phone calls. When you combine this with the criminalization of investigative reporting and the application of the Espionage Act to whistleblowers, you will end First Amendment protections for the Free Press. The next step is to end Free Speech.

Before he was murdered, Hastings did contact his friends and Jennifer Robinson, a lawyer for Wikileaks,  saying the FBI was investigating him. He told his friends they needed to get a lawyer before they talked to the FBI.

His friends said he drove like a grandmother and never saw him drive fast or erratically. He had given up drinking alcohol five years earlier. Experts at universities have demonstrated  that cars can be remotely hacked. They can accelerate the car, make it stop and deploy the airbag without the driver’s cooperation. Michael’s car was seen driving through a red light at an intersection at a high speed. Sparks were seen coming out of the car before it impacted the tree. A loud explosion strong enough to shake a house was heard before the car hit the tree. His car engine and drive train were seen 50 and 70 yards distant from the car. The car had been going south but the engine and drive train were found north or behind the car. That is not possible unless the engine had been separated before the car hit the tree. None of this normally happens to a new Mercedes.

Military veterans said the intense heat of the fire was beyond that of a car fire. The car’s paint should have been burned but it was not suggesting a bomb rather than a normal car fire.

Contrary to the family’s wishes his body was cremated and sent home in an urn. His family had wanted his body returned. Gone would be any evidence that he had been drugged.

Michael Hastings’ friend Staff Sergeant Joe Biggs said Michael told him he was working on the biggest story of his career. It was on the CIA. This would have been a very big story indeed because his article Runaway General on Stanley McChrystal in Rolling Stone got the general fired.

I wrote this because I do not want the fact that Michael Hastings was murdered for the crime of practicing journalism to be forgotten. There are two videos below. The first has Michael’s declaration of war on the Obama administration in the first 55 seconds of the tape. The second video gives an overview of his murder. It is ten minutes long.

 

 

Last year I wrote an article on Hastings after his murder. It has another video interview with Michael. The Link is below:

In Memory of Michael Hastings: His CSPAN Interview

(This CSPAN interview is about his book The Operators. He points out the Pentagon has 27,000 public relations people. One general in Kabul has more PR people than there are reporters covering the war. He hits General Petraeus very hard both in this video and in the book.)

http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2013/06/23/in-memory-of-michael-hastings-his-cspan-interview/

June 17, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

Now it is official: Israeli campaign to control Wikipedia content

By Brenda Heard | Friends of Lebanon | June 16, 2014

Wikimedia has struck a deal with Israeli officials to promote students’ multi-lingual writing and re-writing of history, geography and science topics in Wikipedia. Unwitting readers of Wikipedia likely take accounts of Middle Eastern history at face value, not realising the extent of manipulation occurring behind the seemingly authoritative guise of an encyclopaedia.  From word choice, to basic information given or omitted, to biased sources cited, Wikipedia is devolving into a completely untrustworthy source.

Of course there has been an Annual Wikipedia Academy Conference since 2009, where Israelis receive Wikipedia training and encouragement.  And of course groups such as CAMERA, a pro-Zionist Israel public relations organisation, have been actively editing Wikipedia since at least 2008.  And of course Israel has been actively funding hasbara on the internet for years and isn’t shy about its “digital diplomacy.” There’s even a “Jewish Internet Defense League” that claims to be the “cutting edge of pro-Israel digital online advocacy.”  After all, the professed need for incessant national promotion campaigns fits into the “we are the ones under attack” theme.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has twice participated in the Israeli Presidential Conference.  As he said at the 2011 Wikimania conference held in Haifa, “I love coming to Israel.”  But it is Wales’ exchange with a Lebanese blogger that strongly calls into question Wikipedia’s public goal of offering a credible, neutral “sum of all human knowledge.”  When the blogger asked Wales about his participation in the 2011 Israeli Presidential Conference, Wales snubbed the inquiry outright.  Wales responded with trite, vacuous remarks in defence of Israel and then refused to communicate further.  (An unripened e-conversation that amused several pro-Zionists.)

Surely Wikipedia management is aware that Israel is one of the most controversial topics in Wikipedia.  One academic study determined that the “Israel” page was rivalled only by the “Adolf Hitler” page as being the most highly contested page contained in all of the study’s three language sets. From a researcher’s point of view, then, it is illogical to encourage additional bias in the most contentious topic.  Yet that is precisely what Jimmy Wales has done and what this newly announced partnership does.

It can be very valuable to research Israeli sources—from newspapers to government agencies.  But we should assess these sources with the knowledge that the information provided is filtered by an Israeli perspective, most likely Zionist.  We should balance those sources with a variety of views from numerous perspectives.  The key problem with anonymous, reference style sources like Wikipedia is that we might assume the neutrality they claim.  Has Wikipedia offered similar partnerships with countries worldwide? Why not involve students in China, Peru, India, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Ethiopia, Vietnam, or the many other countries who might like a say in how the world is depicted?  We have to wonder why favourtism has been allowed by Wikipedia and whether it will be openly revealed in its pages.  Naturally, non-governmental Israelis should participate in building Wikipedia, but on equal terms with any other Wikipedian.  Otherwise, Wikipedia is not what it pretends to be.

 

Additional Resources:

“The most controversial topics in Wikipedia: A multilingual and geographical analysis” (Yasseri T., Spoerri A., Graham M., and Kertész J., 2014)

Israel’s Ministry of Education & Wikimedia Israel Agree On New, Unique Initiative (Wikimedia Foundation, 10 June 2014)

“Initiative: Teachers, Students to Write for Wikipedia” (Israeli National News, 10 June 2014)

“Public schools to integrate Wikipedia into curriculum” (Israel Hayom News, 10 June 2014)

“Education Ministry and Wikipedia collaborate to write content for the internet site” (Jerusalem Post, 10 June 2014)

“EI exclusive: a pro-Israel group’s plan to rewrite history on Wikipedia” (The Electronic Intifada, 21 April 2008)

“The Mideast Editing Wars” (Gershom Gorenberg, 1 May 2008)

“Israel’s cyber warriors” (Lucy Tobin, 12 February 2009)

“Israel deploys cyber team to spread positive spin” (Jonathan Cook, 21 July 2009)

“Positive Views of Israel, Brought to You by Israelis” (Ethan Bronner, 17 February 2010)

“Israeli students to get $2,000 to spread state propaganda on Facebook” (Ali Abunimah, 1 April 2012)

“Jimmy Wales and Palestine” (Joey Ayoub, 12 January 2012)

“Israel to pay students to defend it online” (AP, 14 August 2013)

“Haifa University launches course in pro-Israel propaganda” (Ben White, 15 April 2014)

“University of Haifa’s ‘Cyber Warriors’ will help fight the delegitimization of Israel using new media” (U of Haifa, 30 March 2014)

 

 

 

 

June 17, 2014 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Video | , , | Leave a comment

In Search of a Wild Flower

Alhaqhr

In this short video, Al-Haq presents the case of Yousef Shawamreh’s death.

From 1/1/2014 — 31/03/2014, Al-Haq documentation indicates that Israeli forces killed around 16 Palestinians across the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This is a sharp increase in the number of killings as compared to the previous years and the number continues to rise with Three more Palestinians having been killed by Israeli forces from 1/4/2014 — 15/5/2014.

June 16, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces kill Palestinian during Ramallah arrest raid

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Ahmad Sabbareen – Shfa News
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | June 16, 2014

Palestinian medical sources have reported on Monday that a young Palestinian man was killed by Israeli army fire after the soldiers invaded the al-Jalazoun refugee camp, north of the central West Bank city of Ramallah. Two Palestinians were injured, many kidnapped.

Medical sources at the Palestine Medical center said the slain Palestinian has been identified as Ahmad Arafat Sabbareen, 21 years of age.

He was shot by several live bullets in the chest, and died of his wounds at the Intensive Care Unit, in the Palestine Medical Center.

Sabbareen was a political prisoner who was recently released by Israel.

One of the wounded Palestinians, identified as Ahmad Sa’afin, was shot by a live round to the chest.

Eyewitnesses said the soldiers fired dozens of gas bombs, concussion grenades, and rounds of live ammunition during the invasion, and during ensuing clashes.

In addition, soldiers kidnapped several Palestinians in the refugee camp, and took them to an unknown destination.

Some of the kidnapped Palestinians have been identified as Adnan al-Khattab, Abdul-Halim Ghannam, Ramadan Hmeidat, and Eyad Safi.

On Sunday at night that two children were wounded when Israeli soldiers detonated the main door of their home, in Hebron city, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank. Soldiers also kidnapped their father, and three brothers. At Least Nineteen Additional Palestinians Kidnapped.

Earlier on Sunday, the soldiers kidnapped at least twelve Palestinians in Hebron, after breaking into dozens of homes and searching them. The army also confiscated surveillance tapes from a number of properties.

On Sunday evening, dozens of Israeli military vehicles invaded the central West Bank city of Ramallah, the nearby towns of al-Biereh and Betunia, and clashed with dozens of Palestinian youths.

Also on Sunday, soldiers invaded Bethlehem city, and the nearby city of Beit Jala, installed roadblocks, conducted searches, and attacked local journalists.

The soldiers also closed all western entrances of Bethlehem city, and conducted military searches.

On Sunday morning, the soldiers placed Bethlehem and Hebron districts under a strict military siege, and kidnapped dozens of Palestinians in different parts of the occupied West Bank.

~

June 16, 2014 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Medicated to Death: SSRIs & Mass Killings

The EyeOpener Report | April 17, 2014

SSRI stands for Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor, and it is a class of drugs that is often used to treat depression and anxiety. It includes Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, Paxil and a host of other commonly prescribed antidepressants. And the perpetrators of a raft of school shootings, mass murders and other violent incidents in recent years have been taking them.

Find out more about the correlation between SSRIs and mass murder in this week’s edition of the EyeOpener Report with James Corbett.

Transcript

By James Corbett | BoilingFrogsPost | April 16, 2014

[CLICK HERE for a French translation of this video.]

In May 1998, 15 year old Kip Kinkel murdered his parents and two classmates, as well as injuring 25 others, after engaging in a shooting spree that ended up in his school’s cafeteria. In the investigation it emerged that he had been taking popular antidepressant medication Prozac since the summer of the previous year.

In December 2000, Michael McDermott went on a shooting rampage at his workplace, Edgewater Technologies, killing seven of his co-workers. During his trial, the court heard testimony that in the weeks before the shooting, McDermott had tripled the dosage of his antidepressant medication, Prozac, from 70 milligrams per day to 210 milligrams.

In March 2005, 16 year old Jeff Weise shot and killed nine people, including five students at Red Lake Senior High School in Minnesota, before turning the gun on himself. It was later revealed he had been undergoing treatment for depression and had been on Prozac at the time.

In September 2008, Finnish post-secondary student Matti Saari shot and killed ten other students on campus before killing himself. The official Finnish government report on the incident revealed that he had been taking an SSRI medication at the time of the shooting.

SSRI stands for Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitor, and it is a class of drugs that is often used to treat depression and anxiety. It includes Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, Paxil and a host of other commonly prescribed antidepressants. And the perpetrators of a raft of school shootings, mass murders and other violent incidents in recent years have been taking them.

And so it was perhaps not surprising when the culprit of this month’s mass shooting at Fort Hood, Specialist Ivan Lopez, turned out to be taking unnamed antidepressants himself.

Although it has yet to be reported (and may in fact never be revealed) precisely what type of antidepressant Lopez was taking or whether it was an SSRI, the number of confirmed SSRI shooters in recent years has raised the question of a causal link between the medication and incidents of violence.

Although the drug manufacturers are quick to downplay this connection as anecdotal or coincidental mounting scientific evidence points to a strong correlation between the use of psychiatric drugs in general, and SSRIS in particular, and violent behavior.

In 2010, the Public Library of Science published a study titled “Prescription Drugs Associa
ted with Reports of Violence Towards Others” which examined how 484 drugs were associated with 1,937 documented cases of violent behaviour. Of those 484 drugs, 31 of them were responsible for 79% of the violence, including 11 antidepressants.

When incidents of school massacres in the US are charted against prescription of psychiatric medication, the correlation is undeniable. Further research is needed to establish if there is a causal linkage between these pharmaceuticals and the incidents of violence, but critics of the big pharmaceutical manufacturers complain such research is hampered by the low standards for reporting that these companies are held to.

One such critic, David Healy, author of over 150 peer-reviewed papers in the field of psychiatry and the author of numerous books, including Pharmageddon, joined me on The Corbett Report last week to discuss this issue.

Further complicating the issue is the fact that the general public is often, as in the case of the Fort Hood shooter, left in a state of limbo regarding the medical history of the perpetrators of these mass shooting events. Often stories are reported with vague and unconfirmed details about “antidepressants” or sometimes just medication. It can be difficult for the average person to sort through the daily reports of adverse and violent effects of these types of drugs.

One website that helps in that effort is SSRIStories.org. Begun in the 1990s, it is a repository of over 5000 news articles in which prescription drugs were linked to adverse events, including incidents of violence. Last week Julie Wood, one of the proprietors of the site, joined me to discuss the problem of sorting through the often incomplete information from these reports.

In the final equation, the question of the causal linkage between SSRIs and indeed other forms of psychiatric drugs and incidents of violence needs to be taken seriously. There are many factors at play here, from differences in individual reactions to the fact that people who are more likely to commit violent acts in the first place are often the people who are prescribed these drugs.

But the threat of violence has been taken seriously enough that the FDA in the US, the Ministry of Health in Japan and other similar bodies in countries around the world have added a warning in their guidelines for antidepressants. According to the Japanese Ministry of Health, “There are cases where we cannot rule out a causal relationship [of hostility, anxiety, and sudden acts of violence] with the medication.” And in the FDA formulation: “Antidepressant medicines may increase suicidal thoughts or actions in some children, teenagers, and young adults within the first few months of treatment.”

How can it be seen to be a good thing for anyone but the drug manufacturers themselves that these drugs have been on the market for decades and the bodies in charge of regulating them still can only offer such wishy-washy, non-evidence based statements? The issue of drug-linked violence is one that we as a society need to start discussing and acting on soon, otherwise we will continue to let the status quo be ruled not by doctors or patients or their loved ones, and certainly not by the victims of these mass murders, but by the men in the board rooms of these pharmaceutical companies who have been shown time and time again to care about nothing other than their own bottom line.

June 14, 2014 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Behind the smoke: Gareth Porter and the Iranian nuclear story

By Yazan al-Saadi | Al-Akhbar | June 11, 2014

Iran’s nuclear program has been a subject of obsession for Western governments and media agencies for decades, as far back as the final years of Western-backed Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi’s reign. But over the course of the last decade, the subject has reached new hysterical heights, propelled by mainstream media coverage mired with distortion and misinformation. Enter: Gareth Porter.

Porter, 71 years old, is a man of many trades. He is a historian, an author, a policy analyst, and of late, has made a name for himself as a successful investigative journalist.

He began his career in journalism during the US war on Vietnam, serving as the Saigon Bureau Chief for the Dispatch News Service International from 1970-71. He then decided to leave journalism for decades, working in a variety of jobs as an anti-war activist, a university teacher, and sustainable development environment work.

It was after another American war at the dawn of the 21st century, this time against Afghanistan and Iraq, that Porter found himself back into the journalistic fold, mainly writing for the InterPress Service.

“It was only from the year 2000 I started writing this book on Vietnam, how the Americans went to war there. It was such an eye-opener. I realized that the problem of America’s wanton wars was not the problem of a president gone wrong or starting from the wrong values or ideas. It was a systemic problem that the war state was the real problem. That has shaped my political consciousness and my scholarship in journalism ever since then,” Porter told Al-Akhbar.

While working on the book, titled “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam”, which was eventually published in 2005, Porter started to write investigative journalistic articles, the first of which was on how Iraqi Kurdish groups were stealing and forging parliamentary elections at the time.

“That’s what started me on the road of becoming an investigative journalist. I never imagined it would happen but it just developed really quickly,” he said with a light laugh.

Porter started covering the Iranian nuclear issue in 2006; at first, he said, he had believed the overall narrative produced by various agencies.

One key evidence used in the allegations by the West of Iran’s attempts to militarize its nuclear program is the more than one thousand pages of documents that were supposedly acquired from the laptop of an Iranian nuclear scientist by intelligence agencies. They are known informally as the “Laptop Documents.”

But when Porter decided to examine the evidence presented against Iran, he began to discover certain anomalies.

“I went back to look at the recent history of the Iran nuclear issue, and that is when I came across a Wall Street Journal article quoting a German foreign office official, Karsten Voigt, saying this very intriguing thing: ‘Don’t rely on these documents because they came from an Iranian dissident group’ – meaning Mujihedin-E-Khalq (MEK).”

“It pushed me in the direction of questioning the narrative. As time went by I saw more and more of the pieces that didn’t fit the puzzle, particularly about these Laptop Documents,” he added.

In late 2007, Porter met with a German source in Washington DC, and asked him about the Wall Street Journal article. The German source confirmed Voigt’s statement, and thus cemented Porter’s belief that there was more to the story. He began working full-time examining the various evidence and raging debates over Iran’s nuclear program.

Many of his articles, however, have never garnered the attention of the mainstream press and traditional policy institutions within the US.

“The feedback was very weak. The biggest problem, of course, is that the news media and political elite in the US are very powerful, don’t need to respond to information and analysis that contradicts their narratives,” Porter said in regards to the reasons behind this general disinterest in his reports.

Nevertheless, his work in uncovering propaganda and unveiling uncomfortable truths about the problematic narratives regarding Iran’s nuclear program earned him the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, an annual award given by the London-based Frontline Club that celebrates courageous and ground-breaking journalism.

“The single biggest factor driving the elite’s obsession over Iran as a threat and as an enemy is that the basic premise was laid down early at the end of the Cold War,” Porter explained in terms of the reasons behind the American and European honing in on the Islamic republic.

“That the US must take a hand in constraining and preventing Iran from extending its power. It became a fundamental premise of post-Cold War US policy. It fit the interests of the national security state and the Israeli lobby together. Once that happened, and pretty quickly during the Clinton Administration, successive governments naturally followed the general lines set down.”

“Even Obama, just in the early days of office, had the NSA and Israelis come in and tell him about their plans for a cyberwar against Iran. Here he is, a guy who is allegedly planning to enter serious diplomatic engagement with Iran, was essentially conspiring with the Israelis to carry out cyberwarfare. He was going to be the first president to wage cyberwar against another country. That’s very serious,” Porter further remarked.

Overall, Porter mused, the biggest obstacles to any attempt to work out a deal with Iran and end a consideration of military action comes down to Israel.

“Even if there was a settlement of the issue that led to détente between the US and Iran, both of which I’m skeptical about, that would not change the Israeli point of view – which is they have to possess nuclear weapons to maintain superiority over every other country in the Middle East,” he said.

Porter has authored a new book entitled “Manufactured Crisis: The Secret History of the Iranian Nuclear Scare,” which recounts his journalistic work on the allegations about Iran’s nuclear program by the Americans and Israelis since 2006, and discusses in greater detail the numerous evidences and counter-evidences at play.

He recently presented a round table discussion on the topic and his book at the Issam Fares Institute (IFI) building within the American University of Beirut campus on June 9.

Below is the video of the entire talk, and subsequent discussion between Porter and the audience, posted on YouTube by IFI:

June 11, 2014 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

School witch-hunt fuels UK Islamophobia

By Finian Cunningham | Press TV | June 10, 2014

An official British probe this week into alleged “Islamic extremism” in schools is replete with rumor, hearsay and sensationalist accusations.

But, as it turns out, the government report is based on scant factual evidence.

What this amounts to is a “witch-hunt” against British Muslims fuelled at the highest level of government.

This exercise in fear mongering not only denigrates Muslim communities; it recklessly adds to an already hostile climate of Islamophobia in British society, where ordinary citizens are being targeting by racism and hate crimes.

This week the British government’s regulatory body, Ofsted, released a report into more than 20 schools in the midlands city of Birmingham, where it has been alleged that there is a secret plot to infiltrate the education system with “Islamic extremism.”

Six of the schools investigated have been accused of promoting “intimidation” and “intolerance” of non-Muslims. The British government has now placed the schools on a watch-list, which will involve future no-warning snap inspections.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed “a robust response to protect children” with “an extremism taskforce” that will from now on promote “British values” in schools.

The Birmingham establishments in question may now see their governors and staff sacked, and replaced by government-vetted personnel.

The local education trust that runs the facilities in Birmingham has flatly rejected the Ofsted report and the “baseless allegations.”

A senior member of Parkview Trust, which governs three of the schools investigated, said the government probe has found no evidence to support its claims. Trust chairman David Hughes said:

“This report has been conducted in a climate of suspicion… Ofsted inspectors came to our schools looking for extremism, looking for segregation, looking for proof that our children have religion forced upon them as part of an Islamic plot. The Ofsted reports find absolutely no evidence of this because this is categorically not what is happening at our schools.”

So, what is going on here? The whole affair into alleged extremism in the Birmingham schools, both secondary and primary, began some four years ago when an anonymous teacher supposedly wrote a letter to the British government claiming that there was a “Trojan Horse” plot operating in schools in majority Muslim communities across Birmingham.

That plot was said to involve the takeover of teaching staff at the schools and the infiltration of students with extremist ideology.

The letter has since been widely seen as a hoax. Even right-wing British newspapers, such as The Daily Mail, have acknowledged that the document and its accusations therein are fabrications.

Nevertheless, the allegations have taken on a life of their own and have gained credibility, largely due to incessant media vilification of the schools and Muslim communities in general.

Reprehensibly, senior British government ministers have heightened this climate of fear and the ensuing Islamophobia by giving these groundless claims of extremism credence.

Last week, the interior minister Theresa May and education minister Michael Gove engaged in a bizarre public row, accusing each other of “being soft on Islamic fundamentalism.” Then Conservative party leader David Cameron stepped in to the war of words – not to dismiss the damaging allegations against Muslim majority schools, but to merely discipline his ministers for their public bickering.

There is more than a suspicion that the Conservative ministers, May and Gove, are each exploiting the issue as a way of garnering personal publicity and to further their ambitions for taking over the party leadership from the hapless Cameron. For his part, Cameron seems to be reacting in a heavy-handed way to shore up his image as a “tough leader” instead of being seen as the lame duck premier that he is increasingly appearing to be.

With the release of the Ofsted report this week, Cameron has not challenged the dubious premise of the probe, but has instead promised a “robust response,” thus giving its claims a veneer of veracity.

Teachers, parents and community leaders in Birmingham have roundly condemned the “political agenda” of the government’s so-called probe into Islamic extremism.

Lee Donaghey, a principal at the now black-listed Parkview Academy, said the accusations were “absolutely untrue,” adding: “This is a normal state school, like thousands of others across Britain – 98 percent of our pupils just happen to be Muslims. British Muslims.”

As several local people also pointed out, the schools being targeted by the British government report have staff of different religious faiths, including Muslim and Christian. Some are agnostic.

One parent, Arshad Malik, said the conclusions of the Ofsted report claiming the existence of extremism were “completely alien” to him.

“The only thing extreme about our school is the excellence of student achievement in exams,” he added, saying that Park View had been turned around from an academically failed school into an award-winning one in recent years, thanks to the resilient efforts of the teaching staff.

What forms the basis of the British government probe is nothing but a litany of hearsay and unfounded rumor, which has been pursued with prejudice among the government school-regulators. That is a symptom of the worrying trend of increasing Islamophobia in British society at large, not the existence of “hard-line Islamic” influence in schools.

This very real and unconscionable Islamophobia is now being further whipped up at senior government level for self-serving political reasons that bear no relation to alleged problems.

Furthermore, what is even more deplorable is that the government fuelled anti-Muslim attitude in Britain is placing the lives of ordinary Muslims, including young students, at grave risk. Already, there is disturbing evidence of a soaring number of physical attacks, some of them lethal, on Muslim citizens across Britain. In the mindset of racist street thugs, all Muslims are dehumanized as “terrorists.”

What the British government is doing with its scaremongering reports of “extremist plots” at schools in Muslim communities is setting the stage for even more hate crimes.

Ironically, the one entity that can be most associated with so-called Islamic extremism is the British government itself, with its covert support for terrorists in Syria and Libya, as well as its long-held cozy relationship with the Wahhabi rulers of Saudi Arabia.

Tragically, Muslim communities across Britain are at risk of paying an even bigger price of human suffering for the reckless policies of the British government and its so-called “British values.”

June 10, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Video | | Leave a comment

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