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Myriad ways CIA tried and failed to assassinate Fidel Castro

RT | November 26, 2016

The father of the Cuban Revolution remains unbeaten by his foes even in death. We look over the most dramatic assassination plots on El Comandante – from character-assassinations by way of LSD, to Italian mobsters, tuberculosis wetsuit, and exploding cigar.

“If surviving assassination attempts were an Olympic event, I would win the gold medal,” Castro is famously quoted as saying. Cuba’s ex-intelligence chief Fabian Escalante – the person tasked with guarding Fidel’s life – puts the number of attempts at 638. The man also claimed to Reuters in a 2010 interview that the John F. Kennedy assassination could well have been an attempt to expedite the process of removing Castro from power: the American president, some said, was not doing enough. Of course, by the time of Kennedy’s 1963 shooting death in Dallas, Texas, there had already been numerous attempts on Castro’s life – intended to bolster Kennedy’s own reputation back home as a strong president, with his administration exerting great pressure on the CIA to take care of it. It is fitting then to start at the beginning.

1) Getting the Mafia to do it 

When a sizable cache of classified CIA documents, amicably called ‘Family Jewels,’ was finally released in 2007, Cuban communists felt a sense of vindication, finally gaining the ability to publicly accuse the United States government of what they claimed was already common knowledge.

In the summer of 1960, the CIA recruited former FBI agent Robert Maheu. He became the go-between from the agency to two prominent Italian gangsters on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List – Santo Trafficante of the Miami Syndicate, and Salvatore Giancana – Al Capone’s successor in Chicago. They were gotten hold of by way of Las Vegas mobster Johnny Roselli. A payment of $150,000 was on the table. According to the declassified documents, Giancana suggested using poisoned pills – six of them. But despite gaining access to officials inside the Cuban government, the plan had been unsuccessful, and was later scrapped in the run-up to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. It is said the agency was able to retrieve all the poison pills.

The closest the Americans got to killing Castro was with a poisoned chocolate milkshake, Escalante claimed to Reuters. According to the 2007 documents, another batch of poison was delivered through the Mafia in 1963 in a bottle of Bayer aspirin pills. An opposition group, it was believed, had a good chance. But the plot failed when a disguised waiter did not manage to lace Castro’s milkshake in the cafeteria of the then-Hilton Hotel (now Havana Libre), as the pill got stuck in the freezer – where it was hidden – and broke apart when the assassin attempted to dislodge it from the wall.

2) Contaminating an entire broadcast studio with LSD with the intention of eroding public trust

This was not just about spiking drinks or cigars. The CIA went all-out. After a failed attempt to embarrass El Comandante by having his beard fall out due to boots spiked with chemicals, the agency had opted for a box of cigars spiked with LSD. The plan was to have Castro burst into laughter during a televised interview, thus subjecting him to ridicule in the public eye. But it was not just cigars. The CIA planned to lace the entire studio. This plot was not implemented, but was high in the running for ways to spark a national uprising against Castro.

3) Tuberculosis-laced scuba gear that followed the exploding sea shell 

The CIA had back-paddled on another of its ingenious plans to kill Castro, leading to the poisoned scuba gear idea. The agency knew the revolutionary was an avid diver. The plan had been to attract El Comandante with a sea shell practically impossible to miss, having been painted in colors bright enough to attract him. Castro would swim closer to inspect it, whereupon a lethal amount of explosives would detonate. But the idea was aborted due to impracticality, the declassified documents claimed. So the spies went the more practical way: lacing Castro’s scuba gear with tuberculosis to trigger a deadly skin disease. The man who was supposed to give Castro the suit had opted to give him an ordinary one, it turned out.

4) Evolution of the poison cigar – the exploding cigar

According to a Saturday Evening Post report on November 4, 1967, a CIA agent had approached a New York cop with the idea of handing Castro an exploding cigar during a UN meeting. That was reportedly after the plan to poison the cigar had been abandoned. This was despite the poison having already been injected into the cigar, with the CIA dismissing the person tasked with carrying the plan out in the final stages.

However, the exploding-cigar plan also failed due to the double agent changing his mind at the last instant.

5) Femme fatale 

One of Castro’s many lovers – CIA informant Marita Lorenz, was also tasked with poisoning Castro in a daring operation involving a secret unit tasked with the assassination – Operation 40. According to the FBI, Lorenz had become a “contract agent” for the CIA, and willingly accepted the task of assassinating him following a miscarriage or an abortion – a story she told in 1959. Castro’s reaction to her not having the child had reportedly enraged her so much, she had eagerly taken up the task. And so she met with CIA double agent Frank Sturgis in 1960, who had handed her a bottle of poison pills.

Lorenz was to drop one into her lover’s drink, containing enough poison to kill him within 30 seconds. But as with the countless other attempts, it did not succeed because Lorenz herself could not go through with it. The mission was wrought with pitfalls. According to Ann Louise Bardoch’s ‘Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami and Havana,’ Lorenz recalled that “They said, ‘we want you to take him out.’” But, “I knew the minute I saw the outline of Havana I couldn’t do it.”

Even then, she had made the mistake of stashing the pills in her pot of cold cream, in fear of being discovered by customs. The substance had stuck to the pills, and Lorenz couldn’t unmix the two. As she attempted to flush the pills down the toilet, Castro –who had got wind of the plot – walked in with a cigar. He removed his handgun from the holster, and handed it to Lorenz with the words: “Did you come to kill me?” According to Lorenz, he handed her the gun and puffed on his cigar with his eyes closed.

“He made himself vulnerable because he knew I couldn’t do it. He still loved me and I still loved him.”

She feared the CIA would kill her for being with Castro after the foiled assassination attempt. Upon her return to Miami, Lorenz never again met with Castro. Later, however, she had a daughter with another Latin American military leader, Venezuela’s Marcos Perez Jimenez.

According to Escalante, it was the Cuban revolutionary’s vigilance and the efforts of his security apparatus that kept him alive all those years. Numerous books have been written on the matter.

November 26, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Obama Says Goodbye to His European Time Bomb

By AIDAN O’BRIEN | The Greanville Post | November 25, 2016

Do European lives matter? Not to Obama. But does anything or did anything matter to him? His America is down the toilet. And his Europe too. For different reasons of course. He didn’t mean to divide America. It just kinda happened. Wall Street was the priority and the Mexican Wall kinda built itself. The new Berlin Wall however is his baby. That was intentional. He built it with malice. And last week he came to Europe to kiss it goodbye. It felt like the kiss of death.

Trump wants to keep the Mexicans out of America. And he is ridiculed. Obama on the other hand wants to keep the Russians out of Europe. And he is applauded. Especially in Europe! Trump is all mouth. While Obama is all war. Yet the Europeans fear Trump. Maybe Europe’s Obama fetish is a peculiar death wish. Or more likely its a super colony obeying the orders of the super power. Even if the order is death. Whatever it is Obama’s departing gift to Europe is a time bomb. And Europe says thanks!

Divide and rule is the oldest trick in the book. And Europe fell for it. Not once but twice. The first time as they say was a tragedy. This time around (the second coming) is just a farce. The first Cold War was believable (even if it was a hoax). The New Cold War though is a joke. But no one is laughing. Except Obama. He’s smirking. While his European pawns are deadly serious. And for that reason – if they – the Europeans -don’t stop – they’ll soon be dead. And Obama will still be smirking.

Obama’s time bomb comes in two parts. One is called the Ukraine. And the other is called the Baltic states. And the spare part is called Poland. Under Obama they all became highly irrational overnight. Obama activated them. And now they’re ready to trigger World War III at any moment. It’ll probably be the shortest War in history. For Europe that is, because it’ll be dust within seconds. But does Obama care? No. Does Europe even care? No. It loves Obama’s shit. The more he gives – the more it smokes it. The subsequent hallucinations and paranoia are weird.

Nothing Trump says or does comes close. Trump wants to arrest, deport and hate the Mexicans. In contrast Obama and his European clowns want to exterminate the Russians. And Trump is supposed to be the mad one! In Europe, Obama’s hate makes Trump’s hate look cute. Obama’s version is structural (its policy), whereas Trump’s version is emotional (its nonsense). No wonder Obama’s candidate (Clinton) got the full support of the US warmongering establishment. The weird thing is that  Europe – the target of Obama’s hate – also supported his candidate.

The Europe that obeys Obama however is a dead man walking. Its the lie called the European Union – a racket that financially bleeds ordinary “deplorable” Europeans. Like Obama’s candidate, the EU has lost touch with reality. And no longer is credible – if it ever was. As the EU loses the support of Europe’s “deplorables” it shamelessly clings onto Obama. Merkel, Hollande, Renzi and Tsipras kowtowed last week and didn’t complain about the bomb on their backs. Like true fundamentalists they believe in Obama’s hate. And are ready to be his suicide bombers. It’s a case of après moi, rien!

Europe is expendable – that’s the Obama doctrine. And one of Obama’s key representatives in Europe, Victoria Nuland, said it best in February 2014 when the time bomb was being planted in Ukraine: “Fuck [Europe].” The fact that the EU elite itself obeys this doctrine doesn’t justify it. On the contrary, it justifies the opposite: resistance. In any shape or form. The only thing that can defuse Obama’s time bomb is the rejection not only of Obama but also of the EU. The US electorate has just given us the first part of this double rejection. Now it is up to the EU electorate. And the signs are good.

In the coming year France, Germany, Holland and maybe even Italy get to vote. And in each country “the deplorables” are the majority. European lives may not matter to the North Atlantic elite, but they do matter to ordinary Europeans. And despite what the elites say – it isn’t a case of “racism”. Its common sense. The point is that Lives Matter – Everywhere. Especially the lives of the weak. The ones that are sacrificed in war. The ones that Obama has been sacrificing in his wars. Europe doesn’t want to be another statistic. Neither does Russia. Adios Obama! And take the EU and your time bomb with you.

November 26, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Leading US Nuclear Contractors Accept $125Mln for Faulty Nuclear Cleanup

Sputnik – 24.11.2016

Two leading US nuclear engineering firms, Bechtel and URS, have agreed to pay $125 million to settle charges that they installed substandard quality pipes and containment vessels at a plant to reprocess dangerous nuclear waste, the US Department of Justice announced in a press release.

The charges also involved diverting money from the nuclear cleanup to pay lobbyists, the release stated on Wednesday.

“The United States alleged that the defendants improperly billed the government for materials and services from vendors that did not meet quality control requirements, for piping and waste vessels that did not meet quality standards and for testing from vendors who did not have compliant quality programs,” the release also noted.

The two contractors were hired to build a nuclear waste processing facility at the Hanford Project, which was established in 1943 to manufacture plutonium that was used in the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki at the close of World War II. Later, Hanford supplied much of the plutonium used in the US nuclear arsenal.

Today, the site is heavily contaminated with radioactive waste and is largely out of commission, according to published reports.

November 24, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Environmentalism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Does Clinton’s Defeat Mean the Decline of US Interventionism?

Photo by The U.S. Army | CC BY 2.0

Photo by The U.S. Army | CC BY 2.0
By Marwen Bouassida | CounterPunch | November 22, 2016

Carthage, Tunisia – No one knows what the future will bring. Yet, many observers have been quick to announce the decline of American interventionism and the revival of isolationism–the end of an era and the beginning of another.

Rightly or wrongly, Hillary Clinton’s defeat by Donald Trump fuels this prediction, which depresses some and delights other. The conflicted responses to Trump’s victory, based on ideological interests and values, register even within families. However, the most dramatic split reactions to Trump’s victory are exemplified by the left’s reception—liberal or socialist—in the global North versus the global South. If the North reacted to Trump’s victory with suffocated apprehension, the South experienced it as a breath of fresh air, not out of sympathy for Trump but as a rejection of Clinton.

The global South associates the name of Clinton—Bill or Hillary—with the heralds of humanitarian intervention. If the discourse of humanitarianism seduced the North, it has not been so in the South, even less in the Near and Middle East, which no longer believe in it. The patent humanitarian disasters in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, and Syria have disillusioned them.

It is in this sense that Trump’s victory is felt as a release, a hope for change, and a rupture from the policy of Clinton, Bush, and Obama. This policy, in the name of edifying nations (“nation building”), has destroyed some of the oldest nations and civilizations on earth; in the name of delivering well-being, it has delivered misery; in the name of liberal values, it has galvanized religious zeal; in the name of democracy and human rights, it has installed autocracies and Sharia law.

Who is to blame?

Did the United States not know that intervening in “the lands of Islam” would act as a catalyst for Jihad? Was it by chance that the United States intervened only in secular states, turning them into manholes of religious extremism? Is it a coincidence that these interventions were and are often supported by regimes that sponsor political Islam? Conspiracy theory, you say? No, these are historical facts.

Can the United States not learn from history, or does it just doom itself to repeat it? Does it not pose itself the question of how al-Qaeda and Daesh originated? How did they organize themselves? Who trained them? What is their mobilizing discourse? (1) Why is the US their target?  None of this seems to matter to the US: all it cares about is projecting its own idealism. (2)

The death of thousands of people in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya or Syria, has it contributed to the well being of these peoples? Or does the United States perhaps respond to this question in the manner of Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State, who regretted the death of five-hundred-thousand Iraqi children, deprived of medications by the American embargo, to conclude with the infamous sentence, “[But] it was worth it “?

Was it worth it that people came to perceive humanitarian intervention as the new crusades? Was it worth it that they now perceive democracy as a pagan, pre-Islamic model, abjured by their belief? Was it worth it that they now perceive modernity as deviating believers from the “true” path? Was it worth that they now perceive human rights as human standards as contrary to the divine will? Was it worth it that people now perceive secularism as atheism whose defenders are punishable by beheading?

Have universal values become a problem rather than a solution? What then to think of making war in their name? Has humanitarian intervention become punishment rather than help?

The South has understood where the North has not: the selective nature of humanitarian interventions reflects their punitive nature; sanctions go to non-client regimes; interventions seem to be a new excuse for the hegemonic ambitions of the United States and its allies; they are a new rationale for NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they are a way to suppress Russia and deprive it of its zones of influence. (3)

What a far-sighted motion was that of the coalition of the countries of the Third World (G77) at the Havana Summit in 2000! It declared its rejection of any intervention, including humanitarian, which did not respect the sovereignty of the states concerned. (4) This was nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake of the war of Kosovo, which made “humanitarian intervention” the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade, of the foreign policy of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state. (5)

The end of interventionism?

But are Clinton’s defeat and Trump’s accession to power sufficient reasons to declare the decline of interventionism?

Donald Trump is a nationalist, whose rise has been the result of a coalition of anti-interventionists within the Republican Party. They profess a foreign policy that Trump has summarized in these words: “We will use military force only in cases of vital necessity to the national security of the United States. We will put an end to attempts of imposing democracy and overthrowing regimes abroad, as well as involving ourselves in situations in which we have no right to intervene.” (6)

But drawing conclusions about the foreign policy of the United States from unofficial statements seems simplistic. At the moment of this writing, any speculation as to the policy choices of Trump’s foreign policy is premature. One can’t predict his policy with regard to the Near and Middle East, since he has not yet even formed his cabinet. Moreover, presidents in office can change their tune in the course of their tenure. The case of George W. Bush provides an excellent example.

Like Donald Trump, George W. Bush was a conservative Republican non-interventionist. He advocated “America First,” called for a more subdued foreign policy and adopted Colin Powell’s realism “to attend without stress” (7) with regard to the Near and Middle East. But his policy shifted to become the most aggressive and most brutal in the history of the United States. Many international observers argue that this shift came as a response to the September 11 attacks, but they fail to note that the aggressive germs already existed within Bush’s cabinet and advisers: the neo-conservatives occupied key functions in his administration. (8)

Up until now, Trump’s links with the neo-cons remain unclear. The best-known neo-cons, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, and Robert Kagan, appear to have lost their bet by supporting Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. But others, less prominent or influential, seem to have won it by supporting Trump: Dick Cheney, Norman Podhoretz, and James Woolsey, his adviser and one of the architects of the wars in the Middle East.

These indices show that nothing seems to have been gained by the South, still less by the Near and Middle East. There appears to be no guarantee that the situation will improve.

The non-interventionism promised by Trump may not necessarily equate to a policy of isolationism. A non-interventionist policy does not automatically mean that the United States will stop protecting their interests abroad, strategic or otherwise. Rather, it could mean that the United States will not intervene abroad except to defend their own interests, unilaterally–and perhaps even more aggressively. Such a potential is implied in Trump’s promise to increase the budget for the army and the military-industrial complex. Thus, it is more realistic to suppose that as long as the United States has interests in the countries of the South and the Near and Middle East, so long it will not hesitate to intervene.

In this context, Clinton’s defeat and Trump’s accession are not sufficient reasons to declare the decline of interventionism—the end of an era and the beginning of another. The political reality is too complex to be reduced to statements by a presidential candidate campaigning for election, by an elected president, or even by a president in the course of performing his office.

No one knows what the future will bring.

Marwen Bouassida is a researcher in international law at North African-European relations, University of Carthage, Tunisia. He regularly contributes to the online magazine Kapitalis.

(Translated from the French by Luciana Bohne)

Works Cited

1    The Declaration of 77 South Summit, Havana – Cuba, 10 – 14 April 2000: http://www.g77.org/summit/Declaration_G77Summit.htm

2    See : Diana Johnstone, Queen of Chaos : The misadventure of Hillary Clinton, CounterPunch, 2015.

3    Actualité : « Trump mettra fin aux ingérences US s’il est élu », Suptniknews (Novembre 04, 2016) En ligne : http://sptnkne.ws/cBzJ

4    Gilles Kepel, Fitna : Guerre au cœur de l’islam, Gallimard, 2004, p.90.

5    Ted Galen Carpenter, “Donald Trump’s foreign policy: What will he really do?” The National Interest (Novembre 12, 2016) Online: http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/donald-trumps-foreign-policy-what-will-he-really-do-18378

6    Sputniknews, « Trump mettra fin aux ingérences US s’il est élu », Novembre 04, 2016. http://sptnkne.ws/cBzJ (last seen: November 17, 2016)

7    Gilles Kepel, Fitna : Guerre au cœur de l’islam, Gallimard, 2004, p.90

8    Ted Galen Carpenter, “Donald Trump’s foreign policy: What will he really do?”, The National Interest, Novembre 12, 2016 http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/donald-trumps-foreign-policy-what-will-he-really-do-18378 (last seen: Novembre 17, 2016)

November 22, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

US, Saudi Ammunition Bound for Syrian Moderate Opposition Ends Up in Daesh Hands

Sputnik – 22.11.2016

Ammunition supplied by the United States and Saudi Arabia to moderate Syrian opposition groups has been found in the possession of Daesh terrorist group, representatives of a UK-based organization monitoring weapons movement said.

The Conflict Armament Research (CAR) investigators work in the areas recently liberated from Daesh and its research shows that ammunition boxes left by the jihadists can be traced back to factories in Eastern Europe, the BBC reported Monday, citing CAR team leader James Bevan.

Inquiries by Bevan’s team indicated that the factory orders could be traced back to the United States and Saudi Arabia. Ammunition was then shipped to southern Turkey en route to opposition groups in northern Syria.

“Their procurement networks reach out into southern Turkey and they obviously have a series of very strong relationships with very big distributors,” Bevan told the BBC.

The ammunition then found its way into Daesh hands, eventually ending up in Iraq, where Daesh is fighting US-backed government troops. Ammunition boxes in question were found starting late 2015 in Tikrit, Ramadi, Falluja and Mosul, according to CAR.

CAR estimated that the speed of procurement was some two months between factory and the final destination in Iraq. The organization’s report has yet to be published.

Daesh, a militant jihadist organization outlawed in many countries, including the United States and Russia, took over vast swathes of Syria and Iraq in 2014 amid the ongoing Syrian civil war.

The US Train and Equip Program aimed at moderate Syrian rebels was canceled in October 2015 after a number of US-trained forces were quickly overrun by extremists while the US-provided weapons were reportedly handed over to the terrorist groups. A part of the US-trained forces defected and fought on the side of terrorists.

Both the United States and the United Kingdom have recently decided to resume training programs in Syria.

November 22, 2016 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

UN chemical watchdog refused to send experts to Aleppo under Western pressure – Lavrov

RT | November 22, 2016

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons refuses to send its experts to Aleppo to check substances used by rebels in attacks. The move was “seemingly done under pressure from our Western colleagues,” Russia’s foreign minister said.

“Russian specialists found that militants in east Aleppo used ammunition with poisonous substances, with the ammo targeting west Aleppo. The collected samples leave no doubt that it’s a toxic agent,” Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference with his Belarusian counterpart in Minsk, as cited by Interfax.

However, when the Russian Ministry of Defense addressed the leadership of the UN watchdog OPCW “with the demand to urgently send its experts to Aleppo to participate in the sample analysis,” the organization “refused to carry out this simple task, citing security issues.”

The underlying reason behind this, Lavrov said, seemed to be “tremendous pressure from our Western colleagues,” because “our and Syrian sides guaranteed security [for the experts].”

Russia is now working on the possibility of delivering the samples for analysis to The Hague, Lavrov added.

“It will make it hard [for them] to back out,” the minister said, as quoted by TASS.

Lavrov’s statement comes a day after the Ministry of Defense spoke about the evidence of chemical attacks by rebels, and stressed that the OPCW was refusing to cooperate.

Ministry spokesperson Major General Igor Konashenkov said that Russian experts collected bioassays from four Syrians injured in the attacks, and made the shocking discovery earlier this month.

In fact, Russian top brass has been warning since September that the militants might use chemical weapons against civilians in Aleppo, and in October, Syrian state media reported toxic gas having been used against a government-held area in the city.

Fifteen people were injured back then, and a local doctor told RT that the symptoms could be those observed after the use of chlorine gas.

Over the past few years, the Syrian government has often come under fire over claims of its alleged use of chemical weapons to attack the rebel-held areas – from activists and the UN, as well as the US State Department.

November 22, 2016 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Syria militants get anti-aircraft missiles: Report

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An Ansar al-Islam terrorist tests a shoulder-fired and low-altitude 9K32 Strela-2 surface-to-air missile system in an unknown location in southwestern Syria
Press TV – November 22, 2016

A report says members of a foreign-sponsored militant group in Syria have received a considerable amount of shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles, a possible indication that the US has eased restrictions on the supply of weapons to the anti-Damascus militants.

In a video published by the a pro-militant television network on Sunday, terrorists from the so-called Ansar al-Islam group can be seen testing low-altitude 9K32 Strela-2 missile systems in the southwestern Syrian provinces of Dara’a and Quneitra.

“We, in Ansar al-Islam Front, have distributed several points of air defense to counter any attempt by the Syrian warplanes or helicopters, which bomb points in Quneitra Province. We have a good number of these missiles,” a militant can be heard saying in the video.

A second militant says his group and the so-called Free Syrian Army are deploying munitions and forces to the towns of al-Harra, Masharah, Sandaniya and Jabata for attack against Syrian government forces within the next few days.

The report comes amid indications that the US administration has given the green light to its allies in the Middle East to send missiles to terrorist groups inside Syria through Jordan and Turkey.

A militant source said in late September that the US has agreed to the start of arms shipments from Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

A Reuters report has also hinted at the possibility that President Barack Obama would overturn the ban on the supply of missiles to extremist militants in Syria in the wake of Russian and Syrian forces’ offensives to retake the militant-held eastern part of the city of Aleppo.

Turkish airstrike kills Syrians

Meanwhile, Turkish aerial bombardment against the purported positions of Daesh terrorists near the northwestern Syrian city of al-Bab has killed seven people.

Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that ten people also sustained injuries in the Monday attack.

On August 24, the Turkish air force and special ground forces kicked off Operation Euphrates Shield inside Syria in a bid to support the so-called Free Syrian Army militants and rid the border area of Daesh terrorists and fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD).

The incursion drew strong condemnation from the Damascus government for violating Syrian sovereignty.

Also on Monday, ten civilians were killed when fighter jets from a US-led military coalition hit an area in the al-Salehiyah Village of the northern Syrian province of al-Raqqah.

Since September 2014, the US and some of its Arab allies have been carrying out airstrikes against what they say are Daesh positions inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a United Nations (UN) mandate.

The US-led coalition has done little to stop Daesh’s advances in Syria and Iraq. Some analysts have criticized the US-led military campaign, saying the strikes are only meant to benefit US weapons manufacturers.

November 22, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

UK’s Iraq war probe designed to ‘avoid blame,’ Whitehall memos reveal – report

RT | November 20, 2016

The injury into UK’s involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq was designed by the government to avoid allocating blame to individuals and departments, memos obtained under the Freedom of Information Act have reportedly revealed.

The papers were made public thanks to Chris Lamb, an FOI campaigner from Bristol, who had won a two-year court battle for the right to access classified memos by government officials relating to the creation of the Chilcot Inquiry. The memos were penned in the four-week period in May and June 2009, the Observer reported.

The documents revealed that high-level politicians in Britain sought to ensure that the probe would not result in branches of the government or individuals being held legally liable for the Iraq war. Some officials opposed a public inquiry due to the amount of daily publicity, cost and, ironically, long time such a procedure would take.

The Chilcot Report, released in July, was the culmination of seven years of investigation, started by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2009, and chaired by Sir John Chilcot. Although the investigation had found that Saddam Hussein had not posed any credible threat to the West – nor were there any WMD in his possession – it stopped short of assigning any blame to Tony Blair, who was UK prime minister at the time of the invasion, or any officials in his government.

Now it has been reportedly revealed that officials at the highest levels were involved in driving the inquiry to that outcome.

“The inquiry was hobbled before it even started, with tight restrictions on what it could do that were not fully made public,” Lamb told the newspaper.

The Observer reports that according to the memos, former cabinet secretary under Brown, Sir (now Lord) Gus O’Donnell ignored Whitehall protocol when he made Margaret Aldred the secretary on the inquiry – one of the most senior roles with the investigation.

Aldred had chaired the Iraq senior officials group during the period Chilcot was investigating and her appointment ran against the advice by Cabinet Office official Ben Lyon, who said in one memo that the secretariat should not draw from civil servants, and specifically that they “should not have been involved in Iraq policy since 2002.”

Other people involved in the 2003 war helped set up the inquiry, including Sir Jeremy Heywood, who served as Blair’s parliamentary private secretary until 2003, and former spy chief Sir John Scarlett, who was the central figure in trumpeting up the so-called Iraq dossier on Saddam Hussein’s non-existant arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

In another memo, O’Donnell advised to avoid a legal focus, and recommended that the investigation be structured so as to prevent “any conclusion on questions of law or fact, which create circumstances which expose organizations, departments and/or individuals to criminal or civil proceedings or judicial review.” Part of this approach was not to have any judges or lawyers among the inquiry appointees.

Another big point for the investigation was to keep it secret rather than public. Lyon warned that a public inquiry would “attract a daily running commentary,” like the 2003 Hutton inquiry into the death of Iraq weapons inspector David Kelly. O’Donnell used the same reasoning and warned that a public inquiry would “threaten legal liability for individuals” and “take a long time.”

Brown initially wanted the injury to be carried by the Privy Council and announced this procedure in June 2009. But after a public outcry he agreed to make some of the hearing public.

November 20, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Eyewitnesses Say Fallen FARC Rebels Were Ambushed by Sniper

Two FARC rebels, identified as Joaco (L) and Monica, were allegedly killed Wednesday by a government sniper.

Two FARC rebels, identified as Joaco (L) and Monica, were allegedly killed Wednesday by a government sniper. | Photo: Prensa Rural
teleSUR | November 18, 2016

Eyewitnesses told a verification team that the two rebel fighters with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia killed earlier this week in the northern department of Bolivar died as a result of an ambush by government forces, Prensa Rural reported Friday.

The Ministry of Defense claimed that the armed guerrilla rebels were killed in combat after carrying out criminal activities.

Meanwhile the leaders from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, said they were merely making their way to “pre-concentration” areas where members of the rebel army are gathering ahead of the final process of demobilization as part of the ongoing peace process.

Members of the Association of Agroecological and Mining Brotherhoods of Guamoco, a local organization, spoke to witnesses in the municipality of Santa Rosa del Sur, where the incident took place to collect testimonies.

According to these witnesses, the two victims, FARC rebels who went by the names Joaco and Monica, were standing near two houses near a section of town known as the “Y” when suddenly Joaca, who was on the phone, was struck by a bullet and fell to the ground. Monica then bent down to check on him when she too was struck by a bullet.

The testimonies were collected from people who were inside one of the houses and witnessed the entire series of events. Prensa Rural reported that the house contained four men, two women, a child, and an infant.

Government troops, who were positioned approximately 40 meters away, then fired two bursts of rounds into the air. Troops then ordered a third rebel fighter to the ground and subsequently detained him.

The government troops then harassed the locals, storming into their homes, reportedly insulting those present and demanding they produce identification. They further accused the civilians of being FARC collaborators. Locals reported that they fear reprisals from state security forces after being labeled collaborators.

Witnesses reported that two of the government soldiers wore masks to hide their identities. Others said they recalled seeing some of the government troops, in civilian clothing, visiting the house near where the killings took place.

The testimony from witnesses matched early statements from the FARC. Spanish lawyer Enrique Santiago, who has served as a legal advisor to the FARC during the peace negotiations in Havana, wrote Wednesday on his Twitter account that the two rebels were killed “by a sniper.”

The Tripartite Monitoring and Verification Mechanism, which forms part of the bilateral cease-fire agreement, was activated in order to conduct formal investigation of the events.

However, this early report raises serious questions about the conduct of the government soldiers. It is widely known within Colombia that there are high-ranking officials in the armed forces who oppose the peace process and may try to sabotage efforts to end the five-decade-long conflict.

Witness testimony belied the government’s version of events in an incident in April 2015 that left 13 dead. There the government claimed troops were ambushed but witnesses said the deaths were the product of a lengthy gun battle and that locals had warned the government soldiers not to make camp in the area. That incident took place before a bilateral cease-fire had been established and threatened to derail peace talks.

The details surrounding this latest incident, such as the presence of government troops in civilian clothing days earlier, suggests the killings were not the product of a chance encounter but rather a pre-planned operation.

The killing of the two FARC rebels marked the first documented break in some 80 days of the official bilateral cease-fire and, according to the Center for Resources for Analysis of the Conflict.

The Tripartite Mechanism is expected to issue a series of recommendations to avoid any future incidents.

FARC and government negotiators signed a new peace deal in Havana Saturday, just six weeks after a previous peace plan was narrowly rejected in a nationwide plebiscite. The new agreement includes modifications made after consultations with the “No” side as well as other sectors of Colombian civil society.

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Exclusive: 2nd Colombia Deal ‘More Inclusive’ Says FARC Lawyer

November 19, 2016 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

At least 17 killed, dozens injured in E. Aleppo as rebels disperse protesters with machine gun fire

RT | November 19, 2016

At least 17 people were killed by heavy gunfire and about a dozen more were rounded up and executed after hundreds of civilians trying to leave eastern Aleppo protested against the rebel blockade of exit routes, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Some 500 civilians took part in several protests in the rebel-occupied eastern part of Aleppo on Thursday, and at least 200 of them were trying to reach the Syrian government-controlled area at the time they were violently dispersed with live fire, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

“The militants dispersed the demonstration, shooting at the protesters from a heavy machine gun and then mined all the approaches to the checkpoint and placed snipers on the roofs of nearby houses,” Konashenkov said, as quoted by Sputnik news agency.

“Seventeen people died at the site, including two teenagers of 13 and 15 years of age, over 40 people were wounded,” he added.

Upon quelling one of the rallies, militants launched a hunt for the presumed organizers of the protests, the ministry spokesman said.

“Terrorists detained about 10 men, who they held to be ‘organizers’ of the riots, and drove them away in an unknown direction. They were shot dead the same evening,” Konashenkov said.

On Wednesday, the Defense Ministry’s spokesman said that about 1,500 civilians had taken to the streets of eastern Aleppo to protest against the militants’ occupation. Unconfirmed footage has emerged online in which people can be seen chanting slogans and calling on the local council to take action against the rebel groups.

Tuesday’s demonstrations were also violently suppressed by the militants, who killed and injured dozens of people, Konashenkov said, citing intelligence.

Civilians in the rebel-held part of the city are believed to be held as human shields as the humanitarian situation and drastic food shortages worsen. The terrorists have mined the streets approaching the humanitarian corridors to prevent civilians from using them to leave and threaten to kill any who defy their orders.

If Washington had ceased pursuing its agenda in Syria a year ago, the situation that exists in Aleppo today would never have arisen, investigative journalist Patrick Henningsen told RT.

“These are Syrian people on both sides, east Aleppo and west Aleppo. They are not pro-rebel, they are not pro-Assad. They are Syrian citizens and they clearly want to get some … life: they need food, they need shelter, and they try to protest and look what happened,” he added.

November 19, 2016 Posted by | War Crimes | | Leave a comment

The Brits Have Their War Dead, We Have Bobby Sands

By Aidan O’Brien | CounterPunch | November 18, 2016

Dublin – Last Sunday Britain remembered yet again its soldiers which were “killed in past and present” wars. This annual British event – Remembrance Sunday – is their annual “fuck you” to the world. It basically is a defence of the British Empire and the willing executioners it sent out to the four corners of the world. It’s insensitivity towards the peoples Britain conquered and condemned is so breathtaking that it begs a bloody response.

And when Britain’s role in the 21st century Arab slaughter is taken into account – the sight of Britain’s military shamelessly looking for respect is nothing less than the sabotage of morality. It makes a mockery of international solidarity and international equality. It is not a nation remembering but a nation defecating – defecating on the universal rights of men and women everywhere. It is a pure crime parading as pure innocence.

Britain’s ruling class was profoundly embarrassed by Brexit. Ever since the vote to “leave” Europe – this establishment has been at pains to express its love for Europe and the globe. Yet every year this social class recalls with pride the British rape of the world. Indeed this ruling class has steadfastly refused to apologise for its historical and contemporary acts – choosing instead to institutionalise its rapaciousness. Brexit may be an embarrassment for this class – but not war. On the contrary – war is policy – a perennial policy.

Just how long has war been British policy? Since it’s unification in 1707 Britain has been at war more or less nonstop somewhere in the world. From the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13) to the destruction of Libya and Syria (2011-16) the British have been in the business of killing foreigners. In a light hearted book All the Countries We’ve Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Around To (2013) the writer Stuart Laycock concludes that Britain has invaded 90% of the world’s countries. That is: out of nearly 200 countries – only 22 have escaped British terror. However being light hearted about this will not stop the killing machine.

In contrast the writer Richard Gott in his book Britain’s Empire (2011) looks very closely at this trail of blood and guts. For him it is not a joke for Brits to laugh at. But is a problem to deal with. And overcome. He looks for the victims of British terror and their resistance to British rule so as to gain a liberating view of the past and therefore of the present. Once the revolt and resistance is included and embraced – an alternative to Empire becomes possible. By seeing Britain clearly and by rising up against it – Britain’s victims gave and give birth to a better world. This is one of the great stories – if not the greatest story – of the modern world. One that we cling to today in the face of a resurgent Empire.

In a revealing remark Gott claims that this global struggle against British violence can be summed up in one story – that of Ireland.

“No colony in their Empire gave the British more trouble than the island of Ireland. No subject people proved more rebellious than the Irish. From misty start to unending finish, Irish revolt against colonial rule has been the leitmotif that runs through the entire history of Empire, causing problems in Ireland, in England itself, and in the most distant corners of the British globe.”

And if this is so – we contend that this Gaelic/Global rebellion against Britain is embodied in the life of one Irishman: Bobby Sands. If Ireland is the cutting edge of freedom from Britain everywhere – then Bobby Sands is the diamond that cuts deeply into the rock of British rule everywhere.

Born in Belfast in 1954 and dead 27 years later – Sands lit up the world from inside a British dungeon. He died because he refused to be broken by Britain. He died because he had more integrity and courage than Britain’s entire military history. He died because he rejected the criminalisation of resistance – resistance to Empire. He died with nine other Irish men on hunger strike. Sands was not only the leader of the striking prisoners – he was the leader at that moment of the entire global fight against injustice. From inside a prison cell he touched the four corners of the world.

Not only was Bobby Sands a leader in the political revolution – he was also a leader in the cultural revolution. His lust for freedom was not just a material thing. It was also a mental thought. One he put into words: words that fit perfectly into the art of Che and Mao. In his Writings from Prison (1997) he sings to us as he deconstructs the British gulag. Without needing to break down the walls that imprisoned him – he walked free. And in that cultural sense (indeed in every sense) he was freer than and greater than any of the mercenaries and sepoys that have died for Britain. Fidel Castro said Bobby Sands was more valuable than Jesus Christ. And he was right.

We remember the working class hero from Belfast – the IRA volunteer – who will always be an example for the world. In Bobby’s words:

“I was a skeleton compared to what I used to be but it didn’t matter. Nothing really mattered except remaining unbroken. I rolled over once again, the cold biting at me. They have nothing in their entire imperial arsenal to break the spirit of one single Republican political prisoner-of-war who refuses to be broken, I thought, and that was very true. They can not or never will break our spirit. I rolled over again freezing and the snow came in the window on top of my blankets.

“Tiocfaidh ár lá,” I said to myself. “Tiocfaidh ár lá.”

“Tiocfaidh ár lá” means in English “Our day will come”.

Aidan O’Brien is a hospital worker in Dublin, Ireland.

November 18, 2016 Posted by | Book Review, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Couldn’t prove Iraq war crimes: German court rejects US Army deserter’s asylum application

RT | November 18, 2016

A Munich court has rejected a US soldier’s plea for asylum six years after his application was filed. The soldier deserted his post in southern Germany after being ordered to return to Iraq, where he feared he would be forced to take part in war crimes.

Andre Shepherd, 39, deserted his post at Katterbach Kaserne military base in southern Germany in 2007 after being told he would have to return to Iraq for a second tour. He claims he felt that he would be forced to take part in what he called “war crimes” if he did.

However, that excuse failed to hold up in court and the case was dismissed on Thursday, with presiding Judge Josef Ruber ruling that Shepherd had failed to exercise all available options to leave the military before deserting, making no attempt to join another military unit.

Ruber also said that Shepherd – who served as an Apache helicopter mechanic for the US Army – was unable to prove that he would have been forced to commit war crimes on returning to Iraq, Deutsche Welle reported.

The ruling is the latest in what has become a drawn out case for Shepherd, who initially filed his asylum application in 2008. His original plea was denied by the Federal Ministry for Refugees in 2011, prompting the former soldier to file an appeal under a European directive that protects military deserters who have witnessed human rights violations in combat and consequently fear persecution.

That appeal was taken to the European Court of Justice, which last year remanded the case back to the German court, which ultimately ruled against Shepherd on Thursday.

Shepherd’s lawyer plans to appeal the latest verdict, according to DPA news agency.

In a statement to AP, the US Army in Europe said it was aware of Shepherd’s case, but was not seeking to take part in any legal proceedings.

“We do not, as a general policy, proactively pursue deserters,” the statement said. “However, should Shepherd be returned to US Army custody, his case would be handled as would every other deserter returned to US custody, in accordance with applicable laws and regulations and on its own merit.”

Shepherd maintains the right to remain in Germany despite the Thursday ruling, as his wife is German.

The 39-year-old is the first Iraq War veteran to pursue refugee status in Germany, and only the second US soldier to ever have done so in the European country.

Shepherd claims that American forces have done “anything that anyone can possibly imagine in terms of war crimes committed in world history,” telling RT in 2011 that they were “continuing to do this on a daily basis.”

“The soldiers were being attacked, but they didn’t know from where, so they just shot randomly in different directions,” Shepherd said, recalling his Iraq experience.

Even being a helicopter mechanic in Iraq was troubling his conscience.

“I am sitting here and thinking: What am I doing? I’m putting together a lethal machine that is just killing innocent people,” Shepherd was quoted as saying in 2009.

November 18, 2016 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

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