Thug life in Edmonton
By J. Baglow | Rabble | December 5, 2014
Officer Darren Wilson of Ferguson, MO, has reportedly made his first million by gunning down an unarmed Black kid. In Edmonton, AB, Constable Mike Wasylyshen has just become a Sergeant.
Who is Mike Wasylyshen?
He’s the son of a former Edmonton police chief. He’s also a convicted criminal with a history of violence.
In 2002, he Tasered an unconscious Aboriginal youth eight times. It took ten years for the young man’s family even to get a disciplinary hearing for what a judge called “cruel and unusual punishment.” Wasylyshen was docked 120 hours of pay.
Then, in 2005, he beat up a man on crutches, seemingly just for the hell of it. It took eighteen months before the Edmonton police bothered to lay charges. He eventually received a whopping $500 fine for that one, but at least earned himself a criminal record.
Between times, in 2003, Wasylyshen was dressed down by a provincial court judge for lying to obtain a search warrant. Evidence in a drug case had to be tossed out due to Mike’s “carelessness bordering on indifference.” There was another one of those “internal investigation” thingies. No discipline.
The man is not without chutzpah. Before he was disciplined for the Tasering incident, he sued the CBC for “defamation” for reporting on it.
Now this sterling model of professional policing has received a promotion.
Hey, says the Edmonton Police Service. That was then. This is now.
Does crime pay after all? You decide.
US helping Israel boycott Geneva summit on occupied territories – diplomatic sources
RT | November 27, 2014
Switzerland is under diplomatic pressure from Israel, the US, Canada and Australia, which are trying to prevent an international conference in Geneva from taking place in mid-December on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, Haaretz reports.
Delegations from nearly 200 countries are expected to head to Geneva to discuss the situation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Yet, according to Haaretz, Israeli and Western diplomats are ready to go for broke to prevent the gathering from taking place.
Switzerland, as the main sponsor of the summit, is bearing the brunt of diplomatic pressure from all sides.
Israeli authorities told the media outlet that Palestinians and Arab states are also pressing Swiss officials to send out letters of invitation to the conference within a matter of days, the Israeli daily reported on Wednesday.
It was in early April when Israel announced plans of constructing 700 new houses in occupied East Jerusalem, a move that pushed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to ask 15 international conventions to join them in the name of the Palestinian state.
One of those was the Fourth Geneva Convention (signed 1949, came into force 1950), which specifically addresses protection of civilians in war zones and territories under military occupation.
Washington finally accepted that its efforts to extend peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been torpedoed. Several weeks later, Palestinians and the Arab League sent an official request to Switzerland to hold an international conference of the Fourth Geneva Convention signatory states on the issues of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, together with the damage caused by Israel’s armed forces to civilians in Gaza.
The last time the signatories to the Fourth Geneva Convention gathered in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was in 2001, after the outbreak of the second intifada. That conference was boycotted by Israel and the United States.
After that summit there have been four fruitless attempts to gather the Fourth Geneva Convention on the issue of Israeli-Palestinian relations. Even the bloody Israeli military Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip in 2009 failed to raise broad international support for holding such a conference, according to the Swiss Foreign Ministry at the time.
The necessity to call the new conference has been not evident this time, too, so Swiss diplomats asked every Fourth Geneva Convention signatory separately whether the time had come to hold a summit.
What the Swiss diplomats have proposed is a three-hour conference at an ambassadorial level, no discussions and no media coverage except for a final press statement. The conference is set to be focused on implementation of the international humanitarian law in troubled Israeli-Palestinian relations.
“We made it clear we didn’t want a political event or debate club, or a conference that would blame or criticize one of the sides,” a Swiss diplomat said.
However small the scale of the proposed event is, Israel strongly objected to it. Israeli diplomats reportedly conducted negotiations in Bern and Geneva, trying to persuade Swiss counterparts to call off the initiative and threatening to boycott it anyway.
“They told us that holding the conference would help a one-sided Palestinian move intended to make Israel look bad and attack it in an international forum,” the Swiss diplomat said.
The US and Canada told Switzerland they are going to boycott the conference, too.
“We strongly oppose the convening of the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions and have made our opposition unmistakably clear,” a spokesman for the US State Department, Edgar Vasquez, told Haaretz.
It is true that the conference will have no authority to make any binding decisions, yet its work could engender further international criticism of Israel’s settlement policy on the occupied Palestinian territories.
Besides that, once Israeli diplomats received an updated draft of the conference’s proposed contents, they found out that the updated draft text had been phrased in a politicized way, directly naming Israel and going into detail on the issue of West Bank settlements.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has reportedly been ringing colleagues around the globe, attempting to talk them into declaring a boycott to the conference. Part of this work has been delegated to Israeli ambassadors worldwide.
With all due support on the part of the US, Canada and Australia, these efforts are likely to be in vain, and the Swiss diplomacy is decisive to go on with the plan and announce the conference officially soon.
The Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits harming those uninvolved in a conflict, be they civilians, wounded soldiers or POWs, as well as obliging the occupying side to maintain human rights and decent living conditions of an occupied civilian population.
Israel joined the convention, but has never ratified it legislatively. The Israeli government regards the West Bank and East Jerusalem as ‘disputed’, not occupied, areas, therefore considering Israeli settlements as not violating the treaty.
“Security” In the West’s Client States
By ANDRE VLTCHEK | CounterPunch | November 21, 2014
Perhaps you thought that the security at the Atlanta or Newark, or Dallas airports is bad, obnoxious, the worst in the world… Think twice… Of course it all began there, in the United States, from the first glory days of that hypocritical and deranged “War On Terror”: the humiliation of people, especially Arabs, especially Muslims, especially all those who are not white, but eventually everybody, at least to some degree.
But it did not just stay there. The allies joined in almost immediately, and then the ‘client’ states jumped on the bandwagon, competing in tactics and strategies of how most to humiliate those confused and helpless passengers, by censoring internet sites, digging into emails, monitoring mobile phone communications, and relentlessly spying on both citizens and foreigners.
I have travelled all over the world, to some of the most imaginable and unimaginable places. All the while being monitored and harassed, threatened and periodically attacked, even physically, I have also spread many counter-punches: I have observed, recorded, and published, who does what to whom, who is the most diligent, methodical, and ruthless bully?
Unsurprisingly, the toughest surveillance comes from Western allies and ‘client’ states, all over the world – from places that Washington, London and Paris routinely call ‘thriving democracies’.
Countries that have collapsed socially strive to impress their Western neo-colonial masters, by imposing increasingly harsh security and surveillance measures against their own people. At the same time, they are full-heartedly and enthusiastically signing up to the bizarre, ‘War on Terror’. It gives the local rulers many privileges. If they play it right, their gross human rights violations, and even their killing of the opposition, is not scrutinized.
***
When I recently worked in South Africa, I was told that the country is now one of the freest on earth. It has nothing to hide and it is not particularly afraid of scrutiny.
“You can photograph here, whatever you want, and nobody will tell you anything”, many of my South African friends explained to me, in Cape Town, Pretoria, Johannesburg, as well as by those living abroad.
It is true. In fact, after few days there, you can easily forget that there are any restrictions, like a ban on filming or photographing police stations or navy ships. Nobody would ever stop you from taping, for instance, battleships at the Simon’s Town base.
South Africa is a proud BRICS country, a left-wing beacon on the African continent and, together with neighboring Zimbabwe, a target of an aggressive negative Western propaganda campaign.
Just as in South Africa, not once was I stopped from filming or photographing in Zimbabwe. And not once was I intimidated, harassed or humiliated by their immigration or customs at the airports.
That is in stark contrast with the West’s allies on the continent – Rwanda, Uganda, Djibouti, Kenya, Ivory Coast or Senegal, to name just a few.
It is not just that ‘everything is forbidden’ there, but ‘violators’ can easily be arrested, harassed, even ‘disappeared’.
When making my film, “Rwanda Gambit”, about Paul Kagame’s monstrous regime, and about the genocide it had been committing (on behalf of the Western powers) in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I tried to film with a small Leica, at the border between Rwanda and DR Congo, at the Gisenyi/Goma crossing. Within a few seconds later, an enormous Congolese soldier grabbed me and began pulling me towards the border post. I have been arrested in Goma once before, and I knew what it amounts to – what it is to rot in the underground intelligence bunker cut off from the outside world.
I was almost certain that, that time, I would not make it out alive. And so I screamed for help in the direction of the Rwandese soldiers who were watching the scene from the other side of the borderline. It is not that they were really eager to help, but the disappearance of a US citizen, an investigative journalist at that, would be an extra, and unnecessary ‘annoyance’. And so they went to work, grabbing my free hand and pulling me back towards Rwanda. The enormous Congolese man in the end lost, and I survived.
All of this over just a few shots! Nobody would ever even think about preventing me from filming on, say the border between Argentina and Chile, or Vietnam and China!
In Rwanda itself, absolutely everything is forbidden, and everybody snitches on everybody. It is forbidden to photograph the streets, the hospitals, and museums, even the genocide memorial! It is strictly banned to photograph or to film their villages, In order to film military installations or prisons, I had to attach a Drift camera to the undercarriage of my car.
In Rwanda and Uganda, everything is under the surveillance. Walls have ears and eyes, so to speak. It is not like surveillance in London, done with high-tech cameras (although these are also beginning to appear); people simply spy on each other, at an unimaginable rate, and the security apparatus appears to be present absolutely everywhere, omnipresent.
But for the West, that is all fine. Both Rwanda and Uganda are plundering DR Congo of Coltan and uranium. The 10 million lives lost there, appears to be just a token price, and the horrors that are occurring in these countries are just some tiny inconvenient episodes not even worth mentioning in the mainstream press.
Security is ‘needed’, in order to maintain ‘order’ – our order.
The humiliation of travellers at Kigali, Kampala or Nairobi airports is indescribable. It is not about security at all, but about a power game, and plain sadism. In Kigali, there are at least 8 ‘security checks’, in Nairobi 6 to 7, depending on the ‘mood’ at the airport.
Three years ago, on behalf of the West (mainly US, UK and Israel), Kenya attacked the oil-rich part of Somalia, where it is now committing atrocities. Its state apparatus also perpetrated several attacks against its own civilian targets, blaming all of them on the al-Qaida linked movement, al-Shabaab. It was done in order to justify the ‘security measures’.
Now there are metal detectors in front of every department store, hotel or office-building in Nairobi. When I, earlier this year, photographed the entrance to a prison, I was literally kidnapped, thrown into the jail and informed: “We will treat you as a terrorist, as an al-Shabaab member, unless you prove that you are not.”
The slightest argument with the Kenyan military forces, or with the corrupt and outrageously arrogant police, leads to detention. And there are cases of people being harassed, sexually molested, even tortured and killed in detention.
The security forces in East Africa cooperate, as the security forces cooperated in the dark years of the fascist military dictatorships in South America.
As I was walking with my friends through Kampala, a huge lone figure slowly walked towards us.
“That is one of the butchers and he comes from Kenya”, I was told. “He tortures and kills people that pose a danger to this regime… He does things no local person would dare to do. Our countries exchange the most sadistic interrogators; ours go to Kenya, Kenyans come here.”
I recalled that even Paul Kagame, now the President of Rwanda, used to serve as the Chief of the Military Intelligence in Uganda.
Yes, the Newark and Houston airport security is bad, and the surveillance in the West is outrageous, but it is being taken to insane extremes in the ‘colonies’.
In Djibouti, which is basically a military enclave of the French Legionnaires, the US air force and other European armed forces (Somalia, Yemen, Eritrea and Ethiopia are all just a stone-throw away), I once complained at the airport that my passport was being checked twice within a distance of 10 feet. As a result, a huge soldier grabbed me, tore my shirt, threw me against the wall, and then smashed my professional camera against a concrete wall. All this happened in front of the horrified passengers of Kenya Airways. That, I found somehow intolerable. It pissed me off so much that I got up, ready to confront the soldier, no matter what. But the horrified voice of a Kenya Airways’ manager stopped me: “Sir, please leave it at this… They can just kill you, and nothing will happen to them. They can do anything they want!”
In Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire), which is yet another French military dependency, and generally a loyal servant to Western interests in West Africa, ‘security’ is the main excuse for keeping undesirable elements, like myself, away from the country. Earlier this year I embarked on a journey there to investigate the chocolate empire activities of the Ukrainian President Poroshenko. Ivory Coast is the biggest producer of cocoa in the world, and ‘the Chocolate King’ is apparently involved in many unsavory practices there.
The authorities were tipped off in advance that I was coming, and the charade began from the moment I landed. I was ordered to produce my yellow fever certificate, which was inside my bag. As I began searching for it, I was roughly ushered into a small room full of sick people quarantine – and informed that I was to be vaccinated again. I found the certificate just a few seconds later, and went out to present it to the authorities. “Back!” they shouted at me. Wait inside for your turn, and tell the doctor that you have found it. The wait turned out to be 2 hours long. Later, I was told that a visa on arrival is no longer available. For days I had to go to the immigration office, from morning to the evening. For days I was fingerprinted and photographed. I clearly saw that wires were disconnected from their computer, every time my turn came round. “Your fingers are not good for fingerprinting! Go to the hospital and bring a certificate that they are not good!” Going there costs US$100 a time, and another wasted day in Abidjan. The hospital said that my fingers were just fine. I had to bribe them to write that they were not.
The US embassy was clearly aware of what was happening. They even sent an officer to ‘assist me’. I showed him that the wires had been pulled out from the computer. “We cannot interfere in other country’s internal affairs”, he explained.
Then, on the last day, when my visa was finally issued, a lady from the US embassy whispered into the phone: “Well, if you write what you do, you must be ready for the consequences”. ‘Honest person’, I thought.
I am almost ‘embarrassed’ to write this, but I have driven on many occasions, all over China (PRC), around at least 8,000 kilometers, but have never been prevented from photographing or filming anything. I have hours and hours of footage and thousands of photographs from many corners of the nation.
A stark, almost grotesque contrast is India, the ‘largest democracy on earth’, according to the Western assessment.
There, nothing is allowed. Forget about filming the battleships near Mumbai (even the Soviet Union does not care – they would put their battleships on the Neva river in Leningrad during celebrations, for everyone to admire and to photograph them, which I did, as a child, when visiting my grandmother). You cannot even photograph that idiot Clive, inside the Victoria Monument in Calcutta.
In India, surveillance is everywhere. It is the perfect police state.
You need a local SIM card in Beijing? Even in the middle of the night, you just go to any kiosk and buy one, no questions asked, no paperwork.
In India, to get a SIM card is one tremendous saga, monstrous bureaucracy, spiced by demands for all sorts of documents and information.
You want to use the internet at New Delhi airport? You have to provide your name, your telephone number, and your email address! I invent names, like Antonio Mierdez or Amorsita Lopez; sometimes it works, sometimes not. In China, you just stick the front page of a passport onto a scanner, and get password within ten seconds. In South Africa, there is not even need for that – the internet is open and free.
And then, those legendary, those epic security checks in India!
The Indian state appears to be thoroughly paranoid, scared of anyone trying to document the reality.
It has developed an allergy to writers, investigative journalists, film-makers and photographers, especially those that happen to be ‘independent’, therefore ‘unpredictable’ and potentially capable of challenging the clichés fabricated in Washington, London and New Delhi, that depict the country as the ‘largest democracy on earth’.
To fight against such threatening elements, the Indian regime, which consists of the moneyed elites, feudal lords, religious fanatics and the military brass, have become pathologically obsessed with security, with surveillance, with relentless checking on things, and people. I have never witnessed such security zeal, even in countries that are under a direct threat from the West: such as Cuba or China.
Even domestic flights in India, from smaller cities like Varanasi or Jaipur, require an entire chain of security steps. Your passport or ID is checked on at least 10 occasions. As you enter the airport, a few steps later, before you are allowed to check in, when you are checking in, as you are entering the departure area, when you are in the departure area (that one is grand – you are forced to step on a platform and everything is checked), when you are entering the departure gate and when you are leaving it for the plane door. Sometimes there are additional checks. It is all, mostly, very rude.
In Turkey, everything is censored. From my official website to ‘Sitemeter’, even the Hong Kong MTR and Beijing and Shenzhen subway maps (maybe just in case someone wants to compare those pathetic subway developments in Istanbul and Ankara, to those in China).
When I called the guest relations supervisor at the four star ‘Kalyon Hotel’ in Istanbul, where I was staying in November 2014, I was told that she “does not know what internet provider is used by the hotel”, but that censorship is actually part of a “security program”, which in turn is part of “the hotel policy”, or vice versa.
How honest!
She actually kindly suggested that I bring my Mac ‘downstairs’, so the IT manager could “do something with it”. I very politely, declined, remembering an experience two years earlier, at the Sheraton in Istanbul, where the ‘IT manager’ actually installed some spy wear, which totally and immediately corrupted my computer, my email addresses, turning my operating system into something that has since been insisting on functioning almost exclusively in the Turkish language. When I complained over the phone, he, the IT manager, went upstairs, kicked my door, rolled up his sleeves and he let me know that this matter could be settled most effectively, outside the hotel, most likely in the street.
***
It may sound bizarre, but in the countries literally besieged by hostility from the Empire, like Cuba or even North Korea, security appears to be much more lax than in the nations where the elites are terrified of their own poor majority.
I don’t remember going through any security, in order to enter a theatre or a hotel in Havana. In Pyongyang, North Korea, there are no metal detectors at entrances to shopping centers, or subway stations.
It goes without saying that one is monitored more closely by the security cameras and armies of cops in London or New York, than in Hanoi or Beijing.
The most common mode of modern communication – the mobile phone – is regulated much less or monitored in Vietnam, China or Venezuela, than in India, Japan, or Europe. In fact, Japan recently even discontinued the sale of pre-paid SIM cards; every number has to be meticulously registered and issued only after signing an elaborate contract.
As I keep reporting, the world is full of stereotypes and clichés. Countries are not judged by rational analyses and comparisons, but by chimeras created by commercial mass media, especially those in the West.
Three countries in Latin America are still living the nightmare of the ‘Monroe Doctrine’: Honduras, Paraguay and Colombia. In Paraguay and Honduras, the West basically managed to overthrow progressive governments and installed fascist regimes, not unlike those that reigned all over the continent during Ronald Reagan and Otto Reich’s days. Colombia has been, for decades, a US ‘client’ state.
Surveillance in all three countries is monstrous, and so are gangs and death-squads.
But you would not guess it. If you read Western reports, including those produced by Reporters Without Borders, you would think that the true villains are actually countries like Venezuela and Cuba. But then, you look closely, and see who organizations like Reporters Without Borders are playing with… And surprise-surprise: you will discover names like Otto Reich among them!
When Thailand, another staunch ally of the West and a shamelessly servile state, began photographing people at the airports and borders, I asked an immigration officer in Bangkok, where all the data goes. She answered, without any hesitation: “To your country!” That is, to the United States.
Malaysia and its immigration used to be quite different – relaxed and easy. But then, earlier this year, Obama came aboard his diplomatic tank. I landed in Kuala Lumpur just an hour after his Air Force One had touched town. What did I encounter? A fingerprinting machine at KLIA! Obama left, but the machines are still there. To spy on people, to fingerprint and photograph them, is apparently one of the conditions of being a good friend of the West. That would never have happened in the era of Dr. M!
Even Japan now photographs and fingerprints people arriving from abroad! Japan where one can even easily and freely photograph combat air force bases (some of them, including those in Okinawa, have viewing terraces for tourists, all around them) is now also spying on people! That is, obviously, one of the rules laid down by the gang that is ruling the world.
Of course the Western allies of the United States are not much better.
Do you still remember how Europeans were bitching about having to take of their shoes at US airports? What has happened now? They do it, without protesting, at their own airports, in London, Paris, Munich, everywhere.
In fact, the most repulsive security I have ever encountered in the West was at CDG, in Paris. I was taking a night flight on Asiana Airlines, from Paris to Seoul. The flight was full of Korean tourists in their seventies and eighties. The tables were set up, sadistically, far away from the X-ray machines, so the poor old people had to carry their bags and belongings quite a long distance. Security personnel were yelling at them, insulting them. I protested, on behalf of the Koreans. A tough French dude came up to me and began insulting me. I asked for his name. He turned around and mooned me, in public. He took down his pants and showed me his hairy ass. “My name is Nicolas Sarkozy”, he said. In a way he was right…
Once I arrived very early in the morning, in Darwin, Australia, after working in East Timor. My electronic travel authorization was for ‘tourism’. The unfriendly immigration officer was clearly on her power trip: “What are you going to do in Australia?” I told her I would be meeting some of my academic friends in Sydney.” “That is work, academic exchange!” she barked at me. “You requested a tourist permit.” I explained that we would just have dinner together, perhaps get pissed”. That was the typical Aussie-type of tourism, I thought. The interrogation began and went on for 2 hours. As the sun was rising, I had had enough: “Then deport me!” Of course she did not. Humiliating people was simply a form of entertainment, or how to kill a couple of boring hours. Or how to show people where they really belong!
How free and proud one should feel entering that great world of Western democracies!
One has to lie, of course. Once I was held for 4 hours by the Canadian immigration services, entering from the US by car. Why? I told the truth, that I was coming to interview Roma (Gypsy) people fleeing from persecution in the Czech Republic (a staunch ally of the West).
Leaving Israel is beyond anything that I have ever experienced elsewhere in the world. Especially once Mossad realized that I had come to trash Israel for its treatment of Palestinian people, and for its foreign policy.
We commonly end up discussing my grandparents, my books, and my films. I have already commented: no woman in my life, not even my own mother, wanted to know so much about all the details of my existence, as Mossad agents at the airport! And none of them has ever listened so attentively!
I am totally exhausted from all that freedom given to me by the West and its allies.
My email addresses are corrupted and I don’t even know which publication or television network is actually receiving my stuff. There is absolutely no way to tell. I have no idea which immigration service will screw me next, and how.
I have already got buggered about by the security in Colombia, Canada, Indonesia, Kenya, Djibouti, Ivory Coast, DR Congo, Kenya, the US (entering from Mexico), Bahrain and Australia… I can hardly remember, there is much more…
It is all turning into a game of Russian roulette.
My African, Indian, Arab and Latin American friends and colleagues are, of course, going through much deeper shit.
The question that I keep asking myself is very simple: “What are they all so afraid of?” I don’t mean the US and Europe – those are control freaks and they simply don’t want to lose their control of the world… There, it is all transparent and clear.
But it is not as clear elsewhere: what about those regimes in India and Turkey, in Honduras and Kenya, in Indonesia (you have to show your passport or the national ID, even to board a long distance train!) and Bahrain?
What are they fighting for or against? Who is their enemy?
They are fighting against their own people, aren’t they?
Their ‘War on Terror’ is their war against the majority. The majority are the terror. The West is the guarantee of the status quo.
They – the elites and their masters in the West – watch in panic that in many parts of the world, the people are actually winning.
That is why the security in the West’s ‘client’ states is on the increase. The war against the people goes on. This war is one of the last and brutal spasms of feudalism and imperialism.
Check everything and spy on everybody, so nothing changes, nothing moves. But things are moving, and fast! And all those lies, and surveillance cameras, fingerprints and the ‘disappearing’ of people will not be able to prevent progress. They will never manage to smash the people’s dreams of living in societies free of fear!
UN Resolution on Iran Mockery of Justice
By Ismail Salami | Press TV | November 20, 2014
The not-very-independent UN body has made a mockery of justice by soldering a resolution on the so-called human rights violations in Iran.
The farce becomes more markedly absurd when you consider the plethora of human rights abuses going unpunished in the world with the UN laying a lid of ignorance on these blatant violations.
Late Tuesday, the United Nations voted to slam “Iranian human rights abuses”, singling it out for “executing upwards of 1,000 political opponents and prisoners in the past year”.
Iran has strongly lambasted the UN resolution, saying that “the UN’s legal mechanisms have turned into a tool in the hands of the West.”
The irony of the resolution is that the measure was initially drafted by Canada which has, itself, a disgraceful history of human rights abuse against the aborigines in the country. Further to that, Ottawa has constantly and vehemently thrown its full-throated support behind Tel Aviv in its inconceivably ruthless crimes against the people of Palestine.
In July 2014, when Gaza was being pounded by Israeli bombs and the Palestinian women and children were consequently incinerated and brutally slaughtered, when human rights were being trampled in its most pernicious forms, the Canadian government brazenly backed the Israeli regime and instead rubbed salt in Palestinian wounds. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a statement and said, “The indiscriminate rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel are terrorist acts, for which there is no justification…. Failure by the international community to condemn these reprehensible actions would encourage these terrorists to continue their appalling actions. Canada calls on its allies and partners to recognize that these terrorist acts are unacceptable and that solidarity with Israel is the best way of stopping the conflict. Canada is unequivocally behind Israel.”
Yes, Canada is unequivocally and cravenly behind Israel. These are strange times. Those who are harbingers of terror and atrocity become the emblems of innocence and the downtrodden people of Gaza become terrorists. These remarks by Mr. Harper only relegate him to a very lowly level of humanity and leave no room for his exoneration from complicity in the crimes perpetrated at the hands of the Israeli regime against the Gazans.
Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran, has even voiced his praise for Canada’s determining role in conducing to this mockery of justice about Iran, saying, “Canada’s leadership in this regard is highly appreciated.”
In May 2014, Canadian Liberal MP Irwin Cotler who served as the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada from 2003 until 2006 embarked on a series of programs known as Iran Accountability Weeks in which they heard “testimonies highlighting Iranian political prisoners and other victims of Iranian human rights abuses.” Among those who testified was the notorious terrorist MKO leader Maryam Rajavi accompanied by a UN rights official and pundits from a hawkish American think tank.
Interestingly, Mr. Shaheed was a participant in the event. Although he says he asked his name to be withdrawn from the panel, there is barely an iota of truth in it as in his report on Iran. The sheer presence of Maryam Rajavi in the anti-Iran mudslinging campaign sheds light on the very nature of the UN-released resolution against Iran.
Besides, it is not a closed book to anyone that Irwin Cotler is a fervent advocate of Tel Aviv and his insistence on having Rajavi on the anti-Iran panel reveals the dirty hands behind the report. So, the pieces of the puzzle come together to make a meaningful whole in this regard.
Over the past three decades, the MKO has initiated a series of deadly attacks on Iran and the Iranian population and has so far assassinated 12,000 Iranians including nuclear scientists. It is interesting to note that the assassinations of prominent Iranian characters including the politicians and scientists are basically conducted in cahoots with Israeli Kidon, the assassination unit within Mossad.
In 1986, the MKO headquarters were transferred to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and Saddam took them under his wings and funded them financially and militarily to fight against Iran. Long listed as a terrorist organization by the international community, the cult was delisted on September 28, 2012 by the US Secretary of State as an extension of their adage that a terrorist in need is a friend indeed.
Some of their sabotaging activities are as follows:
- The series of mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids during 2000 and 2001 against Iranian government buildings; one of these killed Iran’s chief of staff
- The 2000 mortar attack on President Mohammad Khatami’s palace in Tehran
- The February 2000 “Operation Great Bahman,” during which MEK launched 12 attacks against Iran
- The 1999 assassination of the deputy chief of Iran’s armed forces general staff, Ali Sayyad Shirazi
- The 1998 assassination of the director of Iran’s prison system, Asadollah Lajevardi
- The 1992 near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian embassies and institutions in 13 countries
- Assistance to Saddam Hussein’s suppression of the 1991 Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish uprisings
- The 1981 bombing of the offices of the Islamic Republic Party and of Premier Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, which killed some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei and Bahonar Support for the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries
- The 1970s killings of U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran
Viewed from an entirely different angle, the measure very bizarrely coincides with the nuclear talks between Iran and the world six world powers and the November 24 deadline. So, the move may be seen as a last-ditch effort by pro-Israeli lobbies to proceed with their scenario of Iranophobia on the one hand and to sabotage the nuclear talks and bring them to a standstill on the other hand.
The UN consciously or unconsciously plays into the hands of the pro-Israeli pressure groups in Canada and only puts on an ugly show of duplicity in imposing a ruling against the Islamic Republic.
I’m confused, can anyone help me? Part Three
RT | November 18, 2014
I’m confused. The first thing I’m confused about is democratic legitimacy after elections are held in war-torn countries.
Western leaders have hailed the recent parliamentary elections in Ukraine, as a great triumph of “democracy.”
Barack Obama said it was “an important milestone in Ukraine’s democratic development.” Top EU officials said it represented “a victory of the people of Ukraine and of democracy.”
Yet large parts of war-torn Ukraine took no part in the vote. Turnout, according to the Ukraine Central Election Commission was just 52.42 percent.
In May’s presidential elections, turnout, according to official figures, was 60.3 percent. They were won by Petro Poroshenko with 54.7 percent of the vote. Again, western leaders hailed the results as a great victory for “democracy.”
Now let’s consider the case of Syria, another war-torn country where there were also important elections this year.
Unlike Ukraine’s elections, leading western politicians did not say the result of Syria’s first multi-candidate presidential election in over forty years represented an “important milestone in Syria’s democratic development”- even though, according to official figures, the turnout was much higher than in Ukraine, at 73.42 percent.
Far from it, the same people who hailed the elections in Ukraine haughtily dismissed the election in Syria as a “farce.”
“This election bore no relation to genuine democracy. It was held in the midst of civil war,” said British Foreign Secretary William Hague.
“Today’s presidential election in Syria is a disgrace,” said US State Department spokesperson Maria Harf.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called Syria’s election a “fake.” Fabius did not telephone Bashar al-Assad, the winner, to offer his “warmest congratulations” as he did with Poroshenko.
How come one election held in a country divided by war is hailed as a “victory of the people and of democracy” but another election- where the turnout is higher -denounced? Why are Poroshenko and the Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk deemed to be the legitimate representatives of the Ukrainian people but Bashar al-Assad, despite his higher level of popular support, denied any kind of democratic legitimacy? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
At the recent G20 summit in Brisbane, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Vladimir Putin to “get out of Ukraine.” Leaving aside the fact that there’s no hard evidence that Russia is in Ukraine – and that Harper didn’t produce any- the statement seems to imply that the Canadian Prime Minister doesn’t like other countries interfering in the affairs of others and believes in state sovereignty and the inviolability of state borders.
But in 2003, Harper was a strong supporter of the US-led invasion of Iraq (and wanted Canada to join in), a clear example of one county “getting” into another. He actually thought it was a “mistake” of the then Canadian government not to take part in the invasion of Iraq. Why is Stephen Harper so concerned about a non-existent Russian invasion of Ukraine, but happy to support a real, actual, and blatantly illegal invasion of Iraq?Does the Canadian Prime Minister support state sovereignty and the inviolability of state borders, or doesn’t he? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
David Cameron tells us that ISIS poses a “clear and present threat to the United Kingdom.” Yet only last year he was trying desperately to persuade Parliament to vote for air strikes against a secular Syrian government that was fighting ISIS and other radical extremists associated to al Al-Qaeda. Cameron describes ISIS as “an evil against which the whole world must unite,” but even now the British government, in common with other western governments is still working for the violent overthrow of the government in Damascus whose forces are the only ones on the ground in Syria capable of defeating ISIS. If defeating ISIS really was so important, why is the west trying to topple the anti-ISIS Syrian government? Why, if “the whole world must unite” against ISIS, won’t the British and western governments work with the Syrian government? I‘m confused. Can anyone help me?
To coincide with the launch of RT UK, we’ve seen a wave of attacks on RT by self-proclaimed “democrats” and “liberals” in the British media.Some of these attacks have urged Ofcom – the broadcasting regulator – to take action against RT. I always thought that being a “democrat” and “liberal” meant support for alternative voices being heard, not trying to stop people from hearing them. John Stuart Mill, the author of On Liberty, a classic text on liberalism, wrote of the “peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion” and that “all silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.”
So how come western “liberals” want to silence the opinions expressed on RT? Why are those who claim to be anti-censorship, so censorious when it comes to RT? I would have thought people calling themselves “democrats” and “liberals” would welcome a wide variety of news channels for people to watch, yet instead of that supporters of “free speech” are attacking a channel which broadcasts opinions which they don’t agree with it. I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
Western politicians say that they are appalled by the “barbarism” shown by ISIS in the various beheading videos they have released.But if beheading people is so bad (as most people would agree that it is), why is there no similar condemnation of the beheadings which take place in Saudi Arabia? In August, Amnesty International reported a “surge” in beheadings in Saudi Arabia, amounting to at least 23 in three weeks. Why are beheadings by ISIS “savage” but the ones carried out in Saudi Arabia acceptable? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
Pussy Riot, the Russian punk protest group who were jailed after a demonstration in an Orthodox Cathedral in Moscow are feted as heroes in the West, with a whole range of public figures including the pop star Madonna coming forward to express their support. But there was no such celebrity support for Trenton Oldfield, a protestor who was jailed for six months in Britain after trying to disrupt the Oxford- Cambridge University boat race in 2012. Oldfield said he was protesting against elitism, inequality and government cuts. If Pussy Riot’s cause is deserving of “progressive” support, then why isn’t Oldfield’s? Why are some anti-government protestors who go to jail hailed as heroes, but others totally ignored? I’m confused. Can anyone help me?
You can read I’m confused, can anyone help me Parts One and Two.
LIVING WITH INSANITY
Harper, Abbott, and Cameron at the Brisbane G-20
By John Chuckman | Aletho News | November 18, 2014
Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is reported by a spokesman, to have had the following exchange with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during the Brisbane G-20 summit: “Well, I guess I’ll shake your hand, but I only have one thing to say to you: you need to get out of Ukraine.” Putin is said to have replied, “Impossible. Since we are not there.”
A graceless bit of diplomatic crudity from a truly graceless man, Stephen Harper, someone Canadians know has a history of underhanded practices at home, from introducing ugly personal-attack campaign advertising, using secretive and bullying tactics in parliament, failing to deal with corrupt practices by subordinates especially an American-style election scandal of robo-calls which sent some voters to the wrong polls, to having appointed several unbelievably incompetent and corrupt ministers. He is known for a ferocious temper in private, a very controlling man who grants his political associates absolutely no freedom of expression, and is reported by insiders as having on at least one occasion thrown a chair in a meeting. His silencing of Canadian government scientists from offering their opinions on issues in areas of expertise has been a simmering international scandal, as has his complete suppression of environmental issues.
Before Harper, Canada enjoyed for many decades a reputation for fairness and decency and intelligence in international affairs with statesmanship and openness exhibited by figures like Lester Pearson or Jean Chretien or Paul Martin. Harper has destroyed a great deal of that as he pursues a single-minded role as American junior partner in almost all things.
He completely abandoned Canada’s traditional policies of fairness and balance in the Middle East, literally shocking many Canadians at times with fervent outbursts about Israel, including suggestions that Canadian critics of Israel are anti-Semitic. He does this, as any astute political observer recognizes, to solicit increased campaign funds from Canada’s financially successful Jewish community, taking his cue from Republicans in the United States such as Newt Gingrich who alone received $18 million dollars from one wealthy supporter of Israel for his last nomination campaign in exchange for inserting into his speeches that there was no such thing as a Palestinian, an utterly insincere and ridiculous statement. Since Israel is no admirer of President Putin’s, he being too independent-minded and opposed to the American exceptionalism Israel tightly embraces and by which it prospers, this activity of Harper’s puts him in an anti-Russian frame of mind from the start.
Harper has made an annual photo-op journey to Canada’s North, always trying to appear to voters as the man most concerned with a future there of melting ice creating free access through the Northwest Passage. Ironically, he periodically mentions Russia as the nation he is most concerned about, but Canada’s recent history couldn’t make it clearer that it is the United States which represents the great threat to our Northern waters and shore. Everything from unauthorized American atomic submarine prowling to a giant American oil tanker passing to published American charts showing this future open water as international tells a pretty harsh story. But in every detail, Harper only pretends America is a great and non-threatening friend.
Harper is the single most obsessed leader in Canada’s history with pleasing, almost fawning over, the United States. Had the history of Canada, which included a great deal of disagreement and contention with the United States over its many imperialistic behaviors, included many leaders of Harper’s character, there quite likely would not be a county called Canada today.
So here are the demonstrated qualities of the man performing as Canada’s diplomatic ass at the G-20 in Brisbane. He demonstrates a genuinely anal-retentive temperament, is intolerant of differences of opinion, and embraces a willful blindness to the world’s greatest threat to peace, the United States in its self-appointed role as imperial arbiter among nations.
In case you wonder why a man like Harper even holds office in Canada, it is because the effective opposition was split with internal battles and because the last leader they selected in desperation following those battles was a man of no political intelligence or even experience and a totally unattractive personality to the public, Michael Ignatieff, someone who managed to do almost everything wrong. It also reflects a democratic deficit in our parliamentary structure where a party with just over 39% of the vote can be a parliamentary majority. So despite Canadians consistently being about 60% or higher inclined to somewhat progressive parties, Harper has had a free run at pole-axing the country’s traditional international reputation. Every day we come to be seen as a bit more like the deceptive and brutal American colony in the Middle East he embraces so closely.
We unfortunately live in a time utterly lacking statesmen in the West. I don’t know the detailed backgrounds of those other aggressive fools at the G-20, Abbott of Australia and Cameron of Britain, but I know they are both men who have lied exceedingly and been intimately involved with such nasty business as favors for the unsavory Rupert Murdoch empire. I can think of nothing which recommends either of them as statesmen. Indeed, they both, quite literally, kowtow to America.
Putin is head and shoulders above these men in intellect and focus, readiness to communicate clear views to the world, someone demonstrating considerable patience, and, from all evidence, someone notably free of the blowhard ideology which virtually characterizes Harper, Abbott, and Cameron.
Putin’s moves in Ukraine seem to me appropriate for dealing with a deliberately-induced crisis in an important neighboring country, and one with a long history of connections and associations. He has not invaded Ukraine, something which he could easily do were he so inclined. I suspect he has supplied weapons to East Ukraine, but that is something the United States does all the time, including supplying weapons to some of the most brutal groups and governments on earth, as it is right now doing in Syria, with secret night cargo flights out of Turkey to terrorist cutthroats. Just ask yourself what America would do about a comparable situation in Mexico: patience simply would not exist, and Mexico City would be quickly overrun by tanks.
The people of East Ukraine, Russian in background and sympathies, deserve protection as much as they deserve the huge amounts of emergency supplies Russia has supplied in a conflict owing its origin entirely to the covert acts of America. Had the coup-established government of Ukraine originally offered protection of Eastern interests, including language rights they openly tried suppressing, the story might have been different, but they did precisely the opposite, passing unfair laws, making threat after threat, and attacking their own citizens. Who wouldn’t rebel in that environment, including any of the states of the United States? How easily people forget past rebellions in the United States, the greatest of which was the Civil War, still the bloodiest war Americans ever experienced.
It is quite clear that the United States is responsible for destabilizing Ukraine. Its CIA funds have been invested into many unsavoury projects, perhaps most disturbing is its paying support to a collection of neo-Nazi groups ranging from extremist parties to violent militia forces, some of the very groups who have committed atrocities such as murdering many hundreds of civilians and some of whom actually march under swastika-like flags. It does seem more than a bit strange that men like Harper, Abbott, and Cameron implicitly support that kind of filthy work while charging Putin with dark acts, dark acts which are stated ambiguously and certainly never proved.
It is also clear that the United States has pressured all authorities involved to delay and obscure the investigation into the destruction of Flight MH17, and the only explanation for that can be America’s preventing, for as long as possible while the new coup-created government of Ukraine consolidates its position, the highly embarrassing finding that Ukraine in fact shot it down. The United States has said over and over it has evidence about the crash, yet it has never produced a scrap of it. Just as it never produced evidence for so many past claims from what actually happened on 9/11 to the assassination of a President.
The great irony of the G-20 summit in Brisbane is that its only substantial agreement concerned doing everything possible to promote growth in a world whose economy is dangerously stagnating, yet it wasted time and energy on America’s fantasy stories about Russia and Ukraine, insulted Russia’s President, and threatened in some cases further growth-suppressing sanctions. Nothing could be more contradictory and unproductive or, frankly, just plain stupid.
Israel Campaigns Against Global Free Speech
The Bilzerian Report | February 20, 2014
Alarmed at the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiments on the internet, Israeli politicians recently called for nations around the world to enact legislation prohibiting criticism of Jews and Israel. Lobbying to outlaw global free speech is nothing new for Israel, however; it has been in the business of criminalizing speech for decades.
Israel is in the precarious position of receiving tens of billions of dollars in aid every year from nations that purport to support democracy, while simultaneously oppressing the Palestinian people and perpetrating what Nobel Peace Prize winners Bishop Desmond Tutu and President Jimmy Carter deem an apartheid. If the American or European people ever knew that their tax dollars where being used in such a way they would surely cut Israel off. In order to conceal this truth and stifle any criticism, Israel and its lobbyists rely on sympathy from the Holocaust and labels of anti-Semitism to discredit critics. Even US Secretary of State John Kerry was recently called an anti-Semite for supporting a peaceful resolution to the Jewish/Palestinian conflict. Kerry is not alone however, President Obama, and just about anyone who has ever opposed an Israeli policy has been labeled anti-Semitic by his enemies. In order to add teeth to these labels, Israel lobbyists around the world lobby endlessly to criminalize anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.
Israel’s threat of forcing world governments to enact new laws against free speech should not be taken lightly. Israel and its lobbyists have already succeeded in enacting stiff anti-racist laws in most Western countries. These laws have been used on numerous occasions to jail academics, pro-Palestinian activists, and also individuals who have spoken provable facts that are deemed anti-Semitic “canards.”
In Australia, Jewish groups lobbied successfully to outlaw holocaust study and “hate speech.” As with most laws regulating speech and academic study, it has been routinely abused, and is now on the list for repeal. In fact, the law is so tied to Jewish lobbying, that the Jewish newspaper Haaretz published an article: Australian Jews brace for a fight against the repeal of hate laws.
In Canada, Jewish groups lobbied for the enactment of hate speech regulation, and defend its use today. In 1983, Israel lobbyists filed a complaint against Ernst Zundal over a book he had written. He was tried several times, his citizenship application in Canada denied (even though he had resided there for decades), he was detained for two years without trial, and eventually deported to Germany where he was sentenced to 5 years imprisonment.
In France, Israel lobbyists publicly complained about comedian Dieudonne’s parodies of Israel and the holocaust. His home was raided, his shows banned, and hefty fines were imposed. England also followed suit and barred Dieudonne’s entrance into the country. In 2003, the French legislator and Israel lobbyist Pierre Lellouche managed to push through a law which extends the definition of discrimination to include nationalities so anti-Israel activists could be jailed. In 2009, the Lellouche law was used to convict 20 anti-Israel activists.
In England, Jewish lobbying efforts successfully enacted strict hate speech laws, and in Austria, acclaimed historian David Irving was incarcerated after Israel lobbyists complained about his academic work. The European Jewish Parliament and the chief Israel lobbyist in Belgium recently called for similar laws to stifle criticism of Israel. According to the Canadian Jewish News article French Vigilance on anti-Israel speech provoking backlash, Israel lobbyists are also attempting to enact similar legislation in the Netherlands.
In America, the Israel lobby has been fighting mightily for years to prohibit hate speech. Those efforts have been unsuccessful thus far, but they have managed to enact hate crime legislation. As Abe Foxman of the ADL noted, the social consequences in America for bigotry against Jews are so severe, (given disproportionate Jewish influence in government, media, finance, higher education, professional sports, etc…) that anti-Israel speakers often see graver consequences than the criminal sanctions they would face in Europe. For example, if one were to be labeled an “anti-Semite,” even if the allegations were wholly unsubstantiated, he would most likely be fired and ostracized from society.
One has to realize that Israel’s efforts having nothing to do with hate speech, anti-Semitism or holocaust denial, but are rather about stifling critical speech that affects Israel and its lobbyists. For example, we know that Israel and its lobbyists are not offended by holocaust denial because Israel and its lobbyists are the leading proponents of Armenian holocaust denial in the world today. Israel should also not be particularly offended by anti-Semitism, because Israel is actually one of the most racist and anti-Semitic nations on the planet.
Today, Israel is furiously enacting anti-free speech laws, hiring internet trolls to spread propaganda and disinformation, and even asking the Jewish owners of social media websites Facebook, Wikipedia, Google, and Youtube to remove material Israel does not like, regardless of its truth or merit. Israel has also campaigned against political parties it does not like in Greece, Hungary, and Ukraine. In Greece, the anti-Israel Golden Dawn Party was disbanded and its leaders arrested for no legal reason. This is a dangerous precedent that threatens world wide freedom and must be combated immediately, before speaking out against such Israeli efforts is also illegal.
Laws protecting free speech are put in place specifically to protect speech that powerful groups find objectionable. Otherwise, there is no free speech and it is just a matter of time before the list of prohibited phrases grows to include everything the powerful oppose. If it’s illegal to speak about certain races, the disabled or elderly, then why not government employees, and then the rich, or poor, and so on? Either speech is totally protected or it is not protected at all. The point of speech protection is to protect the most unpopular forms of speech. Popular forms of speech obviously need no protection.
An Overwhelming Majority of Lebanon’s Christians Believe Hizbullah Protects Their Country
By Anthony F. Shaker | Mittag’s Journal | October 26, 2014
A recent poll by the Beirut Center for Research and Information (BCRI) found that two thirds (62.6%) of Lebanese Christians feel that, contrary to its vilification by members of the NATO alliance, Hizbullah has in fact protected their country from its most determined enemies—Israel, IS (known locally as Da‘ash), and Wahhabi-style terrorist groups linked to the Syria-Iraq conflagration.
The poll revealed also that very few of the respondents prefer UNIFIL to Hizbullah on the front line with the terrorist groups, as some domestic and regional actors have insisted. Nor do they believe the claim that the foreign “coalition” presently targeting IS in Iraq and parts of Syria seeks to “destroy” IS, as President Obama and his allies have declared.
As many as 73.1% dismiss this view entirely, which comes in the wake of endless reports in the mainstream media worldwide and growing evidence regarding Saudi, Turkish, Qatari, Israeli and NATO collaboration with anti-Syrian terrorist fronts and organizations.
Although some have interpreted the survey results as indicative of a “significant increase” in favorable attitudes—at least compared to two similar surveys in June 2013 and February 2014—there is no history of enmity between the Christian and Muslims communities, much less with Shi‘i Muslims.
During a visit to France in 2011, Maronite Patriarch Beshara Boutros Rai defended the government of President Bashar al-Assad and criticized states that had begun supplying arms to the terrorists gathering in Syria. Again in 2013, he said, “There is a plan to destroy the Arab world for political and economic interests and boost interconfessional conflict between Sunnis and Shi’ites. Some Western and East powers are fomenting all these conflicts. We are seeing the total destruction of what Christians managed to build in 1,400 years,” referring to peaceful cohabitation and historically productive relationship with Muslims.
“I have written to the Holy Father twice to describe what is happening,“ he had added. “I appeal again to the Holy Father, who only talks about peace and reconciliation.”
Hizbullah, which solidified the resistance against the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon, began largely in the Shi’a community, but then quickly expanded ties with other communities and organizations across the country. Today, it identifies its primary interests with Lebanon and does not claim to act on behalf of Shi’a Muslims only.
Strictly speaking, Lebanon’s woes are not confessional, even if they fed on endless disputes over confessionally based electoral rules and representation.
That a Wahhabi terrorist claims to speak for “Sunnis” does not by itself make for a Sunni-Shi’a divide. Nor does it define the armed conflicts that have erupted since the West began to sponsor a massive armed campaign to destroy the Syrian government and state. Few people know that this sponsorship dates, not from 2011 (when the terrorist onslaught gained traction), but from the early 1990s, after Syria insisted that Israel declare its intention to return the Golan Heights during the ”peace“ negotiations phase, a demand Israel categorically refused at the time.
The “West” (essentially, the United States, United Kingdom and France) has blacklisted Hizbullah as a “terrorist” organization and for years fought hard to pin the Hariri assassination on it, which many now believe Israel carried out, possibly even at Saudi Arabia’s behest, nearly provoking another civil war.
Hizbullah officials have repeatedly warned that a “terrorist” listing is a “big mistake,” one that will further damage the West’s standing in the region. In fact, this is no longer in doubt, given NATO’s current desperate effort to insinuate itself back into Iraq and to intervene for the first time inside Syria itself. NATO now has no choice but to tolerate Iran’s determined assistance to Iraqi military and security forces. This tolerance naturally must now be extended to Syria, where Hizbullah aims to deal decisively with the terror emanating from the Gulf, Turkey and Israel before it overwhelms Lebanon too.
Clearly, the events surrounding the Syria conflict have thrown deep doubts on Western intentions—and competence—in the Middle East. For some time, these doubts have been seeping into Western policymaking circles, diplomatically around the world, and most tellingly, inside the intelligence communities themselves.
Years ago, under a previous government just before Canada put Hizbullah on the terrorism list, Canadian security analysts and some federal cabinet ministers had cautioned against such a blanket interdiction. The former Liberal government’s decision, it had transpired, was based in the ever-quaint Washington Times, which merely quoted a professor claiming that Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah had issued a worldwide call for “a suicide bombing campaign”and “don’t be shy about it.”
The “professor’s” claim happens to be in keeping with the Mickey Mouse warnings that Israel has for years been dishing out to Western countries about the Lebanese resistance. Yet, suicide bombings then, as now, are the Wahhabi terrorists’ choicest method in asymmetric warfare, not Hizbullah’s.
Developments since then have shrunk Canada’s blacklisting of Hizbullah to insignificance as an issue. This is because Canada has lost most of its diplomatic influence thanks to the deeply ideological character and the arrogant style of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Many Canadians have questioned the wisdom of blacklisting a party with elected members in the Lebanese parliament and government cabinet. This year marks a new watershed: few either in Canada or in the West are sure any more which side they are on according to their government.
To the Christians of Lebanon, such hesitation would have been unthinkable for the fatal consequences it entailed for them and their country.
One can only recall with nostalgia Hillary Clinton’s shrill call with the Friends of Syria: “Mr. Putin, you are on the wrong side of history!”
Dr. Anthony F. Shaker is the editor-in-chief and founder of Mittags Journal and visiting scholar at McGill University; his published works and articles are in classical Islamic philosophy and history, as well as modern politics.
Canadian police attack anti-austerity rally in Montreal
Press TV – October 31, 2014
Police have attacked thousands of demonstrators protesting against government spending cuts in the Canadian province of Quebec.
The anti-austerity protesters gathered outside the office of Quebec’s Premier Philippe Couillard in Montreal on Friday to condemn the local government’s plan to cut $3 billion from the province’s budget.
The Canadian police used force to disperse the anti-austerity protesters, saying the demonstration, which was dubbed “Austerity: A Horror story”, was unauthorized.
The demonstration, which started at 11 a.m. and ended at around 3 p.m. local time, was organized by a coalition of student unions, including Quebec House of Labour (Centrale des syndicats du Quebec), independent teachers’ federation, as well as Quebec Solidaire, a provincial political party.
“On the one hand, they’re very clear in their intention to cut. On the other hand they’re very clear in their intention not to get any money from people who actually have money,” said Joel Pedneault, a spokesperson for the coalition.
Pedneault further stated, “The orientation behind that is they just want to cut social spending. It’s an orientation against social spending and against our social programs which we fought so hard for in Quebec.”
Several demonstrators were arrested in the crackdown. The demonstration also caused heavy traffic in the area.
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From the Archives
The Occupied Mentality Syndrome
Saudi Arabia on the American chessboard – Part 2
By B. J. Sabri | American Herald Tribune | April 19, 2016
Since the Korean War, but particularly since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 until today, the United States has been steadily escalating its military presence in the Persian Gulf. Taking advantage of many colossal events of the past 36 years, [1] the hyper-empire has institutionalized its massive presence on land and sea, and expanded its objectives to include the unambiguous physical control of the area, as well as the clear understanding that local Arab governments should abide by them. The pretext is always the same: in “defense” of the national interests and security of the United States. From observing how the United States has been interacting with the governments of the region, and by judging from the size of its expeditionary force, we could reach a basic conclusion. The United States is occupying, de facto, the entire Arabian Peninsula. (Yemen, devastated by Saudi and American jets is yet to be conquered. Oman? Britain returned not as colonial ruler but as a soft occupying power.)
Under this articulation, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates are virtually occupied countries. If we compare this type of occupation to the mandate and protectorate regimes of the past, the results might be identical—the nations affected by it lose sovereignty. When Arab governments comply with the objectives of a foreign power that station military forces on their national milieu, then that power controls them in multiple ways including how they react to policy deliberations and what decisions they intend to take on specific issues. A good method to verify the concept of effective occupation is this: take notice of what the United States says and wants, and then compare it to what the gulf rulers do in response. (I shall discuss this detail at some point in the upcoming parts.)
If the presence of US forces or other means of political pressure are a factor in Saudi Arabia’s interventionist Arab wars, then we need to debate this issue. However, from the history of resistance to colonialism, we learnt: if a powerful state imposes its order on a nation by military means or other forms of coercion, and if this nation does not resist that imposition, then a mental subordination to the powerful state will ensue. This is especially true in the case of Saudi Arabia. One single event, 9/11, has transformed it from a US “ally” into an instant political hostage of the American Empire. … continue
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