Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Assad compares Paris terror to plight of Syria

Press TV – November 14, 2015

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has condemned the string of coordinated terrorist attacks that killed at least 127 people in and around the French capital of Paris.

“What France suffered from – savage terror – is what the Syrian people have been enduring for over five years,” he said on Saturday, hours after the attacks in France.

The attacks in France were carried out late on Friday, when assailants struck at least six different venues in and around the French capital.

Since March 2011, Syria has been beset by foreign-backed militancy, which has so far claimed the lives of over 250,000 people and displaced millions of others.

French President Francois Hollande has said the attacks were an “act of war” carried out by the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

The group has overrun about a third of Syria, where it is tyrannizing the civilian population.

France is among the Western countries that have been supporting the militants fighting against the Syrian government. As part of a US-led coalition, the country has also been conducting air raids against what it alleges to be Daesh positions in the violence-scarred Arab country.

Assad complained back in May that the so-called coalition against Daesh does not aim to “do away” with the terror group, adding, “They want to use this terrorist structure for threatening and blackmailing other countries.”

Also on Saturday, Daesh released an undated video, threatening to attack France as long as the aerial campaign continued.

“As long as you keep bombing you will not live in peace. You will even fear traveling to the market,” said a Daesh member in the footage.

November 14, 2015 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Netanyahu Ups the US Ante

By Ann Wright | Consortium News | November 12, 2015

President Barack Obama, having met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on Nov. 9 at the White House, is considering Israel’s request for a 50 percent increase of nearly $1.5 billion in U.S. military funding, which would bring the U.S. donation – used for killing Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza – to $4.5 billion a year.

As it stands now, more that half of the U.S. foreign military aid for 2016 goes to Israel. As in all things, Israel gets special treatment by the U.S. allowing Israel to spend 25 percent of its U.S. gift to pay itself for buying weapons from its own weapons industry.

According to a recent congressional report, Israel has received $124.3 billion in military assistance from the U.S. since its founding in 1948. The report states that “strong congressional support for Israel has resulted in Israel receiving benefits not available to any other countries; for example, Israel can use U.S. military assistance both for research and development in the United States and for military purchases from Israeli manufacturers.

“In addition, U.S. assistance earmarked for Israel is generally delivered in the first 30 days of the fiscal year, while most other recipients normally receive aid in installments, and Israel (as is also the case with Egypt) is permitted to use cash flow financing for its U.S. arms purchases.

”In addition to receiving U.S. State Department-administered foreign assistance, Israel also receives funds from annual defense appropriations bills for rocket and missile defense programs. Israel pursues some of those programs jointly with the United States.”

As Obama was meeting Netanyahu, eight blocks away at the Palestine Center in Washington, D.C., a surgeon from Norway who works part of each year in al Shifa hospital in Gaza, told of the devastation, destruction and human suffering these American weapons and dollars cause.

Dr. Mads Gilbert spoke of 51 days of terror in Gaza in the summer of 2014 as the Israeli attack forces brutalized the people of Gaza with Israeli and U.S. artillery, drone ordnance for assassinations, F-16s, hellfire missiles and dense inert military explosives.

Gilbert said the 2014 Israeli attack on Gaza was 500 percent stronger than Israel’s 2009 attack, when he was also working at al Shifa hospital when the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) attacked Gaza. In 2014, the IDF fired 50,000 shells into Gaza and conducted over 6,000 air strikes, destroying over 3,500 buildings in Gaza City alone including over 50 percent of the hospitals in Gaza.

At the end of the 51-day attack, 2,250 Palestinians were dead, including 551 children and 299 women. Some 3,500 Palestinian children were wounded and the 1 million children and youth who live in Gaza were all deeply affected by the attacks. Sixty percent of the 1.8 million who live in Gaza are under the age of 22.

Dr. Gilbert’s presentation included photos of the carnage caused by Israeli attacks and the audio of the sounds of jets racing overhead, bombs exploding and buildings collapsing.

Citing the report of the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict, Gilbert said that the IDF purposefully targeted the civilian population including entire families and that the IDF purposefully targeted hospitals, ambulances and four UN shelter facilities.

The report said, “Hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed in their own homes, especially women and children. At least 142 families lost three or more members in an attack on a residential building during the summer of 2014, resulting in 742 deaths. The fact that Israel did not revise its practice of air-strikes, even after their dire effects on civilians became apparent, raises the question of whether this was part of a broader policy which was at least tacitly approved at the highest level of government.”

Additionally, “the commission is concerned about Israel’s extensive use of weapons with a wide kill and injury radius; though not illegal, their use in densely populated areas is highly likely to kill combatants and civilians indiscriminately. There appears also to be a pattern whereby the IDF issued warnings to people to leave a neighbourhood and then automatically considered anyone remaining to be a fighter. This practice makes attacks on civilians highly likely. During the Israeli ground incursion into Gaza that began in mid-July 2014, hundreds of people were killed and thousands of homes destroyed or damaged.”

The commission report added: “Palestinian armed groups fired 4,881 rockets and 1,753 mortars towards Israel in July and August 2014, killing 6 civilians, including one child and injuring at least 1,600.” A total of 66 Israeli soldiers were killed in military operations inside Gaza.

The commission also reported: “In the West Bank including East Jerusalem, 27 Palestinians were killed and 3,020 injured between June and August 2014. The number killed in these three months was equivalent to the total for the whole of 2013. The commission is concerned about what appears to be the increasing use of live ammunition for crowd control by the Israeli Security Forces, which raises the likelihood of death or serious injury.”

The report continued, “Impunity prevails across the board for violations allegedly committed by Israeli forces, both in Gaza and the West Bank. ‘Israel must break with its lamentable track record in holding wrong doers accountable,’ said the commissioners, ‘and accountability on the Palestinian side is also woefully inadequate.’”

Signaling further attacks on Gaza during a Nov. 10 talk at the Center for American Progress in Washington, Netanyahu said Gaza has “become this poison thumb, this poison dagger that sends rockets” into Israel and that Israel must be prepared for a long period of tension.

The U.S. government’s blind backing for whatever Israel does, while providing the weapons for Israel to do it, is dangerous for both the United States and Israel.

As Israeli journalist Gideon Levy recently wrote concerning Hillary Clinton’s unwavering support for Israel: “support [for] the continued occupation is like a person who continues to buy drugs for an addicted relative. This is neither concern nor friendship; it is destruction. … ‘false’ friends of Israel – have been one of the curses on this country for years. Because of them, Israel can continue to act as wildly as it likes, thumbing its nose at the world and paying no price. Because of them, it can destroy itself unhindered.”

Levy’s comments about former Secretary of State Clinton equally applies to the unqualified support for Israel given by both Republican- and Democratic-led U.S. administrations.

Israeli attacks on people in Gaza and the West Bank will end only when we the citizens of the United States force our government to stop its military and diplomatic backing of the State of Israel.

Ann Wright served 29 years in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves and retired as a Colonel. She also was a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and resigned in 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq. She has been in Gaza six times and was on the 2010 Gaza Flotilla that was attacked by the IDF, which executed nine passengers and wounded 50.

November 13, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Remembrance Day Should Not Be Used for Indoctrination of Young Minds

By Kim Petersen | Dissident Voice | November 11, 2015

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead trying to kill me.

They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are only doing their duty, as the saying goes. Most of them, I have no doubt, are kind-hearted law-abiding men who would never dream of committing murder in private life. On the other hand, if one of them succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a well-placed bomb, he will never sleep any worse for it. He is serving his country, which has the power to absolve him from evil.

— George Orwell1

War is necrophilia. And this necrophilia is central to soldiering, just as it is central to the makeup of suicide bombers and terrorists. The necrophilia is hidden under platitudes about duty or comradeship.

— Chris Hedges2

My Chinese-born companion wanted to catch the latest news, so she tuned in to CBC. It was replete with Remembrance Day festivities and war veterans.

“Is this Canada?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

Her next utterance caused me to grab a pen and write down her words: “They went to other countries to kill other peoples?”

“No one has attacked Canada, so Canada’s soldiers only go to other countries,” I replied.3

“And we are to remember them every year?” she asked.

The inanity of a holiday dedicated to willing, albeit unwitting, accomplices of empire was on my mind since yesterday.

I was at a school which was renamed after a man who likely is a war criminal: Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After all, he was the president who ordered the internment of US citizens of Japanese descent in concentration camps and the commander-in-chief of a military that firebombed Tokyo.

That conflagration was called “the greatest single disaster incurred by any enemy in military history” by flight commander general Thomas Power.4

The US Strategic Bombing Survey went so far as to state that:

probably more persons lost their lives by fire at Tokyo in a 6-hour period than at any time in the history of man. People died from extreme heat, from oxygen deficiency, from carbon monoxide asphyxiation, from being trampled beneath the feet of stampeding crowds, and from drowning. The largest number of victims were the most vulnerable: women, children and the elderly.4

That such facts are a matter of history causes one to pause upon considering that an institute of learning is so named today.

The educator Noam Chomsky once made an acerbic comment about education: “Most schooling is just training for stupidity and conformity…”5

The events of 10 November brought this home to me. Roosevelt Elementary School held an assembly in the school gym. Students were informed that silence was expected on this solemn occasion. Near the front of the gym were seated a couple of veterans. Students sat on the floor, and teachers and parents were seated or standing around the gym’s perimeter.

A number of videos were presented. First there was a welcome from Indigenous educators and then came a Bryan Adam’s song, “Remembrance Day.” He calls it, WWII, a “bloody war” but the video features several images of violence.

The warring is updated to Canada’s participation in the aggression (what the Nuremberg Tribunal deemed “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”6 ) of Afghanistan with a simple ditty by a band that I had never heard of before, the Trews: “Highway of Heroes.”

In contrast to Bryan Adams’ “promise of glory” rationale for fighting —

For our king and our country and the promise of glory
We came from Kingston and Brighton to fight on the front line

— the Trews sing:

I served with distinction,
No visions of glory.
I served without question,
Or personal gain.
Seek no justification,
Its not part of my story.

To serve without question? Is this what schools would like to impart to young minds? Isn’t questioning integral to learning?

Who is a hero? Is going to fight another non-threatening country something that should be accepted?7

The usual reading of “In Flanders Fields,” observing two-minutes of silence, as well as the playing of the Canadian anthem were part of the agenda. The entire assembly was one of conformity. For any student to have demurred, it would likeliest have been labeled as disobedience. (Should instilling obedience be part of schooling?) Shouldn’t such heavy topics such as war and peace be discussed in classes? Are not contemplation, reflection, and forming one’s own conclusions part of becoming an independent thinker?

In 1931, Canada’s parliament changed the name of Armistice (referring to warring parties reaching agreement to cease hostilities) Day to Remembrance (remembrance for those serving Canada during times of war, conflict, and peace) Day. The change of title reflects a shift in emphasis from ending warring to serving in the warring. But is not society better served by a day more so dedicated to promoting universal peace and an end to all warring?

All Canadian involvement in wars have been wars of choice. That is something to remember and act upon.

No more should humans pick up weapons to use against other humans. Is this mindset, however, achievable when soldiers are venerated by society thus conferring a veneer of respectability to a profession which teaches killing?

  1. “The Lion and the Unicorn.”
  2. War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, (New York: PublicAffairs, 2002): 165.
  3. Of course I refer only to the state of Canada which was erected on the genocide and dispossession of the Original Peoples.
  4. See Mark Selden, “A Forgotten Holocaust: US Bombing Strategy, the Destruction of Japanese Cities & the American Way of War from World War II to Iraq,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus.
  5. See “Most Schooling Is Training for Stupidity and Conformity – Noam Chomsky on Education.”
  6. See Nuremberg Tribunal, “Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Volume 22,” Monday, 30 September 1946, Avalon Project.
  7. BJ Sabri and I explore the question of whether soldiers are “heroes” or undiscerning, paid killers? See “American Violence in Iraq: Necrophilia or Savagery?Part 3: King Frederick’s and George Bush’s Troops,” Dissident Voice, 1 September 2005.

Kim Petersen can be reached at: kim@dissidentvoice.org.

November 12, 2015 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | | Leave a comment

Settlement Reached in Case of Professor Fired for “Uncivil” Tweets

Center for Constitutional Rights | November 12, 2015

Chicago – Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and co-counsel Loevy & Loevy announced the settlement of Professor Steven Salaita’s case against the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) for firing him from his tenured position over his personal tweets criticizing the Israeli government’s assault on Gaza in 2014. Professor Salaita sued UIUC, the university Board of Trustees and high-level administrators for violating his First Amendment right to free speech and for breach of contract. Salaita’s firing became a flashpoint for debates over academic freedom, free speech, and the repression of Palestinian rights advocacy. In exchange for Professor Salaita’s agreement to release his claims, the university has agreed to pay $875,000.

“This settlement is a vindication for me, but more importantly, it is a victory for academic freedom and the First Amendment,” said Professor Salaita. “The petitions, demonstrations, and investigations, as well as the legal case, have reinvigorated American higher education as a place of critical thinking and rigorous debate, and I am deeply grateful to all who have spoken out.”

Professor Salaita’s firing prompted student walkouts; the cancellation of more than three dozen scheduled talks and conferences at the school; further pledges to boycott UIUC by more than 5,000 academics; a vote of no confidence in the university administration by 16 UIUC academic departments; and public condemnation by prominent academic organizations, including the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the Modern Language Association, and the Society of American Law Teachers. In April, the AAUP released a scathing report on Salaita’s termination and, in June, voted to censure the UIUC for its actions. In August, a federal judge rejected the university’s argument that Professor Salaita had not actually been hired, despite a contract and his impending family move to the university, writing, “If the Court accepts the University’s argument, the entire American academic hiring process as it now operates would cease to exist.”

Within hours of the court’s decision, Chancellor Phyllis Wise, who sent Professor Salaita the letter notifying him of his termination a year prior, resigned from the UIUC. The following day, the university revealed that administrators had been using personal email accounts in an attempt to avoid publicly releasing their correspondence. In one email released under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Chancellor Wise admitted that she was not only using her private email because of the litigation, but was deleting her messages after sending. Provost Ilesanmi Adesida resigned a few weeks later. Prior FOIA productions had revealed that wealthy UIUC donors had threatened to withhold funding unless Professor Salaita was terminated.

“Professor Salaita’s case galvanized champions of academic freedom and Palestinian rights activists alike, making clear that punishing speech―even speech that dares to criticize Israeli government atrocities―will not be tolerated. It resulted in widespread condemnation of the university’s actions and a federal court decision finding he had a contract and his tweets were protected by the First Amendment. Professor Salaita has in fact won―and this settlement permits him to move on and refocus on his work as a premier scholar and an excellent teacher,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Deputy Legal Director Maria LaHood.

In July 2014, after his contract with the university had been signed, Professor Salaita tweeted a number of strongly worded messages from his private account expressing his outrage and dismay at the Israeli government’s attacks in Gaza, which killed more than 500 children. Professor Salaita’s firing is part of a broader crackdown on activism for Palestinian rights that includes event cancellations, baseless legal complaints such as the ongoing case in Washington against Olympia Food Co-op board members for boycotting Israeli goods, administrative disciplinary actions, false and inflammatory accusations of terrorism and antisemitism, and legislation to prohibit boycotts of Israeli goods and institutions. The Center for Constitutional Rights co-authored a report this fall with the organization Palestine Legal on the widespread attempts to silence U.S. activists critical of Israel’s policies, called “The Palestine Exception to Free Speech”.

“Make no mistake: the size of this settlement is an implicit admission of the strength of Professor Salaita’s constitutional and contractual claims,” said Anand Swaminathan of Loevy & Loevy. “He has scored a major victory for those who care about free speech and academic freedom. In the future, university administrators will have to think twice before they choose the interests of wealthy donors and alumni over upholding their constitutional obligations. This legal victory could not have been possible without the support of a large and committed movement of activists and academics.”

For more information on the case, visit CCR’s Salaita v. Kennedy case page.

Loevy & Loevy is one of the nation’s largest and most successful civil rights law firms, dedicated to seeking justice for those whose civil rights have been violated and for whistleblowers. Our willingness to take hard cases to trial and win them has yielded a nationally recognized reputation for success in the courtroom. We only take cases we passionately believe in, we forge close bonds with our clients, and we are proud to have achieved outstanding results for them with truly uncommon consistency. Visit us at http://www.loevy.com.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.

November 12, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

MSF Rejects Pentagon’s Hush Money in Kunduz Scandal, Still Wants Probe

Sputnik – 10.11.2015

1029893060Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has rejected the Pentagon’s offer to rebuild the Afghan hospital destroyed last month in a US bombing which also killed 30 staff and patients inside the building.

MSF said its policy is not to accept government money for its operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world.

“This policy allows us to work independently without taking sides and provide medical care to anyone who needs it. This will not change,” the nonprofit said in a statement.

Last week, MSF General Director Christopher Stokes said that the all of the information about the attack released so far makes it “hard to understand” how the Pentagon maintains the bombing was some sort of “mistake.”

MSF believes the attack was deliberate, and therefore a war crime. The group has repeatedly called for an independent investigation by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission.

But Washington maintains that investigations launched by the US and Afghan governments, as well as NATO, will be sufficient.

Since the attack, much of the debate has centered on whether Taliban patients in the hospital were armed, and if the group was using the building as a base of operations.

Doctors Without Borders released its own findings last week, denying that any combatant, whether the Taliban or the Afghan government’s, was armed inside the compound.

The Pentagon said shortly after the attack that they intended to pay for the repairs and to make “condolence payments” to the families of civilians killed. The Pentagon also promised to pay for additional repairs after smashing the hospital with an armored vehicle.

November 11, 2015 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Let us also remember the victims of Canada’s wars

By Yves Engler · November 10, 2015

Trudeau “unveils most diverse Cabinet in Canada’s history”, was how one media outlet described the new Liberal cabinet. It includes a Muslim woman, four Sikhs, an indigenous woman, two differently abled individuals and an equal number of women and men. Half even refused any reference to God at Wednesday’s swearing in ceremony.

But in one respect there was no diversity at all. Every single person wore a Remembrance Day poppy. Even Justin Trudeau’s young children were made to publicly commemorate Canadians (and allies) who died at war.

As we approach the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month expect politicians of every stripe to praise Canadian military valour. At last year’s Remembrance Day commemoration Stephen Harper suggested that Canada was “forged in the fires of First World War”. The former Prime Minister described “the values for which they fought … Justice and freedom; democracy and the rule of law; human rights and human dignity.”

On Remembrance Day what is it we are supposed to remember? The valour, sacrifice and glory of soldiers — and no more?

What about the victims of Canadian troops? Should we abandon the search for truth and learning from our past on this day that is supposedly devoted to remembering?

Why not a diversity of recollection? An honest accounting of what really happened and why — isn’t that the best way to remember?

For example, World War I had no clear and compelling purpose other than rivalry between up-and-coming Germany and the lead imperial powers of the day, Britain and France. In fact, support for the British Empire was Ottawa’s primary motive in joining the war. As Canada’s Prime Minister Robert Borden saw it, the fight was “to put forth every effort and to make every sacrifice necessary to ensure the integrity and maintain the honour of our empire.”

To honour Canada’s diversity, how about this year we remember some of the victims of that empire?

For Africans World War I represented the final chapter in the violent European scramble for their territory. Since the 1880s the European powers had competed to carve up the continent.

Canada was modestly involved in two African theatres of World War I. A handful of Canadian airmen fought in East Africa, including naval air serviceman H. J. Arnold who helped destroy a major German naval vessel, the Königsberg, during the British/Belgian/South African conquest of German East Africa. Commandant of Canada’s Royal Military College from 1909 to 1913, Colonel J.H.V. Crowe commanded an artillery division for famed South African General Jan Christiaan Smuts and later published General Smuts’ Campaign in East Africa.

About one million people died as a direct result of the war in East Africa. Fighting raged for four years with many dying from direct violence and others from the widespread disease and misery it caused. Hundreds of thousands of Africans were conscripted by the colonial authorities to fight both in Africa and Europe.

J.H.V. Crowe was English born, but an individual with deeper roots in Canada, commanded the force that extended Britain’s control over the other side of the continent.

The son of a Québec City MP and grandson of a senator, Sir Charles MacPherson Dobell, commanded an 18,000 man Anglo-French force that captured the Cameroons and Togoland. Gazetted as Inspector General of the West African Frontier Force in 1913, the Royal Military College grad’s force defeated the Germans in fighting that destroyed many villages and left thousands of West Africans dead. Early in the two-year campaign Dobell’s force captured the main centres of Lomé and Douala and he became de factogovernor over large parts of today’s Togo and Cameroon. A telegram from London said “General Dobell should assume Government with full powers in all matters military and civil.”

British officials justified seizing the German colony as a response to the war in Europe, but to a large extent World War I was the outgrowth of intra-imperial competition in Africa and elsewhere. In The Anglo-French “Condominium” in Cameroon, 1914-1916 Lovett Elango points to “the imperialist motives of the campaign”, which saw the two allies clash over their territorial ambition. Elango concludes, “the war merely provided Britain and France a pretext for further colonial conquest and annexation.” After the German defeat the colony was partitioned between the two European colonial powers.

Canada’s massive contribution to World War I propped up British (as well as French, Belgian and South African) rule in Africa. It also added to it. Similar to the Berlin Conference of 1885, which effectively divided Africa among the European powers, after World War I European leaders gathered to redraw Africa’s borders. But this time the Canadian prime minister attended.

World War I reshaped colonial borders in Africa. Germany lost what is now Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and part of Mozambique (German East Africa) as well as Namibia (German West Africa), Cameroon and Togoland. South Africa gained Namibia, Britain gained Tanzania and part of Cameroon, France gained Togo and part of Cameroon while Belgium took Burundi and Rwanda.

The other British Dominions (Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) that fought alongside London were compensated with German properties. With no German colonies nearby Ottawa asked the Imperial War Cabinet if it could take possession of the British West Indies as compensation for Canada’s defence of the Empire. London balked.

Ottawa was unsuccessful in securing the British Caribbean partly because the request did not find unanimous domestic support. Prime Minister Borden was of two minds on the issue. From London he dispatched a cable noting, “the responsibilities of governing subject races would probably exercise a broadening influence upon our people as the dominion thus constituted would closely resemble in its problems and its duties the empire as a whole.” But, on the other hand, Borden feared that the Caribbean’s black population might want to vote. He remarked upon “the difficulty of dealing with the coloured population, who would probably be more restless under Canadian law than under British control and would desire and perhaps insist upon representation in Parliament.”

Our racist and colonial past, as well as Canada’s role in exploiting people of colour all over the world, must also be included in our remembrance if we are to build a nation of respect for all people — the essence of real diversity.

November 10, 2015 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

If the Sinai crash was terrorism, its timing was perfect for the West

By Dan Glazebrook | RT | November 7, 2015

A sketch by the late lamented US comedian Bill Hicks involved a US general at a press conference. “‘Iraq has incredible weapons. Incredible,’ the general said. ‘How do you know that?’ he was asked. “Oh, well, uh – we looked at the receipt.’”

In the aftermath of the Russian airplane crash in Egypt last week, Britain in particular has been quick to claim that the crash was the result of a “terrorist bomb,” presumably planted by Islamic State (previously ISIS/ISIL). So what is it that makes Cameron so sure that the terrorist group created by his Syria policy has the necessary training, equipment and wherewithal to carry out that attack? Did he look at the receipt?

What is clear is that if the plane was brought down by a bomb, and that bomb was planted by ISIS, it marks a major development for the group.

According to Raffaello Pantucci, of the Royal United Services Institute, an attack of this kind by ISIS would “herald an unseen level of sophistication in their bomb-making, as well as the ability to smuggle a device on board.”

But as well as a new technical feat, such an attack would represent an alarming change in tactics. The Times argued: “If the plane crash did turn out to be the work of an Islamic State affiliate in Sinai, it would mark a significant departure for the jihadist group, which had yet to launch a large-scale attack against civilians.”

So, if the plane was indeed brought down by an ISIS-in-Sinai bomb, either the group have suddenly been blessed with some amazing new technology, or they have suddenly decided to change tactics to mass killings of civilians. If the latter, isn’t it a little odd that, after more than a year of Western airstrikes apparently targeting them, ISIS have failed to launch such an attack against Western civilians – yet are able to respond within weeks to a campaign of Russian airstrikes which, according to the West, are not even aimed at them?

Either way, the crash couldn’t have been timed more perfectly from the point of view of Western geopolitics. After four years of setbacks, the West’s Syrian “regime change” (that euphemism for wholesale state destruction) operation now faces the prospect of imminent total defeat courtesy of Russia’s intervention. And options for how to salvage that operation are very limited indeed.

Full scale occupation is a non-starter; following Iraq and Afghanistan, both the US and British armies are now officially incapable of mounting such ventures. The Libya option – supporting death squads on the ground with NATO air cover – has always come up against Russian opposition, but has now been effectively rendered impossible. And relying on anti-government death squads alone is simply very unlikely to succeed, however many TOWs and manpads are feverishly thrown into the fire; after all, there are only so many terrorists and mercenaries who can be shipped in, and, as Mike Whitney put it, the world may have already reached “peak terrorist.”

Forcing Russia out – and turning US and British airpower openly and decisively against the Syrian state – has thus become a key objective for Western planners. But how to do it? What would turn Russians against the intervention? The Times wrote: “So far the war in Syria has been quite popular…. [but] if it turns out that the war prompts terrorists to wreak vengeance on ordinary Russians by secreting explosives on planes, that gung-ho attitude could change.” Or at least, that is presumably what the Times hopes.

And downing the plane on Egyptian soil just before Sisi’s first state visit to Britain?

Egypt is at a historical crossroads. Having moved from the socialist camp into the West’s “orbit” during the Sadat era in the 1970s, Egypt’s leadership has become ever less willing to be dictated to by Washington and London: a process that began in the latter part of Mubarak’s rule, and has continued under Sisi. Along with Russia, Egypt has played a leading “spoiler role,” as Sukant Chandan puts it, in the West’s regime change operation in Syria – and has not been forgiven for it.

In addition, Mubarak’s government had been dragging its feet on the privatization and “structural adjustment” demanded by the IMF: and tourism was and is a major source of income helping to reduce the country’s dependence on the international banksters. But since last Saturday, all that is now in the balance; as the Financial Times commented, suspicions that the crash was caused by a bomb “are likely to prove disastrous to the country’s struggling tourism industry.”

Britain’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond agreed. “Of course, this will have a huge negative impact on Egypt,” he announced matter-of-factly, following Britain’s decision to stop British flights to Egypt – seemingly without an ounce of regret. The likely massive loss of tourist income will force the Egyptians to go back to the IMF, who will, of course, demand their pound of flesh in the form of mass privatizations and “austerity.”

But it is not only Egypt’s economic dependency on the West that will be deepened by the crash – Britain, in particular, appears to be using the crash as leverage to re-insinuate itself into Egypt’s military and security apparatus. Firstly, British officials have been taking every opportunity to humiliate Egypt, trying to convince the world that Egypt is perilously unstable, and that only by outsourcing security to the West can it be safe again. When Sisi arrived in the country this week, noted the Times, “Britain openly contradicted the Egyptian leader and suggested that he was not in full control of the Sinai peninsula,” whilst an Egyptian official “commented that the dispatch of six officials to check the security arrangements at Sharm el-Sheikh airport was ‘like treating us as children.’”

Finally, of course, the British government has not missed the opportunity to use the tragedy to push for deeper British involvement in Syria. Michael Fallon, Britain’s Defence Secretary, has been spending the last two days explaining how the case for bombing Syria would be strengthened if it were proven the plane was brought down by ISIS. Quite how more deeply insinuating one of the death squads’ leading state backers into Syria would somehow reduce the power of the death squads is, of course, not explained; such is the nature of imperialism.

In a world, then, where Western power is in steep decline, terrorism is fast becoming one of the last few viable options for extending its hegemony and undermining the rising power of the global South. If this attack does turn out to have been conducted by ISIS, how kind it will have been of them to take it upon themselves to act as the vanguard of Western imperial interests. And how obliging of the hundreds of Western agents in the organization not to do anything to stop them.

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

November 9, 2015 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Did Tony Blair’s Regime Order Legal Advice re Illegality of Iraq Invasion “Burned”?

By Felicity Arbuthnot | Dissident Voice | November 7, 2015

I think most people who have dealt with me think I am a pretty straight sort of guy, and I am.

— Tony Blair, October 21, 2011, BBC1

Given the ongoing revelations on the extent of Tony Blair’s duplicitous collusion in the illegal bombing and invasion of Iraq, it seems – to muddle metaphors – the “bunker busters” and Cruise missiles are finally coming home to roost.

In what has been dubbed “an apology” Blair even took to CNN in an interview with his pal Fareed Zakaria to – sort of – explain himself. It was no “apology”, but a weasel-worded damage limitation exercise as more and more revelations with respect to disregard for law – and to hell with public opinion – surface. The fault was that “… the intelligence we received was wrong”, there were “mistakes in planning” and a failure to understand “what would happen once you removed the regime”, said Mr. Tony. Statements entirely untrue.  It is also now known he plotted with George W Bush in April 2002, a year before the onslaught, to invade, come what may.

He also found it “hard to apologise for removing Saddam.” Sorry, Mr. Blair, the all was lawless, illegitimate and criminal – and Saddam Hussein was not “removed”.  He was lynched, his sons and fifteen year old grandson extra-judicially slaughtered in a hail of US bullets – the all in a country whose “sovereignty and territorial integrity” was guaranteed by the UN.

Whatever opinions of the former Iraqi government, the crimes committed by the US-UK war of aggression and its aftermath, make the worst excesses of which Saddam Hussein’s Administration were accused pale by comparison.

Blair brushed off the mention of a war crimes trial and made it clear that he would trash Syria as Iraq, had he the chance. To this barrister (attorney) by training, legality is clearly inconsequential.

Now no less than the UK’s former Director of Public Prosecutions (2003-2008) Sir Ken Macdonald has weighed in against Blair. That he held the post for five years during the Blair regime (Blair resigned in 2007) makes his onslaught interesting. Ironically Macdonald has his legal practice at London’s Matrix Chambers, which he founded with Blair’s barrister wife Cherie, who also continues to practice from Matrix Chambers.

In a scathing attack, Sir Ken states:

The degree of deceit involved in our decision to go to war on Iraq becomes steadily clearer. This was a foreign policy disgrace of epic proportions …

Referring to the CNN interview he witheringly dismissed Blair’s performance saying:

… playing footsie on Sunday morning television does nothing to repair the damage.

Moreover:

It is now very difficult to avoid the conclusion that Tony Blair engaged in an alarming subterfuge with his partner, George Bush, and went on to mislead and cajole the British people into a deadly war they had made perfectly clear they didn’t want, and on a basis that it’s increasingly hard to believe even he found truly credible.

Macdonald cuttingly cited Blair’s: “sycophancy towards power” being unable to resist the “glamour” he attracted in Washington.

In this sense he was weak and, as we can see, he remains so.

Ouch!

Since those sorry days we have frequently heard him repeating the self-regarding mantra that ‘hand on heart, I only did what I thought was right’. But this is a narcissist’s defence, and self-belief is no answer to misjudgment: it is certainly no answer to death.

No wonder Sir Ken had headed the country’s legal prosecuting service.

Macdonald’s broadside coincides with further “bombshell revelation” in the Mail on Sunday revealing that “on the eve of war” Blair’s Downing Street “descended into panic” on being told by the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith that “the conflict could be challenged under international law.”

There was “pandemonium”, Blair was “horrified” and the limited number of Ministers and officials who had a copy of the written opinion “were told ‘burn it, destroy it’” alleges the Mail.

The “burning” hysteria centered on Lord Goldmith’s thirteen page legal opinion of March 7, 2003 – just twenty days before the attack on Iraq. The “pandemonium” related to the fact that at this late juncture with “… the date the war was supposed to start already in the diary”, Goldsmith was still “saying it could be challenged under international law.”

It is not known who gave the “burn”, “destroy” order, but the Mail quotes their information as coming from a former senior figure in Blair’s government. They then “got to work on” Lord Goldsmith. Ten days later His Lordship produced an advice stating the war was legal. It started three days later, leading eminent international law Professor Philippe Sands to comment memorably: “We went to war on a sheet of A4.”

A spokesman for Tony Blair called the claims or orders to destroy “nonsense” adding that it would be “… quite absurd to think that anyone could destroy such a document.” With what is now known re the lies, dodging and diving related to all to do with Iraq under Blair, the realist would surely respond: “Oh, no, it wouldn’t!”

The US, of course, stole and destroyed or redacted most of the around 12,000 pages of Iraq’s accounting for their near non-existent weapons, delivered to the UN on December 7, 2002 and Blair seemingly faithfully obeyed his Master’s voice or actions.

In context of the lies and subterfuge of enormity being told both sides of the Atlantic at the time, it is worth remembering George W. Bush, that same December, on the eve of a NATO summit, addressing students and comparing the challenge of the Iraqi President to the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938, which led to World War II.

We face … perils we’ve never seen before. They’re just as dangerous as those perils that your fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers faced.

On November 1st this year, in an interview on BBC1, Blair was asked: “If you had known then that there were no WMDs, would you still have gone on?” He replied: “I would still have thought it right to remove (Saddam Hussein.”)

Adding: “I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat.”

Thus he would, seemingly, have concocted a different set of lies to justify the assassination of a sovereign head of State.

Perhaps he had forgotten the last line of Attorney General Goldsmith’s legal advice of February 12, 2003 “… regime change cannot be the objective of military action.”

So is Charles Anthony Lynton Blair, QC. finally headed for handcuffs and a trial at The Hague? Ian Williams, Senior Analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus, New York, has a view. He believes:

… it’s increasingly serious enough to be worrying to him. And I think Tony Blair is rapidly joining Henry Kissinger and Chilean Dictator [Pinochet] and other people around the world.

Now, he’s got to consult international lawyers as well as travel agents, before he travels anywhere, because there’s said, (may be) prima facie case for his prosecution either in British courts or foreign courts under universal jurisdiction or with the International Criminal Court, because there is clear evidence now that he is somebody who waged an illegal war of aggression, violating United Nations’ Charter and was responsible for all of those deaths.

Justice, inadequate as it might be given the enormity of the crime, may be finally edging closer for the people of Iraq as international jurisprudence slowly encroaches on Tony Blair.

Felicity Arbuthnot is the author, with Nikki van der Gaag, of Baghdad in the Great City series for World Almanac books.

November 8, 2015 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Advice and Lessons from an Afghan Peace Activist

By Vincent Emanuele | teleSUR | November 7, 2015

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to work with Suraia Suhar, an Afghan-born woman who now lives in Toronto, Canada. At the time, Suraia was organizing with Afghans for Peace (AFP), and I was serving on the board of directors for Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW).

Back in 2012, NATO held their annual summit in Chicago, where thousands of antiwar protesters showed up to support AFP and IVAW, and to protest NATO’s ongoing and ever-expanding militarism. The rallies and actions culminated when members of IVAW discarded their medals, echoing the actions of Dewey Canyon III in 1971, when Vietnam Veterans Against the War threw their military mementos on the steps of the Capitol in Washington D.C.

The anti-NATO protests were the last massive antiwar demonstrations to take place in the U.S. Since then, and even in the preceding years (2008-2012), the antiwar movement has been all but absent. However, even when the antiwar movement was active and visible (2002-2007), the war in Afghanistan was a taboo topic. In short, progressives and leftists in North America have never come to terms with the fact that the war in Afghanistan was, is and will always be catastrophic and immoral.

No less than a few weeks ago, as most people know, the U.S. military bombed a civilian hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 12 members of the health organization, Medecins Sans Frontieres, along with 10 Afghan civilians who were being treated for illnesses linked to NATO’s ongoing occupation. Without doubt, the horror continues for the Afghan people, with no end in sight, as Obama decided that he would keep 5,500 troops in Afghanistan until he departs office in January, 2017.

Recently, I had the chance to briefly speak with Suraia, who currently works with anti-racist organizations in Toronto. When asked about the bombing in Kunduz, Suraia said that the world should support Medecins Sans Frontieres’ current campaign and hopefully use this brutal event to apply political pressure, both in the U.S. and abroad. What’s needed, according to Suhar, is an independent investigation. As IVAW showed with its Winter Soldier hearings, the U.S. military will not properly investigate their own. When the military does investigate and occasionally prosecute, low level enlisted servicemen and women are the ones who face the music, not higher ranking officials.

Regarding Obama’s recent announcement concerning U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, she said, “It’s just an extension of the ongoing occupation. Concerning the future, well, I think a lot of that will depend on who’s elected after Obama leaves office.” In other words, “Obviously Trump would have a different approach to foreign policy than Sanders. And given her reputation, I’m worried that a Clinton administration would lead to more war hawk policies abroad than Obama’s failed policies.”

But what about the Afghan women? Suraia isn’t buying it. “This is a tired and debunked orientalist argument. Given that we live in the Information Age, my hope is that those who believe and repeat these claims make the effort to read statistical reports on the quality of life for women in Afghanistan, and how much of the progress, albeit with flawed results, had little to nothing to do with military warfare.” Turns out, bombs aren’t conducive to gender equality or political rights – imagine that.

In fact, NATO’s bombs and raids have created more insecurity. “The entire occupation has been rife with corruption, escalations of violence, preventable casualties, and further disempowerment of the Afghan people. The high numbers of internally displaced people and rise in refugee populations is evident of the deteriorating security in Afghanistan.” Indeed, the situation continues to deteriorate in Afghanistan.

“Afghanistan was considered the good (legal) war, and a justified response to 9/11. Almost immediately fear-mongering was fueled with a rise in Islamophobia, xenophobia, and the media had no trouble propagating anti-terrorism rhetoric in the form of jingoism.” Further, Suhar notes that, “When the Afghanistan war was escalated at the end of 2009, a Democrat (Obama) was in power, so the anti-war movement subsequently, and cowardly I might add, dissipated. It was disappointing to say the least.”

Biting criticism? No doubt. But true nonetheless. I can personally attest to the cowardly position many antiwar organizations took with regard to the war in Afghanistan. Even on the Left, people never understood how to deal with the “good war.” Part of the problem, at least from my perspective, is that we did a poor job of educating peace and justice activists about American Empire, its history and the legacy of so-called humanitarian interventions and counterinsurgency operations.

As far as the antiwar movement is concerned, I asked Suraia what advice she would have for those seeking to rebuild the movement, or better yet, build a new movement to oppose militarism and empire. “I can’t stress enough the importance of working alongside people from Afghanistan who are well informed, experienced, and already doing community organizing. This goes for all conflict regions that the anti-war movement is involved with.”

Moreover, according to Suhar, “I also think it’s important to know how to counter and find alternative solutions to military warfare, so better understanding long-term sustainable development, restorative justice and reparations would tremendously help the peace movement.” Additionally, “The anti-war movement should be aware of the problems that can arise from certain areas of identity politics. A prime example of this is celebrating diversity in the US military, when that military is still serving the interests of the US government and corporations.”

At the end of the conversation, I asked Suraia what life has been like for her, an Afghan woman living in Toronto, who’s outspoken and public:

I think more people are becoming aware that the current climate of Islamophobia and racism has been used to support police state policies, wars abroad, and laws against civil liberties, so there’s been a growing resistance to it. To be clear, being a publicly outspoken Afghan woman living in North America in the post-9/11 world hasn’t been without its challenges.

Running into misinformed and heavily biased views aside, one thing I’ve noticed has been consistent sexist criticisms directed towards myself and the Afghan women I’ve worked with, which has come from many sources – pro-warlord Afghans who support the NATO mission, neoconservative media figures and their followers, and racists in general. Keep in mind, I’m talking about Canadians here. They’ve targeted us with vitriolic harassment and online stalking for being vocal Muslim women from Afghanistan with a political opinion, which of course differs from theirs. This reveals their hypocrisy in claiming to support women’s rights and liberation through Western wars. It’s unavoidable, so I’ve come to expect that it happens. I realize the intent is to silence dissent, but it’s a cowardly tactic. A good defense is transparency and allied support.

Suraia’s advice and reflections are very similar to the guidance and reflections I’ve heard from other Afghans and Iraqis over the years. In short, these activists need solidarity and true allies – allies who are willing to put aside petty differences in the pursuit of ending U.S. Empire abroad and Islamophobia and militarism at home. After all, we’re talking about war, so let’s get serious my friends, because our brothers and sisters abroad require our solidarity and commitment.

Vincent Emanuele can be reached at vincent.emanuele333@gmail.com

November 8, 2015 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

ICC prosecutor must rethink Gaza flotilla probe: Judges

Press TV – November 7, 2015

Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) say the court’s prosecutor must reconsider an earlier decision not to open a probe into an Israeli attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla back in 2010.

Following a few months of deliberations, judges at the appeals chamber ruled on Friday that prosecutor Fatou Bensouda must rethink her decision against the Gaza flotilla probe.

Judges at The Hague-based court had initially asked Bensouda to reconsider her decision in July, saying she made “material errors in her determination of the gravity” of the case.

The latest decision could force Bensouda to open a full investigation into the case.

Last year, Bensouda declined a request by the Indian Ocean island nation of Comoros to investigate the attack on the Turkish Mavi Marmara ship that was sailing under a Comoros flag. She ruled the case was not serious enough to merit an ICC probe.

The prosecutor said publicly available information provides “a reasonable basis” to believe that the Israeli forces committed war crimes during the attack in international waters back in 2010, but the case does not fall under their jurisdiction for an official probe.

However, lawyers representing Comoros had sought a review of Bensouda’s original rejection, insisting that “the interests of justice and fairness, which are the core of the ICC’s mandate, strongly militate in favor of the prosecutor reconsidering her decision.”

On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos attacked the Freedom Flotilla in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, killing nine Turkish citizens, including a teenager with dual Turkish-US citizenship, and injuring about 50 other people who were part of the team on the six-ship convoy. Another injured activist died in May 2014 after having been in a coma for four years.

The flotilla was attempting to break the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip, carrying aid to Palestinians in the enclave.

Gaza has been blockaded since June 2007, a situation that has caused a decline in the standard of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty.

The attack sparked international outcry and plunged relations between Tel Aviv and Ankara to an all-time low at the time.

November 7, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Is Israel Bombing Syrian Military to Benefit ISIS Near Lebanon?

By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | November 2, 2015

The neoconservative Washington Free Beacon is reporting that the Israeli air force has attacked a Syrian government-controlled missile base near Syria’s border with Lebanon. The Beacon cites a pro-rebel website that claims:

Israeli planes breached Lebanese and Syrian airspace and bombed the Syrian regime’s 155th Brigade [base] in the Qutayfa area, destroying a number of missile warehouses.

If the report is accurate it would suggest that Israel is attacking military facilities of the Syrian government to the benefit of ISIS and the al-Qaeda franchise in Syria, at least according to the latest battle map released by the Institute for the Study of War (when coordinated with a Google map search for Qutayfah, Syria).

Israel has routinely violated Syrian airspace to bomb Syrian territory and uses any stray rocket fire into Israel-occupied Golan Heights as a pretext to hit Syrian government positions inside the country.

Recently Israel has been forced to back down from its routine flights over Syrian airspace by the arrival of Russian fighters, and after at least one Israeli close call with sophisticated Russian fighter jets a hotline was reportedly set up for the two countries to avoid any clashes in the area.

Though these reports of Israel hitting Syrian government assets to the benefit of ISIS in the area should be taken with a grain of salt, if true this would mark yet another very volatile variable in an already very complicated and dangerous part of the world. If the Russians are busy bombing ISIS and al-Nusra positions in the area north of Damascus toward Aleppo, how will Moscow take to Tel Aviv making it difficult for Syrian ground forces to take advantage on the ground of their operations in the air?

November 7, 2015 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US Supplying ISIS with Aircraft Downing Weapons

By Stephen Lendman | November 7, 2015

On November 4, the Wall Street Journal headlined “US, Allies to Boost Aid to Syria Rebels” – aka ISIS and other takfiri terrorists, US proxy foot soldiers, imperial death squads, no so-called “moderates” among them.

The Journal stopped short of explaining it, instead saying “(s)hipments of arms (and) supplies are aimed at pressuring Assad while countering Russia (and) Iran.”

Longstanding US plans call for regime change in Syria, eliminating its independent government, replacing it with one Washington and Israel control, raping the country, balkanizing it, and exploiting its people – at the same time, creating endless violence, instability and chaos like what’s happening in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and virtually everywhere America shows up, the greatest menace to peace in world history.

According to the Journal, increased weapons shipments to anti-Assad elements aim to “challenge the intervention of Russia and Iran on behalf of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, US officials and their counterparts (from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf States) in the region said.

Obama declared proxy war on Russia after pledging to avoid it. He’s playing with fire. Putin is determined to eliminate the scourge of terrorism in Syria, and by implication perhaps regionally and beyond. That puts him on a collision course with Washington, wanting its proxy death squads protected and used destructively.

The more heavily armed ISIS and other takfiris become, the harder Russian aircraft will likely target them. Expect the battle to liberate Syria to continue for as long as it takes to achieve.

According to the Journal, “(i)n the past month of intensifying Russian airstrikes, the CIA and its partners have increased the flow of military supplies to rebels in northern Syria, including of US-made TOW antitank missiles, these officials said.”

“Those supplies will continue to increase in coming weeks, replenishing stocks depleted by the regime’s expanded military offensive. An Obama administration official said the military pressure is needed to push Mr. Assad from power.”

Shoulder-launched, man-portable, surface-to-air missiles (SAMS) defense systems (Manpads) are being supplied. “Those weapons could help target regime aircraft… and could also help keep Russian air power at bay,” said the Journal, citing unnamed US officials.

Manpads are relatively inexpensive, easy to operate and able to down low-flying aircraft. Helicopters are most vulnerable. So are fixed-wing planes during takeoffs, landings, and when operating at low altitudes.

Military aircraft systems alert pilots when missiles target them. Countermeasures to avoid being struck include evasive action, infrared flares and lasers.

Russian planes are safe at high altitudes. Special precautions are taken to protect them during takeoffs and landings.

So far, Putin outwitted Obama in Syria, effectively challenging his dirty game. He’s determined to eliminate the scourge of terrorism and keep it from spreading, especially to Central Asia and Russia.

He supports Syrian sovereignty, strongly against letting outside powers determine its fate, for its own citizens alone to decide, free from foreign interference.

On September 30, the die was cast when he intervened, a righteous mission fully in accord with international law – polar opposite US aggression throughout the region and beyond.

Obama didn’t wage war on Syria to quit. Putin didn’t intervene responsibly to back off in the face of US pressure, threats and anti-Russian propaganda. Expect him to stay the course with plenty of effective military muscle – impressive enough to make Pentagon commanders leery about challenging him.

A proxy state of war between America and Russia now exists – a hugely dangerous situation, risking possible direct confrontation between the world’s two nuclear superpowers.

Expect Putin to go all-out to avoid it. Put nothing past neocon lunatics in Washington – willing to risk destroying planet earth to own it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

November 7, 2015 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »