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Israel threatens to use nuclear weapons to ‘wipe out’ its enemies

MEMO | August 31, 2018

Standing next to a secretive Israeli atomic reactor earlier in the week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to “wipe out” his enemies. In a speech that many will see as the Jewish state breaking its long silence over the possession of nuclear weapons, the Likud leader warned that it has the means to destroy its enemies.

“Those who threaten to wipe us out put themselves in a similar danger, and in any event will not achieve their goal,” he said on Wednesday during a ceremony to rename the complex, near the desert town of Dimona. The site has long been suspected to be the location where Israel has been developing nuclear weapons.

Iran hit back by describing Netanyahu as a “warmonger”.  The threat “atomic annihilation” against the Islamic Republic was denounced as “beyond shameless in the gall”.

“Iran, a country without nuclear weapons, is threatened with atomic annihilation by a warmonger standing next to an actual nuclear weapons factory,” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on his official Twitter account.

Zarif also commented on Israel’s nuclear programme saying: “As the world marks Int’l Day against Nuclear Tests, let’s remember that only nuclear bombs in our region belong to Israel and the US; the former a habitual aggressor & the latter the sole user of nukes. Let’s also remember that Iran has called for Nuclear Weapon Free Zone since 1974.”

Israel has never acknowledged possessing nuclear weapons, instead maintaining a policy of “strategic ambiguity”. Foreign reports have put the size of Israel’s nuclear arsenal in the dozens to hundreds of weapons.

Earlier this month a science journal published by Princeton University’s Science and Global Security journal claimed that Israel conducted illegal nuclear test in contravention of international law.

Netanyahu’s remarks came as Israel lobbies world powers to follow the US in exiting a 2015 international deal with Iran that capped the Islamic Republic’s nuclear capabilities.

August 31, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Turkey & Qatar are being punished for refusing to do Washington’s bidding on Iran

By Dan Glazebrook | RT | August 31, 2018

For years, Turkey and Qatar were at the vanguard of the Western imperial project in the Middle East. Having had their fingers burnt in Syria, however, they’re refusing to facilitate Washington’s Iran plans – and paying the price.

Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia in May last year – his first foreign trip as president – was significant for two main reasons: first, the $110 billion arms deal it produced, and secondly, the regional blockade of Qatar it heralded. This was widely seen as having been greenlighted by Trump during his visit. The impact of the blockade – implemented by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt – was, however, immediately mitigated by increased trade with Iran and Turkey in particular, limiting its overall impact.

This month’s attack on the Turkish economy, however, has had far more devastating results. Trump’s tweet on August 10 – announcing a doubling of steel and aluminum tariffs on an economy already hit hard by his trade war – sent the Turkish currency into freefall. By the end of the day’s trading, it had lost 16 percent of its value, reaching a nadir of 7.2 to the dollar two days later; before his tweet, it had never fallen below six to the dollar. Trump’s move came on the back of Federal Reserve policies that were already threatening to provoke financial crises in over-indebted emerging markets such as Turkey. These are harsh punishments for countries long considered prime US allies in the region.

I have just authorized a doubling of Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum with respect to Turkey as their currency, the Turkish Lira, slides rapidly downward against our very strong Dollar! Aluminum will now be 20% and Steel 50%. Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2018

A NATO member since 1952 (following Turkish involvement in the Korean war on the side of the US), Turkey has hosted a major US airbase at Incirlik since 1954. This has been essential to US operations in the region, and even housed the US nuclear missiles which triggered the Cuban missile crisis. Incirlik was crucial to the US-UK bombing of Iraq in 1991, and, although the Turkish parliament narrowly prevented its use for the 2003 redux, Turkey has been the launchpad for subsequent US strikes both in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

Qatar, meanwhile, is, to this day, run by the family – the al-Thanis – appointed as Britain’s proxies in the 19th century. Granted formal independence only in 1971, the country has remained deeply tied into Western foreign policy since then. Both its ‘post-independence’ rulers were educated at the UK’s Sandhurst military academy, and it, like Turkey, hosts a major US base, while its ruling family, like those of the other Gulf monarchies, are dependent on Western arms transfers to maintain their power. In 2011, Qatar played a major role in NATO’s Libya operation, providing airstrikes, military training, $400 million of funding to insurgent groups, and even ground forces – not to mention the major propaganda role played by the Qatari-owned network Al Jazeera.

Then, in mid-2011, both countries threw themselves headlong into the war to overthrow the Syrian government. Turkish President Erdogan had previously enjoyed relatively warm relations with his Southern neighbor, but at some stage decided that the Western-backed rebellion was going to win, and he wanted in on it. Turkey’s collaboration was crucial for the London-Washington Syria project, not only to give it a semblance of regional legitimacy, but more importantly because its 800km border with the country was to be the conduit for the tens of thousands of armed fighters on which the insurgency would depend.

Unwilling – and, following the decimation of their armies in Iraq and Afghanistan, probably unable – to provide the ground forces necessary to destroy the Syrian Arab Army themselves, the ‘regime-change regimes’ of the West relied on states like Qatar and Turkey to act as intermediaries to facilitate weapons transfers, provide finance and smooth the passage of foreign fighters. Both states, heady with the prospects of the economic and geopolitical rewards that would follow Assad’s removal, and believing their own networks’ fantasies about an imminent collapse, were more than happy to act as accomplices. Over the years that followed, the resources they committed – and the devastation that resulted – were immense. In the case of Turkey, in particular, the spillover would prove disastrous.

Less than three years into the war, the International Crisis Group estimated that Turkey had spent $3 billion on the war on Syria. Yet this figure, high as it is, represents a fraction of the true costs involved. A detailed report in Newsweek in 2015 noted the huge increase in military spending following the start of the Syrian war, rising from $17 billion per year in 2010, to $22.6 billion in 2014, an increase of 25 percent. Furthermore, Turkey has been the first port of call for millions of Syrians fleeing the war. This alone had cost the country an estimated $8 billion by 2015.

Added to this, the report says, are the ‘collateral costs’ resulting from the deterioration of relations with Russia following Turkey’s downing of a Russian jet in 2015, which it estimated could be as high as $3.7 billion due to lost Russian tourism, investment and trade. Trade with Syria, of course, also slumped by “70 percent as a direct effect from the Syrian war,” from $1.8 billion worth of exports in 2010 to $497 million two years later. In place of this legitimate trade – much of it in energy resources – however, came a flourishing new illicit trade. This new trade imposed “an additional cost to the Turkish economy: a growing, untaxed, hard-to-control black market economy. To combat its effect on government revenue, Turkey’s Energy Market Regulatory Agency declared an increase in inspections and control mechanisms in Turkey.”

Ultimately, however, the government opted to facilitate, rather than attempt to control, this burgeoning black market, issuing in April 2015 “new border regulations that enabled Turkey to open its borders to uncontrolled cash inflow and remittances. According to the new law, travelers no longer had to declare transported currency or profit amounts at the customs booth.” This policy would, noted former governor of Turkey’s central bank Durmus Yilmaz, “attract black money to flow into Turkey.”

“In sum,” concluded the report, “as Turkey incrementally left its prior foreign policy agenda of “Zero Problems with Neighbors” and moved towards an Assad-centric policy, the costs imposed on its economy multiplied. This can be observed directly from the refugee costs, military spending, border security costs and the changing composition of trade volume and quality of liquidity flows in the economy.” Furthermore, “The data suggest… that the more aggressive Turkey gets in its Syria policy in terms of military involvement, the more aggressively these costs rise.” Erdogan’s enthusiastic collaboration with the regime-changers in Washington and London had crippled his country’s economy – not to mention spawning a new era of sectarian militancy in the form of ISIS, which would launch multiple terrorist attacks within Turkey itself.

Being far removed from the conflict, the Syrian war’s impact on Qatar was not nearly as severe. Nevertheless, Qatar, too, pumped billions into the insurgency. The Financial Times noted in 2013: “The gas-rich state of Qatar has spent as much as $3 billion over the past two years supporting the rebellion in Syria, far exceeding any other government.”  It added that “Qatar has sent the most weapons deliveries to Syria, with more than 70 military cargo flights into neighboring Turkey between April 2012 and March this year,” showing clearly the division of labor between Qatari finance and Turkish logistics.

Turkey and Qatar have thus put themselves right at the forefront of Western efforts to overthrow the Syrian state. To date, however – other than an ever-growing pile of burnt Syrian corpses and a huge hole in their own finances – they have nothing to show for it.

In hindsight, the Turkish downing of a Russian jet in November 2015 can be seen as a last-ditch attempt to test the resolve, not of Russia, but of the West. Erdogan wanted to know whether or not the US was going to put their money where their mouth was and put some decisive muscle into the conflict. In the escalation that followed the attack, Turkey immediately put forward plans for a ‘no fly zone’ – euphemism for the sort of all-out aerial bombardment that befell Libya.

But nothing came of it. That was the moment Turkey realized the West was not about to commit anything like the resources necessary to actually bring about victory. Assad was here to stay. Turkey would have to deal with that. And that meant dealing with Russia. The slow realignment of Turkish foreign policy had begun. And earlier this year, with tails no doubt firmly between their legs, even Qatar re-established relations with the Syrian government.

So, when Trump came knocking for buyers for the West’s next brilliant idea – war on Iran, beginning with a brutal economic siege – neither Turkey nor Qatar were exactly chomping at the bit to sign up. The suggestion was even less appealing than the disastrous Syrian gambit, targeting an even more important trading partner, and with even less chance of influence over some mythical future government.

Qatar shares a major gas field – South Pars – with Iran, and is dependent on Iran for accessing eastern energy markets, while Iran is the major source of Turkish energy imports. Following Syria, neither country has much nose left to cut off, even if they had wanted to spite their own face. Trump’s merciless attack on their economies is yet another sign of the increasing US inability to bend once-pliable clients to its will. For all his bluster, it is a clear admission of weakness and failure.

Dan Glazebrook is a freelance political writer who has written for RT, Counterpunch, Z magazine, the Morning Star, the Guardian, the New Statesman, the Independent and Middle East Eye, amongst others. His first book “Divide and Ruin: The West’s Imperial Strategy in an Age of Crisis” was published by Liberation Media in October 2013. It featured a collection of articles written from 2009 onwards examining the links between economic collapse, the rise of the BRICS, war on Libya and Syria and ‘austerity’. He is currently researching a book on US-British use of sectarian death squads against independent states and movements from Northern Ireland and Central America in the 1970s and 80s to the Middle East and Africa today.

August 31, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

VIPS Tells Media Support for Brennan is Not Unanimous

Consortium News | August 29, 2018

TO: The Media

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Support for Brennan Far From “Unanimous”

As former members of the intelligence community, we feel compelled to add our voice to the public debate surrounding President Trump’s revocation of former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance. This action is being falsely portrayed as an assault on Mr. Brennan’s right to free speech.

We note that some of our former colleagues, a number of whom have held prominent intelligence posts, joined the protest against the President’s actions — a phenomenon that provides stark reminder that the United States intelligence community is not a monolith but rather a collection of diverse individuals with a range of opinions on many issues, including what is right and wrong, We the undersigned veteran intelligence professionals agree with President Trump’s decision to strip Mr. Brennan of his clearance.

We also note with irony that several of the former officials protesting the President’s action have themselves been associated with significant misconduct. David Petraeus, who was convicted of sharing highly classified material with his mistress/biographer, is a case in point. As experienced intelligence officers, we believe security clearances should be granted as a sacred trust and not simply a permanent entitlement that comes with a high level job.

Anyone who has read VIPS memos knows we have often expressed opposition to this President’s actions — as we have to those of previous Presidents — on important substantive issues when the intelligence was faulty.

The issue for us is broader than the clearances of Mr. Brennan. We are appalled by the willful misreading by pundits and much of the media of the nature of security clearances. They are certainly not a constitutionally protected right, but a highly conditional privilege. Its granting comes with personal acceptance of restrictions on speech and association: among other things obligating one-time holders to a lifetime pre-publication review of writings that rely on information acquired in performing their official duties.

All of us signed secrecy agreements and accepted the burden of holding a clearance. We surrendered a part of our assumed right to free speech in service of our country’s welfare and safety. Those of us under cover kept secrets from family and friends. We no longer associated freely with foreign nationals; an active clearance carries the requirement to report contacts with them.

Moreover, security classification is provided by Executive Branch authority and is expressed with orders that are subject to change at the will of the current president (the exception to this being the so-called “Q” clearance established by law to protect nuclear weapons secrets, though this is also subject to presidential authority in granting or withdrawing clearance). Federal judges do not have automatic security clearances. Nor do members of Congress. They have access to secret information by virtue of their constitutional office and a presumed “need to know” in order to do their job.

Once a person separates from the intelligence community they can continue to hold a clearance provided they are employed as a contractor working on specific classified programs. There is simply no basis in law entitling anyone to permanent clearance. This includes John Brennan. It goes without saying that individuals who are granted continued clearance out of courtesy to their former high position remain accountable in their conduct, and that the Executive can revoke such clearances at will.

Mr. Brennan’s own record is clearly tarnished. When he was Chief of Station in Saudi Arabia prior to and after the bombing of Khobar Towers in June of 1996, rather than uphold the integrity of existing intelligence he went along with the decision to avoid creating problems with the Saudis. After the attack (which was carried out by Saudi elements linked to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda), Brennan helped push the meme that the culprits were Iran and Hezbollah.

As head of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center in 2003, Mr. Brennan failed to give the State Department complete statistics for terrorist attacks. The initial publication of “Patterns of Global Terrorism” in April 2004 touted a decline in terrorist attacks in 2003 as vindication of Bush Administration policies. The publication later had to be recalled and revised when it was discovered that the CIA had left out a month and a half of data. John Brennan was in charge of that process. Instead of receiving a reprimand, however, he ended up being promoted.

Mr. Brennan has assumed the role of passive spectator in building the fraudulent case to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He has claimed only vague awareness of the CIA’s so-called “enhanced interrogation” program. Physical records tell a different story. Brennan was “cc-ed” on “a minimum of 50 memos” dealing with waterboarding and other torture techniques. Senator Saxbe Chambliss noted that Brennan’s boss, A. B. “Buzzy” Krongard, told the Wall Street Journal that Mr. Brennan had a role in setting the parameters of the program and “helping to seek Justice Department approval for the techniques.”

Mr. Brennan also attempted to cover up the truth about the CIA torture. Senator Mark Udall denounced his actions in a floor speech on December 10, 2014, the day after the Senate Intelligence Committee published the Executive Summary of the conclusions of its four-year investigation of CIA torture based on original CIA documents.  The investigation not only revealed almost unbelievably heinous practices, but also demonstrated that senior CIA officials were untruthful in claiming that “enhanced” techniques produced actionable intelligence that could not have been obtained by traditional interrogation practices.  With strong support from President Obama, Brennan, who was the CIA Director, aggressively fought publication of the Senate report.  Here’s Senator Udall:

“The CIA has lied to its overseers and the public, destroyed and tried to hold back evidence, spied on the Senate, made false charges against our staff, and lied about torture and the results of torture. And no one has been held to account. … There are right now people serving at high-level positions at the agency who approved, directed, or committed acts related to the CIA’s detention and interrogation program.”

Mr. Brennan is now publicly insisting that Russia meddled in the 2016 election. What, however, was CIA Director Brennan saying when the alleged Russian meddling was taking place? Did he warn President Obama? Did he warn the leaders of the Congress? According to press reports Mr. Brennan did brief Democrat Senator Harry Reid on ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government and Reid then wrote FBI Director James Comey demanding an investigation. However, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee has said he was not given the same briefing as Senator Reid. Introducing the weight of national intelligence into partisan politics, as Mr. Brennan appears to have done in his official capacity, is forbidden activity.

We have all held clearances and deeply believe in the importance of intelligence officers conducting themselves with professional integrity, particularly with regard to remaining unentangled in party politics. VIPS is comprised of men and women of highly diverse political views, from Republican to Democrat to Independent. We agree on one thing: when a professional intelligence officer obtains classified information they accept an obligation to appropriately report facts without regard to political leanings. This is not about being a Democrat or a Republican. It is about doing the job of unbiased intelligence analysis. That is why VIPS has, over the years, written memos challenging the intelligence basis for policies and decisions of George W. Bush and Barack Obama as well as Donald Trump.

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:  

William Binney, Technical Director, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)

Richard H. Black, Senator of Virginia, 13th District; Colonel US Army (ret.); Former Chief, Criminal Law Division, Office of the Judge Advocate General, the Pentagon (associate VIPS)

Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)

Larry C. Johnson, former CIA and State Department Counter Terrorism officer

John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Clement J. Laniewski, LTC, USA (ret) (associate VIPS)

Edward Loomis, NSA, Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Near East, CIA and National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)

Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)

Sarah G. Wilton, Intelligence Officer, DIA (ret.); Commander, US Naval Reserve (ret.)

Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is made up of former intelligence officers, diplomats, military officers and congressional staffers. The organization, founded in 2002, was among the first critics of Washington’s justifications for launching a war against Iraq. VIPS advocates a US foreign and national security policy based on genuine national interests rather than contrived threats promoted for largely political reasons. An archive of VIPS memoranda is available at Consortiumnews.com.

August 30, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

In The Year Of The Pig (1968)

Emile De Antonio’s documentary and strong narrative about Vietnam war with archival footage, interviews and a soundtrack by John Cage. An early film (1968) to bitterly comment on the war in Vietnam.

August 29, 2018 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

UNRWA: No One Has the Power to Change the Nature of the Agency’s Work

Palestine Chronicle | August 27, 2018

A spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA, said on Sunday that no one has the power to change the nature of the agency’s work, Anadolu has reported.

Adnan Abu Hasnah made his comment in response to Israeli media reports which claimed that the US is planning to make such a change, cut its aid and redefine those currently classified as Palestinian refugees. The latter move would reduce the number of refugees from 5.9 million to just 500,000.

Abu Hasnah explained:

“The UN General Assembly authorized UNRWA to work based on Resolution 302 issued in 1948. This is the only party which is able to change the agency’s work.”

Israeli media also claimed that Washington is looking for legal grounds to stop Palestinians from inheriting refugee status. Such a step, it was noted, targets UNRWA with a plan to transfer responsibility for the refugees to the Palestinian Authority.

This proposal was revealed earlier this month by Foreign Policy magazine. It reported unnamed US officials saying that the move is intended to take the issue of the refugees off the table in any future negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

August 27, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Knesset can make laws everywhere in the world, violate sovereignty of foreign states’

If Americans Knew | August 25, 2018

Palestinian rights groups and local governments have challenged an Israeli law that seeks to the annex of parts of the West Bank. The Israeli government responded to the petition, stating that “the Knesset [is permitted] to legislate laws everywhere in the world” and that it is authorized “to violate the sovereignty of foreign countries via legislation that would be applied to events occurring in their territories.”

from Ma’an News Agency and IMEMC News

The Judea and Samaria Settlement Regulation Law, sometimes called the Regularization Law, is an Israeli law that aims to retroactively legalize Israeli settlements in the West Bank Area C. It is meant to “regulate” the status of about 2,000 to 4,000 residences in 16 settlements which were built on Palestinian-owned lands. The Knesset passed the legislation 60 to 52, on February 6, 2017.

According to the law, the land on which the residences are built will remain that of the legal owners, but their usage will be expropriated by the State. In exchange, the Palestinian owners will be compensated at a rate of 125%, or receive alternate lands (whenever possible).

The Settlement Regularization Law aims to “legalize,” under Israeli law, illegal Israeli settlement outposts, which have been built on private Palestinian land.

The law sets out a new process to legalize about half of Israel’s settlement outposts, as well as about 3,000 additional homes built illegally in settlements, which Israel recognizes as legal. Essentially, this law authorizes a further massive land theft of private Palestinian land by Israel. The European Union and the United Nations strongly condemned the law.

Attorney General of Israel Avichai Mandelblit has announced that he will not be defending the law on behalf of the government at the Supreme Court because he deems it unconstitutional, and it may lead to a suit against Israel at the International Criminal Court. Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, whose party The Jewish Home was behind the legislation, responded by saying that the State plans to hire a private lawyer to represent it.

The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is considered a breach of international law by all countries of the world, though Israel disputes this.

Challenged

2 days after the law was passed, on February 8 2017, a petition was brought before the Supreme Court of Israel by 17 Palestinian local governments and three human rights organizations, to cancel the controversial Settlement Regularization Law under the pretext that it violates international humanitarian law and is unconstitutional.

The petitioners said “the law not only harms the private property of Palestinians, but is also intended to impinge upon their right to dignity by clarifying – without hesitation – that the interests of the settlements and the Israeli Jewish settlers in the West Bank take priority over the rights of Palestinians and therefore is permitted to dispossess Palestinians from their property.”

Responses

In a written statement in response to the petition, the Israeli government declared on August 9 that “the Knesset [is permitted] to legislate laws everywhere in the world” and that it is authorized “to violate the sovereignty of foreign countries via legislation that would be applied to events occurring in their territories,” in legal materials it recently submitted to the Israeli Supreme Court.

The petitioners insist that the Knesset is not permitted to enact and impose laws on territory occupied by the State of Israel. Thus, the Knesset cannot enact laws that annex the West Bank or that violate the rights of Palestinian residents of the West Bank.

Attorney Arnon Harel, a private lawyer representing the Israeli government, also wrote in the new materials submitted to the Supreme Court that “the Knesset [is permitted] to impose the powers of the military commander of the [West Bank] region as it sees fit”; “the Knesset [is permitted] to define the authorities of the military commander as it sees fit”; “[the authority] of the Government of Israel to annex any territory or to enter into international conventions derives from its authority as determined by the Knesset”; and that [the Knesset] is allowed to ignore the directives of international law in any field it desires.”

Adalah Attorneys Suhad Bishara and Myssana Morany, who filed the petition against the Settlement Regularization Law, said in response: “The Israeli government’s extremist response has no parallel anywhere in the world. It stands in gross violation of international law and of the United Nations Charter which obligates member states to refrain from threatening or using force against the territorial integrity of other states – including occupied territories. The Israeli government’s extremist position is, in fact, a declaration of its intention to proceed with its annexation of the West Bank.”

August 25, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

The Three Musketeers, Poison Gas, and Dead Schoolkids

By Michael Howard | American Herald Tribune | August 23, 2018

Winking and nodding to the “freedom fighters” hunkered down in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, the world’s schoolmarm (formally known as The West) has issued a stern warning to President Bashar al-Assad: don’t use chemical weapons “again,” or else. Said warning came via a joint statement from the US, UK and France (henceforth known as The Three Musketeers), as the Syrian government prepares its offensive to retake the country’s last remaining “rebel” stronghold. The three great and benevolent powers are “gravely concerned,” they said, about the upcoming military campaign, explaining:

We also underline our concern at the potential for further—and illegal—use of chemical weapons. We remain resolved to act if the Assad regime uses chemical weapons again. As we have demonstrated, we will respond appropriately to any further use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime, which has had such devastating humanitarian consequences for the Syrian population.

Read it again, and take note of the crafty way in which the statement messes around with language to manipulate its target audience (us). The use of chemical weapons is accurately, and superfluously, described, and emphasized with em dashes, as “illegal,” as though there was a soul on this earth to whom this is news. Then, alluding to their coordinated missile strikes against Syria this past April, which were unleashed to much pomp and circumstance, The Three Musketeers pledge to “respond appropriately” to any such illegal action on the part of the Syrian government.

Since they insist on begging questions, we must insist on demanding answers. For instance, how “appropriate” was the aforesaid missile attack? Assuming that, in this context, a direct link exists between appropriate and legal (and only an outlaw could reject that assumption), there was certainly nothing “appropriate” about The Three Musketeers’ unilateral decision to use military force against a sovereign country last April. Quite the reverse.

The missile strike, like the one a year before, was carried out in flagrant violation of the law. There are a total of two circumstances in which the use of military force is legally justified: when greenlit by a UN Security Council resolution, or when done in self-defense, that is to say in response to a direct military attack. Neither condition was met when The Three Musketeers rocketed Syria. On the other hand, Syria is accorded the legal right under international law to strike back at its attackers, and moreover to form a coalition for that purpose. As Chapter VII Article 51 of the UN Charter states:

Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.

Mildly ironic, then—is it not?—that, in “appropriately” bombing the Syrian government, we granted it the legal right to bomb us back? It’s a crying shame: if only Assad and his allies were sufficiently nihilistic … we could’ve had another exhilarating World War on our hands—the third and last. To borrow a quote from of Trump’s favorite general: “Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God help me, I do love it so.” On that note, I think it’s high time we substitute “War” for “God” in our Republic’s official motto. Who besides Rand Paul would vote against the proposal?

All of which is to say nothing of the fact that the alleged chemical attack in Douma, which served as the pretext for The Three Musketeers’ “appropriate” bombing raid, almost certainly didn’t happen. The first chink in the armor came in the form of Robert Fisk’s report, from the actual site of the alleged attack, that quotes a local doctor as saying:

There was a lot of shelling [by government forces] and aircraft were always over Douma at night—but on this night, there was wind and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived. People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss. Then someone at the door, a “White Helmet”, shouted “Gas!” and a panic began. People started throwing water over each other. Yes, the video was filmed here, it is genuine, but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia—not gas poisoning.

By his own count, Fisk interviewed more than twenty Douma residents; he was unable to find a single person “who showed the slightest interest in Douma’s role in bringing about the Western air attacks. Two actually told me they didn’t know about the connection.” Moreover, many of those he spoke with told him they “never believed in” the chemical weapons narratives promulgated by Western media.

Despite the fact that it squared with the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights’ (the West’s go-to authority on the Syrian conflict) assessment of the event, Fisk’s journalism was easy enough for Western ideologues to ignore or deride. He’s only one person, they countered, and he only spoke to a handful of residents and a single doctor, all of whom probably have a pro-Assad agenda. Therefore, his report is worthless and so is he.

This position grew a little less tenable when, a week after Fisk’s story was published, Russia presented to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which was holding a conference in the Hague, seventeen eyewitnesses, a mix of residents and doctors, all of whom testified that there had been no chemical attack in Douma. As Jonathan Cook explained (yes, one had to visit his personal blog or some equally marginal source to read about this), “the US, UK and France boycotted the meeting, denouncing Russia for producing the witnesses and calling the event an ‘obscene masquerade’ and ‘theatre’”—not a very surprising reaction from a self-righteous party whose fabricated narrative is coming apart at the seams.

Then came the coup de grâce. On July 6, the OPCW published the conclusion of its fact-finding mission in Douma. Before quoting from it, I’ll jog your memory a bit. According to the Western version of events, Assad used both sarin and chlorine (or perhaps a physical mixture of the two, a nonsensical theory), in his attack on Douma—which, incidentally, had already effectively “fallen,” raising questions as to why Assad would feel compelled to use chemical weapons at all, apart from the sheer sadistic fun of it. Regardless, sarin and chlorine, said the West. Not so, said the OPCW:

OPCW designated labs conducted analysis of prioritized samples. The results show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties [my emphasis]. Along with explosive residues, various chlorinated organic chemicals were found in samples from two sites, for which there is full chain of custody. Work by the team to establish the significance of these results is on-going. The FFM team will continue its work to draw final conclusions.

Not a trace of sarin, in other words. Attempting to ascertain why “various chlorinated organic chemicals” were found at the site is a pointless exercise for someone, like myself, who knows nothing of chlorinated organic compounds. The most perfunctory research indicates that such chemicals are used for a variety of non-murderous applications, for example as solvents, and that they stick around for a long time after they’ve been introduced to an environment. The basic point, which hordes of media fixers promptly got to work obscuring, is that the Western narrative was false. The US government, in concert with its unctuous allies, lied. Go figure.

Of course, this isn’t the first time a supposed chemical attack in Syria has been called into question. Those curious about whether Assad used sarin to murder hundreds of civilians in the suburb of Ghouta in 2013, as was, and is, claimed by The West, would do well to read two essays by Seymour Hersh—“The Red Line and the Rat Line” and “Whose Sarin”—both published in the London Review of Books, both available online. Hersh also examined the chemical incident that took place in Khan Sheikhoun in April 2017—also used as a pretext for illegal US military action. This time, however, his reporting was too heretical even for the London Review of Books (not to mention the New Yorker), and so had to be published in Die Welt, which no one in the US has ever heard of, let alone read. That Hersh, the preeminent investigative journalist of his time, has been pushed into no man’s land speaks to how narrow the spectrum of permissible discourse has become in this, our great Republic. The schoolmarm is cracking her whip. At this rate Hersh will soon be relegated to the personal blog.

For other dissident views re: chemical weapons in Syria, do yourself a favor and consult the work of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and MIT professor and munitions expert Theodore Postol, as well as the late journalist Robert Parry of Consortium News, all of whom have written extensively, and cogently, on the subject. Or you can keep reading the Washington Post. You’re free to decide.

But what exactly did The Three Musketeers have in mind when they broadcast their latest threat? It’s a fair question to ask. On its face, the statement appears to reflect a genuine aversion to poison gas, and a genuine hope that the Syrian government will refrain from using any in Idlib. Fair enough. Having said that, how averse could they really be, given that gas attacks provide for them the only remotely plausible excuse to lob more cruise missiles out of the Mediterranean—an activity from which they, and their media sidekicks, derive the utmost pleasure? They are, after all, incorrigible hawks. It must cut them to the bone to have to stand by and watch from the sidelines as a perfectly good war winds down, handcuffed, helpless to effect the desired outcome. How pitiable the plight of the poor impotent imperialist! Flaming warmongers need love too.

Anyway, call me schizophrenic, but when I read the words of The Three Musketeers, I couldn’t help but pick up the faint sound of a dog whistle—aimed straight at the “moderate rebels” holding down the fort in Idlib. Read between the lines, the statement is an assurance to one party dressed up as a warning to another. If there’s a “chemical incident,” we will attack: you have our word. That’s the message sent to, and received by, al-Qaeda (I don’t know what they’re calling themselves these days, and I care less) and its various affiliates. Make no mistake: The Three Musketeers have just invited, oh-so-subtly, bin-Laden’s foot soldiers to stage a chemical atrocity in Idlib (God knows how many “various chlorinated organic chemicals” they’ve got on hand there), the resulting pictures of which will duly splash across every television screen in America so as to whip up … well, you’ve heard this song before.

So here’s a new one: a bunch of kids walk onto a school bus in Yemen. As the bus steers through a crowded marketplace, Saudi Arabia drops a bomb on it, killing forty small children and injuring scores more. The bomb is later identified as a “laser-guided” precision missile (precision being the operative word), manufactured by our very own Lockheed Martin, while the mangled school bus is described by Col. Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, as a “legitimate target.” Meanwhile, back in illustrious Washington, Pentagon bureaucrat Rebecca Rebarich is asked to comment on the “legitimate” massacre of forty schoolkids.

“The US has worked with the Saudi-led coalition to help them improve procedures and oversight mechanisms to reduce civilian casualties,” she says. “While we do not independently verify claims of civilian casualties in which we are not directly involved, we call on all sides to reduce such casualties, including those caused via ballistic missile attacks on civilian population centers in Saudi Arabia.”

Translated from vapid officialese: “I don’t really give a shit.”

On the bright side, we’re “gravely concerned” about the coming battle for Idlib, where the babies are beautiful and, most importantly, the bombs that kill them are un-American.

August 23, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Will the Real John Brennan Please Stand Up?

When will he answer for his war crimes?

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • August 21, 2018

The battle between many former intelligence chiefs and the White House is becoming a gift that keeps on giving to the mass media, which is characteristically deeply immersed in Trump derangement syndrome in attacking the president for his having stripped former CIA Director John Brennan of his security clearance. One of the most ludicrous claims, cited in the Washington Post on Sunday, was that the Trump move was intended to “stifle free speech.” While I am quite prepared to believe a lot of things about the serial maladroit moves and explanations coming out of the White House, how one equates removing Brennan’s security clearance to compromising his ability to speak freely escapes me. Indeed, Brennan has been speaking out with his usual vitriol nearly everywhere in the media ever since he lost the clearance, rather suggesting that his loss has given him a platform which has actually served to enhance his ability to speak his mind. He should thank Donald Trump for that.

Indeed, Brennan’s retaining a Top Secret code word clearance had nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with enhancing his market value for those poor sods who actually pay him to mouth off as an “expert” on television and in the newspapers. Are you listening New York Times and NBC? Brennan’s clearance did not mean that he had any real insight into current intelligence on anything, having lost that access when he left his job with the government. It only meant that he could sound authoritative and well informed by relying on his former status, enabling him to con you media folks out of your money on a recurrent basis.

It has sometimes been suggested that free speech is best exercised when it is somehow connected to the brain’s prefrontal lobes, enabling some thought process before the words come out of the mouth. It might be argued that Brennan has been remarkably deficient in that area, which is possibly why he looks so angry in all his photographs. Even John Brennan’s supporters are shy about defending the former CIA Director’s more extravagant claims. James Clapper, the ex-Director of National Intelligence, has described Brennan’s comments as “overheated.”

The John Brennan backstory is important. In 2016 he was Barack Obama’s CIA Director and also simultaneously working quite hard to help Hillary Clinton become president, which some might regard at a minimum as a conflict of interest. After Clinton lost, he continued his attacks on Trump. He apparently played a part in the notoriously salacious Steele dossier, which was surfaced in January just before the inauguration. The dossier included unverifiable information and was maliciously promoted by Brennan and others in the intelligence and law enforcement community. And even after Trump assumed office, Brennan continued to prove to be unrelenting.

In May 2017, Brennan testified before Congress that during the 2016 campaign he had “… encountered and [was] aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals. It raised questions in my mind whether or not Russia was able to gain the co-operation of those individuals.” Politico was also in on the chase and picked up on Brennan’s bombshell in an article entitled Brennan: Russia may have successfully recruited Trump campaign aides.

What Brennan did not describe, because it was “classified,” was how he developed the information regarding the Trump campaign in the first place. We know from Politico and other sources that it derived from foreign intelligence services, including the British, Dutch and Estonians, and there has to be a strong suspicion that the forwarding of at least some of that information might have been sought or possibly inspired by Brennan unofficially in the first place. But whatever the provenance of the intelligence, it is clear that Brennan then used that information to request an FBI investigation into a possible Russian operation directed against potential key advisers if Trump were to somehow get nominated and elected, which admittedly was a long shot at the time. That is how Russiagate began.

Since that time, Brennan has tweeted President Donald Trump, asserting that “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history.” He has attacked the president for congratulating President Vladimir Putin over his victory in Russian national elections. He said that the U.S. President is “wholly in the pocket of Putin,” definitely “afraid of the president of Russia” and that the Kremlin “may have something on him personally. The fact that he has had this fawning attitude toward Mr. Putin … continues to say to me that he does have something to fear and something very serious to fear.” And he then administered what might be considered the coup de main, saying that the president should be impeached for “treasonous” behavior after Trump stood next to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at a news conference in Finland and cast doubt on the conclusion of the intelligence agencies that Moscow interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

Trump’s decision to pull Brennan’s clearance attracted an immediate tweeted response from the ex-CIA Director: “This action is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech & punish critics. It should gravely worry all Americans, including intelligence professionals, about the cost of speaking out.” He also added, in a New York Times op-ed, that “Mr. Trump’s claims of no collusion [with Russia] are, in a word, hogwash,” though he provided no evidence to support his claim and failed to explain how exactly one washes a hog. There has subsequently been an avalanche of suitably angry Brennan appearances all over the Sunday talk shows, a development that will undoubtedly continue for the immediate future.

The claim that Trump is a Russian agent is not a new one, having also been made repeatedly by Brennan CIA associate the grim and inscrutable Michael Morell, who flaunts his insider expertise both at The Times and on CBS. Regarding both gentlemen, one might note that it is an easy mark to allege something sensational that you don’t have to prove, but the claim nevertheless constitutes a very serious assertion of criminal behavior that might well meet the Constitutional standard for treason, which comes with a death penalty. It is notable that in spite of the gravity of the charge, Brennan and Morell have been either unable or unwilling to substantiate it in any detail. Even a usually tone-deaf Congress has noted that there is a problem with Brennan’s credibility on the issue, not to mention his integrity. Richard Burr, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has observed that,

“Director Brennan’s recent statements purport to know as fact that the Trump campaign colluded with a foreign power. If Director Brennan’s statement is based on intelligence he received while still leading the CIA, why didn’t he include it in the Intelligence Community Assessment released in 2017? If his statement is based on intelligence he has seen since leaving office, it constitutes an intelligence breach. If he has some other personal knowledge of or evidence of collusion, it should be disclosed to the Special Counsel, not The New York Times.”

This behavior by Brennan is no surprise to those who know him and have worked with him. An ambitious crawler with a checkered history, he was strongly disliked by his peers at CIA, largely because of his lack of any sense of restraint and his reputation for over-the-top vindictiveness. He notoriously flunked out of spy training at the Agency, forcing him to instead become an analyst, so he went after the Clandestine Service in his reorganization of CIA after he became Director.

John Brennan has always been a failure as an intelligence officer even as he successfully climbed the promotion ladder. He was the CIA’s Chief of Station (COS) in Saudi Arabia when the Khobar Towers were bombed, killing 19 Americans, a disaster which he incorrectly blamed on the Iranians. He was deputy executive director on 9/11 and was complicit in that intelligence failure. He subsequently served as CIA chief of staff when his boss George Tenet concocted phony stories about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He also approved of the Agency torture and rendition programs and was complicit in the destruction of Libya as well as the attempt to do the same to Syria.

Barack Obama wanted Brennan to be his CIA Director but his record with the Agency torture and rendition programs made approval by the Senate problematical. Instead, he became the president’s homeland security advisor and deputy national security advisor for counterterrorism, where he did even more damage, expanding the parameters of the death by drone operations and sitting down with the POTUS for the Tuesday morning counterterrorism sessions spent refining the kill list of American citizens.

After Obama was re-elected in 2012, he was able to overcome objections and appoint Brennan CIA Director. Conniving as ever, Brennan then ordered the Agency to read the communications of the congressional committee then engaged in investigating CIA torture, the very program that he had been complicit in. Brennan then denied to Congress under oath that any such intramural spying had occurred, afterwards apologizing when the truth came out. Moon of Alabama characterizes him as “… always ruthless, incompetent and dishonest.”

So the real John Brennan emerges as an unlikely standard bearer for the First Amendment. He has an awful lot of baggage and is far from the innocent victim of a madman Trump that is being portrayed in much of the media. Indeed, he should be answerable for torture, renditions, extrajudicial killing of foreigners and targeted murder of American citizens. Those constitute war crimes and in the not too distant past Japanese and German officers were hung for such behavior. One has to hope that Brennan’s day of judgment will eventually come and he will have to pay for his multiple crimes against humanity.

August 21, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

A Gangster State

By Craig Murray | August 20, 2018

Max Weber defined a key attribute of a state as holding the monopoly on the legitimate exercise of violence within a given territory. For anybody other than the state to use substantive physical force against you or to imprison you is regarded as an extremely serious crime. The state itself may however constrain you, beat you, imprison you and even kill you. That link is on deaths in police custody. I might also quote the state murder of 12 year old British child Jojo Jones, deliberately executed by drone strike by the USA with prior approval from the British government.

That is but one example of the British state’s decreasing reticence over the use of extreme violence. The shameless promotion of Cressida Dick to head the Metropolitan Police as reward for orchestrating the cold-blooded murder of an innocent and unresisting Jean Charles de Menezes is another example. So is Savid Javid’s positive encouragement of the US to employ the death penalty against British men stripped of citizenship.

There are a class of states where the central government does not have sufficient control over its territories to preserve its monopoly of violence. That may include violence in opposition to the state. But one further aspect of that is state sanctioned violence in pursuit of state aims by non state actors, done with a nod and a wink from the government – death squads and private militias, often CIA supplied, in South America have often acted this way, and so occasionally does the British state, for example in the murder of Pat Finucane. In some instances, a state might properly be described as a gangster state, where violent groups acting for personal gain act in concert with state authorities, with motives of personal financial profit involved on both sides.

It appears to me in this sense it is fair to call Britain a gangster state. It has contracted out the exercise of state violence, including in some instances to the point of death, against prisoners and immigration detainees to companies including G4S, who exercise that violence purely for the making of profit from it. It is a great moral abomination that violence should be exercised against humans for profit – and it should be clear that in even in most “humane” conditions the deprivation of physical liberty of any person is an extreme and chronic exercise of violence against them. I do not deny the necessity of such action on occasion to protect others, but that the state shares out its monopoly of violence, so that business interests with which the political class are closely associated can turn a profit, is a matter of extreme moral repugnance.

Rory Stewart appeared on Sky News this morning and the very first point he saw fit to make was a piece of impassioned shilling on behalf of G4S. That this was the first reaction of the Prisons Minister to a question on the collapse of order at Birmingham Prison due to G4S’ abject performance, shows both the Tories’ ideological commitment to privatisation in all circumstances, especially where it has demonstrably failed, and shows also the extent to which they are in the pockets of financial interests – and not in the least concerned about the public interest.

I should add to this that Tories here includes Blairites. Blair and Brown were gung-ho for prison privatisation, and even keen to extend the contracting out of state violence for profit to the military sector by the deployment of mercenary soldiers, which New Labour itself consciously rebranded as “private military companies”. Iraq was a major exercise in this with British government contracted mercenaries often outnumbering actual British troops.

The reason for the state to have the monopoly of violence in any society is supposed to be in order to ensure that violence is only ever exercised with caution, with regret and in proportion, solely in unavoidable circumstances. It is the most profound duty of a state to ensure that this is so. The contracting out of state violence for private profit ought to be unthinkable to any decent person.

August 20, 2018 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

SYRIA: The Emerging Reality of the U.S Coalition Regime Change War – On the Ground Reporting

Life and food return to Douma after liberation by SAA from Saudi-backed, UK-promoted Jaish Al Islam terrorists. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)
By David Macilwain | 21st Century Wire | August 20, 2018

The withdrawal of US coalition support for “rebels” in Syria, portrayed as a failure to achieve noble and humanitarian goals by Western governments and media, should rather be seen as an admission of guilt. The rescuing of violent militants and “White Helmets” from Southern Syria by Israeli forces actually marked the failure of the covert project to forcibly replace Syria’s legitimate government with one of NATO’s choice, regardless of the democratic will and lives of the Syrian people.

Before we can ask “what if?” about the war on Syria, as Ramesh Thakur does in “The Strategist”, republished here on P&I, we need to understand what actually happened during the Western-sponsored seven-year long assault on the Syrian state, as seen from the perspective of those on the receiving end of this attack. Now that the Syrian Arab Army and its allies are finally prevailing in their defence of the country and its citizens, it is also time for Western commentators to stop repeating the same vapid accusations against the Syrian President, and instead start making accusations against their own “mis-leaders”.

Rather it appears that many in the West are entrenching their opposition to the Syrian government at the same time as millions of Syrians are confirming their support for it, and the armies that have fought off their enemies’ chosen alternative.

Ramesh Thakur’s partisan view on the “Syrian civil war” and the benign nature of the West’s intimate involvement in it is evidently shared by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, and – one would imagine – by many of those in public office who act on its advice. The same innocence could not be assumed for ASPI sponsors, – defence contractors Lockheed Martin and Thales – who profit from that advice, nor presumably for Australian Intelligence agencies and their overseers in the government.

Back in May, and only weeks after the latest US/UK/French missile attack on Syria, I visited Damascus with my partner, and was able to verify the essential truth of reports from Syrian sources on the situation there, both in regard to the recent campaign to liberate Eastern Ghouta from armed militants, and more generally through personal contact with Syrians.

What we found however was both surprising and heartening; here was a country full of hope and passion, finally celebrating its imminent victory against one of the vilest and most devious enemies in history, led and supported by the most powerful and determined regimes in the world, including our own. Despite the harrowing cost to Syrian society, with over 80,000 regular Syrian soldiers killed, the people were strengthened and united behind their defence forces and their President.

In the seemingly endless fight against foreign-backed and foreign-armed insurgents, every Syrian now has a friend, relative or partner who has “died for his country”, killed, injured or tortured by these “barbarian invaders”. Even in Damascus an estimated 11,000 innocent people have been killed by “rebel” mortars and sniper fire from nearby suburbs.

Visiting a Government camp for the displaced residents of those same rebel-occupied Eastern suburbs of Damascus – Eastern Ghouta – brought home to us what this really means. The people sheltered and fed there – 15,000 in mid-May – had many stories to tell of the years they were held under siege in their communities by the violent militants of Jaish al Islam and Faylaq al Rahman, as well as of the behaviour of the so-called “White Helmets” who worked hand in hand with these terrorist groups. My colleague Vanessa Beeley, who visited the same camp a week earlier and conducted many interviews with Douma and Hamouriya residents has written comprehensively on their experiences; alone her report utterly condemns and exposes the lies and misinformation to which Australian and Western audiences have been subject on the “siege of Eastern Ghouta” and its denouement in the criminal Douma “gas attack” provocation.

Beeley had already exposed the incriminating truth of the previous US alliance campaign over East Aleppo, and the cooperation between the US/UK supported White Helmets and Al Qaeda that effectively prevented the city’s liberation for months in 2016.

It was likely at that point that Russia concluded that the US administration was “non-agreement-capable”, – a situation little altered by the subsequent change of US leadership. Progress towards a resolution of the conflict – in Astana – was then only made because the US was excluded, along with those Opposition groups that refused any compromise with the Assad government.

It is the nature of these Opposition groups, still supported by Western powers including Australia as some legitimate alternative to Syrians’ choice of government, which continues to elude most Western commentators. These groups were cultivated primarily by the Saudis, and reflect their extremist Wahhabi vision of ideal government as well as being associated with the worst terrorist groups operating in Syria. Had he not suffered a timely demise at the hands of Syrian security forces, the notorious terrorist and former leader of Jaish al Islam Zahran Alloush would have been in the running for Syria’s new leadership.

It is in this context that we ask “what if?” the Syrian government had been forcibly replaced by one of the West’s choosing; it belies both the intentions and the actions of the NATO – Saudi – Gulf state coalition, who ploughed billions in arms and support to these very immoderate groups to achieve their own objectives – which had nothing whatsoever to do with “humanitarian intervention” or “democratic reforms”.

By contrast, what actually happened in Syria, and in the main stronghold of Jaish al Islam in Douma, was all too easy to see on the ground. Our visit to Douma hospital, scene of the White Helmets’ most recent criminal fabrication, proved shocking even with what we already knew about the situation. Their claims of a chemical weapon attack, and staged “water-hosing” treatment for its alleged victims in the hospital’s emergency ward, continue to be endorsed by Western commentators like Thakur as well as governments, NGOs and the UN, despite being comprehensively exposed as false.

This remains the case even following the testimony of supposed gas victims seen in the staged video, brought to the Hague by Russia, and the findings of the OPCW showing no presence of chemical weapons residues at the site.

Many commentators have evidently now become impregnable bastions of the false Syrian chemical weapons narrative spread by their governments; in a previous article while discussing the Khan Shaikoun “gas attack” a year earlier, Ramesh Thakur quite wrongly concludes that the Syrian government was proven responsible.

While he cites the UNHRC and the UN-OPCW “evidence” as endorsement of this position, both bodies actually relied on second hand information from Opposition sources only, and refused Syria’s invitation to visit and inspect the Shayrat airbase from which they claimed the chemical weapons had come. Their duplicity was exposed when the US coalition sought to reinforce the mandate for the JIM at the Security Council over the Douma incident; Russia rightly vetoed this clearly disingenuous proposal.

In fact there was nothing for such a commission to investigate in Douma, as Russian and Syrian investigators had already found no toxic chemicals at the alleged site, and hospital staff denied knowledge of any such attack. But what proved really shocking to see at Douma hospital was the sophistication and extent of the tunnel system built beneath it. Canadian investigative journalist Eva Bartlett, who visited Douma just before we did, posted this article that includes video of her exploration of this extraordinary tunnel system, as well as corroborating interviews about the fabricated chemical weapons stories from many residents. The tunnel network not only allowed the armed militants of Jaish al Islam and Al Qaeda – along with their White Helmeted “partners” – to enter and take over the hospital whenever they wished, but protected them from Syrian and Russian bombs.

The belief amongst Syrians that these jihadist/terrorist groups were being assisted by foreign Special Forces, not just in constructing and equipping the tunnel system but in directing and coordinating the “underground resistance” was confirmed during the final evacuation of the Douma “jihadists” on buses to Northern Syria; special forces from Britain, Turkey and other countries were reportedly apprehended trying to escape with them. The MOD naturally denied this collusion, but events in Southern Syria last month, when hundreds of foreign fighters and White Helmets were “rescued” by their closest local ally Israel, seem to confirm and reinforce the Russian and Syrian claims.

While the Syrian people are remarkably forgiving, and focused on recovery and reconciliation within their own territory, few would not now lay blame for the death and devastation inflicted on the fabric of their society at the feet of the US-led coalition – of which Australia has been an integral part. Responsibility for the countless atrocities committed by the hundreds of violent sectarian militias, including Al Qaeda and Da’esh/Islamic State, lies squarely with those countries who conspired to assist them with rivers of weaponry and a tide of propaganda, like – in Trump’s words – “the world has never seen”; this was a conspiracy that began long before the “uprising” of March 2011.

Those who ignore the Syrian reality – that stares in the face of those who deign to look – and so allow this mountain of lies to remain even as another Western regime-change scheme gets under way, should also now prepare their defence; ignorance can no longer be an excuse.

***

David Macilwain is an independent observer and writer with a special focus on the war on Syria and its allies. He writes voluntarily for Russia Insider and the American Herald Tribune, from his home in the hills of NE Victoria. He visited Syria in May independently and at his own expense.

August 20, 2018 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Syria’s Disappeared: The Story of Adra

By David Macilwain | American Herald Tribune | August 19, 2018

The question of “Syria’s Disappeared” just won’t go away! Faced with the dreadful prospect of President Assad “remaining in power” following the begrudging admission of defeat by Syria’s enemies, supporters of the failed “revolution” are digging in with their accusations of war crimes and torture by the Syrian government.

The resurrected story is the same, with a few embellishments – the demon Assad and his minions have abducted thousands of innocent people that they didn’t like, and tortured and starved them to death – but then oddly and rather morbidly cataloged and photographed every corpse. Showing the depth of their psychopathology, they have then left these detailed records in a place where they might be found, by Caesar of all people, and exposed to the world to see.

This story has been around so long that it starts to look suspicious; it was Hillary Clinton who foresaw the opportunity to demonize the Syrian government at the same time she was masterminding the shipping of weapons and fighters to Syria from Benghazi. Clinton set up the “Syria Justice and Accountability Centre” in mid-2012, which later became the quango known as the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, operated by Canadian lawyer and war-tribunal veteran Bill Wiley.

When funding for this “private non-profit organization” was cut by Obama in 2014, it was described like this:

For the past two years, the U.S. State Department has channeled a total of $1 million in funds to the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), a group of international war crimes prosecutors that sends local researchers, lawyers, and law students into Syrian battle zones to collect and extract files and other evidence that can help map the Syrian command structure and identify the military orders authorizing illegal activities, including barrel bomb campaigns, the starvation of besieged towns, and a spate of mass murders that have pushed the conflict’s death toll past 190,000 since March 2011.

Perhaps the funding was suspended because these researchers failed to find anything that constituted real evidence of crimes committed by the Syrian military, amongst the everyday atrocities of the violent extremists they were fighting. The “Caesar photographs” and alleged evidence of torture and abuse of government prisoners seem in fact to be all that CIJA has to focus on, which isn’t saying much. Apart from being comprehensively debunked by impartial analysts, even the producers of Channel 4’s serial “Syria’s Disappeared” who have been pushing the story for years, are remarkably unconvincing. All they manage to highlight in this report is the surprisingly caring attitude of Syrian authorities towards prisoners:

A memo of one meeting of Military Intelligence officers in 2013 reiterates how detainees should be treated: “It is imperative to attend to the cleanliness of the prison and all its facilities, and the hygiene and health of detainees… to preserve lives and reduce deaths which have considerably risen lately.”

Nowhere in the reports, of course, can any discussion be found that might actually explain why the Syrian government would want to starve and torture prisoners, leave alone “innocent women and children”. If the reports are true – which seems unlikely – this would only invite comparison with the global experts in such treatment, like the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

In reality, there is a true story of “Syria’s disappeared” that dates from almost the same time as the Caesar photos – the story of Adra. There are no images showing the victims of Jaish al Islam and Al Nusra’s bloodletting in December 2013, other than those permanently etched on survivors’ memories, and in the imaginations of millions of Syrians who learnt of the massacres at the time.

Recently these painful memories were unearthed again, but not in some sort of catharsis; what happened in Douma in April turned the knife in that terrible wound.

Middle East Eye reported –

The rebel group which held the last pocket near Damascus before its surrender this week exaggerated hostage numbers in order to gain leverage in negotiations with the Syrian government and Russia, a spokesman for the group has told Middle East Eye.

For almost five years, Jaish al-Islam had controlled the besieged Eastern Ghouta town of Douma and was holding hostages who had been captured during the group’s assault, along with the Al-Nusra Front, in December 2013 on the nearby town of Adra.

Syrian government officials have put the figure of those held by Jaish al-Islam at around 5,000, although some Syrians, according to various reports, believe the figure is over 7,000. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is frequently quoted in Western media, put the figure at 3,500.

Hours after suspected chemical weapons attacks on the town last Saturday – the same attacks which have spurred the US, France, and the UK to consider military action – the group reached a final agreement with Russia and the Syrian government for the evacuation of Douma.

But when only 200 hostages were released in exchange for the safe passage of 8,000 fighters and 40,000 of their family members, many questioned what Jaish al-Islam had done with thousands of Syrians.

Middle East Eye is a partial observer. In fact, a special event was organized to welcome the desperately hoped for thousands of “disappeared” hostages, whose fate at the hands of their merciless and brutal kidnappers was completely unknown. It was widely believed that these hostages were being held as slaves, kept in the tunnels they were forced to dig for the terrorist groups, as well as being periodically slaughtered and displayed as wrapped corpses to the Western world, as victims of Syrian government “massacres”.

So when the much heralded “convoy” arrived, of only TWO buses, the hundreds of relatives of the missing thousands became hysterical. They could hardly imagine what terrible fate had taken their loved ones, what torture or humiliation or deprivation. And those who had perpetrated these horrors, and now had committed one last act of treachery and trickery to secure their freedom, had been allowed to escape to safety – along with their foreign assistants.

For weeks there had been negotiations with Jaish al Islam to try to secure the release of the hostages, whose assumed presence in Douma prevented Syrian and Russian forces from using artillery and bombs against the terrorists. In retrospect, this appears to have been a calculated tactic in which the staging of the “chemical weapons attack” immediately before concluding the evacuation agreement was the defining act.

Jaish al Islam and their White Helmet partners knew there were only a handful of captives, but knew that the Syrian government didn’t know how many could be hidden, and couldn’t risk killing any. The Syrian Army also knew what sort of enemy they were dealing with, ever since the battle was lost to protect the residents of Adra.

I was reminded of the “Adra massacre” by our Syrian guide in May as we drove past the city on the newly re-opened road to Homs. Like most Syrians, he has not forgotten what was done there, and could not forget. RT reported at the time:

New details of atrocities carried out by Islamist rebel fighters in the town of Adra, 20 kilometers north of Damascus, continue to pour in from survivors of the massacre there, in which reportedly at least 80 people lost their lives.

“The decapitators” is how the Adra residents, who managed to flee the violence there, now call the people who currently have the town under their control. Adra, a town with a population of 20,000, was captured by Islamist rebels from the Al-Nusra front and the Army of Islam last week, following fierce fighting with the government forces. The town’s seizure was accompanied by mass executions of civilians.

“An Adra resident said he escaped from the town “under a storm of bullets.” He later contacted his colleagues, who described how the executions of civilians were carried out by the militants.

“They had lists of government employees on them,” the man told RT. “This means they had planned for it beforehand and knew who works in the governmental agencies. They went to the addresses they had on their list, forced the people out and subjected them to the so-called “Sharia trials.” I think that’s what they call it. They sentenced them to death by beheading.”

A woman, hiding her face from the camera, told RT of the beheadings she had seen.

“There was slaughter everywhere,” she said. “The eldest was only 20 years old; he was slaughtered. They were all children. I saw them with my own eyes. They killed fourteen people with a machete. I don’t know if these people were Alawites. I don’t know why they were slaughtered. They grabbed them by their heads and slaughtered them like sheep.”

Kinda Shimat, Syria’s Social Affairs Minister, told RT:

“Civilians told us that the workers of an Adra bakery were all executed and burned during the first hours of the attack. Whole families were massacred. We do not have an exact estimation of the number because we are unable to get into the town, but the number is high.”

I had heard these reports at the time, and how people were terrorized; allegations that women had thrown themselves from windows rather than suffer some horrific torture at the hands of these men. Our guide – a straightforward and honest man – told me in private what he had heard – that these terrorist zealots had cut off the breasts of the “Alawite women” as trophies of their conquest. Like the horrible things done to women during the attack on Alawite villages near Lattakia only months earlier, discussing such obscenity seems beneath the dignity of normal people, even suggesting some morbid fascination with mutilation and torture.

That could put us on a par with those amongst Syria’s enemies who have contrived to use violent extremists and terrorists, not only to achieve their objectives in the Middle East but also to elicit support for “intervention” in the guise of self-defense for their own populations.

But of course, it does not. Those men, and even women, who directly enabled the monsters of the “Army of Islam” to hold and torture the residents of Adra and Douma for five years, restocking their arsenal and their warehouses while parading them as victims of Syrian brutality – well they are beyond contempt, even beneath the dignity and honour of thieves.

Perhaps we could now talk about them and start to catalog their crimes.

August 19, 2018 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Trump Regime Continues Supporting ISIS

By Stephen LENDMAN | August 18, 2018

US support for ISIS is an open dirty secret – undiscussed by media scoundrels, pretending it’s not so.

Washington actively arms, funds, trains, and directs ISIS and other terrorists – backing the scourge they pretend to oppose.

Obama and Trump’s vow to degrade and destroy ISIS was and remains a bald-faced lie, using these and other cutthroat killers as proxy fighters in Syria and other countries where they’re deployed – their presence unjustifiably justifying illegal US occupation of northeast and southwest Syrian territory.

Last November, Russia’s Defense Ministry said the following:

“The Abu Kamal liberation operation conducted by the Syrian government army with air cover by the Russian Aerospace Force at the end of the last week revealed facts of direct cooperation and support for ISIS terrorists by the US-led ‘international coalition.”

“Americans peremptorily rejected to conduct airstrikes over the ISIS terrorists on the pretext of the fact that, according to their information, militants are yielding themselves prisoners to them and now are subject to the provisions of the Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.”

US-led “coalition’s aviation tried to create obstacles for the aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces in this area to safely shield militants of the Islamic State.”

“There is indisputable evidence that the United States pretends it is waging irreconcilable struggle against international terrorism in front of the international community, while in reality it provides cover for the combat-ready Islamic State groups to let them regain strength, regroup themselves and advance US interests in the Middle East.”

Washington directly aids ISIS and other terrorist fighters, deploying them where Pentagon commanders want them used, relocating them to new conflict zones in Syria and other countries.

Iran has credible documents showing US support for ISIS. Its armed forces deputy chief of staff Major General Mostafa Izadi earlier said “(w)e are facing a proxy warfare in the region as a new trick by the arrogant (US-led) powers against the Islamic Republic,” adding:

“We possess information showing direct support by US imperialism for (ISIS) in the region which has destroyed Islamic countries and created a wave of massacres and clashes.”

Separately, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani condemned Washington for “align(ing) itself with ISIS in the region.”

So-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are infested with ISIS and other terrorists. Washington’s objective in Syria remains regime change – why the Obama regime launched naked aggression in the country, continued by Trump regime dark forces in charge of Washington’s geopolitical agenda.

A new Security Council report showed renewed ISIS strength in parts of Syria controlled by US forces and allies, saying:

ISIS terrorists have “breathing space to prepare for the next phase of its evolution into a global covert network.”

Aided by the Trump regime and allied forces, they control “small pockets of territory in the Syrian Arab Republic on the Iraqi border.”

Russia’s General Staff earlier accused the Pentagon of training ISIS and other terrorists at its illegally established At Tanf base in southwest Syria – calling it a staging ground for US armed struggle against the Syrian government.

ISIS and other terrorists infest the Rukban refugee camp controlled by US Forces, holding tens of thousands of defenseless Syrians hostage, using the camp to recruit anti-government terrorists.

On August 15, AMN News said US-led forces “transported over 250 trucks filled with weapons (and other military hardware) to the Euphrates River Valley this morning” – intended for Syrian Democratic Forces terrorists in Deir Ezzor province, adding:

Washington is “expand(ing) (its) bases and airports in northern and eastern Syria” – indicating US forces will remain in the country, not leave, as Trump earlier said.

Separately on August 18, AMN News said Washington and its allies “sent reinforcements to their military bases in the towns of Tal Tamer, Al-Houl, and Al-Shaddadi.”

Syria’s liberating struggle continues, no end of it in sight as long as US regime change intentions remain unchanged.

August 19, 2018 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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