Forced Recruitment by US-Backed SDF Reported Again in Deir Ezzur
Fars News Agency | June 30, 2018
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have detained and forcefully recruited a large number of civilians in Deir Ezzur.
Local sources in Eastern Deir Ezzur reported on Saturday that the SDF has detained tens of civilians during heavy attacks on the villages of al-Tiyanah, al-Shanan and al-Jarzi.
The Kurdish forces also arrested a number of civilians in the villages of Mahimideh and Haqayej al-Bomasa’h.
Meantime, reports said that they have attacked and beaten a number of civilians in the town of al-Kashisheh in Eastern Deir Ezzur.
Tensions have heightened between the civilians and the SDF in Deir Ezzur, Hasaka and other regions occupied by the US-backed Kurdish forces.
In a relevant development on Thursday, local sources in Eastern Deir Ezzur reported that tensions and uprising of civilians against the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have intensified, adding that assassination attempts by unknown assailants have also increased against the SDF in the region.
The sources said that residents of the town of al-Shahil have held protest rallies against the SDF and blocked the roads in Eastern Deir Ezzur.
They added that the SDF then detained nearly 70 local residents of the region, noting that several other people were also arrested in the town of Zabiyan and the village of al-Hawayej in Eastern Deir Ezzur.
Meantime, a number of SDF forces have been killed and wounded during repeated explosions and assassination attempts by unknown assailants in Eastern Deir Ezzur.
6 killed in attack on EU-funded anti-terror force in Mali implicated in ‘summary executions’
RT | June 30, 2018
At least six soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing of the G5 Sahel anti-terrorist force in Mali. The attack came just days after the UN accused the force of the “summary and arbitrary execution” of civilians.
A suicide bomber exploded a vehicle in front of the G5 Sahel joint task force compound in Mali’s central town of Sevare on Friday. The explosion was followed by an attack from militants.
“The attackers fired rockets at the headquarters and some of them infiltrated the compound. There was an exchange of fire,” Mali’s defense ministry spokesman Boubacar Diallo told Reuters.
At least six soldiers were killed by the attackers, according to the mayor of the nearby town of Mopti. Many others were reportedly injured during the incident. The attack has been reportedly claimed by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (JNIM), an Al-Qaeda affiliate in Mali. It remained unclear whether the assailants sustained any casualties.
Photos from the scene show heavily damaged buildings inside the compound and a large hole left by the suicide bomber. The explosion was apparently quite powerful, as the bent and scorched frame of the suicide vehicle was blown meters away from its crater. The suicide vehicle was painted in the UN colors and therefore managed to get close to the compound, AFP reported, citing a military source.
G5 Sahel consists of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. Friday’s attack comes just three days ahead of a scheduled meeting between the group’s leaders and French President Emmanuel Macron, to discuss the progress made by the joint task force in fighting terrorism in the region.
Earlier this week, the UN peacemaking mission to Mali (MINUSMA), accused Malian troops with the task force of the extrajudicial killing of 12 civilians.
“The MINUSMA investigation concluded that, on 19 May, elements of the Malian battalion … summarily and/or arbitrarily executed 12 civilians at the Boulkessy cattle market,” the UN mission said in a statement, adding that it had forwarded its findings to the government in Bamako.
Mali’s government acknowledged last week that some of its soldiers were implicated in “gross violations” against the civilian population. The admission followed local media reports of at least 25 bodies found in a mass grave in central Mali.
The Defense Ministry confirmed “the existence of mass graves implicating certain persons in FAMA [Malian armed forces] in gross violations that caused deaths in Nantaka and Kobaka in the region of Mopti,” it said in a statement, promising to launch an inquiry into the killings.
The G5 Sahel was launched back in 2014 to improve cooperation and tighten up security in the region. The vast Sahel region has been in turmoil since 2011, after a NATO intervention helped overthrow the government in Libya. The resulting chaos fostered the Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2012 and the rise of the Boko Haram terrorist group in northern Nigeria.
The group’s joint anti-terrorist force was established last July, getting endorsement from the African Union and UN recognition through a resolution sponsored by France. The force, consisting of 5,000 troops at full operational capacity, received money from the EU but ran into financial issues this earlier this year, as the US opposed direct funding by the UN.
Hezbollah Accuses Int’l Organizations of Intimidating Syrian Refugees in Lebanon
Sputnik – 29.06.2018
BEIRUT – International organizations and some Lebanese actors have been intimidating Syrian refugees and asylum seekers displaced by war and who want to return to their country from Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement, said on Friday.
“According to our data, there are some international organizations, and certain local parties, which intimidate the refugees and provoke concerns about the return,” Nasrallah told the Al-Manar broadcaster.
The Hezbollah leader called for action to ensure a safe and comfortable return to Syria of those willing to go back to their homeland.
The Lebanese movement would take its own measures to help the refugees until the Lebanese and Syrian authorities establish cooperation in this area, Nasrallah added. Hezbollah has set up a special mechanism for these activities, and plans to open special centers where the refugees can call, and civil committees for interaction with the refugees, according to the group’s leader.
Since the beginning of the Syrian military conflict in 2011, millions of Syrians have fled the country to other states, including neighboring Lebanon. The situation around Syrian asylum seekers and refugees in Lebanon has recently exacerbated in a wake of the authorities’ claims that the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR had been discouraging those displaced by the Syrian war from returning to their home country.
Labour Friends of Israel: Palestine refugees’ right to return is ‘extreme and illegitimate’
MEMO | June 29, 2018
Westminster-based lobby group Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) has described the Palestinian refugees’ right of return as “extreme and illegitimate”, in a letter to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn this week.
LFI’s letter came in response to remarks made by the Leader of the opposition on 25 June, during a recent visit to Jordan. In a Twitter post, Corbyn wrote:
“In Jordan, I went to Baqa’a, one of the largest Palestinian refugee camps. We must work for a real two state settlement to the Israel-Palestine conflict, which ends the occupation and siege of Gaza and makes the Palestinian right to return a reality.”
In the period 1947-1949, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled from or fled their homes as Zionist militias and the Israeli army destroyed hundreds of villages in what became Israel. Refugees attempting to return were killed, and Israel passed laws to expropriate their properties.
Corbyn’s expression of support for the Palestinian refugees’ internationally-recognised rights, prompted anger and concern from British pro-Israel groups, including LFI.
In a letter from LFI chair MP Joan Ryan, the pro-Israel group describes the Palestinians’ right to return (which is referred to in scare quotes) as “highly contentious”, and at odds with Israel’s insistence on retaining its Jewish majority of citizens.
Ryan added: “I do not believe that it does anything to encourage the compromises and concessions a future negotiated settlement will involve for foreign politicians to appear to endorse the most extreme and illegitimate demands of either side.”
The LFI chair concluded by urging Corbyn to “immediately clarify” what he understands by a right to return, and to only use “language… [that] helps to advance, not hinder, the cause of peace, reconciliation and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.”
A spokesperson for the Labour party said: “These rights are inalienable and guaranteed by UN Resolution 194 of 11 December 1948. How the right of return is implemented is a matter for the negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians.”
Blair and Brown Governments Gory with Torture
By Craig Murray | June 29, 2018
Even I was taken aback by the sheer scale of British active involvement in extraordinary rendition revealed by yesterday’s report of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. Dominic Grieve and the committee deserve congratulations for their honesty, integrity and above all persistence. It is plain from the report that 10 Downing Street did everything possible to handicap the work of the committee. Most crucially they were allowed only to interview extremely senior civil servants and not allowed to interview those actively engaged in the torture and rendition programme.
Theresa May specifically and deliberately ruled out the Committee from questioning any official who might be placed at risk of criminal proceedings – see para 11 of the report. The determination of the government to protect those who were complicit in torture tells us much more about their future intentions than any fake apology.
In fact it is impossible to read paras 9 to 14 without being astonished at the sheer audacity of Theresa May’s attempts to obstruct the inquiry. They were allowed to interview only 4 out of 23 requested witnesses, and those were not allowed “to talk about the specifics of the operations in which they were involved nor fill in any gaps in the timeline”. If the UK had a genuinely free media, this executive obstruction of the Inquiry would be the lead story. Instead it is not mentioned in any corporate or state media, despite the committee report containing a firm protest:
It is worth reflecting that the Tory government has acted time and time again to protect New Labour’s Tony Blair, David Miliband, Jack Straw and Gordon Brown from any punishment for their complicity in torture, and indeed to limit the information on it available to the public. The truth is that the Tories and New Labour (which includes the vast majority of current Labour MPs) are all a part of the same elite interest group, and when under pressure they stick together as a class against the people.
Despite being hamstrung by government, the Committee managed through exhaustive research of classified documents to pull together evidence of British involvement in extraordinary rendition and mistreatment of detainees on a massive scale. The Committee found 596 individual documented incidents of the security services obtaining “intelligence” from detainee interrogations involving torture or severe mistreatment, ranging from 2 incidents of direct involvement, “13 to 15” of actually being in the room, through those where the US or other authorities admitted to the torture, to those where the detainee told the officer they had been tortured. They found three instances where the UK had paid for rendition flights.
My own evidence to the Committee focused on the over-arching policy framework, and specifically the fact that Jack Straw and Richard Dearlove had agreed a deliberate and considered policy of obtaining intelligence through torture. The report includes disappointingly little of my evidence, as the Committee has taken a very narrow view of its remit to oversee the intelligence agencies. This is the only part of my evidence included:
130. This was not unique to the Agencies. Their sponsoring Departments appear to have adopted the same approach. We heard evidence from a former FCO official, Craig Murray, who suggested that “there was a deliberate policy of not committing the discussion on receipt of intelligence through torture to paper in the Foreign Office”.
In July 2004, when he was Ambassador to Tashkent, he raised concerns about the use of Uzbek intelligence derived from torture in a formal exchange of telegrams with the FCO. Mr Murray drew our attention to FCO documents from the same time, which we have seen, one of which referred to “meetings to look at conditions of receipt of intelligence as a general issue”. He told us that the meetings “specifically discuss[ed] the receipt of intelligence under torture from Uzbekistan” and “were absolutely key to the formation of policy on extraordinary rendition and intelligence”.
Mr Murray told us that, when he had given evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee about this, they sought the documents from the FCO which replied that the “meetings were informal meetings and were not minuted ”. He went on to say:
“the idea that you have regular meetings convened at director level, convened by the Director of Security and Intelligence, where you are discussing the receipt of intelligence from torture, and you do not minute those meetings is an impossibility, unless an actual decision or instruction not to minute the meetings has been given.… Were it not for me and my bloody-mindedness, … you would never know those meetings had happened. Nobody would ever know those meetings had happened.”131. We note that we have not seen the minutes of these meetings either: this causes us great concern. Policy discussions on such an important issue should have been minuted. We support
Mr Murray’s own conclusion that were it not for his actions these matters may never have come to light.
Jack Straw to this day denies knowledge and involvement and famously told Parliament that the whole story about rendition and torture was a “conspiracy theory”.
Unless we all start to believe in conspiracy theories and that the officials are lying, that I am lying, that behind this there is some kind of secret state which is in league with some dark forces in the United States, and also let me say, we believe that Secretary Rice is lying, there simply is no truth in the claims that the United Kingdom has been involved in rendition full stop, because we have not been, and so what on earth a judicial inquiry would start to do I have no idea. I do not think it would be justified.”
In fact I strongly recommend you to read the whole Hansard transcript, from Q21 to Q51, in which Jack Straw carries out the most sustained bravura performance of lying to parliament in modern history. The ISC report makes plain he was repeatedly involved in direct authorisations of rendition operations, while denying to parliament the very existence of such operations.
For over a decade now the British government, be it Red Tory or Blue Tory, has been refusing calls for a proper public inquiry into its collusion with torture. The ISC report was meant to stand in place of such an Inquiry, but all it has done is reveal that there is a huge amount of complicity in torture, much more than we had realised, which the ISC itself states it was precluded from properly investigating because of government restrictions on its operations. It also concluded in a separate report on current issues, that it is unable to state categorically that these practices have stopped.
The Blair and Brown governments were deeply immersed in torture, a practice that increased hatred of the UK in the Muslim world and thus increased the threat of terrorism. Their ministers repeatedly lied about it, including to parliament. The British state has since repeatedly acted to ensure impunity for those involved, from Blair and Straw down to individual security service officers, who are not to be held responsible for their criminal complicity. This impunity of agents of the state is a complete guarantee that these evil practices will continue.
Bellingcat & Atlantic Council join to award exploited Syrian child & American Mass Murderer
MICHAL CIZEK/AFP/Getty Images
By Eva Bartlett | RT | June 28, 2018
Just when we thought the over-used Bana al-Abed story was in the war propaganda dustbin, the wonder-child theme has again been re-hashed, this time by the Atlantic Council.
The so-called “think tank” recently highlighted the nine-year old at a conference that also included former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright.
Bana, the child presented to the world in late 2016 as tweeting from eastern Aleppo about wanting peace, Russia being bad, Assad being bad, etcetera, became colonial media’s darling, the perfect cover for war propaganda. We are told that Bana al-Abed has written a memoir. She has attended galas, met the Turkish president, and hobnobbed with movie stars and UN officials. Now, the girl has been trotted out on stage to receive an award from the Atlantic Council.
Critical-thinkers aren’t fooled by the Bana story. As I wrote earlier:
Critiques on Amazon reveal that thinking people aren’t buying brand Bana, in spite of her UN appearance and rehearsed speech about children dying from bombs and hunger (which the United Nations retweeted, as all good neutral and credible institutions might).
That her father was a member of a terrorist organization in Aleppo and worked in a Sharia Court has been documented, as has her family’s close proximity to numerous terrorist headquarters in their area of Aleppo alone.
But still, her official story is dragged on, endlessly.
Last April, after the world declared, with zero evidence, that Syria had used a toxic chemical on civilians in Douma, when Syrians testified to the contrary, Western leaders and corporate media labeled giving their testimony as a “masquerade,” “obscene.” They ignored the words of 11-year-old Hassan Diab from Douma. They ignored numerous reports of independent journalists whose reporting from Douma corroborate the testimonies. These people, corporate media tell us, are not to be believed.
Yet, as I wrote earlier, “Corporate media and Western leaders had no issues with the credibility of Bana, who was living surrounded by 25 terrorist cells in her district alone.”
What is the Atlantic Council?
Is the Atlantic Council some benevolent organization handing out awards to do-gooding people?
No. It’s a Washington DC-based think tank, which promulgates lies and propaganda to further imperialist wars and weapons sales, among other things. One of its Syria “experts” is none other than Bellingcat’s Eliot Higgins, who recently took to social media to tell people to suck his “big balls,” making him more of a laughing stock than this backgrounder on the man with no qualifications to his title.
Some of the Atlantic Council’s funders include: the US State Department, oil and weapons manufacturing companies, banks, NATO, various nations’ ministries of defence, and the US Air Force, Army, Marine Corps and Navy.
Even just based on funding alone, and ignoring their pro-NATO policy papers, the Atlantic Council clearly exists to further the interests of those involved in weapons manufacturing, wars, and oil.
‘Banging’: Bellingcat’s interview with Bana
In her interview with Bellingcat, Bana seems more natural than in her early 2017 “save, save the children of Syria” interview (her reply to what kind of food she liked). This time, she can answer basic ‘how are you’ questions. Her replies are met with “cool, cool, cool,” and “banging,” by Bellingcat’s Nick Waters.
After the chit-chat, Bana begins what is clearly a scripted soliloquy, staring forward, possibly concentrating on repeating what is likely being transmitted to her ear, speaking about children and war, destroyed schools, and of course not ever mentioning the terrorists who surrounded her home and occupied schools as headquarters, nor that her own father was a terrorist.
It is a transparently unauthentic recitation, with Bana continually pausing mid-sentence, presumably to hear the rest of what she is told to say. After two and a half minutes of this cringeworthy monologue, she breaks into song, singing “We shall overcome.”
When later receiving her Atlantic Council “Freedom Award,” she gives another rehearsed speech, again halting mid-sentence throughout her five minutes of talking.
These theatrical performances, hosted and encouraged by the Atlantic Council and Bellingcat, epitomize the depth that the NATO alliance is willing to stoop to, grasping desperately at legitimacy in their transparent war propaganda.
It was not only a shameful, but an embarrassing, fail for the Atlantic Council. As of two days later, there isn’t a single positive comment on the Youtube video of her interview. To the contrary, comments speak of child abuse, war propaganda, and that the girl is likely being fed her lines by an earpiece.
On the Atlantic Council’s Youtube channel, comments are disabled for Bana’s award speech.
Failed Sherlocks accuse a non-bot of being a troll
The DFRLab is a project of the Atlantic Council, ostensibly to identify those prolific (Russian) bots and trolls out there.
On June 22, Atlantic Council CEO and President Fred Kempe tweeted:
“Checking in at the 360 / OS #DigitalSherlocks! The @DFRLab team is working together with activists and journalists from all around the world to enhance our ability to identify trolls in the web spreading disinformation and fake news that pollute our open societies.”
The second photo in the tweet identifies three Twitter accounts as possible “trolls”: @Malinka1102, @ian56789, and @bowhunter_va.
One of the accused, @Malinka1102, tweeted about her preference for privacy and not being subjected to witch-hunts and harassment.
Having myself been a target of endless harassment and smear campaigns, I can appreciate her concerns, some of which are also included in a book by Phil Butler’s book.
In fact, a new article by Ben Nimmo—who previously targeted @ian56789 as a “Russian bot” (an accusation revealed to be baseless when Ian gave a live Sky News interview, revealing himself to be a concerned British man)—now targets a number of twitter profiles as “trolls”, including yours truly.
So basically, people who challenge the State Department, sorry, Atlantic Council, Human Rights Watch, and all the other arms of the US and UK governments on their war propaganda are not thinking people with consciences, they are just “trolls”. That’s what DFRLab wants you to believe.
Atlantic Council awards its own war propaganda
On awarding Bana al-Abed, the Atlantic Council tweeted about her humanizing the “Syrian civil war.”
Oh, the irony. The exploited child’s Twitter account has called for World War Three, has whitewashed Al-Qaeda and indeed Bana’s own father Ghassan, a terrorist with the Safwa Brigade.
The irony of also awarding Madeleine Albright — known for her lack of remorse over the 500,000 Iraqi children who died as a result of sanctions — was not lost on people.
Every new Bana production mocks the children in Syria who are actually starving — like those in Ghouta when under terrorist rule, those when under terrorist rule in eastern Aleppo, in Madaya, in al-Waer — and who are being maimed or murdered by terrorist bombings.
The Atlantic Council and Bellingcat are guilty of war propaganda. As @ian56789 wrote to me in a message:
“The members of the Atlantic Council and DFRLab should be indicted as accomplices to War Crimes, for providing actual material support to al-Qaeda terrorists, and for Treason (actively supporting official enemies of the US & UK). They should be spending the rest of their lives in jail and fined every penny they’ve got.”
And those abusing and exploiting Bana al-Abed in their ongoing war propaganda should join them.
Eva Bartlett is a freelance journalist and rights activist with extensive experience in the Gaza Strip and Syria. Her writings can be found on her blog, In Gaza.
Russia will not let US ‘deal of the century’ go ahead
MEMO | June 27, 2018
Senior Hamas leader Mousa Abu-Marzouk said on Monday that Russia has promised not to let the US’ “deal of the century” go ahead, a statement published on Hamas’ website said.
In an interview with Al-Mayadeen TV Abu-Marzouk said: “We agreed with the Russians that the ‘deal of the century’ will not be allowed to go ahead.”
On Monday, a senior Hamas delegation headed by Abu-Marzouk wrapped up a visit to Moscow where they met the Russian president’s envoy to the Middle East and the deputy foreign minister.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported a Hamas official from Gaza saying that the visit was arranged to coincide with a US delegation’s trip to the Middle East.
The Hamas official said that Russia is a considerable player in the Middle East which has direct relations with all the players in the region, including Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas also said that its delegation discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza and said that the Russians promised to work to end the Israeli siege and alleviate the suffering of Palestinians in the enclave.
Israel to ‘Prolong Bloodshed’ in Syria as Media Pushes ‘Sensational’ Iran Claims
Sputnik – June 27, 2018
With two Israeli missile having struck targets near a Syrian airport on Tuesday, Rick Sterling, an investigative journalist and member of the Syria Solidarity Movement, told Sputnik that the likelihood of Israel backing down from its attacks are pretty slim.
As Sputnik previously reported, the Israeli Air Force was attempting a late night attack on an Iranian cargo plane that was unloading at Damascus International Airport. Footage has since emerged allegedly showing the aftermath of the Israeli strike.
The incident follows multiple strikes by Israel in recent months in what it calls “retaliatory” measures against Iran’s presence in Syria, which it sees as a threat to its safety. Iran has had a foothold in Syria since the conflict first began in 2011.
Sterling told Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear on Tuesday that the missile launch proved that Israel has no intention of helping solve the Syrian conflict, but instead hopes to keep the fight going.
“I think Israel is continuing to provoke the situation,” Sterling told show host Walter Smolarek. “They don’t want to see the conflict end, they want to prolong the bloodshed there and prevent the Syrian government from finally defeating terrorism there in Syria.”
“They’ve acted for many years now as a protectorate of the terrorist groups… they’ve been actively involved in the conflict from the get-go… they’ve medically treated terrorists inside Israel and with [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu going along bedsides, with videos showing him greeting medically treated extremists,” Sterling pointed out.
Highlighting Israel’s love of proclaiming Iran as a threat, the journalist stressed that the 70-year-old country has repeatedly cried wolf on the matter.
“Israel uses Iran as a pretext… they always claim that they’re attacking armaments headed for Hezbollah or armaments from Iran or Iranian contingents,” he told Smolarek. “They’ve exaggerated the Iranian participation in the conflict from the start.”
“It is a dangerous situation right now. We don’t know what the calculations in Israel are and it’s pretty hard to predict what the US is going to do — there’s competing wishes within the US military, CIA and the national security establishment,” Sterling noted.
Predicting the media coverage to come on the matter, Sterling suggested outlets would ultimately create “sensational claims and fears about civilians being attacked and civilians being targets and very horrible events about to happen.”
The Myth of Barack Obama as the Great and Noble Nobel Global Statesman
By Martin SIEFF | Strategic Culture Foundation | 27.06.2018
It is no coincidence that the Sword, Sorcery and Dragons Fantasy Games of Thrones – filmed in large part on location in my native Northern Ireland – has entranced the American viewing public over the past decade: For the early 21st century has seen US policymakers and opinion-shapers plunging ever deeper into one fantasy after another. But even Game of Thrones pales in incredibility and absurdity next to the fantasy still believed by most Americans — That Barack Obama was a wise and responsible, peace-loving statesman.
In truth, Obama, casually and with evident self-satisfaction, unleashed series of catastrophic foreign national security policies that sent the world careening to the brink of nuclear war and inflicted needless suffering on scores of millions of people. No Game of Thrones villain ever did anything like that damage.
I have no doubt that the ludicrous award of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to Obama will go down in history as the most ridiculous such award in the entire history of the institution.
What in reality was Obama’s record as President of the United States?
He authorized a totally unnecessary and strategically meaningless $1 trillion nuclear build up over the coming generation that will play a major role in bankrupting the United States. It was also a move guaranteed to set off a ruinous global thermonuclear arms race with Russia, China and other powers who understandably fear being made defenseless before a succession of ever more unilateral and unpredictable US leaders.
Obama claimed to be deeply concerned about nuclear nonproliferation and hosted a Nuclear Safety Summit in Washington whose only real achievement was to feed his already enormous and delusional appreciation of his own self-worth.
However, as analyst Rebecca Heinrichs of the conservative Hudson Institute in Washington concluded, “If one actually looks at the risks of nuclear war as well as the likelihood of proliferation at the start of the President’s term compared to now, the Obama’s nonproliferation record earns a failing grade.”
In 2011, Obama a fecklessly allowed his warmongering, hyper-aggressive secretary of state Hillary Clinton to arrange with Britain and France the use of NATO air power to destroy the state of Libya by giving tactical support and protection to rebels against veteran leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Gaddafi’s previous decade of consistent cooperation with the US and its allies in the struggle against extreme Islamist terror and his monitored compliance with demands to scrap Libya’s nascent nuclear [program] were all for naught. Obama and Clinton’s reckless and even clownish policies ensured the complete disintegration of Libya, creating an infernal anarchy in which Islamist terror groups could thrive and metastasize throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
Far from encouraging nations to scrap their nuclear programs as Gaddafi in fact had done, Obama’s childish approval of the destruction of Libya sent precisely the opposite message to nations around the world: “Scrap your nuclear deterrents and there will be nothing to stop the United States from destroying you whenever its leaders feel like it.”
It was the same story in Syria where Obama and Clinton eagerly approved the flow of half a billion dollars a year to such groups including, incredibly the Nusrah Front, the Syrian franchise of al-Qaeda, heirs to the conspirators who [are said to have] killed nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001.
Obama’s utter ignorance and his clueless ignorance of diplomacy and the conduct of international relations was memorably exposed in his casual approval of the absurd and clownish Michael McFaul as US ambassador to Moscow.
The idea that an accredited ambassador could pass his days in sending out public abusive Twitter messages insulting the head of the state to which he was accredited was ludicrous even if that state was Mauritius, Lichtenstein or Tahiti let alone one of the world’s two thermonuclear superpowers.
McFaul openly worked overtime to give aid and encouragement to domestic opposition to the undermine the legitimate government of Russia: His activities would have provoked calls for full-scale war from the US Congress had any Russian envoy to Washington, DC presumed to act in such a way. None of this bothered Obama for a second.
Even worse was to follow: In 2014, US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, the wife of leading neocon ideologue Robert Kagan and also the favored subordinate of Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state openly paraded in the streets of Kiev, handing out cookies to violent protestors as they overthrew with mob riots and terror the constitutionally democratically elected government of a European nation of 45 million people. Obama fully – albeit, as usual, passively approved.
East-West relations were reduced to a state of chaos and distrust unseen in 52 years since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Obama does not appear to have noticed or even been concerned.
Obama was not totally ignorant and uninterested in international relations. During his casual and ill-attended, poorly documented student years at Columbia University in New York City, he attended only one course in international relations. It was given by none other than Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter.
Brzezinski was a descendant of the displaced minor Polish aristocracy who through his long career consistently fought to lock the United States into a set policies designed to weaken, disintegrate and encircle Russia with hostile powers and alliances. He was a major foreign policy influence on US Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Brzezinski was Obama’s personal guide and guru to what little the 44th US president dimly grasped of strategic orientation and world affairs. Obama’s near-total ignorance of non-American history and diplomacy gave Brzezinski full scope to manipulate him into accepting all his own most virulent anti-Russian prejudices.
Thanks to Obama, superpower diplomatic relations collapsed to their most parlous state in the entire Nuclear Age. When Obama took office in January 2009, the Doomsday Clock of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists journal was set at two minutes to midnight and the journal soberly warned: “The world stands at the brink of a second nuclear age.”
Yet after eight years in power, when Obama left the White House in January 2017, as ignorant, complacent and filled with unearned self-regard as when he came to Washington, the Doomsday Clock stood at three minutes to midnight – two minutes closer than when he had taken office.
We do not need to wait to know the Verdict of History on Barack Obama’s eight years as a global statesman. That verdict is in and it is damning: The Nobel committee should rescind his 2009 Peace Prize. Perhaps it can be given instead to a harmless fantasy TV show like Game of Thrones.
Ayatollah Khamenei slams West’s ‘shameless’ human rights posture
Press TV – June 27, 2018
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has strongly denounced the Western states for their pretense of advocating human rights while in reality supporting terrorist groups and acts of terror.
Addressing the staff of Iran’s Judiciary at a meeting in Tehran on Wednesday, Ayatollah Khamenei made reference to human rights violations committed by the United States in various parts of the world as well as France and Britain’s crimes of the past decades which took place in Africa and the Indian subcontinent.
The Leader added that the West’s support over the past years for the Daesh terror group in Syria and the atrocities being committed in Myanmar and elsewhere “is indicative of the repeated lies of the shameless fake human rights advocates.”
Ayatollah Khamenei said when it comes to the issue of human rights, it is actually the Islamic Republic that stands in the position of the true advocate of human rights as opposed to “the criminal Western pretenders.”
The Leader expressed satisfaction with the Judiciary’s work in restoring the Iranian nations’ rights in the face of bullying powers.
Separately, Ayatollah Khamenei advised the judicial officials to work closely with the government towards resolving the country’s economic problems.
‘Systemic corruption a lie’
The Leader criticized certain people who seek to create the impression among the public that there is “systemic corruption” within Iranian state institutions.
Corruption does exist in a number of governmental and commercial enterprises, “but the existence of systemic corruption is not true,” the Leader said. “This wrong impression should not be allowed to affect the public opinion.”
Ayatollah Khamenei further stated that foreign enemies and certain oblivious elements at home have made the Judiciary the target of the most severe propaganda and media pressure.
In order to effectively confront this massive propaganda campaign, the Leader suggested, the judicial system needs to develop a strong and skillful media arm.
Washington’s Syrian Chess Game Leaves Iraqi Forces Battling ISIS Dead
By Whitney Webb | Mint Press News | June 26, 2018
Last Sunday, June 17, local Syrian media reported that the U.S. coalition had bombed Syrian Arab Army installments in the town of Al-Hariri. The bombing killed dozens of Syrian Arab Army (SAA) soldiers as well as 22 fighters from the Iraqi paramilitary group known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (Hashd al-Sha’abi, PMF), which has been collaborating with the Syrian government to wipe out Daesh (ISIS) fighters around the Syrian-Iraqi border city of Abu Kamal in the Deir Ez-Zor governorate.
Soon after the strike, however, the U.S. denied responsibility for the attack, with Pentagon spokesman Adrian Rankine-Galloway asserting that the bombing was “not a U.S. or coalition strike,” while an anonymous U.S. official told Agence France-Presse, and later CNN, that Israel had been responsible for the strike. Israel declined to comment on the allegations.
While Israel was widely blamed for the strike following those media reports, new evidence gathered by Iraq’s PMF from the site of the strike has shown that the attack may, in fact, have been carried out by the U.S. coalition. After collecting fragments of missiles used in the strike, the group – which is sponsored by the government of Iraq – determined that the U.S. had carried out the strike by firing missiles at the SAA/PMF position from a location near the Iraqi border city of Al-Qa’im. U.S. culpability for the attack would mean that it is the second time in less than a month that the U.S.-led coalition has attacked pro-government fighters targeting Daesh within Syria.
The head of PMF’s military operations, Abu Munather Al-Husseini, asserted that the U.S.-led Joint Operations Command (JOC), also known as the U.S. coalition, had been informed by the Iraqi military of the PMF’s location prior to the strike. Thus, if the PMF’s analysis of the strike site is indeed correct, the U.S. coalition had intentionally and deliberately targeted the PMF as well as the SAA in conducting the strike.
As MintPress reported soon after the attack, the strike was launched from U.S.-occupied territory, meaning that either the U.S.-led coalition conducted the attack but publicly denied responsibility, or that Israel was responsible for the attack and “independently” launched the strike from Syrian territory occupied by the U.S.-led coalition. The PMF’s analysis of the strike site has now determined that the former was most likely the case, given that the group had waited to point the finger at Israel or the U.S. until concluding its analysis of the attack.
PMF’s leadership lambasted the U.S. for allegedly carrying out the strike and targeting its forces, while also urging retaliation against the U.S. for repeatedly interfering in its efforts to wipe out Daesh in Syria as well as Iraq. Indeed, just days before the strike, the PMF had successfully launched a major offensive against Daesh in the area of Syria where the strike later took place.
In a statement released on Sunday, PMF Deputy Commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis warned of retaliation against the U.S., stating:
We tell the Americans that we as the Hashd [PMF], including all of its formations, follow the Iraqi government. We will not remain silent about this attack. […] Remaining silent on this incident, saying that ‘that position is outside the Iraqi territory, hence we have nothing to do with it’ is forfeiting the blood of our martyrs.
U.S. chess game with ISIS as pawn
U.S.’ actions near Abu Kamal betray the fact that it is seeking to expand the portion of Syria’s Northeast that it currently occupies, an area that accounts for 30 percent of Syria’s total land mass and includes the majority of the country’s oil, gas, fresh water, and agricultural resources. The U.S. has long had its eye on the strategic border town, as it is the main border crossing between Syria and Iraq. More importantly, it is the only border crossing that connects Syrian government-controlled territory with Iran, through Iraq.
A major U.S. goal in its occupation of Syria has been disrupting this land bridge, but continued Syrian government control of Abu Kamal makes this impossible. Were the U.S. to take control of Abu Kamal, it would control Syria’s most important border crossings, as it already controls the Syrian-Jordanian border crossing at al-Tanf.
The U.S.’ interest in Abu Kamal and its recent targeting of forces fighting Daesh in the area suggest that a Daesh takeover of the city is likely to be used by the U.S. as the pretext for the expansion of Syrian territory, a tactic the U.S. has used before in Syria. The possibilities of a Daesh takeover of Abu Kamal have been openly noted by influential U.S. think tanks, such as the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), which recently mused that Daesh control over Abu Kamal would serve U.S. interests in the region, as it would allow the U.S.-occupied zone of Syria to “spread by osmosis.”
For that reason, the recent reappearance of Daesh (ISIS) in Abu Kamal is significant. Indeed, Daesh launched its largest military offensive in several months in Abu Kamal earlier this month, with 10 suicide bombers helping clear the way for Daesh militants to take over parts of the city. The offensive killed 25 Syrian soldiers and allied fighters, according to monitors. Daesh attacked from the U.S.-occupied zone of Syria, despite the fact that the U.S. has long justified its illegal presence in Syria by claiming that it is fighting the terror group. However, Russian and Syrian military sources have asserted that the U.S. is not fighting Daesh in the region, but protecting them.
The strikes on pro-Syrian government forces around Abu Kamal also come amid reports that indicate the U.S. is fortifying its military positions within occupied Syria by constructing military bases along the Euphrates river in proximity to Syrian military installments throughout the Deir Ez-Zor region and by transferring “a large volume of arms and equipment, including missiles, military vehicles and bridge equipment” to those same areas in recent weeks.
Given that the U.S. may soon lose its influence in Southern Syria and its control over the al-Tanf border crossing, thanks to the Syrian government’s offensive in the Dara’a governorate, it is likely the U.S. will continue to fortify its position in the country’s Northeast and expand its efforts to dislodge the SAA and its allies from Abu Kamal in a last-ditch attempt to prolong the conflict and succeed in its efforts to occupy and partition Syria.
Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.
Featured Video
Did the 9/11 Hijackers Really Fly the Planes?
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Aaron Siri’s Book: Vaccines, Amen
By Maryanne DemasiMaryanne Demasi | Brownstone Institute | June 15, 2026
For decades, vaccines have been treated as the sacred cow of modern medicine. I was taught that they were the holy grail. To question them was heresy. To raise concerns about safety was to risk professional exile.
Aaron Siri makes it clear in Vaccines, Amen: The Religion of Vaccines that the story we’ve been told about vaccine science rests far more on belief than proof.
“No child should be sacrificed on the altar of the religion of vaccines,” Siri writes, as he turns his focus to America’s overcrowded childhood immunisation schedule.
I assumed little in this book would surprise me. I’ve spent years reporting on drug safety, regulatory capture, and the corruption of science. But Siri showed me how wrong I was.
Siri is not a doctor or a scientist. He is an attorney, and this, he says, is his advantage. In court, rhetoric won’t save you. Evidence does. As he puts it, he doesn’t get to say “trust me” the way many doctors do. “I need to prove claims with real data.”
And he does. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- ‘Jewish lobby’ deceived Putin – Lukashenko
- The UK Joins the Pirates
- Israeli government plans to fund extremist occupier group in occupied West Bank with $1.89M: Report
- Press TV reporter wounded in Israeli drone strike on southern Lebanon
- Time for Trump to Tell Benjamin Netanyahu to Go Away!
- Israeli officials: ‘Security zones’ to remain in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza
- Israel Fails to Sabotage Islamabad Accord… At Least for Now
- Araghchi: US Responsible for Implementing MoU with Iran
- US must cut military, intelligence assistance to Israel to protect Iran deal: Ex-Trump official
- The 12 Screenings That Manufacture the Patients They Claim to Find
- If Americans Knew
- They Weren’t Convicted of Terrorism, But These Palestine Activists Got Sentenced as Terrorists Anyway
- “Ceasefire” is not in Israel’s vocabulary – Daily Update
- Did Trump just threaten a nuclear attack on Iran? Another merger for Israel-Firster David Ellison –Daily Update
- Israeli Firm Accused of Launching Smear Campaigns During US, European Elections
- As World Cup kicks off, Gaza amputee girls chase football dreams
- Oxfam: More Palestinians killed by Israel across West Bank in last 3 years than previous 17 years combined
- US-Iran ceasefire may be imminent, but will Israel blow it up? – Daily Update
- The Issue of Israel Is Ending Democracy In Michigan
- Israel is stealing homes, livelihoods, and lives in West Bank
- Gaza is not an aberration – Israel planned this genocide decades ago
- No Tricks Zone
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
- Germany’s Ecological Holocaust… Once Fairy Tale Forests Getting Cleared For Wind Turbines
- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
- European “Expert Commission” Urges COVID-19-Like Global Climate State Of Energency!
- Real-World Observations Do Not Support The Position That Climate Change Is Human-Caused
Aletho News 