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Court orders psychiatric evaluation for Marine Le Pen, she slams it as ‘hallucination’

RT | September 20, 2018

French politician Marine Le Pen said a court ordered her to undergo psychiatric evaluation over a series of images she posted on Twitter showing Islamic State executions. She slammed the order as a “hallucination.”

The president of France’s National Rally (formerly Front National) has released an order saying it comes from the magistrates in Nanterre near Paris, calling on her to “undergo a psychiatric examination.”

“For denouncing the horrors of Daesh (Islamic State/IS, formerly ISIS) by tweets the “justice system” has referred [me] to a psychiatric assessment. How far will they go?!” she tweeted in response.

The 2017 presidential candidate denounced the order as “a hallucination,” saying: “This regime is really starting to scare [us].”

French major outlet BMFTV, which also broke the story, said that the procedure was in fact a “common” occurrence. The comment did not go down well with Le Pen though, who branded the claim “a lie.” Such an examination is required of “pedophiles or [those with] sexual deviance,” she argued.

In December of 2015, Le Pen tweeted three pictures of killings carried out by IS terrorists accompanied by the text “Daesh [Arabic term for ISIS] is THIS!” The tweets had been a response to journalist Jean-Jacques Bourdin, who compared Le Pen’s nationalist rhetoric to that of the Islamic terrorist group.

One of the pictures showed the body of James Foley, whom the extremists beheaded in August 2014. Back then his family said they had been “deeply disturbed by the unsolicited use of Jim for Le Pen’s political gain.”

Le Pen later deleted the images. Speaking to French media earlier this year she said that she is being charged for “having condemned the horrors of Daesh.”

If convicted, the politician faces a maximum punishment of a €75,000 fine and up to three years in prison.

A number of politicians have lambasted the judges’ decision towards Le Pen. According to National Assembly member Gilbert Collard, the order simply means “the psychiatrization of political opinion.”

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini also took to Twitter to express support for the French politician. “A court orders a psychiatric assessment for Marine Le Pen. Words fail me! Solidarity with her and with the French who love freedom!” he wrote.

This is not the first time Marine Le Pen has locked horns with the authorities. In 2017, roughly two months before the presidential election, she was summoned by judges for alleged misuse of EU funds. The court said that Le Pen’s staff was fictitiously employed at the European Parliament as assistants. She denied the allegations.

This July, French judges blocked €2 million of subsidies to Le Pen’s party. Le Pen condemned the move as “a blow to democracy,” since withholding the funding would likely result in her party becoming defunct.

September 20, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Russian plane disappears from radars during Israeli attack on Syria’s Latakia – MoD

RT | September 17, 2018

A Russian military Il-20 aircraft with 14 service members on board went off the radars during an attack by four Israeli jets on Syria’s Latakia province, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Air traffic controllers at the Khmeimim Air Base “lost contact” with the aircraft on Wednesday evening, during the attack of Israeli F-16 fighters on Latakia, said the MOD.

Russian radars also registered the launch of missiles from a French frigate in the Mediterranean on the evening of September 17.

Fourteen people were on board the plane at the time of the disappearance. A search and rescue mission is underway.

The Ilyushin 20 (IL-20) surveillance turboprop plane is an Electronic Intelligence (ELINT) platform, equipped with a wide range of antennas, infrared and optical sensors. The aircraft’s SLAR (Side-Looking Airborne Radar) and the plane’s satellite link allows the Russian military to monitor Syrian skies in real time.

An hour-long attack on Latakia began around 10 pm local time, and targeted a power station as well as two facilities belonging to the Syrian military. Syrian officials said the attack was “foreign” and came “from the sea,” but could not initially confirm rumors that Israel was behind it. Seven people were injured in the attack, according to Syrian officials.

While the Russian military said it recorded four F-16 Israeli jets over Syria at the time of the attack on Latakia, the IDF has refused to comment on the report.

The attack on Latakia came just hours after Russia and Turkey negotiated a partial demilitarization of the Idlib province, which is the last remaining stronghold of anti-government militants, including the Al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (also known as the Jabhat Al-Nusra).

READ MORE:

Russia detects missile launches from French frigate off Syria’s coast in Mediterranean – MoD

September 17, 2018 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

French Online Payment Service Provider HelloAsso Refuses to Close Accounts Belonging to BDS Activists

Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee / France (BNC) 09-12-18

HelloAsso, a French company that provides online payment services, has rejected pressure by Israel lobby groups to shut down the accounts of two French groups which support the BDS movement for Palestinian human rights. HelloAsso will continue to provide services to both Association France Palestine Solidarity (AFPS) and BDS-France.

HelloAsso publicized its decision in a tweet explaining that it supports the right of citizens to call for BDS as part of freedom of expression.

In 2016, the European Union stated:

“The EU stands firm in protecting freedom of expression and freedom of association in line with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which is applicable on EU Member States’ territory, including with regard to BDS actions carried out on this territory.”

Translation of HelloAsso tweet from French original:

[…] “HelloAsso is an apolitical platform that does not take any position regarding the claims of the BDS movement. HelloAsso nevertheless considers this movement as within the realm of free expression and not as discriminatory or antisemitic.

HelloAsso’s position is supported  by the European Union, which has clearly stated it favours protecting freedom of expression and association, including the right to advocate for BDS .

Therefore, the HelloAsso account of AFPS (Association France Palestine Solidarity) will not be removed.

To all those who criticize  us for hosting these organizations, we respond that the conflation that allows attacks on these organizations is dangerous because it conflates antisemitism, which we condemn without ambiguity, and criticism of the state of Israel, which is a political opinion. This freedom of expression is a fundamental right.

Since its creation, HelloAsso has striven to support freedom of association and to protect the right to freedom of speech because we are a platform that is committed to the model of [non-profit] association and at the same time apolitical, open and enriched by differences of opinion, a reflection of our society.”

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) is the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society. It leads and supports the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.

September 12, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Skripal and Syria… The Imperative of Criminalizing Russia

By Finian CUNNINGHAM | Strategic Culture Foundation | 10.09.2018

There is a direct link between Britain’s sensational allegations against Russia in the Skripal affair and NATO’s losing covert war in Syria.

That’s not just the opinion of critical observers. Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations made the explicit link when she called an “emergency meeting” of the Security Council earlier this week.

The Security Council meeting was convened only hours after British counter-terrorism police released video images claiming to identify two Russian men, whom it said were responsible for the alleged poison assassination attempt on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in England earlier this year.

The council meeting also followed swiftly on the heels of British Prime Minister Theresa May telling her parliament that the culprits were Russian military intelligence officers acting on orders from the Kremlin. May did not give supporting evidence. It was bald assertion.

In this short clip, Britain’s envoy to the UN Karen Pierce tells reporters the rationale of the British government in convening the emergency session at the Security Council. The envoy reveals more than she intended.

She says that the United Kingdom and its allies would “continue to contest the Russian view of the world in which their state operatives can carry out these sorts of attacks [in England] and can encourage and support the Syrian authorities in their attacks on civilians.”

Pierce added: “So this is actually a continuum, if you like, of contesting that view of the world where you can act outside the norms of international rules and civilized behavior.”

Evidently, the British government is trying to criminalize both Russia and Syria at the same time, over the same alleged crime – unlawful use of chemical weapons.

That would account for why the British authorities have been unduly hasty in accusing the Russian state of culpability in the Skripal affair. By undermining and smearing Russia as a “pariah state”, it is then possible to stifle Russia’s crucial military support for Syria. This is especially urgent given the juncture in the Syria war where NATO-backed militants are staring at final defeat.

The US, Britain and France have all recently threatened to use military power against the Syrian government forces “if” the latter launch chemical weapons attacks. That of course is a cynical pretext for the NATO states to find a legal cover for aggression against Syria.

The allegations of “imminent” chemical weapon use by the Syrian government are also baseless since Damascus no longer possesses any such munitions, or indeed has any military need for such weapons.

What the Skripal affair is therefore trying to do is inculcate in the public mind that Russia has no scruples about using chemical weapons to kill people, which in turn reinforces the notion that Moscow’s Syrian ally also has no scruples about killing people with toxic materials.

The NATO claims of Syrian national forces using chemical weapons have been shown to be false. In recent days, Russian envoy to the UN Vasily Nebenzia demanded that the US present details of a Pentagon target list of chemical weapons sites in Syria. The US balked.

By contrast, there is a healthy skepticism among the Western public about official allegations against the Syrian government. Pink Floyd’s legendary singer-songwriter Roger Waters speaks for many when he recently called out the NATO-backed so-called rescue group, the White Helmets, as being implicated in orchestrating chemical attacks for propaganda purposes.

In order to overcome the propaganda problem of demonizing the Syrian government and giving itself a pretext for launching military strikes on Syria, the NATO powers therefore have to boost their flagging “false flag” narrative of chemical weapons responsibility.

By criminalizing Russia for allegedly using chemical weapons “on the streets of Britain”, it is a ploy to augment the dubious narrative criminalizing Syria.

Here is British envoy Pierce speaking again: “The reason the Security Council has not been able to act on CW [chemical weapon] use in Syria is because of Russia. There is a circularity here. Russia is the key to upholding the universal ban on CW use. And the world would be better if Russia would join us in making that ban absolutely watertight.”

Britain’s use of the word “circularity” is certainly apt – albeit for a completely different reason. The actual circular logic is to criminalize both Russia and Syria over chemical weapons. Russia, it is calculated, will then not have the authority to use its veto power at the Security Council in order to prevent the three NATO powers on the council from launching their much-desired military attack on Syria to salvage their losing covert war.

The reckless haste by which the British authorities are accusing Russia over the Skripal affair – a haste which makes a mockery of legal due process and diplomatic norms – can plausibly be explained by the urgency of the NATO powers to free up their military plans on Syria.

How can the release of video images allegedly of two Russian nationals in Britain be possibly attributed to the Kremlin? Two Russian men – if indeed that is genuine information – are supposed to be “compelling evidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an assassination. It is a preposterous leap of imagination and a travesty of legal process, but it is revealing of an execrable British prejudice of Russophobia.

One possible theory in the Skripal affair is that the two alleged Russian men were members of organized crime. Reports emerged this week that former Russian intelligence agent Sergei Skripal was working with Spanish state security services to crackdown on Russian underworld gangs. It is possible that the gangs uncovered Skripal’s meddling in their illicit business model, and simply sent a couple of heavies over to Britain to deal with him. But how such a hypothetical account can be twisted by the British authorities to be “proof” of Kremlin involvement is a telling question.

It is significant that the British authorities have flatly refused requests from the Russian side for information to identify the alleged Skripal hitmen. For example, British regulations require fingerprints to be submitted by all visitors to the country. Why have the British refused to give fingerprints to Russian authorities which could then lead to an identification and perhaps explanation of the two alleged suspects?

The British don’t want to know the truth, because their official narrative of criminalizing the Russian state is the imperative one. And that is because of the urgency for NATO to find a legal, political cover for its military aggression against Syria.

September 10, 2018 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Kamikaze from California

Israel Shamir • Unz Review • September 10, 2018

There are worse, more dangerous endeavours. Ride a tiger, steal cubs from she-bear, walk a high voltage wire. Doubting the Holocaust is slightly less perilous. The doubters found themselves invariably out of job, oftentimes in jail, rarely killed. This is the dogma-Mother-of-all-dogmas, and Jews, the priesthood of New World, are attending to its pristine inviolability.

Nowadays, one may openly doubt the Crucifixion and Resurrection or (maybe) challenge the founding myths of Israel. Yet the cult of the Holocaust retains a unique, court-enforced prohibition against any investigation that might cast a doubt on its sacred dogma. Dogmas have a way of attracting critical minds. And critical minds step forward, despite the inherent danger.

Ron Unz, this kamikaze of critical mind from California, has stepped on the third rail knowingly, in full awareness of the consequences. He did not stop at doubting the established mantra, he also published and made available to readers and internet users some more important books on the subject.

H dogma, discovered Unz, came into existence years after WWII, when people with first hand knowledge of the events were already dead or retired. While the memory was still fresh and pristine, the Jewish Holocaust was unknown, and the very word Holocaust was used in reference to the fiery death of Dresden and Hiroshima, the ultimate Anglo-American crimes.

Unz provides some historical meat to the fearless group of H deniers. Indeed, the H denial had been formed in France, under influence of a French communist and a survivor of Nazi camps Prof Paul Rassinier.

Some deniers were men of Right, some favoured Nazis, like Ernst Zundel and his spouse Ingrid Zundel, the great Prof Robert Faurisson was a Vichy sympathiser, but otherwise H denial had been formed by the Leftists.

This is a good time and place to mention the recently deceased Prof Serge Thion, whom I knew personally. Tall and handsome, a successful man with strong scientific and Leftist credentials, Thion supported the Vietnamese and the Algerians who fought against French colonialism; he occupied a prominent place in French academe and administration, but sacrificed it all and became a refugee and a fugitive from ‘justice’ for his strong position on H denial. He was always on the run from France to Italy to SE Asia, but while running, he also managed a site full of forbidden stuff.

My good friend and an important French and Spanish poet Mme Maria Poumier was/is a Communist, and she lived for some ten years in Cuba. She introduced me to Roger Garaudy, an old Communist, a friend of Arabs and Muslims, the man who tried to bring together Christianity and Communism, and embraced Islam in his endless religious search. Garaudy connected the Holocaust cult with Zionism in his book.

The great stand-up black artist, the funniest French comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, a giant son of a Cameroonian and a Bretonese, has made fun of the Holocaust. A political maverick, he ran for Parliament for Marine Le Pen’s Front National, and formed its far-left-and-right wing together with Alain Soral.

The established French MSM prefers to call all these people “Nazis”, but actually they are the real still unbroken Left. Even I was called a Nazi and a H denier, though I never denied (or affirmed) its historical veracity. It is forbidden to deny H under fear of imprisonment, so it is not an option for a law-abiding citizen. And I was never interested in facts, just in their interpretation.

I do deny its religious salvific significance implied in the very term ‘Holocaust’; I do deny its metaphysical uniqueness, I do deny the morbid cult of Holocaust and I think every God-fearing man, a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim should reject it as Abraham rejected and smashed idols. I deny that it is good to remember or immortalise such traumatic events, and I wrote many articles against modern obsession with massacres, be it the Jewish holocaust of 1940s, the Armenian massacre of 1915, the Ukrainian “holodomor”, Polish Katyn, Khmer Rouge etc. This is not forbidden yet.

Unz wisely avoided discussion of gruesome details, for the calculation of bodies, stoves and bullets is too awful for a modern reader. It is a meta-narrative, dealing with discussion of the topic without entering the topic, and it was a clever and calculated choice. It is not necessary to overburden the reader with macabre specifics of the events. The details and facts are not really all that important. So many people were killed by their fellow-humans in the course of history, for a lot of reasons. Who cares?

The most important question Unz’s essay leads us to, is not ‘whether six million Jews were killed by Germans just because they were Jews’ but: Why the Holocaust cult became so popular, with its temples, perversely called “Holocaust museums” or “Places of Tolerance” sprung up everywhere from Nebraska to Fiji? There are differing and mutually-non-exclusive answers to this question.

The first and obvious answer is “It is good for rich and powerful Jews”. It solved the eternal problem of the rich and influential, warding off the envy and hate of the poor and exploited. It allowed Madoff and other Jewish swindlers to cheat and steal. It covers asses of the three Jews, the lawyer-fixer Cohen, the smut-dealing publisher Pecker and the numbers whiz Weisselberg who set up Donald Trump. The Jewish oligarchs of Russia and Ukraine use it whenever they are accused of stealing their countries’ wealth.

The second answer is “It is good for Israel”. It allowed the Israeli army to murder children and starve women with impunity. Ari Shavit of Haaretz said in 1996, when the Israeli Army killed over a hundred civilian refugees in Kana, Lebanon: “We may murder with impunity, because the Holocaust museum is on our side”. Now a Holocaust organisation cooked up a definition of antisemitism, explicitly forbidding any criticism of Israel, and forced the Labour Party to accept it, despite objections of the Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

The third answer is “Because it is profitable”. Jewish organisations claiming to represent the H survivors, reap billions of dollars from Germany, Switzerland and other countries, even from Poland and Estonia; they pay themselves five- or six digit salaries, while giving out some peanuts for real survivors. Norman Finkelstein covered this angle in his book, mentioned by Ron Unz.

These three answers cover the Jewish position, but they do not fully explain the almost universal acceptance of the H dogma by the ruling classes all over the West. And here comes the fourth answer: “The H cult is good as a discursive tool of the Deep State against the majority”.

The H priests preach that the majority of Germans approved of Hitler and approved of the Holocaust, so one can’t accept democracy and shouldn’t trust the majority, unless the majority votes as ordered by those who know better. Now this idea is being enforced by the New York Times and its sisters against the Deplorables and against Trump who was elected by Deplorables but hasn’t been confirmed by the Deep State. In England, they use it to overturn the people’s vote for Brexit; and before that, they used it to re-run plebiscites until obtaining the desired result in the Netherlands and Sweden.

The fifth answer is “It is good for the US providing it with a licence to be the World Sheriff”.

The H priests teach that the US won the war and restored Germany to the free world, despite its population’s wishes. It means that the US is the force to check and control whatever people or even elites in other countries decide. This is the logic behind American interventions from Grenada and Panama to Afghanistan and Syria. If tomorrow they will invade Italy or Hungary, they will still refer to Auschwitz and Nuremberg.

This also helps to make American occupation of Germany a permanent fixture. Undermined by the H cult, Germans agree they can’t take their fate into their hands, and they have to be firmly guided by the US.

The sixth answer, “It is good for justifying unlimited migration and open borders”. Whenever a government in the US or in Italy tarries with receiving the endless flow of migrants, the Holocaust is immediately mentioned. Every Mexican agricultural worker or an African looking for a better life has to be accepted for the Jews were threatened with the Holocaust.

The seventh answer will lead us into deep waters, and you can skip it if it is too deep for you. “It is good to replace Christ”. The H dogma is a parody of Christian teaching, with Jews being brought as a sacrifice, with Auschwitz replacing Golgotha, and with creation of the State of Israel as a new Resurrection. Jews are essential Christ Deniers, and for them the H is an occasion to downgrade Christianity as “irrelevant after Auschwitz”. The alternative answer is that Auschwitz is irrelevant after the Resurrection, but there aren’t many (or any) Christian theologians daring to say that. Enemies of Christ (Gentile as well as Jewish) are likely to support H cult for its anti-Christian core.

The H cult is not the last word in Jewish fight against Christian faith; there is a the Noahide Project. It starts where the H cult ends. “The Noahides are a theological phenomenon of very recent vintage. It’s a form of Zionist mission, which seeks to create a world religion whose believers adore the Jewish people and the State of Israel – without belonging to either. The believers are required to accept the supremacy of Judaism but are not accepted into the Jewish people and are even barred from upholding such commandments as Sabbath observance. Anyone who wishes to be a Noahide is called upon mainly to recognize the Jewish people and its state.”

Chabad Rabbis hope there will be 7 billion of Noahide believers; adepts of H cult are well on their way to joining the Noahides for they already believe that the death of a Jew is more important than a Gentile death.

These are important points that call for discussion, and hopefully one day we should mount a round table discussing the cardinal question: why H is so popular, and what does it mean for us?

Unz’s essay is a new link in his American Pravda series, where Unz dismantles the web of old worn lies woven by the mainstream media, undermining the whole narrative modern America is based on. ‘The Slaughter of Sacred Cows’, he could call it. Every society needs a dash of revisionism in order to free its spirit from old tenets.

(In Israel, they were called New Historians, who slaughtered the sacred cows of “the Arabs voluntarily had left their homes in 1948” and “the Jews always sought peace, and the Arabs refused their offers”. Benny Morris and Tom Segev, Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe undid the myth of 1948, of ethically pure Israel fighting for its survival against the genocide-bent Arabs. The change they brought to the narrative allowed Yitzhak Rabin to sign peace treaty with Yasser Arafat; though this achievement had been erased by the following leaders after Rabin’s assassination.)

Moreover, our society is a result of Sacred Cows’ wholesale slaughter undertaken by previous generation. The cows of Family, Marriage, Normal life, of Boys and Girls, of Womanhood and Manhood, of Going to Church, of trying to keep fit, so many established truths had been slaughtered in the last fifty years. Upon their bones, new cows had been grown: of gender minorities, of toxic white male patriarchy, of bodyshaming, and indeed the Holocaust is one of the fattest cows.

It is a bout of poetic justice that these cows will be slaughtered too. H priests hoped that their narrative, that of Holocaust, will last forever, smoothly flowing into Noahide utopia. But nothing is forever, not even their dogma.

In order to defend their cows, they brought in ‘hate laws’. But the seven reasons we listed above do not include hate of any sorts. You do not have to hate anybody to disprove of crooks, to support Palestinians, to condemn officials milking countries for their personal gain in the name of dead victims, to love democracy, to respect majority, to withdraw soldiers from Germany, to stop mass migration, to reject “invite the world, invade the world” imperial paradigm, and to love Christ.

We come to unexpected conclusion: whether the Holocaust narrative is based on sterling facts or on exaggerations, it is good to reject it. Even if the ‘deniers’ are factually wrong (let us presume it for the sake of argument), they are still right with their conclusions. And Ron Unz had made an important contribution for the benefit of mankind by his publication.

There is a minor fault in his excellent piece, for this self-taught man knows little about Russia. While he has bravely demolished the myths of American and European history, Unz swallowed the Russia-related myths hook, line and sinker. He accepted wholesale every lie that was ever invented by the Western ideologists to regain their control over Russia and eventually over their own workers. This subject will be discussed in our following piece.

P.S. In my previous piece, I wrote about the first ever trial for Holocaust Denial in Russia. The accused was Prof Roman Yushkov of Perm. And now for good news. The Russian jury dismissed the charges against Yushkov and thus confirmed that H denial is not a crime in Russia. Nor in the US, I hasten to add. Neither USSR nor Russia had ever accepted the peculiar idea of uniqueness of Jewish deaths, perhaps because the Russians had lost so many people at the same war.

Shamir on the Holocaust Denial:

Vampire Killers 2001

For Whom The Bell Tolls 2006

September 10, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russian Media Irritates French Government: Curbing Press Freedom

By Alex GORKA | Strategic Culture Foundation| 09.09.2018

The report titled Information Manipulation: a Challenge for Our Democracies prepared by two government-linked think tanks – the French Foreign Ministry’s Center for Analysis, Planning and Strategy (CAPS) and the Defense Ministry’s Institute for Strategic Studies (IRSEM) – saw light on Sept.4. The paper urges the French government to “name and isolate” outlets that act as “foreign propaganda organs.” It suggests that journalists of Russian RT and Sputnik news outlets should not be accredited or invited to press conferences. “It’s important never to grant [these organizations] accreditation rather than to invite them to press conferences for journalists,” the document states.

Moscow is the prime target of the efforts to curb freedom of speech. The 200-page long report mentions Russia 60 times, the word Kremlin is used 48 times, Sputnik is referred to 14 times and RT is also not forgotten with the abbreviation repeated 10 times. The authors say they express personal opinions but it’s hard to believe it as they work for the government.

The French administration has demonstrated its hostile attitude toward the Russian outlets a number of times. Last year, President Emmanuel Macron accused them of having spoken “mistruths” about him and his campaign behaving not as “media outlets and journalists” but as “organs of influence, propaganda, and false propaganda.” That’s what he affirms though not a single example of spreading misinformation by the Russian media outlets has ever been provided.

The activities of Russian journalists in France are often obstructed. It’s not unusual for them to become victims of harassment. For instance, when RT France channel started to broadcast last December, 11 French public figures called on the county’s broadcasting watchdog Conseil superieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA) to recall its license.

Meanwhile, President Macron is mulling  a new restrictive law on media under the pretext of fighting “fake news”. It will introduce new rules on media publication during pre-election campaigns, providing the French Conseil superieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA) broadcasting watchdog with a broader authority over the operations of foreign media in the country. The Commission on Legislation of the French Senate rejected the two bills designed to fight “fake news” on July 17 but the French administration hopes a new law will come into effect before the European Parliament elections in May 2019.

In April, the French Foreign Ministry organized an international conference titled “Civil societies, media and public authorities: democracies facing the manipulation of information.” The French 2017 Defense and National Security Review as well as the 2018 Strategic Review of Cyber Defense emphasize the importance of measures to be taken against fake news and disinformation.

All the proposed legal initiatives and measures to regulate media activities presuppose only restrictions and prohibitions. The “retract, bar, ban and block” moves are proposed in abundance but no initiatives are put forward to advance freedom of press and unbiased reporting. After all, nobody forces French viewers and readers to rely on RT or Sputnik as information sources, they have a wide choice. It should be noted that with all the accusations piling up, no legal action has ever been taken against the Russian news outlets. So far, Moscow never retaliated against France Médias Monde holding, which comprises the France 24 television channel and the RFI radio station.

The issue of press freedom in France is coming to the fore as international events that need to be highlighted are to occur soon. France has stated it would join the US and the UK striking Syria’s government forces in case of a chemical attack. Russia has offered evidence of a false flag operation being prepared by rebels to subvert the efforts to drive them out from Syria’s Idlib province. By striking Syria the French armed forces are going to side with terrorists but getting people acquainted with this fact is tantamount to conducting “disinformation campaign.”

France has joined the US, the UK and Canada to condemn Russia for complicity in the so-called Skripal poisoning case. Accusations and emotions are plentiful, with nothing but a photo of two men who are supposed to be Russian military intelligence officers in Britain to support the charges brought against Moscow. Let’s look at what we have. One may like Russia or not, but nothing proves it has any relation to the Skripal case. What’s so wrong with this point of view? No information that could be fake, no lies, no concoctions of any kind are offered to the audience, nothing but stating obvious facts – there is no hard evidence to support the accusations against Moscow. That’s it.

Is there any explanation why French people should be deprived of their right to get acquainted with different points of view, so that they could form an independent opinion? Isn’t it what journalism is about? The French government has chosen the wrong way to quell opposing views. Bans incite interest toward the information that powers that be try to deny access to. This policy will make RT and Sputnik more popular. The forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest.

September 9, 2018 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Russian senator slams proposed blacklisting of RT & Sputnik in France

RT | September 6, 2018

A report authored by two government-linked think tanks that calls on the authorities to deny accreditation to RT and Sputnik reveals the West’s fear of the freedom of speech, a Russian senator has argued.

The Institute for Strategic Research of the French Defense Ministry (IRSEM) and The Centre for Analysis, Planning and Strategy (CAPS), linked to the French Foreign Ministry, issued on Wednesday a joint paper on the spread of disinformation and how to combat it.

The report urges the French government to “name and isolate” news outlets that are deemed “foreign propaganda organs.” Citing comments by President Emmanuel Macron, who accused RT and Sputnik of acting as “bodies for influence and false propaganda,” the report advises: “It is necessary not to grant [these organizations] accreditation and not to invite them to press conferences for journalists.”

Responding to the paper’s remarkable recommendations, Senator Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the Russian Upper House Committee for International Relations, noted that perhaps France has forgotten what free press looks like.

“After all, this is now a general trend in the West: Democracies proud of their freedom of speech have started to become seriously afraid of it. Decades of the unanimous mainstream seem to have relaxed both journalists and their audience, who are simply not ready for real competition of opinions (and it’s about opinions, not facts – because ‘highly likely’ in a normal situation is not considered to be ‘a fact’),” Kosachev wrote on his official Facebook page.

The report also offers a helpful list of ways to detect and counter information “threats” posed by undesirable communities. But weeding out dissent seems more suited for an authoritarian state, Kosachev reminded.

“Apparently, this is what we are talking about: they need to promote the ‘only true’ point of view at any cost (the European Commission even suggested introducing media literacy courses in schools – evidently to start to scare children with terrible RT and Sputnik), and to simplify the task they resort to the beloved instrument of authoritarian states – prohibitions on dissenting media. Somewhere we have already seen all this … Is this the ‘European USSR’?”

Moscow has already pledged to respond if the proposed blacklist was put into effect. Andrey Klimov, the head of the Federation Council’s Commission for State Sovereignty Protection, warned that targeting RT and Sputnik would likely affect “sensitive” spheres within Russian-French relations. However, he emphasized that he hoped that common sense will prevail.

The latest French report also foresaw possible questions that may come to one’s mind – what about mainstream media? The paper accepts that any media can freely defend its point of view and even admits that Al-Jazeera, CNN, BBC or France 24 contribute to the influence of Qatar, the US, the UK and France, respectively. However, it argues, that there is “benign misinformation” and that false information is not in itself problematic. The attention should focus on those “that have a negative effect or at least a hostile intent,” the paper said.

September 7, 2018 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Tehran Slams French FM’s Remarks on Iranian Missile Program

Al-Manar | August 31, 2018

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi criticized French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s Thursday remarks about Iran’s missile program and said such “unwarranted concerns” are rooted in his “wrong perceptions” of the program.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has repeatedly declared its clear and transparent stance on unwarranted concerns rooted in some countries’ wrong perceptions and ignorance,” Qassemi said in a statement on Friday.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has always shown that it has never been fearful of dialogue and negotiation and that it believes in it,” he said.

However, in a situation that the outcome of all efforts of Iran and other world powers (the 2015 nuclear deal) is violated by “the bullying and excessive demands” of France’s partners, there is no reason for Iran to trust and negotiate on “unnegotiable issues”, the spokesman added.

“The world and the French statesmen are well aware that Iran’s regional policy is in line with regional and international peace and security and the fight against terrorism and extremism, and if such a campaign is not pleasant to some countries that basically create tensions and crises, they can reform their policies,” he went on to say.

The remarks came after Le Drian warned Thursday that Iran “cannot avoid” talks on its ballistic missile program and role in Middle East conflicts, as European powers work to rescue the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Iranian officials have repeatedly underscored that the country will not hesitate to strengthen its military capabilities, including its missile power, which are entirely meant for defense, and that Iran’s defense capabilities will be never subject to negotiations.

The European Union has vowed to counter US President Donald Trump’s renewed sanctions on Iran, including by means of a new law to shield European companies from punitive measures.

Trump on August 6 signed an executive order re-imposing many sanctions on Iran, three months after pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal.

He said the US policy is to levy “maximum economic pressure” on the country.

Trump also restated his opinion that the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was a “horrible, one-sided deal”.

On May 8, the US president pulled his country out of the JCPOA, which was achieved in Vienna in 2015 after years of negotiations among Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).

Following the US exit, Iran and the remaining parties launched talks to save the accord.

August 31, 2018 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Syria Presents Proof on Chemical Weapons Terror Attack Preparations – UN Envoy

Sputnik – August 30, 2018

Late last week, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that the White Helmets group plans to film videos for Middle Eastern and English-language media outlets after staging a false-flag chemical weapons attack in Syria in order to further destabilize the war-torn country.

Damascus has handed documents to the UN to prove that al-Nusra Front terrorists plan to conduct a chemical weapons attack in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib and point the finger at the country’s government, according to Syria’s UN envoy Bashar Jaafari.

Iran’s Fars news agency cited Jaafari as saying that any aggression against Syria “would be an aggression against a United Nations founding state, as well as against global peace and security, and would amount to supporting terrorism.”

He recalled that Syria did not have chemical weapons, reiterating Damascus’ adherence to its obligations related to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

Jaafari emphasized that Damascus condemns any use of chemical weapons and considers it “to be immoral.”

His statement came after Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that Moscow had urged Germany and the US to influence the armed opposition in Syria’s Idlib province amid possible provocations pertaining to the use of chemical weapons in the area.

Ryabkov referred to the al-Nusra Front, which he suggested was plotting “a very serious provocation” in the Idlib area with the use of chemical weapons. According to him, the White Helmets group in Syria will film a video of this “chemical weapons attack” in order for the US and its allies to use it as a pretext for massive airstrikes on Syria.

Earlier, Alexei Kondratyev, deputy chair of the Russian Upper House’s Defense and Security Committee, told Sputnik that Moscow was concerned about Washington’s military build-up in the Mediterranean near the Syrian coast.

“The United States is strengthening its naval task force in the Mediterranean Sea not far from Syria. This is done to prepare for the strike. So, it should be expected that in the event of a provocation and a decision to deliver strikes against Syria, the missiles will be launched both from the air, and from the sea,” he pointed out.

Kondratyev made the remarks as USS The Sullivans, a destroyer with 56 cruise missiles on board, arrived in the Persian Gulf late last week, while a US В-1В bomber carrying 24 air-to-surface cruise missiles was deployed at Al Udeid air base in Qatar.

While the White Helmets, a Syrian humanitarian non-government organization, claims to have saved tens of thousands of lives, Moscow and Damascus insist that the group had ties with terrorists and extremists.

On April 14, the US, Britain and France launched 103 cruise and air-to-surface missiles at government facilities in Syria, in response to the alleged April 7 chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of Douma.  Most of the missiles were intercepted by Syrian air defenses.Russia’s President Vladimir Putin denounced the missile strikes as an act of aggression against a sovereign country as neither Russian experts nor local residents in Douma confirmed that any chemical attack had actually taken place there.

Last Sunday, Syrian Ambassador to Russia Riyad Haddad confirmed that Damascus eliminated all of its chemical arsenal in 2013 and that Syria “never used and will not use chemical weapons.”

READ MORE:

State Department Says US Will Respond to Chemical Weapons Use in Idlib, Syria

Macron: France Ready to Conduct New Strikes on Syria if Chemical Weapons Used

Syria Got Rid of Chemical Weapons, OPCW Confirmed Destruction — Russian FM

August 30, 2018 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism | , , | Leave a comment

In The Year Of The Pig (1968)

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

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

France demands that Israel releases French citizen

French-Palestinian activist Salah Hamouri [salah_hamouri/Twitter]
MEMO | August 25, 2018

The Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs in Paris has pointed out that a year has elapsed since the arrest of French citizen Salah Hamouri by Israel. France is still concerned about his administrative detention, which has been extended until 30 September, said a spokeswoman.

Speaking during a press conference, she revealed that President Emmanuel Macron has discussed this issue with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on several occasions and called for an end to Hamouri’s detention. He is held with neither charge nor trial, and administrative detention also denies him the right to know the charges brought against him, does not respect his normal legal rights and does not allow his family to visit him, not even his wife and son. The French official noted that these demands have always been discussed with the Israeli authorities in order to have them met.

“Hamouri will continue to enjoy the consular protection granted by the Vienna Convention,” she explained. “This has allowed French officials to visit him regularly since his arrest, which will also continue until he is released.” The unnamed spokeswoman stressed France’s demand for Israel to respect all of its citizen’s rights.

August 25, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

The Three Musketeers, Poison Gas, and Dead Schoolkids

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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