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Iraqi Parliament Approves First Reading of Anti-Normalization Law

Al-Manar | May 12, 2022

The Iraqi parliament on Wednesday set a date for the first reading of a proposed law “prohibiting normalization and establishing relations with the Zionist entity.”

Well-informed parliamentary sources in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, revealed to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the committee tasked with preparing a draft law on “criminalizing normalization with the Zionist entity” had finished writing the law.

An official in the legal department of the Iraqi parliament told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that “the law was completed by a legal committee affiliated with the Sadrist bloc in the Parliament, and it includes 10 main articles.” He explained that “the head of the Sadrist bloc in the House of Representatives, Hassan Al-Adhari, is scheduled to hand the law over to the parliament’s presidency, to start the procedures for the first and second readings, before putting it to a vote for approval, after Parliament’s decision to extend the current legislative term for another month.”

The official pointed out that “the most important paragraphs of the law about the criminalization of any kind of political, security, economic, artistic, cultural, sports and scientific cooperation or dealings, and under any activity or title whatsoever, with the Zionist entity.” He added that the law affirms “that Iraq is in a state of war with the occupying power, and all that is issued by individuals, institutions, groups, movements, or parties, that violates this concept, in a way that supports the existence of the occupation, materially or morally, falls within the crimes of high treason that There are sentences between death and life imprisonment, according to the amended Penal Code No. 111 of 1969.

And he indicated that the law also deals with “the prohibition of dealing with companies and institutions that deal with, support or are associated with this entity,” noting that the law “contains important paragraphs about the penalties imposed in case of violation, and there is political consensus to pass it easily.”

May 12, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

China calls out US war crimes

Samizdat | April 26, 2022

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin has lashed out at the EU and US for criticizing its domestic and foreign policies. Wang singled out the US, accusing Washington of war crimes in the Middle East, economic coercion, betraying its allies and spreading disinformation.

“The US purports to maintain the centrality of the UN Charter, but it is clear to anyone that the US is doing quite the opposite,” Wang told reporters at a press conference on Monday. Citing the US’ military interventions in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, Wang stated that Washington “brushed the UN aside and waged wars on sovereign states in wanton interference.”

“The US claims to respect human rights, but the wars of aggression launched by the US and its allies … killed over 300,000 civilians and made over 26 million people refugees,” he continued. “Yet, no one is held accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The US even announced sanctions on the International Criminal Court who would investigate the war crimes of the US military.”

In addition to sanctioning a number of top International Criminal Court officials in 2020, the US maintains the ‘Hague Invasion Act’, giving its military permission to invade the Netherlands to free any American held at the court.

Wang then accused the US of using its economic might to coerce countries “whether they are big or small, faraway or nearby, friend or foe,” citing five decades of US sanctions on Cuba and four decades of such measures on Iran.

“When it comes to stabbing its allies such as the EU and Japan in the back, the US has never hesitated, as we have seen repeatedly,” he added, likely referring foremost to the US’ recent decision to undermine a nuclear submarine deal between France and Australia to further its ‘AUKUS’ alliance with the UK and Australia. China has repeatedly condemned this alliance as an American effort to build an “Asia-Pacific version of NATO.”

“Facts have proven that the US is the biggest spreader of disinformation, culprit of coercive diplomacy and saboteur of world peace and stability,” Wang declared. “From the US-EU dialogue to the AUKUS trilateral security partnership, the Quad and the Five Eyes Alliance, the US is using democracy, human rights, rules and order as a pretext to cover up its shady activities of creating division [and] stoking confrontation.”

Wang’s accusations, while incendiary, were not made out of the blue. Last week, US and EU officials held their third ‘Dialogue on China’, after which they issued a joint press release accusing Beijing of “repeated information manipulation” regarding the conflict in Ukraine, “recent incidents of economic coercion,” and alleged human rights abuses against the Uighur people in Xinjiang, all of which China denies.

The statement also called on China to peacefully resolve its disputes with Taiwan in accordance with the UN charter, and not to circumvent the US and EU sanctions on Russia. That’s despite the fact that those restrictions were imposed by the West unilaterally and have nothing to do with UN mechanisms put in place for such measures, leading Moscow to brand the move “illegal.”

April 26, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | 8 Comments

Selling Albright as a ‘Feminist Icon’: Was the Price Worth It?

BY BRYCE GREENE | FAIR | APRIL 13, 2022

When Clinton-era Secretary of State Madeleine Albright died of cancer last month, a stream of fawning obituaries hailed her as a hero of NATO, a feminist icon and a “champion of human rights and diplomacy” (CNN, 3/24/22).

Most coverage failed to levy any criticism at all of Albright’s actions in government, despite her presiding over a critical turning point in the American Empire. For the foreign policy establishment, the ’90s under Albright solidified the US self-image as the “indispensable nation,” ready and able to impose its will on the world, a position with repercussions that still echo today. Instead of critically exploring this legacy, corporate media opted for celebration and mythmaking.

‘Icon’ and ‘trailblazer’

Some of the coverage focused on Albright as a “feminist icon” (Reuters, 3/23/22; USA Today, 3/23/22)  breaking the glass ceiling. A commonly used term was “trailblazer” (e.g., NPR, 3/24/22; Washington Post, 3/23/22).

The New Yorker (3/24/22) declared, “Madeleine Albright Was the First ‘Most Powerful Woman’ in US History.” CNN (3/24/22) went as far as to call Albright an early progenitor of “feminist foreign policy.”

NPR (3/24/22) claimed that Albright “left a rich legacy for other women in public service to follow.” BuzzFeed (3/23/22) found time to discuss the meaning of the jewelry she wore when meeting foreign leaders.

There is nothing wrong with remarking on the significance of a woman taking charge in the historically male-dominated halls of US power. However, it is far more important to take a critical look at her policies, including whether they jibe with the tenets of feminism as generally understood—something few in the media chose to do.

Media fell into this same trap when praising Gina Haspel as the first female head of the CIA, or when they applauded the top military contractors for having female heads (FAIR.org, 6/28/20). Similarly, Albright’s violent legacy is being obscured by seemingly progressive language.

‘More children than died in Hiroshima’

Madeline Albright on 60 Minutes

Madeleine Albright telling 60 Minutes (5/12/96) that half a million dead children is a price worth paying.

One of the first things many progressives think of when they think of Albright is her championing of the sanctions against Iraq during the ’90s. In between the two US wars on Iraq, Albright presided over crushing sanctions aimed at turning the Iraqi population against the Ba’athist government. These sanctions cut off crucial supplies to the nation, starving its people. A UN survey found that the sanctions led to hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi children.

When Albright was confronted with this figure in an interview with CBS‘s Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes (5/12/96; Extra!, 11–12/01), Albright’s response was cold:

“We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima,” Stahl said. “And, you know, is the price worth it?”

“I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”

The UN numbers have since been revised downward, but the unavoidable fact is that Albright accepted the number she was given, took willful responsibility for the deaths and concluded that they were “worth it” for the purpose of turning the Iraqi people against their government.

While so many Americans seem to have forgotten this shameful display, the rest of the world has not. Ahmed Twaij, an Iraqi writing in Al Jazeera (3/27/22), said that his “most prominent memory of Albright” was that notorious interview:

As an Iraqi, the memory of Albright will forever be tainted by the stringent sanctions she helped place on my country at a time when it was already devastated by years of war.

Despite its resonance around the world, the quote wasn’t even referenced in many of the retrospectives FAIR reviewed. USA Today (3/23/22) mentioned that Albright received “criticism” for calling the deaths “worth it,” and Newsweek (3/23/22, 3/25/22, 3/23/22) mentioned the quote in some of its coverage. But it went missing from the New York Times (3/23/22, 3/25/22), Washington Post (3/23/22), NBC.com (3/23/22), CNN.com (3/24/22, 3/26/22), New Yorker (3/24/22) and The Hill (3/24/22).

Guaranteed shootdown

Gen. Hugh Shelton, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recounts in his book how Albright suggested to him that the US fly a plane over Iraqi airspace low enough to be shot down, thus giving the US an excuse to attack Saddam Hussein. Shelton recalls Albright’s words:

What we really need in order to go in and take out Saddam is a precipitous event—something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough—and slow enough—so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?

Albright was quickly rebuffed, but she was later able to get her wish of war in Iraq. Her efforts culminated in the Iraq Liberation Act, signed in October 1998, which made seeking regime change in Iraq official US policy.

As the New York Times (3/23/22) mentioned in its obituary, Albright threatened the Ba’athist leader with bombing that year if he didn’t open the country to weapons inspectors. Even though Kofi Annan brokered an agreement on the inspectors, the US bombed anyway in December 1998.

The Times didn’t explore these events further—not mentioning that the administration justified the bombing using the debunked pretext of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction—and instead continued ahead with its largely positive obituary.

Rewriting Yugoslav history

One of Albright’s most notable moments during her tenure as secretary of state was the 78-day bombing campaign in Yugoslavia in 1999. Today, the bombing is hailed as a major victory by the forces of democracy, and Albright’s role is cast in a positive light.

NPR’s three sentences (3/24/22) on the subject show the dominant version of the events:

As chief diplomat in the late ’90s, Albright confronted the deadly targeting of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Time magazine dubbed it Madeleine’s War. Airstrikes in 1999 eventually led to the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces.

Americans were told at the time that the war solidified the US as “an indispensable nation asserting its morality as well as its interests to assure stability, stop thugs and prevent human atrocities” (Time, 5/9/99). The Washington Post (3/23/22) seized on this myth, calling Albright “an ardent and effective advocate against mass atrocities.” In this story, she is a hero for mobilizing the timid American giant to use its military might on behalf of humanitarian and democratic ideals.

But the truth is that the bombing Albright advocated was motivated less by humanitarian concerns and more by the US goal of breaking up Yugoslavia and establishing a NATO-friendly client state via the Kosovo Liberation Army. Indeed, the US’s negotiating tactic with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was to offer the choice of either occupation by NATO or destruction. As a member of Albright’s negotiating team anonymously told reporters (Extra!, 7–8/99): “We intentionally set the bar too high for the Serbs to comply. They need some bombing, and that’s what they are going to get.”

Exacerbating bloodshed

One fact that quickly debunks the humanitarian pretext is that the US-led bombing greatly exacerbated the bloodshed. According to Foreign Affairs (9–10/99), 2,500 died during the preceding civil war, but “during the 11 weeks of bombardment, an estimated 10,000 people died violently in the province.” And while Albanian civilians bore the brunt of the violence during the NATO attacks, in the year preceding the bombing, British Defense Secretary George Robertson told the Parliament that the NATO-backed KLA “were responsible for more deaths in Kosovo than the Yugoslav authorities had been” (Monthly Review, 10/07).

As Edward Herman and David Peterson wrote in their detailed essay on Yugoslavia in the Monthly Review (10/07), the US and NATO were

key external factors in the initiation of ethnic cleansing, in keeping it going, and in working toward a violent resolution of the conflicts that would keep the United States and NATO relevant in Europe, and secure NATO’s dominant position in the Balkans.

The concern for ethnic minorities was merely a pretext offered to the American people, and lapped up wholeheartedly by a compliant mass media.

Along with liberal hawks like Samantha Power, Albright helped weaponize human rights and legitimize unsanctioned “humanitarian interventions” around the world. This showcase of unilateral and illegal violence has had direct repercussions around the world, paving the way for US interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya—to say nothing of the current Russian attack on Ukraine.

Promoting hawkish policy

Much of the coverage framed Albright’s Clinton-era career arc as one in which she repeatedly failed to get the US to play a larger role in advancing its ideals in the post-Cold War world. This fight included taking on international institutions that didn’t understand American exceptionalism.

Albright clashed with then–UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali “as she advocated fiercely for US and democratic interests,” in the words of CBS (3/23/22). She and Boutros-Ghali butted heads over the US role in peacekeeping operations during crises in Rwanda, Somalia and Bosnia.

In the end, Albright dissented against the entire UN Security Council, using the US veto power to deny Boutros-Ghali a second term as secretary general. His ouster paved the way for the more US-friendly Kofi Annan, as the “Albright Doctrine” took center stage.

In its cover story on “Albright’s War,” Time (5/9/99) described the Albright doctrine as

a tough-talking, semimuscular interventionism that believes in using force—including limited force such as calibrated air power, if nothing heartier is possible—to back up a mix of strategic and moral objectives.

In other words, Albright advocated a policy of unilateral intervention instead of a global order based on international law and mutual obligations. The US could assert itself whenever and wherever it determined the “strategic and moral objectives” were of sufficient importance.

The diplomat was more blunt about the US chauvinism imbued in the doctrine when she spoke to NBC (2/19/98) in 1998:

If we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future.

CNN:The West would be wise to heed Madeleine Albright’s lessons on foreign policy

A CNN op-ed (3/24/22) positively cited Albright’s comment to Colin Powell: “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”

The media reflect positively on this mindset that “blended her profound moral values from her childhood experience in Europe with US strategic interests,” according to the New Yorker (3/24/22). Some suggested that this mindset should continue to animate American policy.

‘Albright was right’

CNN.com (3/24/22) published an opinion by Elmira Bayrasli that claimed, “The West would be wise to heed Madeleine Albright’s lessons on foreign policy.” She embraced Albright’s hawkish label, saying that “advocating the oppressed and actively upholding human rights… sometimes meant using the might of the American military.”

Hillary Clinton, whose “trailblazing” also obscured the deadly cost of her foreign policy initiatives, published a guest essay in the New York Times (3/25/22) under the headline “Madeleine Albright Warned Us, and She Was Right.” To Clinton, the world still needs Albright’s “clear-eyed view of a dangerous world, and her unstinting faith in… the unique power of the American idea.”

While some pieces were clear in calling her a hawk (e.g., Washington Post, 3/23/22), CNN (3/24/22) wrote, “It is a mistake to see Albright exclusively as a hawk,” because she sat on the board of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and supported the activities of the US Agency for International Development (USAID). The Hill (3/24/22) also highlighted her support for these organizations, noting that for Albright, “democracy and human rights… were integral to American foreign policy.”

The NDI exists under the umbrella of the National Endowment for Democracy, a deceptively named organization that spends tens of millions of dollars annually promoting and installing US-friendly governments around the world. USAID has long been used as a front for intelligence and soft power initiatives. During Albright’s time in office, USAID was heavily involved in facilitating the further destruction of Haitian democracy, among a myriad of similar activities around the world.

These organizations have been well-documented as extensions of US power and bases for subversive activities, but this history is dismissed in favor of the government’s line that they are genuine conduits for democracy. The methods of empire have evolved, but the Albright coverage continues to obscure this fact. Regime change efforts can be recast as efforts to spread democracy around the world if the press refuses to scrutinize the official line.

NATO expansion

NATO expansion, a major initiative during Albright’s tenure, has come to the forefront of US discussion in recent months. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is in part a result of the decades-long expansion of the NATO military alliance, despite the warnings of US foreign policy veterans that the expansion was a “policy error of historic proportions.” (See FAIR.org, 3/4/22.)

In 1998, legendary diplomat George Kennan (New York Times, 5/2/98) called NATO expansion “a tragic mistake.” He predicted, “I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies… and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are.”

Kennan’s words have proven prophetic, but most articles on Albright’s passing wrote fondly of her role in NATO expansion and the accompanying anti-Russian politics. CNN.com (3/23/22), in an article headlined “Albright Predicted Putin’s Strategic Disaster in Ukraine,” declared that the former top diplomat “died just as the murderous historic forces that she had spent her career trying to quell are raging in Europe again.”

MSNBC.com (3/24/22) declared that “​​Madeleine Albright’s NATO Expansion Helped Keep Russia in Check.” Columnist Noah Rothman explained that “only the compelling deterrent power of counterforce stays the hand of land-hungry despots.”

The New Yorker (3/24/22) described NATO expansion as one of Albright’s “major achievements,” despite acknowledging that in the wake of the policy, “​​​​US interests are indeed threatened more than at any time in three decades by Russian aggression in Europe.”

Some pieces were more reflective. The Conversation (3/24/22) went into detail on her role in expanding NATO, acknowledging that “Albright’s curt dismissal of Russia’s security concerns might seem to have been ill-judged… in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

A time for reflection

In the United States, political figures are merged with the culture of celebrity. Too many judge politicos by their force of personality or lines on their resume, rather than the material changes that occurred on their watch. The substantive history of US policymaking is rarely brought up, and political discussion remains surface-level and incomplete.

This celebrity culture is on full display whenever a venerated member of the Washington establishment passes away. We’ve seen similar soft media coverage after the deaths of George H.W. Bush (FAIR.org, 12/7/18), Colin Powell (FAIR.org, 10/28/21) and Donald Rumsfeld (FAIR.org, 7/2/21).

By now, the idea of the United States as the global policeman has been discredited enough to warrant at least some pushback in the corporate press. The passing of one of America’s leading interventionists should be a time for reflection. How did this person’s policies contribute to what is going on now?

Instead, the media decided to use Albright’s death to reinforce the myths and legitimize the policies that have led to so much destruction around the world.

April 18, 2022 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | 2 Comments

US troops injured after base was sabotaged with planted explosives

By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos | Responsible Statecraft | April 16, 2022

Why do we still have American troops in Syria and Iraq? That is the million dollar question that the Biden Administration has yet to answer — at least with any satisfaction — for the American people. Meanwhile, our service members continue to be targets of hostile forces for a Washington strategy no one can quite articulate.

On April 7 there were reports of “two rounds of indirect fire” on the Green Village Base in eastern Syria, which is housing U.S. troops as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. U.S. Central Command said four American service members were being evaluated for traumatic brain injury as a result.

On Thursday, however, U.S. Central Command quietly announced that there were no rockets, but “but rather the deliberate placement of explosive charges by an unidentified individual(s) at an ammunition holding area and shower facility.”

The release was brief and with no accompanying details, but the words echoed of the kind of Green-on-Blue attacks against coalition troops in Afghanistan during the height of the war there. As of 2017, according to counts, there had been more than 95 such attacks since 2012, killing 152 coalition service members and injuring 200.

There have been numerous rocket attacks against bases on which foreign soldiers, mostly Americans, are serving in Syria and Northern Iraq over the last two years. “Iranian backed militias” have been fingered in the attacks and they don’t seem to be abating, though the administration never uses the incidents to explain or even justify why our presence continues to be useful there. Is it to stave off ISIS? Bashar Assad? Iranian militias?

“The United States has no compelling national security interest in Syria to justify an open-ended ground deployment of forces,” wrote Defense Priorities’ Natalie Armbruster in March, taking on each of the existing arguments for keeping forces in the region. Now that our troops can’t even feel safe taking showers on base, isn’t it time to get a straight answer from Washington?

April 16, 2022 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , | 3 Comments

Missile strike on Mossad centers in northern Iraq aimed at defending Iran’s security: Ambassador

Press TV – March 14, 2022

The Iranian ambassador to Iraq says the latest missile strike by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) on secret bases of the Israeli Mossad spy agency in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region was strictly necessary, as operations against Iran’s security were being plotted and orchestrated there.

Iraj Masjedi made the remarks while addressing an international conference in Iraq’s holy city of Karbala on Monday.

The Iranian diplomat said Israeli operatives used the Iraqi Kurdistan region to plot and launch operations against Iran’s security, emphasizing that Iranian officials had time and again warned the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)’s authorities against their activities, but to no avail.

Masjedi highlighted that the missile attack was carried out in order to safeguard Iran’s security, “and was neither intended to violate Iraq’s sovereignty nor was meant to insult the Arab country and its nation.”

“We expect you to force Israelis out of Iraqi soil and get rid of them,” Masjedi addressed Kurdish officials, adding, “However, if they are not expelled, will we stand by with our hands tied behind us to [allow them] carry out operations against our security? Definitely not.”

The Iranian ambassador emphasized that the attack was aimed at Israel’s training centers and did not target the United States or the Iraqi government.

“Some media outlets have asserted that we targeted the US consulate. I’m surprised by such allegations. It is true that a conflict has been going on between us and the United States for forty years, but the recent operation was not against them. It was an operation against an Israeli base, where plots against our security were being hatched,” Masjedi said.

A dozen ballistic missiles hit secret Mossad bases in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, reportedly leaving several Israeli operatives dead.

Citing security sources, Iraq’s Sabereen News reported that two Mossad training centers were targeted by ballistic missiles in the early hours of Sunday.

Al-Mayadeen television news network said a Mossad base on the Masif-Saladin Street in Erbil was “fully razed to the ground and a number of Israeli mercenaries were killed or injured.”

In a statement issued earlier on Sunday, the IRGC indicated that the operation was in response to an Israeli airstrike on the Syrian capital of Damascus last Monday, in which two IRGC officers were killed. The IRGC identified the two slain officers as colonels Ehsan Karbalaipour and Morteza Saeidnejad, warning that Israel would “pay for this crime.”

March 14, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | 5 Comments

Iraq, Russia, Syria and Iran discuss counter-terrorism

MEMO | February 25, 2022

Iraqi National Security Adviser, Qassem Al-Araji, yesterday met the ambassadors of Russia, Syria and Iran as part of the Quartet Centre for Information Exchange in Iraq’s capital city, Baghdad, to discuss counter-terrorism.

Local media reported that the meeting had discussed recent developments along the Iraqi-Syrian border, as well as the latest security developments in the region.

Al-Araji said that cooperation and joint action with the three countries had led to “strong and deterrent blows to terrorism and its leaders,” adding that the Centre was playing a “role in informing and resolving many issues.”

He pointed out that his country would not allow the presence of terrorist groups along its borders, stressing that Baghdad would only deal with “legitimate, sovereign states and governments.”

He reiterated that the Centre was strengthening the “close relationship between the countries that participated in this Centre in difficult and sensitive circumstances, and Iraq will respect those who stood by it during the difficult days.”

“There is a concern that there is a plan for the return of terrorists and their spread in the region, which could lead to instability,” he said.

February 25, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | 2 Comments

Israel offers Arab state the opportunity to tackle Iran together

RT | February 15, 2022

Since Israel and Bahrain both view Iran as a threat, they could team up and counter Tehran together, Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett said on his landmark visit to the Gulf monarchy.

“We will fight Iran and its followers in the region night and day. We will aid our friends in strengthening peace, security, and stability, whenever we are asked to do so,” Bennett pledged in an interview with the Bahraini state-linked Al-Ayyam outlet on Tuesday.

The PM blamed Tehran of striving to “destroy moderate states” in the Gulf region in order to replace them with “bloodthirsty terrorist groups.”

When asked about the possibility of creating an alliance to resist Iranian influence, which could include Israel, Bahrain, and some other Arab nations, he gave a positive response: “We all understand that we face the same challenges, so why not work together to tackle them?”

Bennet, who became the first Israeli prime minister ever to visit Bahrain, assured the journalists that “Israel is a strong and reliable country.”

The idea of such a block was first floated by Israeli general Tal Kelman last year. According to Kelman, who heads the IDF’s Strategy and Third Circle Directorate, “the moderate axis” of Israel, Bahrain, the UAE, Jordan, Egypt and others should resist “the radical axis” of Iran and what he called its “proxies” in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iraq.

Israel and Bahrain normalized relations in late 2020 as part of the so-called Abraham Accords, a US-backed drive to improve ties between the Jewish state and some Arab countries after decades of strife.

Bahrain is a small island nation of around 1.5 million. The majority of its population is Shia Muslims, but the country is being run by a Sunni monarchy. The rulers in Manama have been concerned by Tehran’s activities as Iran, which is located less than 800 kilometers (497 miles) away, often faces accusations from its rivals of supporting Shia groups in other countries.

February 15, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Assassination Hypocrisy

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | February 9, 2022

On the morning of January 25, 1993, a man named Mir Amal Kansi appeared outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, where he began assassinating people who were driving their cars into the facility. He ended up killing two CIA employees and wounding three others.

Four years later, FBI agents arrested Kansi in Pakistan and brought him back to the United States.

Kansi was prosecuted in a Virginia state court for murder, where he was convicted and sentenced to die. On November 14, 2002, the state of Virginia executed him.

What I find fascinating in this episode is that under U.S national-security law, when the CIA assassinates people, it isn’t considered murder. But as Kansi’s case shows, when people assassinate CIA officials, it is considered murder.

Kansi gave the reason for his assassinations. No, he didn’t say that he hated America for its “freedom and values.” He said that the reason he was assassinating CIA officials was to retaliate for the fact that the U.S. government was killing people in Iraq and for its role in helping Israel kill Palestinians.

Under U.S. national-security law, U.S. officials can assassinate anyone they want — “communists,” “terrorists,” “bad guys,” “adversaries,” “opponents,” “rivals,” or “enemies.” When they do that, it’s to be called an “assassination” or a “targeted killing.”

Moreover, under the law, U.S. officials can kill whoever they want with economic sanctions, as they were doing with the Iraqi people at the time that Kansi was retaliating. I am reminded of U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Albright’s infamous statement that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions were “worth it.” Those killings weren’t called “murder” of course. They were called unfortunate deaths arising from the sanctions.

U.S. officials also wield the authority to kill whoever they want with invasions of Third-World countries. The people of Afghanistan and Iraq can attest to that. Again, those killings are not considered to be murder. They are considered to be casualties of war.

If, however, anyone retaliates against the national-security establishment by assassinating officials within the national-security establishment, it’s called “murder,” in which case the assassin will be put to death after being accorded a trial.

Of course, this was the law prior to the 9/11 attacks. After those attacks, the law was implicitly amended to provide that the national-security establishment had the option of taking “bad guys” like Kansi to Gitmo, where they could be tortured, held indefinitely without trial, or executed after a kangaroo trial before a military tribunal.

All this hypocrisy goes to show what the conversion from a limited-government republic to a national-security state has done to the consciences of the American people. Most everyone has come to accept the state-sponsored assassinations and deaths arising from sanctions, embargoes, invasions, occupations, and wars of aggression to just be part of the U.S. government’s “foreign policy tools.”

As I pointed out in a recent blog post, however, the Pentagon’s and the CIA’s assassinations constitute murder, just as Kansi’s assassinations do. Why, even Lyndon Johnson referred to the CIA’s assassination program as “Murder, Inc.,” which is precisely what it is. The same goes for deaths arising from sanctions, embargoes, wars of aggression, invasions, and occupations. It’s just plain murder.

Referring to Kansi, Virginia prosecutor Robert F. Horne stated, “I’ve tried an awful lot of killers in my life, and I think he’s the only one I’ve run into that is absolutely proud of what he did. You get a lot of killers who don’t feel all that bad about what they did, but he’s proud of it.”

Apparently Horne has never met any CIA assassins. Like Kansi, they feel really good about their killings and are absolutely proud of what they do. What Horne fails to realize is that even though Kansi is a “bad guy” for assassinating people, that doesn’t convert the CIA assassins into “good guys.”

It’s probably worth mentioning that after Kansi was executed, four American citizens were assassinated in Pakistan in retaliation.

What we need in America is a great awakening, one that involves a revival of individual conscience. When that day comes, Americans will put a stop to the evil within our midst by converting America back to a limited-government republic and putting an end to state-sponsored murder. It will also make Americans traveling overseas a lot safer.

February 9, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 2 Comments

More U.S. Murders in the Middle East

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | February 7, 2022

The U.S. national-security establishment and its acolytes in the mainstream press are celebrating the U.S. military’s murder in Syria of Islamic State leader Abu Ibrahim Hashimi Qurayshi. Mind you, they don’t call it murder. They call it a “targeted killing” of a “bad guy” or a “terrorist.” But murder it is because the U.S. military has no legitimate authority to kill anyone in the Middle East (or anywhere else), whether it be people it labels “bad guys,” “terrorists,” “communists,” “opponents,” “rivals,” “adversaries,” or “enemies.”

Let’s take a look at the Bill of Rights, specifically the Fifth Amendment. Yes, I know that the national-security establishment and its supporters in the federal judiciary hold that the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply to the military, the CIA, and the NSA. But a close reading of the amendment reveals that there is no exception carved out for the national-security branch of the government. By its express terms, the restrictions in the Fifth Amendment apply to everyone in the federal government, not just to some people within the federal government.

The Fifth Amendment states in part: “No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.”

Notice something important about that language: It doesn’t say “No American shall be deprived of life without due process of law.” It says “No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.” That means it encompasses citizens of other countries.

Notice something else important: It doesn’t say “No person within the United States shall be deprived of life without due process of law.” It says “No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.”

That’s what the Pentagon just did to Qurayshi. In a raid on a safe house in Syria, the Pentagon just deprived him of life without due process of law.

The Pentagon is pointing out that Qurayshi actually killed himself and his family with a bomb once the raid commenced. That doesn’t mean, of course, that the Pentagon isn’t responsible for killing him. The raid is the proximate cause of Qurayshi’s death as well as the deaths of other people who were with him, including women and children. That is, if the raid had not taken place, Qurayshi and those other people would still be alive.

In fact, the Pentagon is also responsible for the deaths of the women and children that were killed by Qurayshi’s suicide bomb. The Pentagon was well aware of the possibility that he could decide to blow himself up rather than be taken captive and carted away to Gitmo for torture and perpetual incarceration. That awareness did not stop them from conducting the raid anyway. The deaths of those women and children was a risk that the Pentagon felt was worth taking.

What is due process of law? It means notice and a trial. The Bill of Rights expressly prohibits the federal government from killing anyone without first giving him notice of criminal charges and a trial in federal district court. The notice comes in the form of a criminal indictment issued by a federal grand jury. At the trial, federal prosecutors are required to prove to a jury (or a judge) beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty of the offense for which they wish to kill him.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the Pentagon did not provide notice and a trial to Qurayshi before they raided that safe house and brought about his death and the deaths of more than a dozen other people. Perhaps the reason for that is that U.S. officials felt that they couldn’t prove that Qurayshi had committed a criminal offense against the United States.

National-security officials and their supporters implicitly claim that their “war on terrorism” trumps the Fifth Amendment. Really? Where does it say that in the Fifth Amendment? I certainly don’t see a “war on terrorism” exception in that amendment.

Indeed, what business do the Pentagon and the CIA have sitting in Syria and killing people? The last time I checked, Congress had not declared war on Syria. Moreover, the Syrian government has never invited the U.S. government to situate its troops and agents within the country. That makes the Pentagon and the CIA illegal interlopers in a foreign land, where they are killing whoever they want with impunity.

We also mustn’t forget that it is the Pentagon and the CIA that are responsible for the rise of ISIS in the first place, owing to their illegal and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iraq.

What is a “war of aggression”? It is a type of war that was declared a war crime at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal. That was the tribunal that put accused Nazi war criminals on trial. The tribunal, which included U.S. officials, convicted German officials of attacking other nations. That’s what they called waging a “war of aggression.”

That’s what U.S. officials did with Iraq. It is undisputed that Iraq never attacked the United States. When the U.S. government attacked this impoverished third-world country, it was waging a “war on aggression.” Moreover, the fact that the Pentagon and the CIA did not secure the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war before committing this Nuremberg-type crime only makes the situation more egregious.

After U.S. officials installed a puppet regime with their war of aggression on Iraq, ISIS formed with the aim of ousting that U.S.-installed puppet regime. In fact, many of the ISIS members had been officials in the Saddam Hussein regime that was violently ousted from power by the U.S. invasion and occupation of the country. (It’s worth noting that Saddam was a partner and ally of the Pentagon and the CIA during the 1980s, when he was killing Iranians in his own war of aggression against Iran.)

Thus, if the U.S. government had never waged an illegal and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iraq, there never would have been an ISIS, which means that the man they just murdered — Abu Ibrahim Hashimi Qurayshi — would not have been the leader of ISIS, which means that he and his family would not be dead today.

Of course, Qurayshi will quickly be replaced, just like drug lords are quickly replaced after they are killed or captured by drug-war agents. ISIS will retaliate for Qurayshi’s killing, and the “war on terrorism” will continue, just as the drug war continues, which means ever-increasing budgets, power, and influence for the national-security establishment. The “war on terrorism” is a better racket than the “war on drugs” and perhaps even better than the old Cold War racket of the “war on communism.”

February 7, 2022 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Ex-defence minister told to ‘burn’ secret Iraq war memo – reports

RT | January 6, 2022

During Tony Blair’s time in office, Downing Street allegedly ordered former defence secretary Geoff Hoon to burn a secret memo that questioned the legality of the 2003 Iraq invasion. Hoon makes the bombshell claim in a new memoir.

In disclosures that have boosted ongoing attempts to strip the former prime minister of his recently conferred knighthood, Hoon reportedly revealed that Blair’s chief of staff Jonathan Powell had instructed him “in no uncertain terms” to destroy the legal document.

When reports of the allegation first surfaced in 2015, they were dismissed by Blair as “nonsense.” But Hoon has resurrected the claim in a tell-all book, titled ‘See How They Run’, according to the Daily Mail. The paper said Hoon has provided details of a “cover-up” at Downing Street.

The former Labour minister said he was sent a copy of the “very long and very detailed legal opinion,” written by then-Attorney General Peter Goldsmith, “under conditions of considerable secrecy” and told he should “not discuss its contents with anyone else.”

Describing it as “not an easy read,” Hoon said he “came to the view” after several readings that the memo was “not exactly the ringing endorsement” of the war effort that the British government and military chiefs had hoped for. Goldsmith had apparently written that the invasion would be lawful only if Blair believed it was in the UK’s national interest.

“When my Principal Private Secretary, Peter Watkins, called Jonathan Powell in Downing St and asked what he should now do with the document, he was told in no uncertain terms that he should ‘burn it.’”

However, Hoon said he and Watkins defied the order and decided to lock the memo in a safe at the Ministry of Defence instead. He noted that the document is “probably still there.”

While Blair has yet to comment, Powell has denied ordering Hoon to burn the memo, telling the Daily Mail that, at Goldsmith’s request, he had asked the former defence secretary to “destroy” a separate “minute” on the legality of the invasion that had been sent months earlier.

The explosive claims come as over 750,000 people have signed an online petition to strip Blair of his knighthood. Anti-war activists have long accused Blair of war crimes for sending British troops into Iraq and Afghanistan.

January 6, 2022 Posted by | Book Review, Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , | 1 Comment

U.S. Terrorism 101: The Bert Sacks Story

By Edward Curtin | Behind the Curtain | November 15, 2021

Since the annual U.S. Veterans Day holiday honoring military veterans was just observed on November 11, it seems more than appropriate to suggest the creation of a U.S. Victims Day, just as in a similar effort at truth in labeling, the Defense Department should be renamed the Offensive War Department.

For the victims of American terrorism far outnumber the American soldiers who have died in its wars, although I consider most U.S. veterans to be victims also, having been propagandized from birth to buy the glory of war, not the truth that it’s a racket that serves the interests of the ruling class.

Such wars, carried out with bombs, drones, mercenaries, and troops, or by economic embargoes and sanctions, are by their nature acts of terrorism. This is so whether we are talking about the mass fire bombings of Japanese and German cities during WW II, the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the carpet bombings and the agent orange dropped on Vietnam, the depleted uranium on Iraq, the use of terrorist surrogates everywhere, the economic sanctions on Cuba, Iran, Syria, etc. The list is endless and ongoing.  All actions aimed at causing massive death and damage to civilians.

According to U.S. law (6 USCS § 101), terrorism is defined as an act that is dangerous to human life or potentially destructive of critical infrastructure or key resources; is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State or other subdivision of the United States; and appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.

By any reasonable interpretation of the law, the United Sates is a terrorist state.

Let me tell you about Bert Sacks. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. His experiences with the U.S. government regarding terrorism tell an illuminating story of conscience and hope. It is a story of how one person can awaken others to recognize and admit the truth that the U.S. is guilty of crimes against humanity, even when one is unable to stop the carnage. It is a tale of witness, and how such witness is contagious.

In November 1997 Sacks led a delegation to Iraq to deliver desperately needed medicines ( $40,000 worth, all donated) that were denied into the country because of US/UN economic sanctions. For such an act of human solidarity, he was later fined $10,000 by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Sacks had refused to ask for a license to travel to Iraq or to subsequently pay the fine for compelling reasons connected to his non-violent Gandhian philosophy, which teaches that non-cooperation with evil is as much an obligation as cooperation with good.

For years previously, Sacks had been learning, as would have anyone who was following the news, that the American sanctions under George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton following the illegal and unjust Gulf War, had been aimed at crippling the Iraqi infrastructure upon which all civilian life depended.  Iraq had been devastated by the U.S. war of aggression, and a great deal of its infrastructure, especially electricity and therefore water purification systems, had already been destroyed. Clinton kept up the sanctions and the bombing in support of Bush’s war intentions. So much for differences between Republicans and Democrats! Regular Iraqis were suffering terribly. All this was being done in the name of punishing Saddam Hussein in order to oust him from power, the same Hussein whom the U. S. had supported in Iraq’s war with Iran by assisting him with chemical and biological weapons.

As Sacks later (2011) wrote in his declaration to the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington when he sued OFAC:

Weeks after the end of the Gulf War, on March 22, 1991, I read a New York Times front- page story covering the UN report by Martti Ahtisaari on the devastating, ‘near- apocalyptic conditions’ in Iraq after the Gulf War. The report said, ‘famine and epidemic [were imminent] if massive life-supporting needs are not rapidly met. The long summer… is weeks away. Time is short.’ The same article explained U.S. policy this way: ‘[By] making life uncomfortable for the Iraqi people, [sanctions] will eventually encourage them to remove President Saddam Hussein from power.’ This sentence has stayed with me for twenty years. It says to me that my government – by inflicting suffering and death on Iraqi civilians – hoped to overthrow President Saddam Hussein, and that we would simply call it “making life uncomfortable.” [my emphasis]

The years to follow the first war against Iraq revealed what that Orwellian phrase really meant.

In 1994 Sacks read a survey on health conditions of Iraqi children in The New England Journal of Medicine that said: “These results provide strong evidence that the Gulf War and trade sanctions caused a threefold increase in mortality among Iraqi children under five years of age. We estimate that an excess of more than 46,900 children died between January and August 1991.”

And that was just the beginning. For the number of dead Iraqi children [and adults] kept piling up as a result of “making life uncomfortable.”

Anton Chekov’s story “Gooseberries” pops into my mind:

Everything is quiet and peaceful, and nothing protests but mute statistics: so many people gone out of their minds, so many gallons of vodka drunk, so many children dead from malnutrition. . . . And this order of things is evidently necessary; evidently the happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burdens in silence, and without that silence happiness would be impossible. It’s a case of general hypnotism. There ought to be behind the door of every happy, contented man someone standing with a hammer continually reminding him with a tap that there are unhappy people; that however happy he may be, life will show him her laws sooner or later, trouble will come for him — disease, poverty, losses, and no one will see or hear, just as now he neither sees nor hears others.

Sacks has long been that man with a gentle hammer, far from happy, comfortable, or contented in what he was learning. In 1996 he watched the infamous CBS 60 Minutes interview of Madeleine Albright by Leslie Stahl who had recently returned from Iraq. Albright was then the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and soon to be the Secretary of State. Stahl, in reference to how the sanctions had already killed 500,000 Iraqi children, asked her, “Is the price worth it?” – Albright blithely answered, “The price is worth it.”

In April 1997, a New England Journal of Medicine editorial said that “”Iraq is an even more disastrous example of war against the public health . … The destruction  of the country’s power plants had brought its entire system of water purification and distribution to a halt, leading to epidemics of cholera, typhoid fever, and gastroenteritis, particularly among children. Mortality rates doubled or tripled among children admitted to hospitals in Baghdad and Basra…” [my emphasis]

The evidence had accumulated since 1991 that the U.S. had purposely targeted Iraqi civilians and especially very young children and had therefore killed them as an act or war.  This was clearly genocide. In its 1999 news release, UNICEF announced: “if the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under-five in the country as a whole during the eight year period 1991 to 1998.”

The British journalist Robert Fisk called this intentional destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure “biological warfare”: “The ultimate nature of the 1991 Gulf War for Iraqi civilians now became clear. Bomb now: die later.” In his declaration to the court, Sacks wrote that the Centers for Disease Control, in warning about potential terrorist biological attacks on the U.S., clearly lists attacks on water supplies as terrorism and biological warfare:

Water safety threats (such as Vibrio cholerae and Cryptosporidium parvum): Cholera is an acute bacterial disease characterized in its severe form by sudden onset, profuse painless watery stools, nausea and vomiting early in the course of illness, and, in untreated cases, rapid dehydration, acidosis, circulatory collapse, hypoglycemia in children, and renal failure. Transmission occurs through ingestion of food or water contaminated directly or indirectly with feces or vomitus of infected persons.

By January 1997, as a result of such statements and those of U.S. military and government officials and reports in medical journals and media, Sacks concluded that the United States government was guilty of the crime of international terrorism against the civilian population of Iraq. And being a man of conscience, he therefore proceeded to lead a delegation to Iraq to alleviate suffering, even while knowing it was a drop in the bucket.

It is important to emphasize that the U.S. government knew full well that its intentional destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure would result in massive death and suffering of civilians.  Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said of such destruction that “If I had to do it over again, I would do exactly the same thing.” All the deaths that followed were done as part of an effort at regime change – to force Hussein out of office, something finally accomplished by the George W. Bush administration with their lies about weapons of mass destruction and their 2003 war against Iraq that killed between 1-2 million more Iraqis. The recent accolades heaped on Colin Powell, who as Secretary of State consciously lied at the UN and who led the first war against Iraq – two major war crimes – should be a reminder of how unapologetic U.S. leaders are for their atrocities. I would go so far as to say they revel in their ability to commit them. Because he called them out on this by doing what all journalists and writers should do, they have pursued and caged Julian Assange as if he were a wild dog who walked into their celebratory dinner party.

In this 1991 U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency document, “Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities,” you can read how these people think. And read Thomas Merton’s poem “Chant to be Used in Processions around a Site With Furnaces,” and don’t skip its last three lines and you can grasp the bureaucratic mind at its finest. Euphemisms like “uncomfortable” and “collateral damage” are their specialties. Killing the innocent are always on their menu.

Bert Sacks and his delegation got some brief media publicity for their voyage of mercy. He believed that if the American people really knew what was happening to Iraqi children, they would demand that it be stopped. This did not happen. His tap with the hammer of conscience failed to awaken the hypnotized public who overwhelmingly had elected Clinton to a second term in 1996 six months after the 60 Minutes interview. Yes, “Everything is [was] quiet and peaceful, and nothing protests but mute statistics.”

Although the evidence was overwhelming that Iraqi children in the 1990s were dying at the rate of at least 5,000 per month as a direct result of the sanctions, very few major media publicized this. The 60 Minutes show, with its shocking statement by Albright, was an exception and was seen by millions of Americans. After that show aired, to claim you didn’t know was no longer believable. And although most mainstream media buried the truth, it was still available to those who cared. There were some conscience-stricken officials, however. In his declaration to the court, Sacks wrote:

The first two heads of the “Oil-for-Food” program – Denis Halliday and Hans von Sponeck – each resigned a position as UN Assistant Secretary General to protest the consequences of the U.S. imposed sanctions policy on Iraq. Mr. Halliday said, ‘We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that.’ He called it genocide.

There were also, doctors, politicians, independent writers, and Nobel Peace Laureates who called the policy genocide and said, “Sanctions are the economic nuclear bomb.” Sacks told the court that “Finally, this list includes a 32-year career, retired U.S. diplomat – Deputy Director of the Reagan White House Cabinet Task Force on Terrorism – who says: ‘you can think of a number of countries that have been involved in [terrorist] activities. Ours is one of them.’”

Military planners, moreover, wrote in military publications that it was desirable to kill Iraqi civilians; that it was an essential part – if not the major part – of war strategy. They called it “dual-use targeting” and called themselves “operational artists.”

Sacks was able to reach a few officials and journalists who realized this was not art but massive war crimes. This showed that it is not impossible to change people, hard as it is. The judge in his court case, James L. Robart, while agreeing that OFAC had not exceeded its authority in fining him, acknowledged that the court had to accept as true that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as reported by UNICEF had come to constitute genocide, but [my emphasis] U.S. law prohibited the bringing of any consideration of genocide into a legal proceeding, which allows the U.S. government to commit this crime while barring any other party from raising the issue legally.

In other words, the U.S. government can accuse others of committing genocide, but no one can legally accuse it. It is above all laws.

Ten months before his 1997 trip to Iraq, Sacks met with Kate Pflaumer, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington. He says:

We met in her office and I asked her for the legal definition of terrorism pursuant to the laws of the United States. She asked what could she do for me. I said “Prosecute me for violating U.S. Iraq sanctions by bringing medicine there.” She said, “I won’t do that for you! Can I help in any other way?” I asked for the U.S. legal definition of terrorism. She pulled out a law book, had her secretary copy the page for me, and didn’t forget my request. When she left office, she wrote the op-ed on June 21, 2001… calling U.S. Iraq policy terrorism! The two main elements relevant to the issue here are: (1) it is an act dangerous to human life; and (2) done apparently to coerce or intimidate a civilian population or a government (see 18 U.S.C. § 2331).

On June 21, 2001, Ms. Pflaumer, then the former U.S. Attorney, wrote in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer the following:

The reality on the ground in Iraq is not contested. Thousands of innocent children and adult civilians die every month as a direct result of the 1991 bombing of civilian infrastructure: sewage treatment plants, electrical generating plants, water purification facilities. Allied bombing targets included eight multipurpose dams, repeatedly hit, which simultaneously wrecked flood control, municipal and industrial water storage, irrigation and hydroelectric power. [Four of seven major pumping stations were destroyed, as were 31 municipal water and sewerage facilities. Water purification plants were incapacitated throughout Iraq. We did this for “long term leverage.” These military decisions were sanctioned by then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney.]

In May 1996, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reaffirmed that the “price” of 500,000 dead Iraqi children was “worth it. ”

Article 54 of the Geneva Convention states: “It is prohibited to attack, destroy or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population” and includes foodstuffs, livestock and “drinking water supplies and irrigation works.”

Tittle 18 U.S. Code Section 2331 defines international terrorism as acts dangerous to human life that would violate our criminal laws if done in the United States when those acts are intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.

Thus did Kate Pflaumer, in an act of conscience and upholding her legal obligation as an attorney, call the U.S a terrorist state. This probably never would have happened without the non-violent hammer of Bert Sacks, who over the years has made nine trips to Iraq with other brave and determined souls who are a credit to humanity. Messengers of love, truth, and compassion.

Despite their witness, such U.S. terrorism continues as usual.

We cannot let “nothing protest but mute statistics.” The first lesson in U.S. Terrorism 101 is to become people with hammers, and hammer out truth and justice for the world to hear. Bert Sacks has done this. We must follow suit.

Therein lies our only hope.

November 15, 2021 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | 1 Comment

Drone attack on Iraqi PM ‘must be traced back to foreign think tanks’ – Iran

RT | November 7, 2021

The alleged assassination attempt of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi was orchestrated by a foreign power seeking to destabilize the country, a senior Iranian security official said.

The apparent attempted assassination of the Iraqi prime minister was “a new sedition that must be traced back to foreign think tanks,” according to Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran.

In the past, foreign instigators “have brought nothing but insecurity, discord & instability to oppressed Iraqi people through creation & support of terrorist groups & occupation of this country,” he tweeted.

Al-Kadhimi’s residence in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone was reportedly targeted by a drone rigged with explosives. The official said he was not hurt in the incident.

The reported attack occurred in the aftermath of protests in the Iraqi capital over the outcome of last month’s parliamentary election, which pro-Iranian Shia parties claim was rigged. Demonstrations were mired by violent clashes with police, which resulted in multiple injuries on both sides and allegedly a handful of deaths among the protesters.

Earlier on Sunday, Mahmoud al-Rubaie, a spokesman for the Shia political coalition al-Sadiqoun Bloc, suggested that the attack on the prime minister’s home was fabricated, saying the US air defenses in the Green Zone would have intercepted any incoming drones. The incident is a plot to distract the public, al-Rubaie said.

November 7, 2021 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , | Leave a comment

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