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MI5 plotted assassination of Irish PM in 1985 – Ulster Volunteer Force

Charles Haughey © Joost Evers / The Netherlands National Archive
RT | December 29, 2107

Former Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey was warned by loyalist paramilitaries that they were once tasked with murdering him in an assassination plot purportedly dreamt up by the British secret service.

The sensational disclosure was sent in a letter to the Irish government, newly released under the Public Records Act, which requires documents of historical value to be published by the National Archives within 30 years.

Written on Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) signature paper, the warning claims the terrorist organization was asked by an MI5 operative about the prospect of carrying out an attack on Republic of Ireland leader Haughey in 1985.

At the time, Haughey would have been in opposition as head of political party Fianna Fáil, but details of the solicitation did not become known to Irish authorities until 1987.

“In 1985 we were approached by a M15 officer attached to the Northern Ireland Office and based in Lisburn, Alex Jones was his supposed name,” the letter reads, according to the Irish Times. “He asked us to execute you.”

Prominent during the period known as the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, the UVF operated on the loyalist side of the political divide, which also saw the Irish Republican Army, another illegal militant organization, carry out violent attacks.

The UVF letter claims it was given information on Haughey’s home, his modes of transport, as well as his holiday island Inishvickillane, off the southwest coast of Ireland. However, the person behind the letter, which is signed by a Capt W Johnston, says the request was declined.

“We refused to do it. We were asked would we accept responsibility if you were killed. We refused. We have no love for you but we are not going to carry out work for the Dirty Tricks Department of the British,” the letter continues, according to the Irish Mirror.

The tentative assassination plot appears to have been hatched in-between Haughey’s second and third terms in office. Haughey was known for his preference to broker an agreement with Britain that would bring about a united Ireland.

December 29, 2017 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

All Is Not Quiet on the Syrian Front: US to Launch Another War

By Alex GORKA | Strategic Culture Foundation | 29.12.2017

This is a classic example of flip-flop policy. In November, the US promised Turkey to stop arming Kurdish militias in Syria after the Islamic State was routed. Brett McGurk, the US Special Presidential Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat Islamic State, explained that after the urban fighting in Raqqa was over “adjustments in the level of military support” would be made. “We had to give some equipment – and it’s limited, extremely limited – all of which was very transparent to our NATO ally, Turkey,” he said during a special briefing on December 21. In June, the US told Turkey it would take back weapons supplied to the Kurdish the People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia in northern Syria after the defeat of Islamic State.

But sophisticated weapons will continue to be sent to Syria in 2018, including thousands of anti-tank rocket launchers, heat seeking missiles and rocket launchers. The list of weaponry and equipment was prepared by US Department of Defense as part of the 2018 defense budget and signed by Trump of Dec. 12. It includes more than 300 non-tactical vehicles, 60 nonstandard vehicles, and 30 earth-moving vehicles to assist with the construction of outposts or operations staging areas. The US defense spending bill for 2018 (“Justification for FY 2018 Overseas Contingency Operations / Counter-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Train and Equip Fund”) includes providing weapons worth $393 million to US partners in Syria. Overall, $500 million, roughly $70 million more than last year, are to be spent on Syria Train and Equip requirements. The partners are the Kurds-dominated Syria Democratic Forces (SDF). The YPG – the group that is a major concern of Turkey – is the backbone of this force.

The budget does not refer to Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) but instead says “Vetted Syrian Opposition”. According to the budget list, there are 25,000 opposition forces supported as a part of the train and equip program in Syria. That number is planned to be increased to 30,000 in 2018. The arming of Kurdish militants with anti-tank rockets is a sensitive topic because of Turkey’s reliance on its armored Leopard tanks in northern Syria.

Talal Sillo, a former high-ranking commander and spokesperson of the US-backed SDF, who defected from the group last month to go to Turkey, divulged details of the US arming the Kurdish group.

The list does not detail which vetted Syrian groups will receive certain pieces of equipment. In northern Syria, there is the SDF, including the YPG, and the Syria Arab Coalition — a group of Arab fighters incorporated into the SDF. The Maghawir al-Thawra and Shohada al-Quartayn groups are operating in the southeastern part of Syria. They are being trained by US and British instructors at the al-Tanf border crossing between Syria and Iraq.

Besides the SDF and the groups trained at al-Tanf, the US is in the process of creating the New Syria Army to fight the Syrian government forces. The training is taking place at the Syrian Hasakah refugee camp located 70 kilometers from the border of Turkey and 50 kilometers from the border of Iraq.

Around 40 Syria opposition groups on Dec. 25 rejected to attend the planned Sochi conference on Syria scheduled to take place in January. They said Moscow, which organizes the conference, was seeking to bypass the UN-based Geneva peace process, despite the fact that UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said that Russia’s plan to convene the congress should be assessed by its ability to contribute to and support the UN-led Geneva talks on ending the war in Syria. If fighting starts, these groups are likely to join the formations created by the US.

So, the United States not only maintains its illegal military presence in Syria and creates new forces to fight against the Syrian government, it appears to be preparing for a new war to follow the Islamic State’s defeat. The continuation of arming and training Kurdish militias will hardly improve Washington’s relations with Ankara, while saying one thing and doing another undermines the credibility of the United States as a partner.

December 29, 2017 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Clean Break II: Iran Hawks Decide to Burn It All Down

By Derek Davison and Jim Lobe | LobeLog | December 27, 2017

The 20th century was rife with partitions, many of them involving European powers carving up colonial possessions in Africa and the Middle East with what often appears to have been little or no concern for local realities. Perhaps the most famous of these free-hand attempts at state creation is the Sykes-Picot Line, whose legacy is very much still with us (and not for the better). But Sykes-Picot is far from the only example of European colonial borders that are still causing problems decades after they were drawn.

But who cares about all of that? It doesn’t seem to be an issue for at least some of America’s anti-Iran hawks. In response to Iran’s rising profile in the Middle East, fueled mostly by a war those neocons ardently championed and the striking ineptitude of the hawks’ new favorite Persian Gulf monarchy, the intellectual heirs to the men who drew those ill-fated borders are proposing, long after it might have done any good, to re-draw them.

Writing for Fox News on December 25, Michael Makovsky—who is no fringe figure, being CEO of the neoconservative Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)—suggests just such a strategy for countering Iranian influence in the Middle East:

Maintaining Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen in their existing forms is unnatural and serves Iran’s interests. There is nothing sacred about these countries’ borders, which seem to have been drawn by a drunk and blindfolded mapmaker. Indeed, in totally disregarding these borders, ISIS and Iran both have already demonstrated the anachronism and irrelevance of the borders.

Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen are not nation-states as Americans understand them, but rather post-World War I artificial constructs, mostly created out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in a colossally failed experiment by western leaders.

With their deep ethno-sectarian fissures, these four countries have either been held together by a strong authoritarian hand or suffered sectarian carnage.

It is astonishing to read neoconservatives, who have done little else since the 1970s but lobby for exerting American hegemony in the Middle East, decry the results of the exertion of European hegemony in the Middle East. It reads like an artificial intelligence that just briefly verges on full self-awareness before pivoting and falling back to safer ground. It’s particularly rich for Makovsky, whose JINSA predecessors promoted the ouster of two of those “strong authoritarian hands” in former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, to bemoan one result of their ouster.

But let’s focus on the proposal Makovsky makes: redrawing borders in the Middle East, creating what he calls “loose confederations or new countries with more borders that more naturally conform along sectarian lines,” in order to counter Iran. The proposal strongly resembles recommendations found in “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” a 1996 publication of the Jerusalem-based Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies that was prepared in collaboration with several other neoconservative think tanks—including JINSA.

“A Clean Break,” the conclusion of a task force that included such Likudnik geniuses as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser, argued in part that Israel should work with friendly governments in Turkey and Jordan to contain regional threats, particularly coming from Syria. It concluded, among other things, that Israeli leaders should pursue “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq-an important objective in its own right-as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.” “Syria” in this context serves as a stand-in for “Iran.” Long-term, the report envisioned the formation of a “natural axis” of Israel, Turkey, Jordan, and a “Hashemite” Iraq serving as “the prelude to a redrawing of the map of the Middle East, which could threaten Syria’s territorial integrity.”

Even a cursory glance at the state of the Middle East since the end of the Iraq War shows that ousting Saddam Hussein achieved the opposite of the report’s stated goals. The idea of a Hashemite restoration in Shia-majority Iraq was ridiculously far-fetched, and Iraq’s democratically-elected government has–justifiably–greatly improved the Baghdad-Tehran relationship. Makovsky, who wants to reverse this trend, argues that the United States should “declare our support and strong military aid for an eventual Iraqi Kurdish state, once its warring factions unify and improve governance. We could support a federation for the rest of Iraq.”

In Makovsky’s imagination, the new Kurd-less Iraqi federation would presumably wish Erbil well and send it on its way. In reality, another serious Kurdish move toward independence would probably lead to a civil war, as it nearly did in October over the status of Kirkuk. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s first foreign trip after his dramatic capture of Kirkuk was… to Iran. If the United States were to come out in full support of an independent Kurdistan, it would almost certainly push the rest of Iraq more firmly into Iran’s orbit. Speaking of Kirkuk, does Makovsky imagine that independent Kurdistan would be given the city and its surrounding oil fields? If yes, then that only increases the chances of a war with Baghdad. If no, then there are serious questions about whether that hypothetical Kurdish state would be economically viable.

For Syria, Makovsky says that “we could seek a more ethnically coherent loose confederation or separate states that might balance each other – the Iranian-dominated Alawites along the coast, the Kurds in the northeast, and the Sunni Arabs in the heartland.” He might want to check a recent map of Syria, because while “heartland” is obviously a subjective term, by almost any definition Syria’s “heartland” now belongs to President Basher al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies. This includes the country’s five largest (pre-war) cities: Aleppo, Damascus, Homs, Latakia, and Hama. How does Makovsky propose any of that territory be taken from Assad so as to be turned over to “Sunni Arabs,” even in a confederate sense? If the answer is “war,” then his Fox News thinkpiece is burying the lede to say the least.

Makovsky then recommends that the U.S. strengthen relations with Shia-majority Azerbaijan, in order to “demonstrate we are not anti-Shia Muslim.” Yes, that should do the trick. Of course, that’s not the only reason:

An added potential benefit of this approach could be a fomenting of tensions within Iran, which has sizable Kurdish and Azeri populations, thereby weakening the radical regime in Tehran.

You might even say that it could threaten Iran’s territorial integrity. Make a Clean Break, if you will.

The dangers of the United States trying to redraw Middle Eastern borders—Makovsky graciously allows that America “cannot dictate the outcomes” but should instead “influence” them—should be obvious. For one thing, there’s the immediate likelihood that attempting to draw new borders would intensify regional instability. For another, there’s little reason to expect that the United States would get the new borders any more “right” than Britain and France did a century ago, particularly not when the process is being managed by the same people who brought us the invasion of Iraq. For still another, the most recent example of such Western “influenced” partitioning isn’t exactly a positive one.

But we can’t leave Makovsky’s piece without mentioning its most jaw-dropping paragraph (emphasis ours):

Artificial states have been divided or loosened before with some success, such as the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, which are all post-WWI formations. Bosnia and Herzegovina have also managed as a confederation.

Czechoslovakia divided peacefully of its own accord. The Soviet Union more or less did likewise, though that dissolution hasn’t been quite so peaceful in recent years. As for Yugoslavia—well, maybe Dr. Makovsky’s definition of “success” is a bit different from most other people’s. To be fair, though, if the breakup of Yugoslavia is his template for the future of the Middle East, this piece makes a lot more sense.

But if Makovsky believes in federalizing existing Middle Eastern states along “ethno-sectarian” lines, why not start with Israel and the Occupied Territories, a notion that would seem logical to any 21st century mapmaker? After all, occupation of one people by another via a “strong authoritarian hand”—in this case the IDF—would seem to be a prescription for a “colossally failed experiment,” no? Perhaps Makovsky’s experience as a former West Bank settler may make it difficult for him to see the relevance.

December 29, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Who Are the Leading State Sponsors of Terrorism?

By Philip M. GIRALDI | Strategic Culture Foundation | 28.12.2017

As 2017 draws to a close, it is difficult to be optimistic about what will be coming in the new year. The American President, whose margin of victory was certainly based on his pledge to avoid unnecessary wars, has doubled down on Afghanistan, refuses to leave Syria even though ISIS has been defeated, and is playing serious brinksmanship with a psychopathic and unpredictable regime in Pyongyang. The White House has also bought into the prevailing largely fabricated narrative about a Russia and has decided to arm Ukraine with offensive weapons, which has already resulted in a sharp response from Moscow and will make détente of any kind between the two leading powers all but impossible in the upcoming year.

But, as I have observed before, the red hazard light that continues to be blinking most brightly relates to Washington’s relationship with Iran, which has unnecessarily deteriorated dramatically over the past year and which brings with it collateral problems with Russia and Turkey that could trigger a much wider conflict. I say unnecessarily because all the steps taken to poison the relationship have come out of Washington, not Tehran. The Trump administration refused to certify that the Iranians had been in compliance with the nuclear agreement negotiated in 2015 and has since escalated its verbal attacks, mostly at the United Nations, claiming that the regime in Tehran is the major source of terrorism in the world and that it is seeking hegemony over a broad arc of countries running westward from its borders to the Mediterranean Sea.

The only problem with the allegations being made is that none of them is true and, furthermore, Iran, with limited military resources, poses no serious threat to gain control over its neighbors, nor to attack the United States or Europe. The invective about Iran largely derives from Israel and Saudi Arabia, which themselves have hegemonic ambitions relating to their region. Israel’s friends in the US Congress, media and White House have not surprisingly picked up on the refrain and are pushing for military action. Israel has even threatened to bomb any Iranian permanent presence inside neighboring Syria.

A recent detailed analysis by former US intelligence officers has demonstrated just how the claim that Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism is almost completely fabricated. The analysis explains how these false narratives are contrived and how they become part of the Washington background noise. The White House’s recent National Security Strategy Report for 2018 stated that “Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, has taken advantage of instability to expand its influence through partners and proxies, weapon proliferation, and funding.” But another US government report, the annual Country Reports on Terrorism 2016 cites no actual terrorist incidents initiated by Iran in that year. In fact, the most recent terrorist incident attributed to Tehran was in 2012, and that was retaliatory against Israel, which was at the time assassinating Iran’s scientists and technicians and attacking its computer systems.

America’s UN Ambassador Nikki Haley’s has recently claimed that it is hard to find a “terrorist group in the Middle East that does not have Iran’s fingerprints all over it.” But in reality, the overwhelming majority of terrorist groups in the region, to include ISIS, Al-Qaeda and al-Nusra, are Sunni Muslims, who believe Iran’s Shi’ism is heretical, and are both tied to and funded by Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) is indeed an ethnic Iranian terrorist group, but it has been funded and supported by Washington and Tel Aviv to carry out attacks inside Iran.

The reality is that terrorism, defined by the United Nations as “criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public,” is most employed at the state level by the United States and its allies Israel and Saudi Arabia, not by Iran. All have used violence directed against civilians in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon, and all three have supported organizations that fit the definition of terrorists. Iran may indeed be guilty of actions that much of the world disapproves of, but it is not the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism as has been alleged.

December 28, 2017 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US runs training camps for Syria militants: Russian general

Press TV – December 27, 2017

The Russian military top brass says militants, including those with the Takfiri Daesh terror group, are receiving training in US bases in Syria, adding the terrorists have been instructed to “destabilize” the Arab country.

In an interview with Russia’s Komsomolskaya Pravda daily on Wednesday, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov said the US had turned its military base near the town of al-Tanf in southeastern Syria into a training camp for militants.

Asked about the situation at the US-run al-Tanf base, he replied, “According to satellite and other surveillance data, terrorist squads are stationed there. They are effectively training there.”

General Gerasimov also accused the US of using a refugee camp outside the town of Shaddadah in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah Province as a training center for the Daesh remnants, including those evacuated from the terror outfit’s former stronghold of Raqqah.

“This is essentially ISIS (Daesh),” he said. “They change their colors, take different names – the ‘New Syrian Army’ and others. They are tasked with destabilizing the situation.”

On December 16, Russia’s Reconciliation Center for Syria revealed Washington’s training activities for members of the so-called New Syrian Army, composed of various terrorist groups, at the Shaddadah camp.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Gerasimov estimated that there are currently some 350 militants in al-Tanf and about 750 others in al-Shaddadah,

He further noted that the Russian military had been watching the US training activities at the al-Tanf base “for several months.”

The official also stressed that the Pentagon has so far failed to provide any explanation for its military presence at the al-Tanf base after Daesh’s defeat, saying, “So far, their answers have been ambiguous.”

The town of al-Qaryatayn in Syria’s Homs Province risked falling into the hands of the anti-Damascus militants if the Russian forces had not intervened, according to Gerasimov.

“We took timely measures… They have suffered a defeat, these forces were destroyed. There were captives from these camps. It is clear that training is underway at those camps,” he added.

Nusra terrorists to be wiped out next year

Meanwhile, the Russian general predicted that the operation to eliminate members of the al-Nusra Front militant group in Syria will be completed in 2018.

Next year’s developments in Syria will include “the completion of eliminating militants from Jabhat al-Nusra and its affiliates,” he pointed out.

After losing all the territories under their control in Syria and Iraq, the Daesh terrorists have fled to Libya and southwestern Asia after being defeated in Syria, Gerasimov added.

“Some of them return to countries, from which they illegally arrived. The bulk of them flee to Libya, to southwestern Asian countries,” he said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also commented on the issue, saying the main part of the anti-Daesh battle in Syria was over.

“Now, of course, the main anti-terrorist objective is the defeat of Jabhat al-Nusra,” Lavrov said at a meeting with Ahmad Jarba, leader of Syria’s opposition Tomorrow movement.

He warned that the al-Nusra terrorsits have been “are still resisting … because they have been receiving assistance from abroad” to fight against the Syrian government forces.

“We are seeing positive changes in Syria. A decisive blow has been dealt on the IS [Daesh]. And although some militants who have fled the battlefield are trying either to regroup in Syria or to flee abroad,” he added.

Russia, Syria in close defense cooperation

General Gerasimov said the Russian military advisers assist nearly all units of the Syrian forces in planning counter-terrorism operations.

“We cooperate closely with the Syrian government troops, our advisers are attached to nearly all units,” he said.

Russian jets have been conducting air raids against Daesh and other terrorist outfits inside Syria at the Damascus government’s request since September 2015.

President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Moscow now sees no need for a heavy military presence in Syria, but it will continue its counter-terrorism battle in the Arab state “if necessary.”

December 27, 2017 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Report that North Korean defector has anthrax antibodies feeds into biological weapons scare

RT | December 27, 2017

South Korean media have claimed that a North Korean defector was found to have developed antibodies to anthrax before his flight across the border. The report may likely play into the hands of those looking for a pretext for war.

The news was broken by South Korea’s Channel A on Tuesday, citing an anonymous intelligence official.

“Anthrax antibodies have been found in the North Korean soldier who defected this year,” the unnamed official said, without revealing the way in which the soldier might have been exposed to the deadly substance, which could be either direct contact or vaccination.

Little is known about the soldier apart from that he was one of four North Korean military servicemen to defect to South Korea this year. The revelation comes against the backdrop of a series of reports suggesting that North Korea has been developing a program to fit biological weapons on intercontinental missiles. An earlier anonymous report by Japan’s Asahi newspaper, that came out last week, claimed that Pyongyang has embarked on “conducting heat and pressure resistance tests to see whether anthrax germs can survive at temperatures of 7,000 degrees, the level an ICBM [inter-continental ballistic missile] encounters when it reenters the Earth atmosphere.”

The concerns of the pariah state getting hold of biological weapons were echoed in the recently released US National Security Strategy, claiming that Pyongyang has been striving to obtain “chemical and biological weapons which could also be delivered by missile.”

North Korea, meanwhile, rejected all the allegations and reiterated its commitment to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). It accused Washington of trying to forge a pretext for a military incursion, like it did in 2003 to justify its military aggression in Iraq.

The comparison has merit, as even the alleged biological weapon is exactly the same. At the fateful UN Security Council meeting on February 5, 2003, the then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell brandished a model vial of anthrax to illustrate the alleged danger coming from Iraq under Saddam Hussein, which according to Powell could have produced some 25,000 liters of anthrax. The word “anthrax” first made headlines in October 2001, when five Americans died and over a dozen fell sick due to exposure to powdered anthrax sent through the mail. In the most prominent case, a letter with anthrax was delivered to the office of Democratic Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, shutting down the whole Senate.

The letters that also contained death threats were linked by the media and the George W. Bush administration to Iraq at the time.

“The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas weapons for over a decade,” Bush said in his State of the Union address in January 2002, noting that the US would act first in the face of a possibility of such an attack.

Later, it was revealed that the man behind the toxic letters was US citizen Bruce Ivins, who was working in a military biodefense lab and had no relation to Iraq. The rest of Powell’s claims about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction found no proof either, with Powell later admitting that he was misled by intelligence community and the speech became a “blot” on his record.

While the US officials, spearheaded by UN envoy Nikki Haley, are upping the rhetoric and threatening to “utterly destroy” North Korea if war breaks out, or in case of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, calling on Pentagon to move US servicemen’s families from South Korea as though the war is imminent, Russia and China have been advocating restraint, warning of disastrous consequences to the whole region, first and foremost to Washington’s ally South Korea, of a potential military confrontation. The so-called double-freeze plan, championed by Moscow and Beijing, envisions the simultaneous halt of war games regularly held by the US and allies and the suspension of the nuclear and missile program run by Pyongyang. The plan, however, was outright rejected by Washington in August.

December 27, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

NATO Rolls Out Offensive Cyberweapons

By Ulson Gunnar – New Eastern Outlook – 25.12.2017

NATO members including the US, UK, Germany, Norway, Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands have begun taking public steps in defining guidelines regarding the deployment of offensive cyberweapons.
Reuters in its article, “NATO mulls ‘offensive defense’ with cyber warfare rules,” states:

A group of NATO allies are considering a more muscular response to state-sponsored computer hackers that could involve using cyber attacks to bring down enemy networks, officials said.

Reuters also reports:

The doctrine could shift NATO’s approach from being defensive to confronting hackers that officials say Russia, China and North Korea use to try to undermine Western governments and steal technology.

The article also noted that the United States and its allies already possess and have threatened to use cyberweapons offensively, citing the 2010 Sutxnet virus deployed against Iranian nuclear infrastructure as a possible example. Other examples cited of possible applications included shutting down power plants with malware rather than bombing them.

Reuters also reported that NATO was setting up “cyber commands” including one in Estonia apparently intended to launch cyber attacks into Russia.

Extending NATO Aggression into Cyberspace 

At face value, a nation developing the ability to defend itself and carry out counterattacks against foreign aggressors, including in cyberspace, appears as legitimate policy.

For NATO, however, its track record of serial aggression and expansion beyond its borders predicated on intentionally false pretexts indicate that the military alliance will simply carry its aggression into cyberspace as well.

The NATO invasion and occupation of Afghanistan followed the attacks on September 11, 2001 on Washington D.C. and New York City. Despite none of the alleged suspects involved in the attack actually coming from Afghanistan, and the government of Afghanistan having played no role in the attacks, NATO would invade and has since occupied the nation for the past 16 years.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq led by the US and other prominent NATO members was predicated entirely on falsehoods. Claims that the Iraqi government at the time possessed chemical and biological weapons later turned out to have been intentionally fabricated to justify an invasion that, by some estimates, cost the lives of over a million Iraqis and thousands of US and European soldiers. The invasion and occupation resulted in regional conflict that continues to this day.

In 2011 when terrorists affiliated with Al Qaeda moved against the government of Libya, NATO portrayed the resulting conflict as a crackdown on what it and Western media called “freedom fighters.” NATO armed militants and eventually intervened in an air campaign that toppled the government, leaving Libya in ruins since.

Between 2013-2014 the US and its NATO partners openly fomented protests against the elected government of Ukraine. Supporting Neo-Nazi militias and their affiliated political parties, NATO succeeded in overthrowing the government and placing into power organizations and parties involved in the protests. NATO has since intervened on various levels, short of military intervention, to protect the regime in Kiev from both political challengers and a possible counter-coup.

In many ways, since the Arab Spring in 2011, the US and its NATO partners have already used cyberweapons of sorts to destabilize and attack targeted nations. Social media was manipulated in the opening weeks of protests, false information transmitted, technology and software distributed among US-NATO funded opposition groups, all in an effort to stampede targeted governments out of power.

Today, NATO members are involved in the bombing, invasion, occupation and drone warfare from Africa to Asia. They employ the tools of modern disinformation and propaganda to interfere and manipulate in the political processes of nations worldwide.

The notion that NATO will develop and deploy cyberweapons in an offensive capacity will not only enhance ongoing aggression, but because of the nature of cyberweapons and the possibility of attacks concealing their point of origin, might see it expand into areas where currently, conventional military means cannot be justified.

Considering the extensive experience NATO possesses in fabricating pretexts for aggression, and the perceived benignity of cyberwarfare versus conventional weapons, we can expect to see NATO use this new concept of “offensive defense” to further menace the nations and peoples of this planet with a degree and frequency far above and beyond its conventional military operations.

While Reuters cites Russia, China and North Korea as likely targets of NATO cyberattacks, it is likely that any and all actors, both state and non-state, will find themselves targets of NATO aggression should their interests conflict with those that underwrite the NATO alliance.

Developing the means to put these capabilities in check and prevent NATO from developing any sort of advantage in cyberspace will be a prerequisite for future peace and stability, online and off.

December 27, 2017 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Thousands of government papers on Falklands & Troubles vanish from National Archives

RT | December 26, 2017

A massive trove of government papers detailing some dark episodes of British history, including the Falklands War and the notorious Northern Irish Troubles, have vanished from the National Archives.

Almost 1,000 files, each thought to contain dozens of British government papers, have disappeared from the National Archives in London after civil servants removed them from the institution, a Guardian investigation has revealed.

By odd coincidence, the disappearance affects some of the most controversial parts of 20th-century British history, namely papers concerning the Falklands War, Northern Ireland’s Troubles and British colonial rule in Palestine.

Other files that vanished detailed tests on polio vaccines and long-running territorial disputes between the UK and Argentina, as well as the infamous Zinoviev letter from the 1920s, which the British secret services claimed to be a directive from Grigory Zinoviev, the head of the Moscow-based Communist International (Komintern), to the Communist Party of Great Britain, ordering it to provoke civil war and unrest.

An entire file on the Zinoviev letter scandal vanished after Home Office staff took it away, according to the Guardian. The Home Office declined to explain to the paper who removed the files from the National Archives and why. It also did not say whether any copies had been made.

Other files the National Archives has reported as “misplaced while on loan to government department” include one concerning the way in which the British government took possession of Russian Empire funds held in British banks after the 1917 revolution.

Specific papers from within certain files have also been carefully selected and removed.

“The National Archives regularly sends lists to government departments of files that they have out on loan,” a spokesman for the institution said. “If we are notified that a file is missing, we do ask what actions have been done and what action is being taken to find the file.”

The revelations may leave historians particularly suspicious, as it is not the first time files documenting controversial episodes of Britain’s past have disappeared or been destroyed. In August last year, records linking the UK to Israel’s nuclear program went missing from the National Archives. The archives assured the public it was following a “robust” plan to find the lost files.

A few years earlier, the Foreign Office revealed that multiple documents that “might embarrass members of the police, military forces, public servants (such as police agents or informers)” in former British colonies or “might compromise sources of intelligence” were deliberately destroyed as part of ‘Operation Legacy’.

‘Operation Legacy’ also called for the destruction or removal of “all papers which are likely to be interpreted, either reasonably or by malice, as indicating racial prejudice or bias.”

December 26, 2017 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Goodbye and Good Riddance

By Jeremy Salt | Palestine Chronicle | December 25, 2017

Holding hands, the US and Israel have decided to walk out of UNESCO. Nothing could be more appropriate. Two rogue states run by two dangerous buffoons. Two states that have wreaked immense violence across the Middle East ever since ‘Israel’ was implanted in Palestine. In addition to Palestine, the US has launched genocidal wars against three countries just since 1990, Iraq (twice), Libya and Syria and continues to back Saudi Arabia in its equally genocidal war on Yemen.

As for Israel, living permanently outside international law is a necessary condition of its existence. It should have been tossed out of the UN long ago, or at least suspended, until it mended its ways. After all, what club continues the membership of someone who does not obey the rules, is warned once, once, twice, thrice, even 50 times, but still refuses to obey the rules? But Israel does not have to mend its ways and remains a member of the ‘international community’ because another state that does not obey the rules, and shows no respect for international law either, the US, protects it at every level and in every way, fomenting even more violence.

UNESCO has done its best to protect the cultural heritage of Palestine. Nothing that is not Jewish matters to the Zionists and so little of it is Jewish that Muslim and Christian Palestine has been ravaged, not just once (1948) or twice (1967) but continuously. The destruction of Palestine is the necessary condition for the creation of Netanyahu’s ‘Jewish state.’ It is all or nothing: there can be no compromise, no either/or. The Palestinians have set forth options, one secular state, two states living side by side, but the only option acceptable to Israel is all Palestine for us and none for you.

The elimination of the Palestinian human presence in 1948 was accompanied by the destruction of close to 500 of Palestinian villages or hamlets, irrespective of their historical and cultural worth. More destruction followed after 1967, beginning with the demolition of the Magharibah quarter in 1967 to make way for a ‘plaza’ around the Haram al Sharif and continuing in the years that followed. The war also created the opportunity for more Palestinians to be driven out of their homeland, this time from the West Bank, where many had taken refuge during the Zionist onslaught in 1948.

The war was another opportunity to drive Palestine further into history, towards the point where the physical evidence had all been destroyed and the Zionists could say ‘What Palestine? There was never a Palestine here.’ In fact this is what they have been saying all along, anyway, convincing no-one outside their own ranks because the Palestinians have not gone away, because their numbers are increasing (possibly there are now more Palestinians between the Mediterranean sea and the Jordan River than the Zionist settler population) and because too much of their history can still be seen on the landscape. This is why the danger to Al Aqsa, glowing above Jerusalem, is so great because it is the living symbol of the lies being told by the Zionists.

On this subject how intriguing it is, and how frustrating for the Zionists, that in the half century they have been burrowing under and around the Haram al Sharif they have not found one object proving that the temple was ever there. There are far older structures whose ruins can be seen today. Turkey is full of them: the excavated temple at Gobeklitepe in south-eastern Turkey is 12,000 years old so how can it be that nothing is left of the grandiose structure said to have been built by Solomon where Al Aqsa now stands? The Bible speaks of a building more than 60 meters high, built from wood (the cedars of Lebanon) and huge blocks of stone. Similar material is said to have been used in the building of the second temple, completed in 515 BC and destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. It is said to have been of the same massive dimensions yet nothing has been found, no remnants of fallen stone pillars, no votive bowls, absolutely nothing, suggesting that if the temple did stand on this site the biblical descriptions were fantastically exaggerated (no surprise in a book full of fantastic exaggerations).

Furthermore, the modern day Zionists are connected to ancient Israel only by their religion. Their first colonists had no living connection with the land and no ethnic connection with the people who lived on it. Zionists continue to play on the living Jewish connection in Palestine over the centuries but do not mention that the Jews who were there when their forefathers arrived regarded Zionism as a heresy. Netanyahu’s claim that Jerusalem has been Israel’s capital for 3000 years could convince only idiots, seeing that Israel is only seven decades old and that the last Jewish state in Palestine collapsed in the sixth century BC.

In any case, irrespective of these questions, the ancient Jewish presence in Palestine cannot be accepted as justification for the destruction of what was there until the arrival of Zionist colonists in the late 19th century.

The Zionists share with the Crusaders the unsavory distinction of bringing to Palestine the greatest destruction known in its modern history. After conquering Palestine in the late 11th century the Crusaders massacred or drove all Muslims and Jews out of Jerusalem. The restitution of Muslim rule was followed from the early 16th century by four centuries of a long Ottoman peace until the British capture of Jerusalem in December, 1917. From that time onwards, Palestine has not known a day of peace. Violence and repression by the British occupiers was followed by massive violence, repression and dispossession by the Zionists, continuing down to the present day.

Jerusalem was always a prime target. Massacres and the seizure of Palestinian property in 1948 were repeated after the seizure of the eastern half of the city in 1967, followed by a continuing racist demographic war launched in complete breach of international law and the laws of any country claiming to be called civilized. What this underlines is that at heart Israel is not a modern state but a tribal, atavistic community that lives by its own brutal standards, certainly insofar as the Palestinians are concerned, and is indifferent to what the rest of the world thinks, when not actually contemptuous of what it thinks. For the Zionists to think that they can get away with this endlessly is a sure indication of the madness and delusions in their minds.

The US has now gone so far as to ‘recognize’ Jerusalem as Israel’s capital when in international law, Jerusalem is an occupied city, all of it, not just the eastern half, captured by force of arms and settled in direct violation of the laws or war. Commenting on the UN General Assembly vote rejecting the Trump declaration, Nikki Haley, the US ambassador, openly threatened those who had voted in its favor. Names had been taken and punishment would be inflicted at the appropriate time. By voting for the resolution UN members had shown a lack of respect for the US, according to Haley: where, one might ask, is US respect for international law and the right of UN members to take independent decisions on the basis of that law?

The Trump declaration on Jerusalem has had an incendiary effect across the Middle East and amongst Muslims everywhere. It should be welcomed because it rips the last veil from the deceit known as the peace process. Mahmoud Abbas has had his nose rubbed in the dirt. The Saudi and Qatari governments, dealing with the Zionists behind the thinnest of veils, have had to fall into line on the question of Jerusalem. The Trump declaration has united Muslims across all divides.

By themselves, as brave as they are, as much fortitude and steadfastness as they have always shown, the Palestinians were never going to be able to defeat their enemies on their own. They were far too powerful. The road back to Palestine was always going to lead through the Arab world, as George Habash wrote in the 1950s, now to be extended, given the rise of Iran, to the Islamic world. Nasser fired up the Arab people in the 1950s and together, Hizbollah and Iran have again set an example of defiance of the US and Israel, so successfully that Israel is now well into preparations for the war intended to destroy them once and for all.

This will be an existential war for survival, an extremely violent war for which Israel has been making intensive preparations. It is warning of total destruction and Hasan Nasrallah is warning back that Hizbollah is ready with missiles that can reach any part of occupied Palestine. The stakes in Middle Eastern wars have never been higher, the possible consequences never graver and even potentially cataclysmic. The consequences of Trump’s declaration would have been so well known beforehand that it seems insufficient to call it stupid. Perhaps it was intended to bring on the war with Iran that Israel and [Zionists in] the US have wanted for a long time.

December 26, 2017 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Washington’s seasonal tidings of Phoenix-style dirty war for Afghanistan

By Finian Cunningham | RT | December 25, 2017

This week saw another deadly bomb attack in the Afghan capital, Kabul, only days after US Vice President Mike Pence promised American troops “victory was in sight.”

This war is far from over, and signs are it will get much worse in the year ahead.

Lurking behind the cheery seasonal tidings brought by Pence lies a forthcoming year of much-increased violence in Afghanistan. Away from the upbeat headlines are portents of ever-deeper involvement by US elite forces in the country’s unrelenting mayhem.

In particular, the US military is moving toward a new strategy under President Trump of unleashing killer units in an apparent bid to drown the Afghan insurgency in blood. It’s a policy America has tried elsewhere, for example, the infamous Phoenix program of assassination during the Vietnam War. The policy usually fails in its stated objectives of “peace and security.”

The “surprise” nature of Pence’s whirlwind visit just before the weekend shows the Central Asian country’s security is on a knife-edge. The unannounced trip by the vice president – his first to Afghanistan – was reportedly “shrouded in secrecy” for security reasons.

Arriving on board a C-17 military plane at the giant US air base at Bagram, then flown by helicopter to meet with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the logistics were an unmistakable indicator of how dangerous the country is. This after 16 years of the most protracted US war ever – supposedly to defeat Taliban militants.

Earlier in September, when US Secretary of Defense James Mattis flew into Kabul International Airport, Taliban insurgents were reportedly able to launch a rocket attack on his aircraft. Mattis and his delegation did not come to harm. This time, however, US officials seemed to be taking no chances with Pence, flying the vice president under cover of darkness to the high-security military airbase.

Wishing troops a “Merry Christmas,” Pence said: “I believe victory is closer than ever before.” He assured American forces that President Trump’s new “fight-to-win strategy” for Afghanistan was “bearing fruit.”

“The results are really beginning to become evident around the country,” claimed Pence after meeting with Ghani. The question is: what “evidence” was he referring to?

It was nearly four months ago, in August, that President Donald Trump announced a new plan for military involvement in Afghanistan. It was something of U-turn on his election campaign pledges last year to wind down American overseas wars.

Under Trump, up to 4,000 troops are to return to the country taking the total US presence there to 15,000. The numbers are set to substantially increase, according to Stars and Stripes, citing US Army Undersecretary Patrick Murphy.

The re-deployment to Afghanistan is still a lot less than the peak numbers during the Obama years when troop levels surged to 100,000. But there seems to be a qualitative shift under Trump marking more deadly involvement.

Trump’s “fight-to-win” strategy suggests US troops are to pursue much more aggressive tactics. Officially, the American military is supposed to be only “advising and training” local Afghan forces. But what the Trump administration is signaling is a return to heavy combat with elite infantry troops.

The Washington Post reported that Pence was briefed by the Afghan officials that “more senior Taliban leaders have been eliminated this year than in all previous years combined.”

If that’s confirmed, that marks a dramatic increase in US combat violence under Trump. It would also tally with Trump’s declared aim to give American commanders in Afghanistan a “freer hand” to carry out missions. This gloves-off policy under Trump has the hallmarks of US troops stepping up assassination squads to go after insurgents.

Another foreboding indicator is that US military journals are reporting, according to Stars and Stripes, elite combat troops being sent to Afghanistan in anticipation of sharper fighting in the Spring season. Those forces include infantry brigades from Fort Carson, Colorado, which are trained in “unconventional warfare” and operating deep inside enemy territory. Unconventional warfare can be seen as a euphemism for extrajudicial killings, torture, and terroristic operations.

The 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team is reportedly replacing forces from the 82nd Airborne Division, who have completed a tour of duty under Trump’s new strategy. The latter are out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, another center for elite killer forces trained in unconventional warfare.

Stars and Stripes quotes Army General John Nicholson, the top US commander in Afghanistan, as saying he is “optimistic” that under Trump’s freer-hand instructions it would “help push the long-stalemated war in favor of the US-backed Afghan government.”

In another sign of the covert operations underway, General Nicholson said: “more than 1,000 Americans would be operating away from bases at any given time once the fighting season begins.” In other words, the Trump administration has signed off on commando-warfare in Afghanistan, not with large troop numbers strewn across the country but with hunter-combat units operating behind enemy lines. In short, elite killer teams.

Given the briefings received by Pence while in Kabul of a seeming dramatic increase in killings of senior Taliban militants, what appears to be underway in Afghanistan is a Phoenix-style assassination campaign similar to what US elite forces carried out in the early years of the Vietnam War. That was where US personnel, along with local forces, went on murder sprees targeting enemy “suspects.” In Vietnam, it is believed that thousands of innocent, non-combatants were assassinated as part of a lethal trawl against militants.

It seems sinister that while Trump is giving US military commanders the green light to expand the war with elite forces operating behind enemy lines, his vice president Mike Pence is crowing about “real progress on the ground.”

It also seems impossibly doomed. Afghanistan is now a foothold for Daesh (Islamic State) as well as the Taliban. The former terror group claimed responsibility this week for the suicide bomb attack outside the Afghan security intelligence headquarters in Kabul, reportedly killing at least 10 bystanders. In recent months, bombings have apparently surged in the capital.

Up to half of all Afghan territory is now under control of insurgent groups. Opium drug production is soaring, and the US-backed state institutions are groaning from corruption.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently claimed that terrorism and lawlessness have flourished during the US presence in his country. Indeed, Karzai said the US forces and terror groups were working “hand in hand” across Afghanistan. He cited cases where militants have been allegedly transported to various parts of the country using US helicopters. Similar claims of US collusion with terror groups have also been made by the Russian government regarding Afghanistan and Syria.

So, just what “progress” the Trump administration is referring to in Afghanistan remains cryptic.

The US-backed regime in Kabul is losing more control of territory, while the country descends further into chaos and violence. More than 30,000 civilians have been killed during 16 years of “Operation Enduring Freedom” launched by Washington in October 2001.

Fiendishly, the Afghan population is set to endure more such American-style freedom with Trump’s dispatch of killer troops.

December 25, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Reports on US training ‘ex-terrorists’ in Syria concerning – Lavrov

RT | December 25, 2017

Anti-terrorist missions should not be used to topple governments, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told RT, adding that Moscow has been concerned by recent reports of the US training former terrorists in Syria.

“Attempts to profit from anti-terrorist objectives – which should be common, unified and without double standards – are disturbing,” Lavrov said. These objectives should not be used to promote one’s own agenda, including “changing unwanted regimes,” he added.

Speaking of Russia-US talks on military de-escalation in Syria, Lavrov said he has “mixed feelings” about his western counterpart’s commitment to the Syrian peace process.

“Rex Tillerson used to tell me that the main goal of the US in Syria is defeating ISIS but now it is getting vaguer and vaguer,” the minister added. Instead, the forces are now said to stay in Syria until the start of the political process or, as some US officials claim, the process that involves the resignation of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

As Lavrov put it, “the information claiming that some US military bases in Syria have started to train militants, including former members of terrorist groups, is of course quite concerning.”

Earlier in December, Russia’s Reconciliation Center for Syria released a statement accusing the US-led coalition of creating the so-called ‘New Syrian Army.’ The group allegedly comprises remnants of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), the Al-Nusra Front and other militants, and is based at a refugee camp in north-east Syria located 20 kilometers from Al-Shaddadah town. Local refugees, returning to areas freed from IS, say the refugee camp has been used by the coalition as a training ground for militants for at least the past six months.

December 25, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

US, Turkish military forces must leave Syria: Jaafari

Press TV – December 22, 2017

Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations and head of the government delegation to intra-Syrian peace talks, Bashar al-Jaafari, says US and Turkish military forces should leave his conflict-plagued Arab country immediately.

He made the demand during the latest round of Syrian peace negotiations in the Kazakh capital city of Astana.

On October 13, Turkish troops travelling in a convoy of 12 armored vehicles entered northern Syria in a new military operation.

Turkish media sources said the convoy included about 80 soldiers.

Local sources said the troops were headed towards the western part of Aleppo province.

The development came after Turkish officials said they were sending troops into Syria to enforce a de-escalation zone in Idlib, which is largely controlled by the Takfiri Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) terrorist alliance.

The de-escalation zone forms part of an agreement reached between Turkey, Iran and Russia.

Syrian congress of national dialogue to be held in Sochi in late Jan.

Meanwhile, a joint statement released after two days of talks in Kazakhstan said delegations from Russia, Iran and Turkey, Syrian government representatives as well as a 20-member opposition team had agreed to hold a “peace congress” in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi as part of efforts to find a political solution to the six-year-old Syrian conflict.

The statement said the congress will be held between January 29 and 30 next year, and “all segments of the Syrian society” will participate in it.

It added “To this end three guarantors (Russia, Turkey and Iran) will hold a special preparation meeting in Sochi before the congress.”

Last week, the eighth round of UN-backed Syria peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland, ended without progress.

UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan De Mistura, described the talks as a missed opportunity.

Previous rounds of Geneva negotiations have failed to achieve results, mainly due to the opposition’s insistence that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad should cede power.

December 22, 2017 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

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