The War on Conspiracy Realists Continues
By Brandon Martinez | Non-Aligned Media | July 24, 2015
Do you believe that governments occasionally conspire to undermine the public good? Do you believe that governments manipulate people through fear to achieve nefarious ends such as war and intervention abroad? Do you believe that ‘elected’ officials serve rich and powerful special interests rather than the majority population?
If you answered yes to any of the above, and you are a British citizen, then you could be the target of a new ‘counter-extremism’ initiative spearheaded by that country’s perverse Prime Minister David Cameron. As part of his Orwellian ‘counter-extremism’ effort, Cameron has instituted a number of truly despotic measures intent on stifling free speech and extirpating ‘heretical’ viewpoints about false flag terrorism and the undue influence of Zionists on Western foreign policy.
While self-evident to most clear thinking people, the notion that the West is deliberately targeting Muslims and their countries in accordance with an intricately fashioned master plan of divide and conquer will now be a prohibited opinion that could put the British police state on your trail.
“Muslim conspiracy theorists,” Cameron proclaimed in a recent speech outlining his ‘five year strategy’ to combat extremism, who believe that “Jews exercise a ‘malevolent’ power, that [the] Israeli intelligence agency Mossad inspired 9/11 and that the UK allowed 7/7 because it wanted an anti-Muslim backlash” are to be singled out for suppression.[1]
Cameron’s 1984-style designs will give parents the ability to revoke their children’s passports if suspected of holding ‘extremist’ beliefs. Police will be given new surveillance powers as well as the authority to vet what certain ‘extremists’ and ‘conspiracy theorists’ post on social media. Additionally, Ofcom – Britain’s communications regulatory body – will also be empowered to “crack down on television channels broadcasting extremist messages.” ‘Extremist messages’ appears to be a thinly disguised euphemism for anything not consonant with Western and Zionist propaganda.
Cameron’s aggressive moves against free expression were not unforeseen. During a speech at the United Nations last September, the British leader decried “conspiracy theorists” as “non-violent extremists” who should be confronted with the “full force” of the British state.[2] The theory that Israel and Western intelligence agencies were involved in the fabrication of 9/11 and other false flag attacks was specifically mentioned by Cameron as one of those “dangerous ideas” that needs to be eliminated from public discourse. Inferences about Jewish-Zionist manipulation of Western foreign policy towards the Islamic world should also be combatted, said Cameron in the speech.
Distracting the Public from Western Sponsorship of ISIS
All of this disingenuous bluster rings hollow when one considers the fact that Western governments and their allies have supported, and many would argue created, ISIS to serve their duplicitous agenda in the Middle East.
The CIA, MI6 and Mossad, in conjunction with the oppressive autocrats of Saudi Arabia, have long worked with Wahhabi-Salafist extremist elements in the Middle East and North Africa to counter other more formidable, non-sectarian adversaries in the region such as Libya’s Gaddafi, Syria’s Assad, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran. A re-run of the CIA’s “Operation Cyclone” which empowered Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 1980s is currently unfolding in the Middle East under the auspices of many of the same players.
Award winning reporter Seymour Hersh revealed in a 2007 report titled “The Redirection” that the Bush administration launched a joint covert operation with Israel and Saudi Arabia to augment “Sunni extremist groups” and other fanatics to weaken the influence of Syria, Iran and Hezbollah.[3] Obama picked up where Bush left off, flooding Syrian and Libyan insurgent groups with untold largesse and arms, using the corrupted Arab Gulf kingdoms as conduits for weapons transfers for the sake of plausible deniability.
Hersh’s sources close to the US government told him that the Saudis assured Washington that they exercised control over the extremist Wahhabi and Salafist groups, and would steer their fanaticism towards the Shiites. “It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran,” Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia’s then-National Security Advisor, purportedly told his American counterparts in the Bush administration. “We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.”[4]
Part of the arrangement, Hersh explained, was a guarantee from the Saudis that Israel’s security interests would be safeguarded, which clarifies why ISIS and its affiliates have not attacked Israel despite the country’s close proximity to the terrorists’ strongholds in Syria and Iraq. “Israel would be assured that its security was paramount and that Washington and Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states shared its concern about Iran,” Hersh noted was the first point in a series of “informal understandings about their new strategic direction” to combat Shiite influence led by Iran.[5]
ISIS themselves have mostly eschewed hostility towards Israel, posting an official statement on social media in July 2014 saying that they’re more interested in fighting “Muslim infidels” than the Zionist state.[6] Israeli officials have expressed similar sentiments, with Israel’s former envoy to the US, Michael Oren, stating in a September 2013 interview that Tel Aviv “prefers” ISIS and al-Qaeda over the “bad guys backed by Iran,” namely Syria’s Assad and Hezbollah. Oren forthrightly conceded that Israel is committed to defeating through terrorist violence “the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut” with Assad in Syria functioning as the “keystone in that arc.” “That is a position we had well before the outbreak of hostilities in Syria,” Oren told the Jerusalem Post. “With the outbreak of hostilities we continued to want Assad to go.”[7]
The unholy alliance between Israel and the Salafist jihadists came right out in the open in June 2015 when ISIS released a video threatening to topple Hamas in Gaza[8], promising to bring bloodshed and ruin to the Strip. Salafist elements tied to ISIS have in fact attacked Hamas havens in Gaza on multiple occasions over the past few months, showcasing their utility as pawns of Israel.[9][10][11] There are also well-documented direct connections between ISIS-linked militants and Israel. A 2014 report compiled by United Nations observers stationed in the area revealed that the Israeli military has provided anti-Assad militants with sanctuary on the Israeli side of the Golan region, ostensibly treating wounded fighters in Israeli field hospitals and even giving them caches of weapons and other supplies.[12] On top of material support for the terrorists that have besieged Syria, Israel has aided their onslaught through numerous air strikes against Syrian military targets since the turmoil began in earnest in 2012, effectively attempting to tip the tide of the war in the Takfiris’ favour.[13] In January 2015 Israel conducted an airstrike that wiped out a brigade of Hezbollah fighters on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, once again highlighting the Takfiri-Tel Aviv nexus.[14]
In light of such treachery against Arabs and Muslims trying to liberate themselves from oppression and domination, ISIS’s primary function as an acquiescent tool of US-Israeli imperialism cannot be overstated.
Perfidious Albion
As Prime Minister Cameron feigns outrage and opposition to Islamic extremism, the British government under his watch has been an active and willing partner in the Machiavellian strategy of divide and rule in the Middle East spearheaded by the US and Israel.
The 2015 trial of Swedish national Bherlin Gildo – who fought for a militant group in Syria – confirmed London’s role in backing Takfiri insurgents battling Damascus. In his defense, Gildo’s lawyers introduced evidence that British intelligence agencies “were supporting the same Syrian opposition groups as he was, and were party to a secret operation providing weapons and non-lethal help to the groups, including the Free Syrian Army.” Confronted with this contradiction, the British court dropped all charges against Gildo, fearing more embarrassing evidence showcasing British complicity with Syrian rebels could surface during proceedings.[15]
In 2013, Roland Dumas, France’s former foreign minister, told a French television station that during a visit to Britain two years before the Syrian crisis began in 2011, British officials informed him of a secret plan to spark a rebel invasion of Syria.[16] “Britain was preparing gunmen to invade Syria,” Dumas said, pinpointing the origins of the scheme to Israel which, according to Dumas, sought to oust a neighbouring regime hostile to its imperial ambitions in the Levant. Dumas then recounted a conversation he had with an unnamed Israeli prime minister who allegedly told him that the countries in the Middle East that get in the way of Zionist objectives for the region would be swiftly eliminated.
In an April 2014 report entitled “The Red Line and the Rat Line,”[17] journalist Seymour Hersh uncovered British involvement with a CIA-led covert operation in Benghazi, Libya, wherein the Agency was secretly channeling the looted weapons stockpiles of the fallen Gaddafi regime to Western-backed Syrian rebels through a “rat line.” Commenting on Hersh’s report, The Independent’s Patrick Cockburn described the CIA/MI6 “rat line” project in Benghazi as a “supply chain for the Syrian rebels overseen by the US in covert cooperation with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.”[18] He summarized Hersh’s findings in more detail as follows:
“The information about this comes from a highly classified and hitherto secret annex to the report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee on the attack by Libyan militiamen on the US consulate in Benghazi on 11 September 2012 in which US ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed. The annex deals with an operation in which the CIA, in cooperation with MI6, arranged the dispatch of arms from Mu’ammer Gaddafi’s arsenals to Turkey and then across the 500-mile long Turkish southern frontier with Syria. The annex refers to an agreement reached in early 2012 between Obama and Erdogan with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar supplying funding. Front companies, purporting to be Australian, were set up, employing former US soldiers who were in charge of obtaining and transporting the weapons. According to Hersh, the MI6 presence enabled the CIA to avoid reporting the operation to Congress, as required by law, since it could be presented as a liaison mission.”
In addition to conniving with the US and Israel to arm Takfiri rebel gangs that eventually overran Gaddafi and continue to menace Syria, the British government has also covertly collaborated with Wahhabi extremists in its own country who serve as cartoonish fodder for anti-Muslim war on terror propaganda. In a May 2013 report for the Asia Times, security scholar Nafeez Ahmed disclosed that the British-based Salafist group Al Muhajiroun has been secretly supported by the British intelligence services since its inception in 1996.[19] That group has spawned nearly all of the supposed Islamic extremists implicated in (and perhaps framed for) various attacks in Britain, including the alleged ‘shoe bomber’ Richard Reid, the alleged Woolwich killers of British soldier Lee Rigby, the alleged 7/7 bombers and many others accused or convicted of terrorism-related offenses. Ahmed contends that various dubious personalities acting as leaders of Al Muhajiroun over the years – including Abu Hamza, Omar Bakri, Haroon Rashid Aswat and Anjem Choudary – have been clandestine agents of British intelligence fronting as ‘Islamic radicals.’
Despite his vocal support for al-Qaeda and ISIS, outwardly championing their grotesque bloodletting in Syria and Iraq today, Anjem Choudary (the current leader of Al Muhajiroun which has re-branded and re-named itself several times) is left untouched by British authorities and appears frequently on mainstream media. How can this impunity be explained if Choudary and his organization are operating independently without state protection? “Almost every major terrorist attack and plot in the UK has in some way been linked to Choudary’s extremist network,” noted Ahmed in the aforesaid piece, yet the radical preacher and his organization “[continues] to function with impunity in new incarnations.”
“[T]hrough Al Muhajiroun,” Ahmed explained, “MI5 is spawning many of the plots it lays claim to successfully foiling – as the FBI is also doing.” The MI5-controlled front group essentially serves a dual purpose: 1) it functions as a repository for Muslim patsies used in US-Israeli-British false flag operations, and 2) it acts as a recruiting hub for Wahhabi-Salafist mercenaries wielded as cannon fodder in various battle zones where Western/Zionist geopolitical and economic interests are at stake.
Unraveling the Web of Intrigue
Those not learned in the dark arts of black operations will likely be confused by all of this. “The West is fighting a war on Islamic extremism,” the indoctrinated lemmings will proclaim with confidence, completely unaware that they are being played for fools by professional spooks trained to employ artifices against the masses.
The surface rhetoric that politicians employ is merely a pack of daft lies intended to divert attention from the real agendas that drive policy. The public is fed a steady diet of cover stories and feel-good rationales – fanciful tales of good vs. evil – to pacify adverse reactions to and deflect unwanted attention from nefarious plots designed to benefit rich people and their interests.
David Cameron himself inadvertently identified whom some of these wealthy string-pullers are: Jewish Zionists committed to overturning every regime in the Middle East that is not yet subordinated to Tel Aviv. The other half of that equation includes an assortment of profiteering Anglos, Americans, Europeans, Arabs, Russians, Chinese and other money-mad opportunists. The Cameron’s, Obama’s, Harper’s, Hollande’s and Merkel’s of the world are mere screens or dummies for the real power behind the throne: the unscrupulous financiers, oligarchs and speculators who dominate Wall Street and the City of London, and to a lesser extent Shanghai and Moscow.
The Zionists, however, seem to be the most organized, the most aggressive and the most committed to living out their grandiose messianic dreams. Whether that vision entails a “New Middle East” in which “Greater Israel” rules the roost or a global government headquartered in Jerusalem remains to be seen. Either way it spells disaster for most of the world’s peoples.
Sources
[1] “Parents may cancel children’s passports in war on IS,” The Week, July 20, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150724070333/http://www.theweek.co.uk/64449/cameron-attacks-ludicrous-extremist-conspiracy-theories
[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g-HqRP-ANk
[3] Seymour Hersh, “The Redirection,” The New Yorker, March 5, 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20150318015442/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirection
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Elad Benari, “ISIS: Fighting ‘Infidels’ Takes Precedence Over Fighting Israel,” Israel National News, July 8, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140831070443/http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/182632
[7] Herb Keinon, “’Israel wanted Assad gone since start of Syria civil war’,” Jerusalem Post, Sept. 17, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20150112102133/http://www.jpost.com/Syria-Crisis/Oren-Jerusalem-has-wanted-Assad-ousted-since-the-outbreak-of-the-Syrian-civil-war-326328
[8] “ISIS Threatens To Topple Hamas In Gaza,” Reuters, July 1, 2015. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/01/isis-hamas-gaza_n_7704360.html
[9] “Isis blamed for Gaza City bomb attacks,” The Independent, July 20, 2015. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-blamed-for-gaza-city-bomb-attacks-10400747.html
[10] “ISIS Allies Target Hamas and Energize Gaza Extremists,” New York Times, June 30, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150713130805/http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/world/isis-allies-target-hamas-and-energize-gaza-extremists.html?_r=0
[11] “ISIS supporters claim attack on Hamas base in Gaza Strip,” Russia Today, May 8, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150713195921/http://rt.com/news/256941-isis-attack-gaza-hamas/
[12] “UN details Israel helping Syrian rebels at Golan Heights,” Russia Today, Dec. 8, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150316140841/http://rt.com/news/212319-israel-helps-syrian-militants/
[13] “Head of Syrian army after alleged airstrikes: Israel working with ISIS and al-Qaida,” Jerusalem Post, Dec. 7, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150316154301/http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Head-of-Syrian-army-after-alleged-airstrikes-Israel-working-with-ISIS-and-al-Qaida-383907
[14] “’Israel strike’ kills Hezbollah men in Syria’s Golan Heights,” BBC News, Jan. 18, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150316090443/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30873402
[15] “Terror trial collapses after fears of deep embarrassment to security services,” The Guardian, June 1, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150610080819/http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jun/01/trial-swedish-man-accused-terrorism-offences-collapse-bherlin-gildo
[16] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeyRwFHR8WY
[17] Seymour Hersh, “The Red Line and the Rat Line,” London Review of Books, April 17, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150315050157/http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line
[18] Patrick Cockburn, “MI6, the CIA and Turkey’s rogue game in Syria,” The Independent, April 13, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150110040831/http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/mi6-the-cia-and-turkeys-rogue-game-in-syria-9256551.html
[19] Nafeez Ahmed, “UK pays price for MI5 courting terror,” Asia Times, May 30, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130801060233/http://atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-300513.html
Copyright 2015 Brandon Martinez
‘In the US, joking about war has become acceptable’
RT | July 23, 2015
Attempts at humor over bombing huge numbers of people, and inflicting death is increasingly considered acceptable and this has a subtle effect on the population, says David Swanson, blogger and activist, author of ‘War Is A Lie’.
US President Barack Obama made an appearance on America’s Daily Show hosted by Jon Stewart taking the chance for a bit of light-hearted foreign policy banter.
RT: The situation in Yemen and Iraq is no laughing matter. Is it acceptable for the President to be laughing about these subjects?
David Swanson: It really isn’t. Jon Stewart jokes “We still get to bomb people, right?” and there is no stern rebuke from the President as there is when he is accused of allowing Americans to be held hostage in Iran and not caring about them and so forth, there is no offense taken, it’s all for laughs. Who are we bombing? President Obama has no idea specifically who he’s bombing not even with drone strikes and the tangled mess that Jon Stewart points to is far beyond what he listed. Making peace with Iran in order to fight a war with Iran, going to war in Syria on the opposite side in 2014 as you were told, as you head into 2013, US weapons in the hands of Islamic State, US allies funding IS – it’s an incredible mess and Jon Stewart, although it’s his last chance, last interview with the president, makes jokes instead of asking questions. He makes a joke about trying diplomacy for once after bombs, proxies and arming and so forth, but it’s a joke, Obama doesn’t answer. Jon Stewart could have said “Why, if diplomacy is an option in one case do you not use it in all these other cases?” He didn’t ask the question.
RT: How do jokes about foreign policy influence the public?
DS: A certain segment of the public including myself is not laughing about war and doesn’t think it’s a laughing matter, but I think it influences the public very subtly that jokes about war are acceptable. I heard a weapon’s contractor on national public radio in the US joke about wanting a big new invasion and occupation when another one might be ending – ha-ha. When jokes about things like sexual abuse or racism or all kinds of cruelty, anti-morality are absolutely not acceptable, absolutely excluded from public discussion in US media, but jokes about war, about bombing huge numbers of people to death, injury and trauma are acceptable and that does have an impact.
RT: Obama had previously joked about predator drones. Does that make the matter more mundane, perhaps more acceptable? Politically, how intentional are such jokes?
DS: It points to this huge contrast in the US between the immorality of war and any other kind of immorality. President Obama this week said that jokes about rape in US prisons are absolutely offensive and unacceptable; it’s not something that should ever be joked about. The US, I believe, is the first society in the history of the world where the majority of rape victims are male and it’s in prison and it’s an epidemic. He is absolutely right, don’t you joke about it. But when it comes to war, to murder with weapons of war, spying, massive surveillance and the whole package of militarism, jokes seem to be totally acceptable – even for the President speaking to the journalists and reporters who are actually supposed to know the horror and suffering of war.
Bill Kristol on Iran Deal: ‘Its Munich!’
By Daniel McAdams | Neocon Watch | July 18, 2015
Bill Kristol is the epitome of the neocon mindset: cultivating a staid and urbane image while writing the most unhinged and mendacious claptrap. In his utterly predictable denunciation of the successful Iran nuclear talks, Kristol frames the issue in the crudest terms: if the deal goes through on the US end it will mean the return of $150 billion that was seized from the Iranians by the United States — and that money will be used to commit terrorism against the United States!
Writes Kristol: “How can we debate [the deal] without attending to the $150 billion that is going to a regime with American blood on its hands?”
Kristol cites the National Review which makes the fatuous claim (first made by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, which is headed by a close advisor to Israeli prime minister Netanyahu) that Iran has killed 1,000 Americans since 9/11. It turns out any weapon used in Iraq or Afghanistan against an invading US military that might have Iranian manufacturing origins means that the Iranians are responsible for that kill.
Do they want to extrapolate that methodology to include every bullet sold by the US military-industrial complex to every despot overseas?
But you can see how this works: A Netanyahu think tank makes an outlandish claim, it is picked up by the National Review and thus laundered from its biased foreign origins, and then recycled and further laundered by Kristol in his publication. Cute trick.
And Kristol’s objection to foreigners with American blood on their hands is highly selective. The Marxist-jihadist death cult Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MeK) has plenty of American blood on its hands, but Kristol’s own magazine joined other neocon voices in urging the US to remove the terrorists from the US list of terror organizations. Why? Because they are Kristol’s kind of terrorists: they infiltrate Iran to assassinate civilians and foment unrest, while passing off laptops with Mossad-fabricated data made to look like Iranian nuclear weapons activity.
The other thing that has Kristol up in arms over the deal is what he calls the “notorious” Annex III.D.10 of the agreement, which he claims will “help the Iranian regime fight off attempts by others to slow its nuclear program, and more.”
But what does that annex really say?
10. Co-operation in the form of training courses and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to prevent, protect and respond to nuclear security threats to nuclear facilities and systems as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems;
10. Co-operation through training and workshops to strengthen Iran’s ability to protect against, and respond to nuclear security threats, including sabotage, as well as to enable effective and sustainable nuclear security and physical protection systems.
In other words, the parties to the agreement will help Iran protect against attempts to attack and sabotage Iran’s peaceful and legal nuclear program. Recall the Israeli/US cyberattack on Iranian nuclear facilities and simultaneous programs to assassinate Iranian scientists. Kristol is furious that anyone would find such illegal and murderous activity to be objectionable. After all, blood on one’s hands doesn’t count if it is Iranian or other Muslim blood.
Oh, and, writes Kristol: “Munich!!!” That is obligatory any time diplomacy supplants neocon lust for war.
That Kristol remains a favored foreign policy “expert” on stations like FoxNews and ABC says very little about the quality of his analysis and much more about his saying what the mainstream media want their audiences to hear.
Who can forget Bill Kristol’s greatest hits, such as this 2011 piece on the “liberation” of Libya titled “The Party of Freedom“? In it he writes:
And so, despite his doubts and dithering, President Obama is taking us to war in another Muslim country. Good for him. … Our invasions have in fact been liberations… in our own national interest, of course, but also to protect Muslim peoples and help them free themselves. Libya will be America’s fifth war of Muslim liberation.
Ah yes, that glorious liberation of Libya!
Indeed the timeline of his faulty predictions would no-doubt span the equator. Imagine any other profession where one can be so consistently wrong and still be considered (and handsomely remunerated as) an expert. Imagine your doctor was wrong in his diagnosis 95 percent of the time. Imagine your financial advisor consistently lost 95 percent of anything you invest with him. Yet Kristol continues to drop his golden turds from the hallowed heights of the foreign policy firmament. What a country…
Palestinian statement of solidarity with Syria
Statement of Palestinian groups and individuals in the occupied homeland, refugee camps and the diaspora about the global war on Syria
July 16, 2015
We are Palestinians and Palestinian organizations that declare our solidarity with the Syrian people in their great historical struggle for survival, now entering its fifth year. We are in a unique position to understand and appreciate the challenges facing our Syrian brothers and sisters, because we face the same challenges.
We understand what it means to have our lands and our property taken by foreign usurpers. We understand what it means for millions of our people to be driven out of their homes and to be unable to return. We understand what it means for our interests and our national rights to become the plaything of the most powerful nations on earth. We understand what it means to suffer and die in defense of our sovereignty and human rights.
We do not pretend to tell Syrians what is right for Syria, just as Syria has respected the Palestinian right to liberate Palestine since the time of the Nakba. However, we declare that the enemies of Syria are the enemies of Palestine, and those who bear arms against the Syrian people and the Syrian army – regardless of their names and affiliations – are mere pawns that serve Israel and its project to divide and control the Arab region. The people who abduct, murder and slaughter in Syria are the enemies of the Arab nation, just like Israel, with which they share goals and criminal nature.
We therefore reject violence and murder against the people and state in Syria, which has nothing to do with any just demands; rather it merely seeks to destroy the Syrian state. Any attack on Syria is an attack on the Arab nation, and that the true national opposition is the one that commits to its country’s principles and flies its flag, and that doesn’t receive orders from abroad.
The Palestinian and Syrian struggles are not religious struggles. We respect a state that guarantees freedom of religion without preference of any faith over any other. Dividing Arab communities into conflicting sects only serves the Israeli regime and allows it to implement its plots for the region.
While Palestinian refugees have suffered and are suffering in many places, Syria has welcomed them and granted them all the rights of Syrians except the right to vote. We are grateful for this policy of brotherhood/sisterhood and can do no less than to reciprocate with our solidarity for Syria in its time of greatest need. It is the least we can do.
The cynical and genocidal policies of NATO and its proxies in the Middle East have as their main policy to destroy the last remaining independent nations and forces that are not compromised by complicity with Zionist and imperialist forces. These nations and forces wish no harm to others, yet their mere existence is intolerable to Zionism and imperialism. It is our duty to stand with Syria and all nations and movements that resist the intruders and seek an independent course and policy for the benefit and interest of our own people and not to become puppets of foreign powers.
We therefore stand with Syria in its efforts to repel the foreign invaders and the countries that are creating, training, financing, arming and supporting the terrorist groups in Syria. We call for the expulsion of these groups back to their own countries, and for their supporters to devote their resources to improving the lives of their own citizens in their own countries rather than destroying the lives of our citizens in our countries. Like the alien and racist Zionist regime, these criminal countries and their leadership must be prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity for waging illegal wars against sovereign states and peoples, including Palestine, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
Signatures:
1. Mayor Bassam Shakaa (Abu Nidal)
2. His Eminence Theodosios (Atallah) Hanna, Archbishop, Greek Orthodox Diocese of Sebastia, Jerusalem
3. People’s Committee for the Defense of Syria in Palestine
4. People’s Committee for Solidarity with Syria & its Patriotic Leadership, Haifa
5. Sheikh Hassan Foundation for Culture and Science
6. Association of Progressive Arab Women Against War on Syria
7. Cultural Assembly for Democracy in Gaza
8. Palestine Shoruq Organisation, Gaza
9. Kifaah Movement, 1948 Palestine
10. Palestinian Comrades Communist Forum, Occupied Palestine
11. Palestinian Popular Forum, Yarmouk, Syria
12. Coalition Forces of the Palestinian Resistance, Syria
13. Palestinian Youth Organization, Lebanon
14.Union of Palestinian Communities in Europe
15. Palestine Federation of Solidarity Associations, Sweden
16. Yousef Hijazi, Gaza
17. Dr. Sabri Muslim, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
18. Dr. Amal Wahdan, Ramallah
19. Saadah Mustafa Ershaid, Jenin
20. Dr. Munthir Aliwaiwi, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
21. Dr. Mohammed Al-Oweiwi,
Al-Khalil “Hebron”
22. Bashir Abu Omar, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
23. Free Palestine Movement, Syria
24. Yaser Qishlaq, Syria
25. Mahmood Dodeen, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
26. Hisham Al-Sharif, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
27. Abdul-Aleem Da’na, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
28. Dr. Mahmoud Sa’ada, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
29. Dr. Abd Al-Raheem Kettana, Nablus, Palestine
30. Hasan Sarsour, Gaza
31. Raif Diab, Gaza
32. Abdel Moneim Abu Sirdanah, Gaza
33. Murad Mattar, Gaza
34. Noureddine Al Rayes
35. Khaled Souissi, Gaza
36. Anwar Mattar, Gaza
37. Hamid Al-Najjar, Gaza
38. Hind Abu Nijela, Gaza
39. Shareef Samhan, Gaza
40. Yousef Sharkawi, Bethlehem
41. Mohammed Berjeeha, Bethlehem
42. Ibrahim Muzhir, Bethlehem
43. Nidal Abu Aker, Al Dhaishah
44. Imad Abdil Al Aziz, Nablus
45. Mohammed Kayal Albrooh, Acre
46. Ali Isaac, Ramallah
47. Abdel Fataah Ghanem, Ramallah
48. Jamila Aasleh, (Um Aseel), Araba al-Battouf, Acre
49. Hassan Aasleh, (Abu Aseel), Araba al-Battouf, Acre
50. Dr. Adnan Bakriah, Araba al-Battouf, Acre
51. Zuhair Ondrwas, Occupied Palestine
52. Wardih Qasim, Kafr Qasim, Occupied Palestine
53. Salim Salamah, Occupied Palestine
54. Jrais Foul, Occupied Palestine
55. Hussein Zubeidat, Occupied Palestine
56. Mohammed Naamnih, Occupied Palestine
57. Omar Naamnih, Occupied Palestine
58. Imad Shalbak, United States
59. Asaad Quwaiks, Occupied Palestine
60. Labib Ghassan Habib, Occupied Palestine
61. Louay Arafat, Occupied Palestine
62. Tamim Mansour, Occupied Palestine
63. Shawkeyah Arouk Mansour, Occupied Palestine
64. Ali Ghanayem, Occupied Palestine
65. Said Yassin, Occupied Palestine
66. Nizar Kana’ane, Occupied Palestine
67. Mithkal Naamnih, Occupied Palestine
68. Shaker Shbair, Occupied Palestine
69. Jamal Sawaad, Occupied Palestine
70. Rasim Obidat, Occupied Palestine
71. Dr Muslih Awad Muslih, Beit Safafa, Al-Quds “Jerusalem”
72. Ashraf Al-Munawarah, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
73. Dr Ousama Halas, Romania
74. Abu Fadi Farfour, Lebanon
75. Sabri Murshir Alrajoub, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
76. Abid Hakim Samara, Jit, Triangle
77. Abdul Aziz Abu Atwan, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
78. Issa Mahmoud Salah, Bethlehem
79. Khalid Mahmoud Afanah, Salfit
80. Ghazi Al-Sourani, Gaza
81. Ali Al-Jariri, Ramallah
82. Khalil Jabour, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
83. Hanan Bakir
84. Mahmoud Abu Kitah, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
85. Mahmoud Al Sheikh Abdel Fattah
86. Nabil Alizah, Bethlehem
87. Hijazi Abu Shanab, Khan Younis
88. Deeb Hourani, Jenin
89. Ziad al-Sheikh, Damascus, Syria
90. Ashraf Mohammed Amr, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
91. Ghandi Amin, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
92. Hind Abdullah Bandak, Bethlehem
93. Myasir Atyani, Nablus
94. Bassam Shweiki, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
95. Dr. Mohamad Awaineh, Bethlehem
96. Jamal Asleh, Acre
97. Dr. Ali Jariri, Ramallah
97. Mustafa Moisi, Tamra,Galilee
99. Nabil Abu Dayeh, Al-Quds “Jerusalem”
100. Ali Zeibaq, Acre
101. Nida Saadah, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
102. Jihad Saadah, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
103. Fayez Suweiti, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
104. Firas Yaghi, Ramallah
105. Khader Alawneh, Bethlehem
106. Khalid Mohammed al-Madhoun, Al-Khalil “Hebron”
107. Islam al-Tamimi, Ramallah
108. Farid al-Atrash, Esq., Bethlehem
109. Jamal Barghout, Bethlehem
110. Daoud Wazwaz, al-Khalil (Hebron)
111. Abed Jabarin Jabarin, Umm al-Fahm
112. Ali Nassar
113. Osama Abdel al-Halim, Sweden
114. Fouad al-Masri, Caracas, Venezuela
115. Majdi Issa, Nablus
116. Mohammed Salah, Jerusalem
117. Ghassan Khalil Banat, al-Khalil (Hebron)
118. Jamal al-Saadi, Jenin refugee camp
119. Rashed Wadi, Oman
120. Mohammed al-Atawneh, Nablus
121. Maher al-Salaymeh, al-Khalil (Hebron)
122. Dr. Mohammed al-Asmar, Palestine
123. Alaif Sabbagh, al-Boqayaa, Galilee
124. Sheikh Taha al-Qutananeh, Askar refugee camp, Nablus
125. Ayman Yusri al-Heimoneh, al-Khalil (Hebron)
126. M. Ibrahim Abu Shamaa, Tulkarem
127. M. Ahmed Rami, Nablus
128. Dr. Awad Abu Zalata, al-Khalil (Hebron)
129. Louay Hanani, Nablus
130. Awad Ahmed al-Masri, Jerusalem
131. Sufian Sataiti, Jenin
132. Adeeb Qasim, Nablus
133. Samir Mattar, Nablus
134. Jalal Bisharat, occupied Palestine
135. Ahmed Abdel Raouf Abu Ali, Canada
136. Abu Aysar Jaradat, occupied Palestine
137. Azzam Daqqaq, occupied Palestine
138. Khalid Ahmed Saadeddin
139. Nabil Abu Ayyash, Bethlehem
140. Salaam Moussa Jaafar
141. Ziad Hasan al-Saqqa, Jordan
142. Dr. Ramzi Abu Ayyash, Germany
143. Hisham al-Maliki, Stockholm
144. Wissam Abdullah, Jordan
145. Sabri Hajeer, Gothenburg, Sweden
146. Jamal al-Shihabi, Yarmouk Camp, Syria
147. Yousef Mansour, al-Tira, Haifa
148. Omar Atiq, Jordan
149. Nuha Yousef Shomali, Beit Sahour
150. Kamal Maqboul, Sweden
151. Omar Atiq, Oman
152. Sabrina Faqha, Canada
153. Munir Mansour, Majd al-Krum, Galilee
154. Hassan Abdo, Gaza
155. Elham Shaheen, Jerusalem
156. Sama Aweidah, Jerusalem
157. Sheikh Mohammed Omari, Syria
158. Nicola Ibrahim Nicola, Ramallah
159. Nidal Hamed, Norway
160. Ibrahim al-Qudsi, Nablus
161. Nizar Banat, al-Khalil (Hebron)
162. Basem al-Ajjouz, Nour Shams refugee camp, Tulkarm
163. Anis Ghanem, Sakhnin, Galilee
164. Ali Abu Younis, Sakhnin, Galilee
165. Palestinian Youth Movement of Return, Syria
166. Fadi al-Mallah, Damascus, Syria
167. Jazoor News Agency, Gaza
168. Baylist Publishing & Media Agency, Gaza
169. Samer Al-Ghoul, Gaza
170. Nasser Hammad, Gaza
171. Center for Strategic Studies and Documentation, Gaza
172. Hassan Hijazi, Syria
173. Sakhr Abu Zahra, Nablus
174. Ahmed Abu Saud, Gaza
175. Rashad Abu Shawar, Jordan
176. Rasha Maher Anabtawi, Nablus
177. Dr. Nabil Abdel Razek, Jerusalem
178. Lajeen Abdul Haq, Syria
179. Mohammed Adli al-Khatib, Damascus, Syria
180. Baser al-Masri, Syria
181. Mousa Maragha, Syria
182. Ahmed Hilal, Syria
183. Ali Mohammed, Syria
184. Mohammed Jaradat, Syria
185. Mohamed Ezzat, Syria
186. Suleiman Qablawi, Syria
187. Samir Ghasoub, Syria
188. Thaer Massoud, Syria
189. Ibrahim Ibrahim, Germany
190. Democratic Palestine Committees, Germany
191. Majda Khatib, Shafa-Amr
192. Maha Khoury, Haifa
193. Zakaria al-Helou, Jerusalem
194. Tariq Zenati, Lidda
195. Ashraf Wajih Abdullah Hamouda, Oman
196. Nawaf Kabha, Ararah
197. Mohammed Wajih Gharah, Triangle
198. Hussam Khalil, Shefa-Amr
199. Sajid Jaradat, Jenin
200. Amneh Ahmed Ghabariyeh, al-Mushayrifah, Triangle
201. Elham Bushnaq Bakri, Araneh al-Buttouf, Acre
202. Asma Hassouna Mahajna , Umm al-Fahm
203. Abdullah Talaat Saliba, al-Khalil (Hebron)
204. Iyad Mohammed Hmeidat, Deheishe refugee camp, Bethlehem
205. Fayez Khawaja, Occupied Palestine
206. Issa Farrukh, United States
207. Abdul Salam Shahrour, Esq, Tulkarem
208. Majed al-Jandeb, Esq., Tulkarem
209. Azhar Shahroor, Tulkarem, Palestine
210. Fayez Al-Soweity, Al-Khalil “Hebron”, Palestine
211. Kamal Tannous, al-Lid, Palestine
212. Tawfiq Khoury, Shefa-Amr, Palestine
213. Khaled Abdul-Majid, Syria
214. Mohammed Khoder, Lebanon
215. Ali Ayoub, Lebanon
216. Ahmed Yassin, Lebanon
217. Mohamed Ali Ahmed, Lebanon
218. Maher Moustaha, Lebanon
219. Rasha Ali, Lebanon
220. Vida Warde, Lebanon
221. Dalal Ali Aweiss, Lebanon
222. Tariq Awdeh, Lebanon
223. Mohammed Antar, Lebanon
224. Mahmoud Hashem, Lebanon
225. Hussein Hassan Hamdan, Lebanon
226. Deeb Shalabi Issrawi, Lebanon
227. Aref Al Ezzeh, occupied Palestine
228. Talal Abu-Shawish, Lebanon
229. Nabil Diab, Lebanon
230. Alaa Mahmoud, Lebanon
231. Majed Abu Shawish, Lebanon
232. Fares Al-Saad, Lebanon
233. Arif Daher, Lebanon
234. Jamal Al Jamal, Lebanon
235. Basil El Saiqaly, Lebanon
236. Razan Abed Rabbo, Lebanon
237. Hadi Amar, Lebanon
238. Anwar Shabrawi, Lebanon
239. Rana Bishara, Lebanon
240. Nidal al-Khatib, Lebanon
241. Buthaina Saleh, Lebanon
242. Hanan Daher, Lebanon
243. Imad Salameh, Lebanon
244. Fatima Sleiman, Lebanon
245. Jamal Abu el-Saud, Lebanon
246. Abu Mohamed Farid, Lebanon
247. Anwar Abu Takeh, Lebanon
248. Mujib al-Khafsh, Lebanon
249. Bassam Abu Shawish, Lebanon
250. Moataz al-Ezzeh, Dheisheh refugee camp, Bethlehem
251. Mahmoud Abu Zinada, Lebanon
252. Joujo Ali, Lebanon
253. Ernesto Guevara, Lebanon
254. Thaer al-Khatib, Lebanon
255. Omar Abdel-Karim, Lebanon
256. Suhail Abu al-Majd, Lebanon
257. Fatima Matar, slimmed 326
258. Hassan Kanaan, Balata refugee camp
259. Mohammad al-Mahameed, Umm al-Fahm, Palestine
260. Yasser Abu Ahmed, Lebanon
261. Hassouna Taneina, Lebanon
262. Khaled Taha, Lebanon
263. Samir Adib, Ramallah, Palestine
264. Qadri Abu Wassel, Nazareth, Palestine
265. Khairy Hannoun, Tulkarem, Palestine
266. Dhaher Al-Shemali, Ramallah, Palestine
267. Suheil Natour Tarazi, Gaza
268. Beilset National Foundation for publishing and media, Gaza
269. Tariq Al-Moqayed, Gaza
270. Faris Ahmed, Lebanon
271. Ayman al-Qassem, Lebanon
272. Khaled al-Ali, Lebanon
273. Mona Soufan, Lebanon
274. Mayor Abu Samed Alrowaa, Gaza
275. Samer Al-Ghoul, Gaza
276. Nasser Hamad, Gaza
277. Mehdi Essam Hammad, Gaza
278. Ahmed Abu Qamar, Gaza
279. Samer Tarazi, Gaza
280. Dr. Tarek Ghanem, Tulkarem
281. Alaa Taha, Tulkarem
282. Walid al-Jondeb, Tulkarem
283. Bisan al-Jondeb, Tulkarem
284. Rowaa Bushnaq, Kafr Manda
285. Ahmed Ahmed, Nablus
286. Dr. Bassam Raja, Syria
287. Dima Eskandarani, Syria
288. Omar Hamarsheh, Syria
289. Ibrahim Mouemneh, Syria
290. Wassif Abdul Hadi, Syria
291. Omar Jumaa, Syria
292. Essam Shehadeh, Syria
293. Manal Ghobbash, Syria
294. Fadhil Abdullah, Syria
295. Musa Qasim, Syria
296. Mohammed Abdel-Ghani, Syria
297. Khaled Bdeir, Syria
298. Ibrahim Abou al-Layl, Syria
299. Mahmoud Khalili, Syria
300. Yousef Moqbel, Syria
301. Qusay Qudsiyeh, Syria
302. Abdul Ghani Ghareib, Syria
303. Zakaria Sharif, Syria
304. Jamal Nassar, Syria
305. Yassin Maragheh, Syria
306. Walid Dugheim, Syria
307. Fadi Shahin, Syria
308. Mohammed Abu Saada, Syria
309. Asmagheil Shehadeh, Syria
310. Amro al-Khatib, Syria
311. Adnan Abu Seriyya, Syria
312. Hassan Hijazi, Syria
313. Hussam al-Khatib, Syria
314. Abdul Muti Bouzid, Syria
315. Abdel-Fattah Idris, Syria
316. Tahseen Halabi, Syria
317. Yousef al-Sheheb, Syria
318. Moataz Shata, Syria
319. Bassam Abdullah, Syria
320. Ali Jarwan, Syria
321. Ghalib Ragheb, Syria
322. Omar Ajouri, Syria
323. Ibrahim Nazzal, Syria
324. Nayef Hayatleh, Sweden
325. Palestine Beitna Society, Sweden
326. Zakaria al-Helou, Jerusalem
327. Mohammed al-Helou, Jerusalem
328. Abu Hadi Silwani, Jerusalem
329. Hamdi Hamdi, Nablus
330. Zain Aasi, Ramallah
331. Mohammed Mufarjeh, Ramallah
332. Ayad al-Araj Jenin
333. Fadi Abu Kishk, al-Lid
334. Yousef Khatib, Arraba Buttouf
335. Ahmed Subh, Tamra
336. Tayseer Ramadan Abu Irshaid, Oman
337. Hussein Mutawaa, Amman, Jordan
338. Mohammed Khalil Ashour, Gaza
339. Mohammed Miari, Kafr Yasif
340. Yazn Asi, Ramallah
341. Ali Aasi, Ramallah
342. Abdul Aziz al-Salhi, Ramallah
343. Rasha Bani Odeh, Ramallah
344. Heba Ayyad, Jerusalem
345. Esmat Mansour, Ramallah
346. Mira Hammad, Ramallah
347. Bahaa Asi, Ramallah
348. Farah Badarneh, Ramallah
349. Abdul Rahman Jamhour, Ramallah
350. Saji Mafarjeh, Ramallah
351. Mohammed Badr, Ramallah
352. Jihan Arar, Ramallah
353. Karim Abid, al-Bireh
354. Farah Sarua, Ramallah
355. Uday Asi, Ramallah
356. Sonia Jabr, Ramallah
357. Bahaa Asi, Ramallah
358. Arif Amarna, Jenin
359. Ahmed Rayyan, Ramallah
360. Mohammed Mofarjeh, Ramallah
361. Amir Shibley, Ramallah
362. Alaa Mofarjeh, Ramallah
363. Mohamed Ledadoh, Ramallah
364. Mahmoud Aasi, Jordan
365. Leila Jamil, Ramallah
366. Mohamed Mansour, al-Bireh
367. Abdullah Jibril, Turkey
368. Mahmoud Asi, Ramallah
369. Hammad Asi, Ramallah
370. Abdul Karim Asi, Ramallah
371. Ibrahim Al Ghafari, Ramallah
372. O. Ziad Musa, Ramallah
373. Khalid Sheikh, UAE
374. Mohammed Asi, Ramallah
375. Rafik al-Asi, Ramallah
376. Amani Badr, Jerusalem
377. Sindi Badr, Jerusalem
378. Mohammed Badr, Ramallah
379. Ali Badr, Ramallah
380. Ahmed Sorour, Ramallah
381. Ali Annad, Tulkarem
382. Ismail Mofarjeh, Ramallah
383. Jana Jaradat, al-Khalil (Hebron)
384. Ismail Nassar, al-Khalil (Hebron)
385. Ghalya al-Suweti, Ramallah
386. Mohammed Asi, Ramallah
387. Dr. Nabil Talib, Ramallah
388. Handal Mofarjeh, Ramallah
389. Nidal Asi, Ramallah
390. Majed Asi, Ramallah
391. Biraa Badr, Ramallah
392. Qusay Abu Atwan, al-Khalil (Hebron)
393. Sharouq Badwan, Jerusalem
394. Naama Badr, Jerusalem
395. Mamoun Asi, Ramallah
396. Moataz Badwan, Ramallah
397. Ahmed Barnesi, Tulkarem
398. Mahmoud Mofarjeh, Ramallah
399. Safa Abboushi, Ramallah
400. Mohammed Mofarjeh, Ramallah
401. Hamada Asi, Ramallah
402. Mohammed Jummah, Qalqilya
403. Sajid Asi, Ramallah
404. Mohammed Badr, Ramallah
405. Ziad Zahra, Syria
406. Wael Jadallah, Syria
407. George Haddad, Syria
408. Tariq Haddad, Syria
409. Moataz al-Afghani, Syria
410. Rezan al-Malh, Ramallah
411. Zeina Ayyad, Jerusalem
412. Marwa Obaid, Jerusalem
413. Baha Beitillu, Ramallah
414. Osama Badr, Ramallah
415. Amin Asi, Beitunia
416. Lara Awda, Ramallah
417. Jamal Hassan, Ramallah
418. Bilal Asi, Ramallah
419. Imad Asi, Ramallah
420. Alice Abed, Jerusalem
421. Bilal Hamed, Birzeit
422. Ghassan Siyam, Ramallah
423. Yunus Mussa, Ramallah
424. Jamil Musa, Ramallah
425. Sharif El-Assaad, Tulkarem
426. Mahmoud Rayyan, Ramallah
427. Musa Badr, Ramallah
428. Maher Asi, Beitunia
429. Nizar Badr, Ramallah
430. Seraj Asi, Ramallah
431. Ibrahim Arouri, Ramallah
432. Areej Barghouti, Ramallah
433. Mouin Assi, Ramallah
434. Saji Mofarjeh, Ramallah
435. Hamza Musa, Ramallah
436. Dr. Hani Musa, Ramallah
437. Marcel Assi, Ramallah
438. Basil Asfour, Ramallah
439. Moatasem Badr, Ramallah
440. Omar Mofarjeh, Ramallah
441. Dima Barghouti, Ramallah
442. Jihad Abu Safiya, Ramallah
443. Omar Asi, Ramallah
444. Ezzedine al Asi, Beitunia
445. Badr Badr, Ramallah
446. Luna Seif, Ramallah
447. Mohammed al-Haj, Jerusalem
448. Dr. Umm Kulthum Assi, Ramallah
449. Hayman Asi, Ramallah
450. Ihsan Mofarjeh, Ramallah
451. Ayat Mofarjeh, Ramallah
452. Samar Salah al-Din, Ramallah
453. Ashraf Siyam, Ramallah
454. Mohammed Arisha, Syria
455. Yousef Asi, Ramallah
456. Isa Asi, Ramallah
457. Dr. Asem Khalil, Jerusalem
458. Meyser Asi, Ramallah
459. Dr. Rashad Tawam, Jerusalem
460. Reza Jarrar, Beitunia
461. Islam Mofarjeh, Ramallah
462. Qusay Asi, Ramallah
463. Murad Badr, Ramallah
464. Rehwan Abu Asi, al-Bireh
465. Sabreen Asi, Ramallah
466. Ahmed Maswadiyeh, Jerusalem
467. Sarah Khoamilah, Jerusalem
468. Majid Asi, Ramallah
469. Majid Samhan, Ramallah
470. Amir Khoury, Nazareth
471. Hanna Khoury, Jerusalem
472. Amin Badr, Jerusalem
473. Maher Assi, Ramallah
474. Juma Asi, Ramallah
475. Hussein Asi, Ramallah
476. Rabah Asi, Ramallah
477. Anwar al-Asi, Ramallah
478. Najeh Asi, Ramallah
479. Naaman Assi, Ramallah
480. Ribhi Asi, Ramallah
481. Ayed Assi, Ramallah
482. Harb Assi, Ramallah
483. Muaayad Assi, Ramallah
484. Nur Bekri, Jerusalem
485. Yasmin Afanah, Ramallah
486. Yara Afanah, Ramallah
487. Wafa Arouri, Ramallah
488. Hammam Badr, Ramallah
489. Dr. Samir Awad, Jerusalem
490. Dr. Fayez Bukeirat Jerusalem
491. Dr. Mahmoud Dudain, Jerusalem
492. Rifaat Assi, Ramallah
493. Mahmoud Abu al-Sawi, Jerusalem
494. Renad Abdullah, Beitunia
495. Raynad Abdullah, Jerusalem
496. Nili Hamid, Jerusalem
497. Raad Daana, Jerusalem
498. Saleh Daghlowa, Ramallah
499. A. Baher al-Saqqa, Gaza
500. A. Jawad Asaad, Ramallah
501. Qusay Jabr, Ramallah
502. Tawfiq Abu Arqoub, Birzeit
503. Munther Bader, Ramallah
504. Mohammed Nashashibi, Jerusalem
505. Ehab Mousa, Ramallah
506. Nahed Asi, Ramallah
507. Muhannad Asi, Ramallah
508. Muhannad Khafsh, Nablus
509. Mohammed Khafsh, Nablus
510. Jad Khafsh, Nablus
511. Mujahid Khafsh, Nablus
512. Kinan Asi, Ramallah
513. Merjan Asi, Ramallah
514. Razan Asi, Ramallah
515. Taqi Assi, Ramallah
516. Bakr al Assi, Ramallah
517. Haneen Musa, Ramallah
518. Amir Assi, Jerusalem
519. Waad Badr, Ramallah
520. Sufian Barakat, Tulkarem
521. Mohammed Salameh, Tulkarem
522. Abdul Rahman Abu Halawa, Ramallah
523. Amir Suleiman, Ramallah
524. Abu-Jamal Wahba, Lebanon
525. Hassan Zeidan, Lebanon
526. Fatah al-Intifada Movement in Lebanon
527. Mahmoud Saleh, Lebanon
528. Abu Hani Rameed, Lebanon
529. Abu Yaser Diab, Lebanon
530. Ahmed Hazeenah, Lebanon
531. Yousef Hamdan, Lebanon
532. Beirut Hammoud, Lebanon
533. Mohammed Abdel-Fattah, Kowkab Aboul Hija
534. Hossam Andrea, Germany
535. Najib Abbas, Kafr Kanna
536. Palestinian National Centre, Sweden
537. Salah Hammad, Ramallah
538. Mohammed Abu Qesh, Abu Qesh
539. Khadr Asi, Ramallah
540. Mustafa Assi, Ramallah
541. Miraeb Badr, Ramallah
542. Usri Mofarjeh, Ramallah
543. Aisha Abu Qaraa, Ramallah
544. Maryam Jabr, Ramallah
545. Roula Moussa, Ramallah
546. Areej Abu Hamoud, Ramallah
547. Ahmad Ayyash, Ramallah
548. Mohammed Mahasneh, Tubas
549. Rawia Habibi Ghunaderi, Nazareth
550. Saleen Haddad, Syria
551. Saleh Shatila, Lebanon
552. Mohammed Bakri, Lebanon
553. Ghassan Atamleh, al-Reineh
554. Abdul Rahman Jassim, Lebanon
555. Tahani Nassar, Lebanon
556. Amal al-Haj, Nazareth
557. Afrah Daoudi Dajani, Canada
558. Ali Rafi, Haifa
559. Tanseem Fouad al-Janazera, al-Khalil (Hebron)
560. Maysa Ahmed Saleh, al-Khalil (Hebron)
561. Qamar Akram Ghazal
562. Monia Nihad Fatafta, al-Khalil (Hebron)
563. Hiba Rajah Amro, al-Khalil (Hebron)
564. Hidayat Abdeen Halahelah, al-Khalil (Hebron)
565. Fatenah al-Muhtasib, al-Khalil (Hebron)
566. Reham Al-Sharif, al-Khalil (Hebron)
567. Baraa Shaheen, al-Khalil (Hebron)
568. Razan Abed, al-Khalil (Hebron)
569. Leyana Muhtasib al-Khalil (Hebron)
570. Eva Jamil Altora, al-Khalil (Hebron)
571. Shirin al-Atrash, al-Khalil (Hebron)
572. Aya Dudain, al-Khalil (Hebron)
573. Samah Ali Battat, al-Khalil (Hebron)
574. Wajdan al-Adam, al-Khalil (Hebron)
575. Mees Ghassan Idris
576. Rula Awawdeh, al-Khalil (Hebron)
577. Sumatiya al-Sikh, al-Khalil (Hebron)
578. Batoul Namoura, al-Khalil (Hebron)
579. Hana Ezzat Mukharzah, al-Khalil (Hebron)
580. Dina Fahd Adeis, al-Khalil (Hebron)
581. Samah Hannaihin, al-Khalil (Hebron)
582. Marwa Marwan Bakri, al-Khalil (Hebron)
583. Linda Maher al-Shweiki, al-Khalil (Hebron)
584. Shahd Hatem al-Tamimi, al-Khalil (Hebron)
585. Israa Mohammed Tuweihat, al-Khalil (Hebron)
586. Amjad Saleh Abu Kirsh, al-Khalil (Hebron)
587. Tamer Abdullah Junaidi, al-Khalil (Hebron)
588. Asma Jamal al-Masri, al-Khalil (Hebron)
589. Baissan Nader Al-Tameezi, al-Khalil (Hebron)
590. Sarah Shaker Al-Natshe, al-Khalil (Hebron)
591. Hadeel Samir Adeis, al-Khalil (Hebron)
592. Dima Nayef Amro, al-Khalil (Hebron)
593. Amani Omar Mukharzah, al-Khalil (Hebron)
594. Fatima Yusuf Munasera, al-Khalil (Hebron)
595. Zia Tarawah, al-Khalil (Hebron)
596. Rasha Ghuraib, al-Khalil (Hebron)
597. Ala Hani Batta, al-Khalil (Hebron)
598. Esra Adeis, al-Khalil (Hebron)
599. Duaa Badr, al-Khalil (Hebron)
600. Inaam Dweik, al-Khalil (Hebron)
601. Khudra Warasna, al-Khalil (Hebron)
602. Mahmoud Atawna, al-Khalil (Hebron)
603. Inas al-Sweiti, al-Khalil (Hebron)
604. Abdul Qadir Al-Sweiti, al-Khalil (Hebron)
605. Nadim Hashish, al-Khalil (Hebron)
606. Mohammed Janazerah, al-Khalil (Hebron)
607. Farid al-Raei, al-Khalil (Hebron)
608. Nusseibeh Al-Sweiti, al-Khalil (Hebron)
609. Tamam Saadi, al-Khalil (Hebron)
610. Fayez Amro, al-Khalil (Hebron)
611. Hamed al-Haddad, al-Khalil (Hebron)
612. Ala Khalayleh, al-Khalil (Hebron)
613. Tamim Mohammed al-Wahesh, al-Khalil (Hebron)
614. Shahd Quneibi, al-Khalil (Hebron)
615. Asma Arafa, al-Khalil (Hebron)
616. Khalil Atwan, al-Khalil (Hebron)
617. Muhannad Awdah, al-Khalil (Hebron)
618. Ibtisam Srahna, al-Khalil (Hebron)
619. Abdullah Asafrah, al-Khalil (Hebron)
620. Salsabil Zmaarah, al-Khalil (Hebron)
621. Fatima Aamalah, al-Khalil (Hebron)
622. Majdoleen Karajeh, al-Khalil (Hebron)
623. Aisha Hawwawi, al-Khalil (Hebron)
624. Safa Abu Rayan, al-Khalil (Hebron)
625. Meesr Zuhair Natshe, al-Khalil (Hebron)
626. Raneem Ziad Hatatba, al-Khalil (Hebron)
627. Wilaa Talahma, al-Khalil (Hebron)
628. Fadi Lahassouni, al-Khalil (Hebron)
629. Rula Hassan, al-Khalil (Hebron)
630. Jinan Mohammed Odeh, al-Khalil (Hebron)
631. Aya Mahmoud, al-Khalil (Hebron)
632. Fadi Ahmad, al-Khalil (Hebron)
633. Zahi Terman, al-Khalil (Hebron)
634. Sondas Al-Jabri, al-Khalil (Hebron)
635. Aya Farid, al-Khalil (Hebron)
636. Deena al-Oweiwi, al-Khalil (Hebron)
637. Reem Amro, al-Khalil (Hebron)
638. Areen Karki, al-Khalil (Hebron)
639. Musa Qafeeshi, al-Khalil (Hebron)
640. Abbas Hamideh, United State
641. Thaer Abu Hilal, Abu Dis, Jerusalem
642. Mohammed Salah, Abu Dis, Jerusalem
643. Atta Jaffal, Abu Dis, Jerusalem
644. Makhlis Basl, Haifa
645. Mohammed Abu Laban, Ramallah
646. Hani al-Husri, Ramallah
647. Bishop Abdullah Yulio, Ramallah
648. Wasfi Abdul Ghani, Haifa
649. Issam Makhoul, Haifa
650. Nahi Nasser Hanna, Haifa
651. Rudi Abu Saada
652. Hana Al-Essa, Ramallah
653. Leila Jamal, Ramallah
654. Abla Kamal, Jerusalem
655. Isa Salamat, Jaffna, Ramallah
656. Ihsan Rimawi, Beit Rima, Ramallah
657. Ghassan Abbas Rimawi, Beit Rima, Ramallah
658. Akram al-Maliki, Ramallah
659. Ayad al-Maliki, Ramallah
660. Zia Ghazal, Gaza
661. Yousef Shuhaiber, Gaza
662. Hani Shuhaiber, Gaza
663. Dr. Fayez Rashid, Jordan
664. Leila Khaled, Jordan
665. Mohammed Walid Mohammed Ismail, Ein Arik camp, Ramallah
666. Iyad Masrouji, Ramallah
667. Palestinian Community in Norway
668. Safwan Tirbana, Kafr Yasif
669. Maaouya Hajj, Kafr Yasif
670. Salam Marqis, Kafr Yasif
671. Khalid Sharif, Kafr Yasif
672. Nasrat Samara, Kafr Yasif
673. Boulos Rouhana, Isfiya
674. Shadi Choueiry, Kafr Yasif
675. Yousef Khatib, Kafr Yasif
676. Mufeed Saad, Kafr Yasif
677. Jamila Saad, Kafr Yasif
678. Mufeed Basl, Kafr Yasif
679. Abla Amuri, Kafr Yasif
680. Majdi Abdel Hadi Issa, Nablus
681. Fathi Mohammed Tunbour, Nablus
682. Musab Mahmoud Yousef, Jenin
683. Suleiman Fayez Juma, Nablus
684. Wadi Watfa, London
685. Mary Watfa, London
686. Mahasin Adel Dandis, al-Khalil (Hebron)
687. Azhar Seyyaj, al-Khalil (Hebron)
688. Rashad Abdul Rasul, Dura
689. Bushra Fouad al-Janzerah, Halhul
690. Mohammed Abu Asabeh, Halhul
691. Samah Abu Asabeh, Halhul
692. Sarah Abu Asabeh, Halhul
693. Issa Ahmed Zaki Bahr, al-Khalil (Hebron)
694. Hadeel al-Wawi, Halhul
695. Maryam al-Wawi, Halhul
696. Mahmoud Talbishi, al-Khalil (Hebron)
697. Nadeem Manasrah, al-Khalil (Hebron)
698. Nadeen Mahmoud Sarahneh, Halhul
699. Manar al-Banna, Amman, Jordan
700. Dr. Mohammed K. Hamid, United States
701. Jafar M. Ramini, United Kingdom
702. Khowla Ibrahim, Canada
703. Dr. Nazih Khattaba, Canada
704. Angele Semaan, United Kingdom
705. Victor Najjar, United Kingdom
706. Ghassan Najjar, United Kingdom
707. Souha Najjar, United Kingdom
708. Rehab Naseef, United Kingdom
709. Issa Najjar, United Kingdom
710. Suha Ghassan Najjar, United Kingdom
711. Lydia Perio Najjar, United Kingdom
712. Al-Awda, The Palestine Right To Return Coalition, United States
713. Ribhi Rabah, Canada
714. Morteda Abbas, Syria
715. Firas Yaghi, Ramallah
716. Adibanos Khoury-Machool, Jaffa
717. Taghreed Shehadeh, occupied Palestine
718. Azmi Nabali, Ramallah
719. Palestinian popular trend, Ramallah
720. Popular Action Committees, Ramallah
721. Elias Mouin Najjar, Australia
722. Joseph Mouin Najjar, Australia
723. Grace Mouin Najjar, Australia
724. Mousa al-Amelah, Syria
725. Hanna Mouin Najjar, Australia
726. Joseph Nakhla Najjar, Spain
727. Elias Nakhla Najjar, Germany
728. Fahed Awad, Syria
729. Victoria Nakhla Najjar, Canada
730. Anton Nakhla Najjar, Canada
731. Kateba Nakhla Najjar, Syria
732. Sonia Kamel Assaf, Syria
733. Fayez Kamel Assaf, Lebanon
734. Alice Kamel Assaf, Syria
735. Nimr Kamel Assaf, Syria
736. Nabil Elie Semaan, Lebanon
737. Nabila Elie Semaan, Britain
738. Khaled Elie Semaan, Lebanon
739. Suha Elie Semaan, Lebanon
740. Khaled Hassan Semaan, Lebanon
741. Essam Suleiman, Syria
742. Suha Hassan Semaan, Lebanon
743. Noha Hassan Semaan, Lebanon
744. Walid Hassan Semaan, Lebanon
745. Mowni Butrus Sweileh, Dubai
746. Johnny Butrus Sweileh, Seychelles
747. Leonie Butrus Sweileh, Lebanon
748. Mohsen Selim Gideon, Canada
749. Muhasen Selim Gideon, Canada
750. Wisam Selim Gideon, Canada
751. Hassan Esper Semaan, Lebanon
752. Boulos Anis Haddad, Abu Dhabi
753. Samir Anis Haddad, Abu Dhabi
754. Pauline Anis Haddad, Abu Dhabi
755. Selim Fouad Esper, Lebanon
756. Suhaila Esper Semaan, Lebanon
757. Helen Esper Semaan, Lebanon
758. Salwa Esper Semaan, Abu Dhabi
759. Sameera Elie Semaan, Abu Dhabi
760. Shirin Anis Haddad, Abu Dhabi
761. Nadim Assi, Saudi Arabia
762. Yasmin Khamis, Bethlehem
763. Dima Adawi, Nazareth
764. Mohammed Semrain, Jordan
765. Zeidan Semrain, Jordan
766. Gharam Assi, Ramallah
767. Hanan Moussa, Ramallah
768. Haneen Moussa, Ramallah
769. Mervat Assi, Ramallah
770. Nevin Assi, Ramallah
771. Uday Assi, Ramallah
772. Bassam Bader, United States
773. Hisham Bader, Germany
774. Suhail Assi, Russia
775. Elqassam Assi, Russia
776. Wajdi Mousa, Ramallah
777. Aseel Bader, Ramallah
778. Abdel Hameed Bader, Ramallah
779. Jihan Mufarjeh, Ramallah
780. Manar Mufarjeh, Ramallah
781. Anwar Mufarjeh, Ramallah
782. Zuhoor Deifallah, Ramallah
783. Ibrahim Mufarjeh, Ramallah
784. Nawal Moussa, Ramallah
785. Tahrir Assi, Umm al-Sharayet
786. Tuleen Assi, Umm al-Sharayet
787. Ansar Bader, Ramallah
788. Qadees Bader, Ramallah
789. Bilal Bader, Ramallah
790. Abdulqader Bader, Ramallah
791. Moatasem Assi, Sweden
792. Anas Assi, France
793. Maihoub Assi, Ramallah
794. Hadi Assi, Ramallah
795. Mumen Assi, Ramallah
796. Zahi Assi, Ramallah
797. Ezzeddine Assi, Ramallah
798. Tareq Bader, Jerusalem
799. Hamza Badr, Ramallah
800. Dr. Ammar Shibli, Ramallah
801. Faqih Assi, Venezuela
802. Luqman Assi, Venezuela
803. Samah Nasreddine, Jerusalem
804. Abdul Rahman Faraj, Jerusalem
804. Aliya Hameed, Jerusalem
806. Christina Boutran, Ramallah
807. Sala Shehadeh, Ramallah
808. Essam Assi, Ramallah
809. Uday Aboud, Ramallah
810. Karam Bader, Ramallah
811. Narjis Assi, Jerusalem
812. Amjad Assi, Ramallah
813. Yusri Assi, Ramallah
814. Naqqa al-Dadwah, Ramallah
815. Sharouq Assi, Ramallah
816. Imad Assi, Ramallah
817. Sijjud Bader, Ramallah
818. Sanabel Badr, Ramallah
819. Haneen Assi, Ramallah
820. Afaf Assi, Ramallah
821. Afnan Assi, Ramallah
822. Abada Mousa, Ramallah
823. Jameel Shibley
824. Sajid Assi, Ramallah
825. Munadel Assi, Ramallah
826. Rahma Assi, Ramallah
827. Imran Derraj, Ramallah
828. Fatima Mufarjeh, Ramallah
829. Samah Jalal, Ramallah
830. Salabil Assi, Ramallah
831. Salabil Rayan, Ramallah
832. Mervat Mufarjeh, Ramallah
833. Azhar Mufarjeh, Ramallah
834. Yasmeen Mousa, Ramallah
835. Asma Assi, Ramallah
836. Areen Mufarjeh, Ramallah
837. Fuad Moussa, Ramallah
838. Ala Assi, Ramallah
839. Salim Assi, America
840. Alkhansa Assi, Ramallah
841. Asma Obeid, Ramallah
842. Islam Badr, Ramallah
843. Rana Mufarjeh, Ramallah
844. Munther Shibley, Ramallah
845. Munther Mousa, Ramallah
846. Iman Mousa, Ramallah
847. Doaa Badr, Ramallah
848. Mahmoud Hamed, Jerusalem
849. Issa Ahmed, Ramallah
850. Lulea Assi, Ramallah
851. Neesan Assi, Ramallah
852. Neesan Mufarjeh, Ramallah
853. Mohammed al-Hajj, Ramallah
854. Suha Assi, Ramallah
855. Manar Bader, Ramallah
856. Maram Assi, Ramallah
857. Dima Assi, Ramallah
858. Sundos Badr, Ramallah
859. Wafa Assi, Ramallah
860. Saleh Mufarjeh, Ramallah
861. Haneen Assi, Ramallah
862. Ali Bader, Ramallah
863. Hala Seif, Ramallah
864. Mamoun Absi, Ramallah
865. Amir Suleiman, Ramallah
866. Baraa Abu Musa, Ramallah
867. Rahma Njas, Ramallah
868. Ali Dar Ali, Ramallah
869. Sijjud Dar Ali, Ramallah
870. Ola Rimawi, Jerusalem
871. Ala Barhoum, Ramallah
872. Shurouq Hantash, Ramallah
873. Raghad Shaheen, Ramallah
874. Watan Mousa, Ramallah
875. Esra Mousa, Ramallah
876. Razan al-Malh, Ramallah
877. Bissan al-Malh, Ramallah
878. Nasser al-Malh, Ramallah
879. Mohammed Shuraitah, Ramallah
880. May Shuraitah, Ramallah
881. May Batatah, Ramallah
882. Fatima Schumann, Ramallah
883. Rihan Arar, Ramallah
884. Mohammed Rashid, Ramallah
885. Nasreen Saleh, Ramallah
886. Wafa Saleh, Ramallah
887. Mohammed Awad, Ramallah
888. Mohammed Dufesh, Ramallah
889. Haneen Shuraitah, Ramallah
890. Layala Hamouda, Jerusalem
891. Montasser Nahiz, Ramallah
892. Saad Hob al-Rih, Ramallah
893. Hiyam Saleh, Ramallah
894. Anis Hanoun, Ramallah
895. Musaab Hanoun, Ramallah
896. Nermeen Rudaidah, Jerusalem
897. George Abdullah, Jenin
898. Tijan Atwan al-Khalil (Hebron)
899. Wajnan Shamasneh, Ramallah
900. Khalid Sheikh, Ramallah
901. Khaled Qutaishat, Tubas
902. Abdul Rahman Atiq, Ramallah
903. Rashid Shaheen, Bethlehem
904. Walid Mohammed Ismail, Ein Arik camp
905. Ahmed Hassan Khitab
906. Mahmoud Said Sawafiri
907. Tayseer al-Aslina
908. Uday Walid Ismail
909. Saddam Walid Ismail
910. Thaer Ghazi Shukri
911. Haitham Ghazi Shukri
912. Bassam Farid Tabbalah, Ein Arik
913. Ala Ayyash, Jalazoun cmp
914. Nael Masaad, Aboud
915. Raed Massad, Aboud
916. Louay Zakhri Muneed, Ein Arik
917. Thaer Hijazi, Qarawat Bani Zeid
918. Jumaa Hijazi, Qarawat Bani Zeid
919. Louay Arar, Qarawat Bani Zeid
920. Baseel Teem, Qarawat Bani Zeid
921. Mohammed Hanoun, Balata refugee camp
922. Ibrahim Abu Leil, Balata refugee camp
923. Mohammed Hashash, Balata refugee camp
924. Saleh Hashash, Balata refugee camp
925. Nael Halabi, Jerusalem
926. Wadie Farraj, Jerusalem
927. Diana Farraj, Jerusalem
928. Lina Khattab, Beitain
929. Firas Karajeh, Safa
930. Anas Akef Waheed, Tulkarem
931. Rama Ahmad Ayyash Baraka, Tulkarem
932. Mujahid Fadel Samara, N.
933. Zahran Akef Waheed Hamdallah, Tulkarem
934. Akef Waheed Hamdallah, Tulkarem
935. Muhannad Jamal al-Hassan, Tulkarem
936. Mohammed Suhail Abu Shanab, Tulkarem
937. Leilas Akef Hamdallah, Tulkarem
938. Watheq Abdel Fattah Shaib, Nablus
939. Naji Abdel Fattah Shaib, Nablus
940. Zakaria Abdel Fattah Shaib, Nablus
941. Mona Nihad Sebobah, Tulkarem
942. Seif Rifaat Qassis, Nablus
943. Muwaad Ahmed Daamah
944. Khalid Abdul Rahim Katana, Nablus
945. Aalan Mohammed Daraghmeh, Nablus
946. Reem Najjar, Ramallah
947. Majdal al-Jandab, Tulkarem
948. Wajdi Barakat, Tulkarem
949. Mohammed Awad, Tulkarem
950. Abdul Latif al-Sheikh, Tulkarem
951. Iyad Badran, Tulkarem
952. Qasim Bedeer, Tulkarem
953. Rasha Herzallah, Ramallah
954. Nader Hasan, Tulkarem
955. Sobhi Badran, Tulkarem
956. Ibrahim Tabbal, Tulkarem
957. Tareq Ghanem, Tulkarem
958. Baraa Shahrour, Tulkarem
959. Mahmoud Abu Ali, Tulkarem
960. Nabil Abu Khalil, Tulkarem
961. Mumen Awad, Tulkarem
962. Laith Massoud, Tulkarem
963. Haitham Tatour, occupied Palestine
964. Mohammed Khatib, occupied Palestine
965. Mahmoud Barghouti, Ramallah
966. Abed Yasin, occupied Palestine
967. Yara Aghbarieh, Umm al-Fahm
968. Khuloud al-Zinati, occupied Palestine
969. Muaddel Mahmoud, occupied Palestine
970. Mohammed Awawdeh, occupied Palestine
971. Rana Jarban, occupied Palestine
972. Rim Taha, occupied Palestine
973. Nazmi Taha, occupied Palestine
974. Maysan Sobh, Tamra
Lessons from Libya’s Destruction
Tortilla Con Sal | July 9, 2015
Later this month the outcome is expected of the completely unjust and incompetent show trials held in Libya over the last year or so of around 200 former officials of the Libyan Jamahiriya. If that outcome is reported at all in North American and European media, its real meaning will be completely hidden in self-serving apologetics for NATO’s destruction of Libya in 2011.
The same psy-warfare framework that justified NATO’s campaign of terrorist aggression will falsely present the show trials’ outcome as rough justice dealt out to individuals who deserve no better.
That outcome should put on high alert anyone defending the countries of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas against very similar psychological warfare and terrorist subversion supported by NATO governments of the US and its allies. Not for nothing did Hugo Chávez and Daniel Ortega speak out in defense of Muammar al Gaddhafi and Libya against NATO’s terrorist war. They had already learned long ago the very same lessons to have emerged more recently from the utterly depressing human, moral and political catastrophe of Libya’s destruction.
In 2013, a study by a distinguished Harvard University academic acknowledged that the failure in Libya of the US government’s ostensible avowed policy in Libya and in North and West Africa was based on serial falsehoods. That fact-based, acerbic policy criticism from a source generally supportive of US government foreign policy should give much pause for thought. Along with support for Libya from outstanding revolutionary leaders like Ortega, Chavez and Nelson Mandela it amounts to a categorical indictment of received Western opinion about Libya which, across virtually the entire Western political spectrum, sided either openly or indirectly with NATO’s 2011 war.
No one genuinely concerned to defend progress towards an equitable, peaceful multi-polar world based on mutual respect between sovereign, autonomous nations and peoples should underestimate or forget the horror of what NATO did to Libya. Tens of thousands were killed and wounded in attacks by the bombers and helicopters of many NATO countries. Millions were displaced or forced into exile. Cities like Sirte and Bani Walid were devastated. Schools, universities, hospitals, factories producing food products and other essential civilian infrastructure were targeted and severely damaged or destroyed.
The destruction of Libya marked the categorical abandonment of whatever vestigial moral authority may still have remained to the European Union and its member governments.
It demonstrated in the most humiliating way the impotence and irrelevance of the African Union.
It put hard questions about the anti-imperialism of the Iranian and Syrian governments as well as highlighting the race supremacism of the governments of the Arab League and the already damaged integrity of the Palestinian authorities.
Almost all of them quickly recognized the overtly racist renegade Libyan CNT junta. For their part, the then governments of Russia and China weakly accepted NATO country assurances about the defensive nature of the air exclusion zone.
The only governments to emerge with any real credit from the destruction of Libya were the governments of the ALBA countries and a few African governments like Zimbabwe.
Countries like Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador have all been victims of comprehensive disinformation campaigns of demonization and caricature, although perhaps not so extreme as the final campaign against Libya’s Jamahiriya and Muammar al Gaddhafi.
It is worth considering the basic component of that disinformation war against Libya. What is sometimes called 4th generation warfare is as old as warfare itself. Like Athens versus Sparta, or Rome versus Carthage the fundamental objective of NATO governments and their allies is to make their chosen target seem Other, creating a despised, outcast doppelganger anti-image of the West’s own phony self-image.
So Libya’s Jamahiriya was tagged as undemocratic by hypocritical Western governments, most of whom came to power with around just 20% to 25% of the vote of their electorates, thanks overwhelmingly to elite corporate funding. Libya’s democratic process was one that recognized its society’s contradictions and attempted continual self-renewal.
By contrast, the Western corporate oligarchies offer virtually meaningless periodic elections obfuscated by public relations and organized on a yes-or-yes basis to favor politicians groomed and bankrolled by their countries’ anti-democratic elites. Muammar al Ghaddafi was labeled a dictator even though his policy initiatives were not infrequently rejected within Libya’s system of popular congresses.
In 2009, during a policy conflict between Muammar al Gaddhafi and pro-Western so-called reformers, these could not get their way in Libya’s popular assemblies so they chose staging a violent putsch to achieve the regime change their Western government backers wanted. Venezuela’s experience has been almost identical, although, to date, the country has avoided the kind of coup d’état and subsequent NATO driven war that destroyed Libya Libya was portrayed as a systematic human rights violator.
But Libya’s response to the constant terrorist attacks and subversion it suffered from the very start of its Revolution in 1969 was no different to that of any Western government faced with a similar threat. The British government tortured and murdered alleged subversives all through the Irish war, colluding with sectarian paramilitary death squads. The same pattern of torture and extrajudicial murder also consistently marked the Spanish authorities’ campaign against Basque separatists. Guantanamo’s torture camp symbolizes the brutality and illegality of the US government’s response to terrorist threats.
Libya’s Jamahiriya probably conformed as closely to international human rights norms in relation to fighting terrorism as the three Western governments that led NATO’s war of destruction. Human rights protection in Libya was certainly superior to Western allies like Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar or the other quasi-feudal Gulf State tyrannies.
All the pretexts for the Western assault on Libya’s legitimate government were completely bogus. In any case, as Gerald Perreira points out, the fundamental objective achieved by the destruction of Libya was to shut down the decisive impetus towards African integration led by Muammar al Gaddhafi.
CNT leaders like Mustafa Abdul Jalil were Arab supremacists who fiercely resisted the Pan-African policies advocated by Muammar al Gaddhafi. Arab supremacism, phony neoliberal reformism and the treachery of repressive human rights abusers like Mahmoud Jibril made a lethal reactionary cocktail perfectly suited to ruthless NATO government manipulation. On cue, Western corporate and alternative media presented the corrupt political project of these viciously reactionary elements as a “revolution”, part of the absurdly hyped “Arab Spring”. As if NATO country governments, dedicated to the service of their countries’ corporate elites, have ever promoted genuine democracy or comprehensive human rights around the world.
From Ukraine and Greece, to Yemen and Syria, to Haiti and Honduras, what the Western powers and their allies want is access to natural resources, control of strategically important territories and decisive advantages for their trade and finance. Destroying Libya effectively removed a real threat to Western control and domination in Africa.
Currently, the NATO country elites’ political sales staff, for the moment President Obama, Prime Minister Cameron, President Hollande and Chancellor Merkel, are battering Greece into submission. But those leaders and their allies are using economic and psychological warfare to attack many other targets, not just Greece. They do so against Venezuela and other stubbornly independent countries around the world.
That is why the leaders of Argentina, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela very publicly welcomed the No vote in the Greek referendum. Unlike Libya, in their different regions Syria and Venezuela are part of regional alliances backed at long last by firm leaders in Russia and China, strong enough to face down any likely economic or military threat from the United States and its allies.
But it would be a mistake to forget Libya. Defending the people of Libya represents an important self-defense measure against Western predators in their global psychological warfare assault on the free, anti-imperialist world.
As a leading force in that free world, ALBA country governments should urgently consider challenging the governments of North America and Europe to protect the thousands of political prisoners in Libya who have been tortured and denied due process.
The ALBA country governments and their allies have infinitely more moral and political authority than Western leaders to speak out in defense of fundamental human rights. They should make outspoken use of that authority now to expose the sadism and hypocrisy of Western governments in Libya, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere.
In Libya, they may perhaps yet help to save the lives of as many as 200 former officials of the Libyan Jamahiriya at risk from quasi-judicial murder by the West’s corrupt terrorist proxies in a country they have devastated with merciless cynicism.
America’s Endless Air Wars
By Nicolas J S Davies | Consortium News | July 6, 2015
U.S. Central Command’s latest figures on its aerial bombardment of Iraq and Syria reveal that this is the heaviest U.S. bombing campaign since President George W. Bush’s “Shock and Awe” campaign against Iraq in 2003. In the campaign’s first ten months from August 2014 to May 2015, the U.S. and its allies conducted 15,245 air strikes, or an average of 51 air strikes per day.
This is only the latest campaign in a 15-year global air war, largely ignored by U.S. media, in which the United States and its allies have conducted at least 118,000 air strikes against other countries since 2000. The 47,000 air strikes conducted in the 6 ½ years since President Barack Obama took office are only a small reduction from the 70,000 in eight years of the Bush administration, and the current campaign will easily make up that deficit if it continues at this intensity until Obama leaves office.
Afghanistan has been the most heavily bombed country, with at least 61,000 air strikes since 2001. That includes 24,000 bombs and missiles in the first year of the war and a relentless bombing campaign that struck Afghanistan with another 29,000 bombs and missiles between 2007 and 2012, a slow motion version of “Shock and Awe.” That was an average of 13 air strikes per day for six full years, two years under Bush and four under Obama. The heaviest bombardment was in October 2010, with 1,043 air strikes that month, but that total is now eclipsed every month by the new campaign in Iraq and Syria.
Iraq had already suffered about 34,000 air strikes since 2000 before the latest campaign began. There were at least 800 air strikes in the “No Fly Zone” bombing campaign to destroy Iraq’s air defenses between 2000 and 2002; 29,200 air strikes in “Shock and Awe” in 2003, a campaign whose planners compared it to a nuclear attack; and another 3,900 during the U.S. occupation, peaking with 400 strikes in January 2008 as remaining centers of armed resistance were obliterated by air strikes, Spectre gunships and heavy artillery in the climax of the “Surge.”
But until the new campaign in Iraq and Syria, the seven-month NATO-Gulf Cooperation Council bombing of Libya was the heaviest bombardment since “Shock and Awe”, with 7,700 air strikes in seven months, or 36 air strikes per day. NATO and its Arab monarchist allies plunged Libya into intractable chaos and violence, exposing “regime change” as a euphemism for “regime destruction.”
NATO’s destruction of Libya spurred Russia to finally draw the line on its 20-year acquiescence to Western aggression and military expansion. Since then, the U.S. and its allies have persisted in their “regime destruction” policy in Syria and Ukraine, threatening strategically important Russian naval bases in Tartus and Sevastopol, what has evolved from an asymmetric war on a series of relatively defenseless countries into full-blown 1950s-era nuclear brinksmanship.
Drones have played a growing role in the U.S. air war, but they still account for only a fraction of total U.S. and allied air strikes, several thousand out of 118,000 air strikes in 15 years.
None of these figures include Israeli air strikes against Palestine, the current Saudi-led bombing of Yemen, or French operations in West Africa, as I haven’t found comparable figures for those campaigns, but they must add many thousand more air strikes to the real total.
Keeping the People in the Dark
In a recent article, Gareth Porter reported that the Pentagon is seriously opposed to putting more “boots on the ground” in Iraq or Syria, but that the generals and admirals are prepared to keep bombing them more or less indefinitely as the political path of least resistance for themselves and the White House. This may indeed be the “safe” course for a politically-driven administration and a Pentagon that is always thinking of its public image and its future funding.
But it depends on keeping the public in the dark about several critical aspects of this policy. First, there is little public resistance to this policy mainly because few Americans know that it’s happening, let alone understand the full scale of the bloodshed and devastation perpetrated in our names for the past 15 years.
The second thing the Pentagon doesn’t want you to think about is the deceptive role of “precision” weapons in U.S. propaganda. Considering how accurate these weapons really are in relation to the huge numbers of them raining down on country after country, it is not surprising that they have killed or wounded millions of civilians and destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes and civilian infrastructure, as we see in photographs and video of the ruins of Fallujah, Sirte or Kobani.
A direct hit with a single 500- or 1,000-pound bomb will cause death, injury and destruction up to hundreds of feet from its point of impact, so even accurate air strikes inevitably kill and maim civilians and destroy their homes. But whatever proportion of these 118,000 bombs and missiles have actually missed their targets have wreaked completely indiscriminate death, injury and destruction.
Rob Hewson, the editor of Jane’s Air Launched Weapons, estimated that 20 to 25 percent of the “precision” weapons used in “Shock and Awe” in 2003 missed their targets. Another one third of the bombs and missiles used in “Shock and Awe” were not “precision” weapons to begin with.
Even the Pentagon has not claimed a quantum leap in its “precision” weapons technology since 2003, so it is likely that at least 15 percent are still missing their targets, adding daily to a massive and mounting toll on innocent civilians.
As Hewson told the Associated Press in 2003, “In a war that’s being fought for the benefit of the Iraqi people, you can’t afford to kill any of them. But you can’t drop bombs and not kill people. There’s a real dichotomy in all of this.”
Body Count, a recent report published by Physicians for Social Responsibility, confirmed previous estimates of well over a million people killed in America’s wars since 2000. This and previous studies document the horrific results of what Hewson and other experts understand only too well, that “you can’t drop (100,000) bombs and not kill (hundreds of thousands of) people.”
Another element in the Pentagon’s shaky propaganda house of cards is its effort to obscure what bombs and missiles actually do to their victims. Americans watch the Islamic State beheading videos on TV or YouTube but we never see videos of people decapitated or children dismembered by the bombs our taxes are paying for. But our bombs behead people too.
Apologists claim that U.S. bombing is morally superior to the “terrorism” of America’s enemies, because the U.S. killing and beheading of civilians is “unintentional” rather than “deliberate.” The late Howard Zinn, a former U.S. Air Force bombardier and later a history professor, responded to this claim in a letter to the New York Times in 2007:
“These words are misleading because they assume that an action is either ‘deliberate’ or ‘’unintentional.’ There is something in between, for which the word is ‘inevitable.’ If you engage in an action, like aerial bombing, in which you cannot possibly distinguish between combatants and civilians (as a former Air Force bombardier, I will attest to that), the deaths of civilians are inevitable, even if not ‘intentional.’
“Does that difference exonerate you morally? The terrorism of the suicide bomber and the terrorism of aerial bombardment are indeed morally equivalent. To say otherwise (as either side might) is to give one moral superiority over the other, and thus serve to perpetuate the horrors of our time.”
Millions of ‘Enemies’
In fact, U.S. armed forces are waging war on millions of people for whom becoming combatants in a war would be the last thing they would ever consider if we had not brought our war to their doorsteps. The Center for Civilians in Conflict recently interviewed hundreds of local people who have participated as combatants in conflicts in Bosnia, Libya, Gaza or Somalia. It found that their motivations were almost entirely defensive, to protect themselves, their families, their communities or their countries.
When military forces attack or invade a country, many ordinary people feel compelled to take up arms to defend themselves and their homes. When the forces that put them in this unbearable predicament in the first place treat their efforts to defend themselves as a legal “green light” to target them with force and call them “terrorists,” they are driven to join better organized armed resistance movements that offer them protection in numbers and an effective way to fight back.
The essential first step to breaking the escalating spiral of violence is to force the aggressors, in this case the United States and its allies, to cease their aggression, including their state sponsorship of armed groups or “terrorists” in the affected countries. Then legitimate diplomatic initiatives can begin the difficult work of resolving the complex political and humanitarian problems caused by U.S.-led aggression and beginning to restore peace and security.
In his 1994 masterpiece, Century of War, the late Gabriel Kolko documented that war was the catalyst for all the major political revolutions of the Twentieth Century. While the working people of the world have otherwise failed to “rise up” as Marx predicted, the one thing that has reliably driven them to do so is the horror of war.
The war that the United States is waging today is proving no different. Armed resistance is spreading throughout the affected countries, spawning new ideologies and movements that defy the conceptual frameworks and limited imagination of the U.S. officials whose actions gave birth to them.
U.S. leaders of all stripes, military or civilian, Democrat or Republican, still fail to grasp what Richard Barnet concluded in 1973 as he studied the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, “at the very moment the number one nation has perfected the science of killing, it has become an impractical instrument of political domination.”
The last 15 years of war have served to confirm Barnet’s conclusion. After 118,000 air strikes, millions of casualties, trillions of dollars squandered, and country after country plunged into chaos, the U.S. has failed to gain political control over any of them.
But our complacent leaders and their self-satisfied advisers blunder on, debating who to threaten or attack next: Russia? China? Iran? Which “threat” provides the best pretext for further U.S. military expansion?
As Gabriel Kolko observed, because of “inherent, even unavoidable institutional myopia, … options and decisions that are intrinsically dangerous and irrational become not merely plausible but the only form of reasoning about war and diplomacy that is possible in official circles.”
But U.S. war-making is not just dangerous and irrational. It is also a crime. The judges at Nuremberg defined aggression, attacking or invading other countries, as the “supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” The UN Charter goes one step further and prohibits the threat as well as the use of force.
Benjamin Ferencz, the only surviving member of the prosecution team at Nuremberg, is a fierce critic of illegal U.S. war-making. In response to U.S. war crimes in Vietnam, he dedicated the rest of his life to establishing an International Criminal Court (ICC) that could prosecute senior officials of any government who commit aggression and other war crimes.
Ferencz is hailed as the founding father of the ICC, but his vision of “Law Not War” remains unfulfilled as long as his own country, the United States, refuses to recognize the jurisdiction of either the ICC or the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
By rejecting the jurisdiction of international courts, the U.S. has carved out what Amnesty International has called an “accountability-free zone,” from which it can threaten, attack and invade other countries, torture prisoners, kill civilians and commit other war crimes with impunity.
Nuremberg ‘Exemption’?
U.S. government lawyers enjoy the privilege, unique in their profession, of issuing legally indefensible but politically creative legal cover for war crimes, secure in the knowledge that they will never be forced to defend their opinions before an impartial court.
Ben Ferencz very graciously wrote a preface to my book, Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq, and he spoke at an event with me and David Swanson in 2011, just before his 91st birthday. Ben talked about Nuremberg and the ICC, and he compared U.S. justifications for its “preemptive” illegal war-making to the defense offered by SS Gruppenfuhrer Otto Ohlendorf at Nuremberg.
As Ben explained, “That Ohlendorf argument was considered by three American judges at Nuremberg, and they sentenced him and twelve others to death by hanging. So it’s very disappointing to find that my government today is prepared to do something for which we hanged Germans as war criminals.”
If we do not hold American war criminals accountable for their crimes, and accept the jurisdiction of international courts to do so if we do not, how else can we serve notice on those who come after them that they must never do this again?
Argentina, Guatemala and other countries in Latin America are prosecuting and jailing mass murderers like Videla and Rios Montt who once took for granted that they could kill with impunity. America’s masters of war should not assume that we will fail to bring them to justice.
As for the collective responsibility we all share for the crimes committed by our country and our armed forces, we must be prepared to pay substantial war reparations to our millions of victims and the countries we have destroyed. We could start by paying the reparations ordered by the International Court of Justice when it convicted the United States of aggression against Nicaragua in 1986, and the $3.3 billion promised by President Nixon to repair at least some of the U.S. bomb damage in Vietnam.
These would be concrete steps to tell the rest of the world that the United States was finally ready to abandon its failed experiment in “the science of killing,” to be bound by the rule of law, and to start cooperating in good faith with the rest of humanity to solve our common problems.
~
Nicolas J S Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He also wrote the chapters on “Obama at War” in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card on Barack Obama’s First Term as a Progressive Leader.
Both Major U.S. Parties are Plagues on Humanity
By Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report | July 1, 2015
There has never been a dime’s worth of difference between the Clintons (Bill and Hillary) and Barack Obama, and less than ten cents separates the worldviews of these Democratic political twins from the Bush wing of the Republican Party.
Each has their individual quirks. Barack destroys international order and the rule of law while dabbling at song; Bill dismantled the U.S. manufacturing base and threw record numbers of Blacks in prison as he toyed with his trumpet; George W. played the fool who would Shock and Awe the world into obedience; and Hillary is the evil crone that curses the dead while screaming “We are Woman” like a banshee. But they are all the same in their corporate soullessness.
They all lie for a living, and they live to lie. Hillary Clinton commingled official and personal criminality through the medium of email. Knowing that, in a life dedicated to crime, she could never successfully sequester her private and public conspiracies, Hillary privatized all of her email correspondence during her tenure as Obama’s Secretary of State (in the perfect spirit of neoliberalism). The fate of millions of Haitians whose country’s earthquake and development “aid” are under the Clinton family thumb were doubtless bundled into the tens of thousands of messages she erased on leaving Foggy Bottom.
Republicans have harassed her ever since, seeking an electronic smoking gun to show Clinton’s cowardice or lack of resolve to “stand up for America” and “our troops” or some other nonsense. What the Benghazi affair actually proves is that the Obama administration was just as intent as the Republicans to maintain the fiction that the “rebels” put in power by seven months of NATO bombing of Libya were not various flavors of Islamic jihadists – some of whom were already turning on their erstwhile masters. The U.S.-Saudi project to create and nurture the international jihadist network is a bipartisan venture that dates back to Jimmy Carter’s presidency – and, therefore, nothing for Democrats and Republicans to fight about. However, the GOP’s churning of Clinton’s emails does provide a glimpse into her quest to run for president in 2016 as the woman who vanquished Muammar Gaddafi (“Qaddafi” or simply “Q” in Clinton’s usage).
A number of Clinton’s correspondences were with Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton family spin-master who wrote nasty things about Barack Obama while working for Hillary’s 2008 presidential campaign – which made it impossible for her to hire him at the State Department. Nevertheless, Clinton needed his talents for hype for the campaign ahead. Their emails in the summer of 2011 discussed how Hillary’s status as stateswoman could soar when the Libyan leader was finally eliminated. “This is a historic moment and you will be credited for realizing it,” wrote Blumenthal, feeding the crone’s huge gizzard of ego, according to an article in Monday’s New York Times. “You must go on camera,” wrote Blumenthal. “You must establish yourself in the historical record at this moment.” Hillary was anxious to seize the time to establish what Blumenthal described as “the Clinton Doctrine.”
The Times piece somehow concludes that Obama stole Clinton’s thunder with an 1,100-word speech, in late August, declaring: “The Gaddafi regime is coming to an end, and the future of Libya is in the hands of its people.” But Hillary best expressed the ghoulishness of America’s ruling duopoly two months later, in October, when Gaddafi was savagely butchered by screaming jihadists. “We came, we saw, he died,” cackled the banshee.
In the annals of global diplomacy, no more vulgar words have been spoken by a major power foreign minister or head of state. Yet, Clinton’s calculated quip perfectly encapsulates the bloodlust that is the common characteristic of both the governing duopoly of the United States and their suckling children in ISIS and the other proliferating al Qaida factions.
Thanks to Seymour Hersh, we now have a much more plausible scenario for the May 2, 2011, demise of Osama bin Laden, the “OG” of the U.S.-Saudi spawned global jihad, whose body will never be located. Virtually the entire U.S. account of his death is a lie, repeatedly contradicted on its own terms – another layer of fictional Americana in the age of empire in decline.
Clinton was hard-pressed to imagine how she might trump the president’s bin Laden death-watch extravaganza. Her opportunity came five months later, when she delivered her gruesome paraphrase of Julius Caesar on the occasion of Col. Gaddafi’s murder. In the context of Washington’s deeply racist foreign policy, Gaddafi and bin Laden were equally deserving of death, although Gaddafi was among the most fervent and effective fighters against Islamic jihadists: his government was the first in the world to request a global arrest warrant against bin Laden.
The Libyan Islamists were quickly transferred to the new U.S.-NATO-Saudi-Qatari front lines in Syria. The CIA station in Benghazi was at the center of the action – and got burned in the wild and unwieldy process of herding jihadists, who find it difficult to take orders from “infidels,” even when the “Crusaders” are paying the bills and supplying the weapons.
The U.S. consulate and CIA station in Benghazi were attacked on September 11, 2012. The next day, the Pentagon’s intelligence agency issued a report predicting that a “Salafist principality” – another term for an Islamic State – would likely arise in Syria as a result of the war, and that “Western countries, the Gulf States and Turkey are supporting these efforts.” Moreover, the establishment of such an Islamic “principality” would create “the ideal atmosphere for AQI [al Qaida in Iraq, which became ISIS, ISIL and the Islamic State] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi” in Iraq – events that have since transpired.
The Defense Intelligence Agency report didn’t say so, but the “Western Powers” included the United States, through its CIA.
The document was declassified this year as the result of a suit by a libertarian right-wing legal outfit. The people of the world continue to be fed the fiction that the U.S. is engaged in a long, twilight struggle against al Qaida Salafists whose international network was created by, and continues to benefit from, “Western countries, the Gulf States and Turkey.”
However, the 2012 Pentagon warning about the rise of an Islamic State may have had some effect on U.S. policy in Syria. One year later, in September of 2013, President Obama backed off from his threat to bomb Syria in “retaliation” for a chemical missile attack against civilians – a crime much more likely committed by western-backed Salafists. The conventional wisdom is that the Russians tricked a hapless Secretary of State John Kerry into agreeing to the peaceful, internationally supervised destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal; or that the refusal of Britain’s Parliament to go along with an air assault on Syria made the U.S. position untenable; or that Obama feared losing a vote on the issue in the U.S. Congress. None of this rings true to me. The United States is not easily deterred by the opinions of Europeans, who in the end accept Washington’s acts as a fait accompli. And, it was not clear that Obama would have lost the vote in Congress – a vote that he requested, while at the same time declaring that he did not need the legislature’s permission to “punish” Syria for crossing his “red line.”
I think that high Pentagon officials and elements of the Obama administration – probably including the president, himself – took the Benghazi disaster and the Defense Intelligence Agency report to heart, and decided that it was better to keep bleeding the Syrians and their Russian, Lebanese and Iranian allies through a prolonged war, than to bomb al Qaida into power. For the U.S., regional chaos is preferable to the triumph of the, ultimately, unmanageable Salafists – unchained.
The thirty-plus year war against Iran would, however, be ratcheted up. The Bush administration was snatched back from the brink of a military assault against Teheran in 2007 when – to the great consternation of Vice President Dick Cheney – all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies declared, publicly and unanimously, that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program, years before.
The spooks reaffirmed their consensus in the 2010 National Intelligence Estimate – again, that there was no evidence Iran has any intention of making a bomb. The Obama administration has since avoided asking the intelligence agencies for their analysis on the issue, knowing they would get the same answer. Instead, they rely on Israeli propaganda, pick and choose various “experts” from inside and outside the arms control “community,” or simply put forward unsupported statements on Iran’s capabilities and intentions: the Big Lie. While Bush was humiliated by facts supplied by his own intelligence experts, Obama has escalated the confrontation with Iran, applying crippling sanctions and the whole range of low-level warfare, in close collaboration with Israel – proving, once again, that Obama is the “more effective evil.”
Obama has nearly completed knocking off victims on the “hit list” of countries that George Bush was working on when General Wesley Clark ran across it in 2002. Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Somalia have been invaded since then, and Sudan was stripped of a third of its territory. Only Iran and Lebanon remain intact and outside the U.S. imperial umbrella.
The Republican-Democratic duopoly plays tag-team in promoting the Project for a New American Century – a doctrine promulgated by neo-conservatives in 1997 that has served as the guiding light of both the Bush and Obama administrations. The differences between the two teams are merely rhetorical. The Bush regime is described as “unilateralist,” although it employed the same “Coalition of the Willing” approach to aggressive war as does the Obama administration. President Obama claims the right to disregard and methodically undermine international law through “humanitarian” military intervention, whereas Bush claimed to be “spreading democracy.” Same weapons systems, same mass murder, same objective: U.S. domination of the planet.
There’s nothing democratic or humanitarian about the U.S. imperial project. Therefore, its maintenance requires the deployment of 24-7 psychological operations worldwide, but directed primarily against the U.S. public.
Republican strategist Karl Rove was far more honest than his Democratic counterparts when he explained to a reporter, back in 2004:
We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
Election seasons are reality-creation festivals, during which the two corporate parties pretend to put forward different visions of the national and global destiny – when, in fact, they answer to the same master and must pursue the same general strategy.
The continuity of GOP-Democratic rule – the near-identical depravity – is horrifically evident in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where six million people have been slaughtered by U.S. surrogates since 1996: the largest genocide since World War II. Successive U.S. administrations – Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, assisted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice, the high U.S. official most deeply implicated in the entirety of the genocide – have armed, financed, and covered up the Congolese holocaust. Each administration has collaborated with its predecessor to hide the crime and obscure the question of guilt – and then to continue the killing.
Decent people do not vote for political parties that produce such fiends, who deserve Nuremburg justice of the capital kind. Any talk of “lesser evils” is both stupid and obscene.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
The Tunisia Massacre and the Irish-ISIS Connection
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | June 30, 2015
“The murder of three Irish citizens at a tourist resort in north Africa has brought Islamic terrorism much closer to home,” Cormac O’Keefe observes in the Irish Examiner. “Until now we have looked on in shock, and revulsion, at terror attacks targeting other Europeans, either across the Middle East and North Africa, or on European soil. However, with the slaughter on the beaches of Tunisia of Lorna Carty, and Laurence and Martina Hayes, this is a landmark moment for this country.”
The report continues:
Martina’s brother Billy Kelly told the media: “We feel bitter. Irish people have nothing to do with these terrorists. The people who did this are evil rats.”
He said the couple’s daughter, Sinead, had lost two parents in an instant: “The sadness is terrible. It’s a nightmare.”
“Ireland has now been dragged into a terrible reality, one that much of Europe — Spain, Britain, and France among them — has had to live with for more than a decade,” O’Keefe adds.
Although the Irish Examiner reporter appears to be merely stating the obvious, Ireland had been close to Islamic terrorism long before the Tunisia massacre. And contrary to the bereaved Mr. Kelly’s sincere belief that the Irish have nothing to do with these evil rats, some Irish people have had quite a lot to do with these terrorists.
But one would need to turn to a much keener Irish examiner of terrorism to know these things. In a Facebook post three days earlier, Al Lonergan connected the dots:
The following image provides information regarding an Irish citizen’s connection to an alleged leader of ISIS in North Africa and a terror funder in Syria. However it is unlikely that the Irish media will want to mention this fact as they promoted this guy as a “freedom fighter” while he was serving the NATO agenda in destroying Libya and Syria, but the chickens are coming home to roost.
Moreover, not only did Mahdi al-Harati serve the NATO agenda in Libya and Syria, an Irish tabloid in 2011 had outed “the gentle Irishman” as an asset of American intelligence. According to a “you couldn’t make this up” Sunday World report,
A gang of Irish traveller thieves are in the middle of a holy war – after liberating €200,000 cash destined for Libyan rebels. In a tale worthy of the John le Carre thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the scam artists from Rathkeale in Co Limerick hit the jackpot when they robbed a home in Dublin’s Firhouse.
As well as a haul of family jewels, they stumbled upon €200,000 in €500 bills hidden in the hot press. But the homeowner was well-known Irish Libyan freedom fighter Mahdi al-Harati, who was one of the leaders of the bloody revolt against Gaddafi.
He has told cops that the cash was a gift from US secret agents to aid the war effort in Libya. Now the money trail has led to the traveller strongholds in Rathkeale, where €500 notes have been popping up all over the place.
A gang of rogue Irish travellers is in the frame for the bizarre robbery of €200,000 in cash donated by US spies to Libyan freedom fighters. In an astonishing tale worthy of the John le Carre novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the cash that was destined for rebels fighting Colonel Gaddafi’s forces was stolen from a hot press in a Dublin house.
Gardai are now investigating the extraordinary robbery which is being blamed on a traveller gang from the Limerick town of Rathkeale. An Irish freedom fighter who helped bring down Gaddafi’s hated regime in Libya has claimed that €200,000 cash stolen from his Dublin home was given to him by an American intelligence agency.
The Sunday World can reveal that gardai are investigating the robbery of two envelopes containing €200,000 in €500 notes from the home of Mahdi al-Harati in Firhouse, south Dublin, and that the money trail is leading to the Rathkealers. Al-Harati was in Libya following the successful campaign that toppled Gaddafi when the rebel’s house was broken into on October 6.
The incredible curriculum vitae of the “soft-spoken Libyan-born Irish citizen” doesn’t end there either. Four days later, Indymedia Ireland reported:
Mahdi al-Harati has been well-known in antiwar and Palestine solidarity circles in Dublin over the years . He had been a passenger in the Challenger 1 ship last year when it attempted to break the seige of Gaza as part of the Free Gaza Flotilla . He was the last Irish member of the flotilla to arrive home after the Israeli raid and was given a hero’s reception at Dublin Airport by members of the IPSC and the IAWM [Irish Anti-War Movement]. According to an Indymedia comment from last year written by Kev from the IPSC :
“Freda Hughes of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign welcomed his safe return and saluted his bravery: “Al Mahdi, like all of the Freedom Flotilla participants, is deserving of our praise for his courage in attempting to break the illegal siege of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid to the besieged people there. We are all relieved that he is safely back in Ireland. We hope that his family, who we know were extremely worried about his health, can rest easy now and celebrate his return..”
It appears that at least on this occasion Israel’s propaganda was right in claiming that some of those on board the Free Gaza Flotilla had ties to terrorism networks. They just forgot to mention that at least one of them was on the payroll of U.S. intelligence.
Maidhc Ó Cathail is a widely-published writer and political analyst. He is also the creator and editor of the Passionate Attachment blog, which focuses primarily on the US-Israeli relationship.
Media Coverage of Europe’s Migrant Crisis Ignores Root Cause: NATO
Danielle Ryan | Russia Insider | June 23, 2015
The scale of the migrant crisis Europe is facing today cannot be understated. It is truly unprecedented. What is habitually understated, however — and in fact almost completely ignored by mainstream media — are the real roots of the crisis.
The debate around migration into the EU is happening nearly entirely without reference to the causes of the recent influx of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East. The elephant in the room is NATO and nobody really wants to talk about it.
Hundreds of articles, laden down with numbers and proposals and predictions fail to make any direct link between cause and effect. News anchors sit seemingly baffled, mouths agape, at the apocalyptic-like pictures they are seeing land on their desks, and yet few are willing to draw the appropriate conclusions. But it is such a basic and logical connection that it’s hard to believe it is not being made very loudly and very persistently.
Maybe it’s just that these journalists are so conditioned to framing U.S. and NATO policy in a positive light that the links don’t even really occur to them. Or maybe they’re simply embarrassed and trying to shift focus from their long-recorded support for various military interventions in these countries.
Either way, the result is that the story is framed in such a way that it makes the timing of the crisis sound almost random. We’re witnessing a conversation about how to ‘deal’ with boats full of Libyans making their way across the Mediterranean — as if Libya was a country that had just self-imploded yesterday, and for no discernible reason.
A fierce debate is raging over ‘what to do’ about these migrants — and in a way that’s understandable because that is the more immediate problem — but the debate we really need to be having is about the policies, NATO’s policies, which were the catalyst.
Even if Europe unites in formulating a ‘solution’ to the problem, it will be nothing more than a band-aid fix because it will only deal with symptom. After all, what’s the point in covering your open wound with a band-aid when the guy who cut you is still wielding a knife in the same room? It doesn’t take a genius to work out how that story ends.
Whenever the cause is grudgingly mentioned by the media, it is mentioned briefly and abstractly where the author or anchor might refer to “conflict” or make mention of how violence has “reignited” in these countries in recent years and months.
The editors at the New York Times in particular, are big fans of loading all the blame squarely onto Europe’s shoulders. Here a Times piece argues that the migrant crisis “puts Europe’s policy missteps into focus”. Another piece, from the editorial board, lectures Europe on how to handle the situation.
In April, NATO head Jens Stoltenberg called for a “comprehensive response” to the crisis and promised that NATO would help to stabilize the situation. The alliance’s role in “stabilizing” Afghanistan was part of its broader approach to the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean, he said.
That is rich coming from the head of a ‘security’ and ‘defensive’ alliance which for years has pursued a policy of offensive destabilization in the very regions which people are fleeing from in their hundreds of thousands. But Stoltenberg’s comments and NATO’s actions are easily decoded by the employment of some basic common sense.
The NATO modus operandi is clear. The pattern, repeated over and over, involves the complete destabilization of a region, to be swiftly followed up with another NATO-led ‘solution’ to the problem. When you couple that with the use of spokespeople who are unashamed to feign ignorance and lie blatantly (Jen Psaki, Marie Harf etc.), and a compliant media that will regurgitate the line without question, this is what you get.
The 2011 NATO intervention in Libya was authorized by the United Nations on “humanitarian” grounds and resulted in the deaths of between 50,000 and 100,000 people and the displacement of 2 million. Very humanitarian.
Similarly, after the U.S.-led campaign to destabilize Syria in an effort to topple Bashar al-Assad, facilitating (and even supporting) the rise of ISIS in the region, a staggering 10 million have been displaced (according to Amnesty International) and European countries are left to help pick up the pieces. Germany, for example, has pledged to resettle 30,000 Syrian refugees. Sweden, a non-NATO nation, has taken in similar numbers.
It should be made clear however, that the numbers European countries have taken or pledged to take pale in comparison to the numbers being hosted in other Middle Eastern countries. Lebanon, for example, is hosting 1.1 million Syrian refugees. Jordan is hosting more than 600,000. Iraq hosts nearly a quarter of a million. Turkey hosts 1.6 million.
There is one country that’s getting off scot-free in all of this — at least on the Syrian front. That country is the United States. The U.S. has taken in less than 900 Syrian refugees after four years of war. American officials have cited “national security” in their explanations for not yet taking more, although they have said they would like to see the number increase.
Maybe this has something to do with it?
Debate not allowed
There is a second media crime flying under the radar here and it is this: In European countries where the massive influx of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa have caused serious societal divisions, where migrants have failed to assimilate (for a variety of reasons, including both government policies and often radical religious beliefs), Western media will allow no one to talk about it honestly — and woe betide the person who tries.
Take Sweden, where the disease of political correctness is at an even more advanced stage than it is in the rest of Europe. There, any attempt to debate the coherence of a ‘doors wide open’ immigration policy is branded as “racist”. A further irony in the Swedish context, is that the country is facing a housing crisis and has nowhere to put most of the people they are pledging to resettle. There’s some real forward-thinking, common sense policy for you.
This is a dangerous combination for Europe: An unsustainable influx of migrants, foreign policy which ensures its continuation, a docile media, and an epidemic of political correctness which has infected the entire continent.
Media 101 on the migrant crisis: Talk a lot about migrants, don’t mention why they fled and then call anyone who has a problem with it a “racist” — success! Oh, and you get an added bonus if you can somehow link it all to ‘Russian aggression’, Vladimir Putin and NATO as a ‘defensive’ alliance.
Some European countries are taking a more hardline approach and are getting slammed for it. Hungary, for example, is looking at building a barrier wall along its border with Serbia, similar to barriers along the Greek-Turkish and Bulgarian-Turkish borders. Again, this has sparked accusations of xenophobia and racism from media and political quarters.
But that’s part of the game, isn’t it? If NATO’s war supporters can focus the debate around the idea that anyone who wants to address or critically assess immigration policy is “racist” then we won’t have to talk about why the migrants are here in the first place or why they are facing such dire circumstances at home.
Russia Today’s Oksana Boyko tried recently, to broach this topic with Peter Sutherland, the UN’s special representative on international migration and development, but she got nowhere. She argued that the debate around migration into the EU can’t really be had without addressing the essence and heart of the problem, but found that NATO policy is apparently a topic not up for discussion.
Debating Europe’s migrant crisis without acknowledging the context in which it has been created it useless. It would be like asking Americans to debate police brutality without talking about race. The two are inescapably interlinked and any ‘solutions’ that come from an incomplete debate will ultimately fail.
For now though, it seems Europe will continue to debate this humanitarian crisis in terms of ‘what to do’ without addressing the ‘how to stop’ and we’ll keep running around in a vicious circle.
An easier solution, of course, would be for NATO to put an end to its campaign of destabilization in the Middle East and North Africa, but that would require the acceptance and acknowledgement of some very hard truths.
State Dept: Hillary Clinton Did Not Turn Over All Emails
By Sheryl Attkisson | June 25, 2015
The State Department has informed the House Committee on Benghazi that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton failed to turn over all of her records related to Benghazi and Libya. That’s according to a statement today from Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina.
The news contradicts claims from the Clinton camp which said all relevant emails had, in fact, been handed over.
“This confirms doubts about the completeness of Clinton’s self-selected public record and raises serious questions about her decision to erase her personal server—especially before it could be analyzed by an independent, neutral third party arbiter,” said Gowdy in a statement.
The New York Times was first to reveal that Clinton made controversial use of a private server while she was serving as secretary of state. When the unusual arrangement was discovered, Clinton said she sifted through all the emails from her private server and turned over all of the relevant ones to the State Department. She acknowledged destroying tens of thousands of other emails that she says were private in nature, and she acknowledged wiping her server clean.
Earlier this month, prior to testifying behind closed doors, Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal turned over additional email exchanges between himself and Clinton. The exchanges had not been previously produced to the Committee despite multiple requests and a subpoena. Additionally, the material was not produced as required by law in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, including one I made in 2012.
“This has implications far beyond Libya, Benghazi and our committee’s work. This conclusively shows her email arrangement with herself, which was then vetted by her own lawyers, has resulted in an incomplete public record,” said Gowdy today.
Clinton’s critics say the email exchanges with Blumenthal show that she was receiving and soliciting unvetted intelligence about Libya from Blumenthal, a source with a financial business interest in the country.
Clinton had previously stated that the messages from Blumenthal were unsolicited.
While the State Department says Clinton did not turn over all relevant emails, the agency did give the Committee a new set of Clinton emails that were responsive to subpoena but were not previously provided. The Committee did not disclose the content of the emails.
Clinton has insisted she did nothing wrong and that she complied with the letter and spirit of record retention laws. She says she previously gave the State Department all relevant emails, and that she did not destroy any materials except those which were entirely private in nature.
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Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu: Leave No Palestinian or Arab Alive
By Jonas E. Alexis | Veterans Today | July 23, 2017
Israeli Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu seems to have picked up where the late Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef left off. The Israeli army, Eliyahu said, must slaughter the Palestinians “and leave no one alive.” The Palestinians, the good rabbi continued, must be “destroyed and crushed in order to end violence.” Here is Eliyahu’s algorithm:
“If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill 1,000. And if they do not stop after 1,000, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop we must kill 100,000, even a million.”
There is more to this “logic” than meets the eye and ear. Eliyahu even postulated that the Israeli army ought not to get involved in arresting Palestinians because “If you leave him alive, there is a fear that he will be released and kill other people. We must eradicate this evil from within our midst.”
You may say that this is just an isolated case. No Israeli official believes that, right? … continue
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