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Behind the Crimea/Russia Reunion

By Ray McGovern | Consortium News | March 18, 2016

With high symbolism Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting Crimea “to check on the construction of the Kerch Strait Bridge, which will link the Crimean peninsula and continental Russia,” the Kremlin announced on Thursday.

As the Russians like to say, “It is no accident” that he chose today – marking the second anniversary of Russia’s annexation of Crimea three weeks after the U.S.-sponsored coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, and just days after a referendum in which Crimean voters approved leaving Ukraine and rejoining Russia by a 96 percent majority.

The 12-mile bridge is a concrete metaphor, so to speak, for the re-joining of Crimea and Russia. When completed (the target is December 2018), it will be the longest bridge in Russia.

Yet, the Obama administration continues to decry the political reunion between Crimea and Russia, a relationship that dates back to the Eighteenth Century. Instead, the West has accused Russia of violating its pledge in the 1994 Budapest agreement — signed by Ukraine, Russia, Great Britain and the U.S. — “to respect the independence and sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine,” in exchange for Ukraine surrendering its Soviet-era nuclear weapons.

Did Moscow violate the Budapest agreement when it annexed Crimea? A fair reading of the text yields a Yes to that question. Of course, there were extenuating circumstances, including alarm among Crimeans over what the unconstitutional ouster of Ukraine’s president might mean for them, as well as Moscow’s not unfounded nightmare of NATO taking over Russia’s major, and only warm-water, naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea.

But what is seldom pointed out is that the other parties, including the United States, seem to have been guilty, too, in promoting a coup d’etat removing the democratically elected president and essentially disenfranchising millions of ethnic Russian Ukrainians who had voted for President Viktor Yanukovych. In such a context, it takes a markedly one-dimensional view to place blame solely on Russia for violating the Budapest agreement.

Did the Western-orchestrated coup in Kiev violate the undertaking “to respect the independence and sovereignty” of Ukraine? How about the pledge in the Budapest agreement “to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by the Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty.” Political and economic interference were rife in the months before the February 2014 coup. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Who Violated Ukraine’s Sovereignty?”]

Did Ukrainian President Yanukovych expect to be overthrown if he opted for Moscow’s economic offer, and not Europe’s? Hard to tell. But if the putsch came as a total surprise, he sorely underestimated what $5 billion in “democracy promotion” by Washington can buy.

After Yanukovych turned down the European Community’s blandishments, seeing deep disadvantages for Ukraine, American neoconservatives like National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland pulled out all the stops to enable Ukraine to fulfill what Nuland called its “European aspirations.”

“The revolution will not be televised,” or so the saying goes. But the Feb. 22, 2014 putsch in Kiev was YouTube-ized two-and-a-half weeks in advance. Recall Nuland’s amateurish, boorish – not to mention irresponsible – use of an open telephone line to plot regime change in Ukraine with fellow neocon, U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, during an intercepted conversation posted on YouTube on Feb. 4.

Nuland tells Pyatt, “Yats is the guy. He’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He’s the guy you know. … He has warned there is an urgent need for unpopular cutting of subsidies and social payments before Ukraine can improve.”

Arseniy Yatsenyuk (aka “Yats”) was quickly named prime minister of the coup regime, which was immediately given diplomatic recognition by Washington. Since then, he has made a royal mess of things. Ukraine is an economic basket case, and “Yats” barely survived a parliamentary vote of no confidence and is widely believed to be on his way out.

Did Moscow’s strong reaction to the coup, to the danger of NATO setting up shop next door in Ukraine come as a surprise to Nuland and other advisers? If so, she ought to get new advisers, and quickly. That Russia would not let Crimea become a NATO base should have been a no-brainer.

Nuland may have seen the coup as creating a win-win situation. If Putin acted decisively, it would be all the easier to demonize him, denounce “Russian aggression,” and put a halt to the kind of rapprochement between President Barack Obama and Putin that thwarted neocon plans for shock and awe against Syria in late summer 2013. However, if Putin acquiesced to the Ukrainian coup and accepted the dangers it posed to Russia, eventual membership for Ukraine in NATO might become more than a pipedream.

Plus, if Putin swallowed the humiliation, think of how politically weakened he would have become inside Russia. As NED’s Gershman made clear, not only did American neocons see Ukraine as “the biggest prize” but as a steppingstone to ultimately achieve “regime change” in Moscow, or as Gershman wrote, “Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

Russian Equities

In a formal address in the Kremlin on March 18, 2014, the day Crimea was re-incorporated into Russia, Putin went from dead serious to somewhat jocular in discussing the general issue:

“We have already heard declarations from Kiev about Ukraine soon joining NATO. What would this have meant for Crimea and Sevastopol in the future? It would have meant that NATO’s navy would be right there in this city of Russia’s military glory, and this would create not an illusory but a perfectly real threat to the whole of southern Russia. …

“We are not opposed to cooperation with NATO … [but] NATO remains a military alliance, and we are against having a military alliance making itself at home right in our backyard or in our historic territory. I simply cannot imagine that we would travel to Sevastopol to visit NATO sailors. Of course, most of them are wonderful guys, but it would be better to have them come and visit us, be our guests, rather than the other way around.”

A little-known remark by Putin a month later (on April 17, 2014) was unusually blunt in focusing on one of the main reasons behind Moscow’s strong reaction – namely, Russia’s felt need to thwart Washington’s plan to incorporate Ukraine and Crimea into the U.S. anti-ballistic missile deployment encircling Russia. Putin was quite direct:

“This issue is no less, and probably even more important, than NATO’s eastward expansion. Incidentally, our decision on Crimea was partially prompted by this.”

This is a serious bone of contention, with far reaching implications. In short, if the Russian military becomes convinced that the Pentagon thinks it has the capability to carry out a strategic strike without fear of significant retaliation, the strategic tripwire for a nuclear exchange will regress more than four decades to the extremely dangerous procedure of “launch on warning,” allowing mere minutes to “use ‘em, or lose ‘em.”

Russia has been repeatedly rebuffed – or diddled – when it has suggested bilateral talks on this key issue. Four years ago, for example, at the March 2012 summit in Seoul, Russia’s then-President Dmitry Medvedev asked Obama when the U.S. would be prepared to address Russian concerns over European missile defense.

In remarks picked up by camera crews, Obama asked for some “space” until after the U.S. election. Obama can be heard saying, “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.” Putin claims to have seen no flexibility on this strategic question.

What Coup?

The Obama administration and its stenographers in the mainstream U.S. media would like the relevant Ukrainian history to start on Feb. 23, 2014 with “Yats” and his coup cronies deemed the “legitimate” authorities. To that end, there was a need to airbrush what George Friedman, president of the think-tank STRATFOR, publicly called “the most blatant coup in history” – the one plotted by Nuland and Pyatt in early February 2014 and carried out on Feb. 22.

As for Russia’s alleged designs on Crimea, one searches in vain for evidence that, before the coup, the Kremlin had given much thought to the vulnerability of the peninsula and a possible need to annex it. According to the public record, Putin first focused on Crimea at a strategy meeting on Feb. 23, the day after the coup.

Yet, given the U.S. mainstream media’s propagandistic reporting on the Ukraine crisis, it is small wonder that the American people forgot about (or never heard of) the putsch in Kiev. The word “coup” was essentially banished from the U.S. media’s lexicon regarding Ukraine.

The New York Times went so far as to publish what it deemed an investigative article in early 2015 announcing that there was no coup in Ukraine, just President Yanukovych mysteriously disappearing off to Russia. In reaching its no-coup conclusion, the Times ignored any evidence that there was a coup, including the Nuland-Pyatt phone call. In regards to Ukraine, “coup” became just another unutterable four-letter word.

Last year, when Sen. John McCain continued the “no coup” fiction, I placed the following letter in the Washington Post on July 1, 2015 (the censors apparently being away at the beach):

“In his June 28 Sunday Opinion essay, ‘The Ukraine cease-fire fiction,’  Sen. John McCain was wrong to write that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea without provocation. What about the coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014, that replaced President Viktor Yanukovych with pro-Western leaders favoring membership in NATO? Was that not provocation enough?

“This glaring omission is common in The Post. The March 10 World Digest item ‘Putin had early plan to annex Crimea’ described a ‘secret meeting’ Mr. Putin held on Feb. 23, 2014, during which ‘Russia decided it would take the Crimean Peninsula.’ No mention was made of the coup the previous day. …” (emphasis added)

And so it goes. More recently, in Jeffrey Goldberg’s lengthy magnum opus in The Atlantic on Obama’s foreign policy, there were two mentions of how Russia “invaded” Crimea, two allusions to Russia’s “invasion” of Ukraine, but not a word about the coup in Kiev.

Invincible Ignorance

In Catholic theology, the theory that some people can be “invincibly ignorant” can lessen or even erase their guilt. Many Americans are so malnourished on accurate news – and so busy trying to make ends meet – that they would seem to qualify for this dispensation, with pardon for not knowing about things like the coup in Kiev and other key happenings abroad.

The following, unnerving example brings this to mind: A meeting of progressives that I attended last year was keynoted by a professor from a local Washington university. Discussing what she called the Russian “invasion” of Crimea, the professor bragged about her 9-year-old son for creating a large poster in Sunday School saying, “Mr. Putin, What about the commandment ‘Thou Shall Not Kill?’” The audience nodded approvingly.

This picnic, thought I, needed a skunk. So I asked the professor what her little boy was alluding to. My question was met by a condescending smirk of disbelief: “Crimea, of course.” I asked how many people had been killed in Crimea. “Oh, hundreds, probably thousands,” was her answer. I told her that there were, in fact, no reports of anyone having been killed.

I continued, explaining that, with respect to Russia’s “invasion,” what you don’t see in the “mainstream media” is that, a treaty between Ukraine and Russia from the late 1990s allowed Russia to station up to 25,000 Russian troops on the Crimean peninsula. There were 16,000 there, when a U.S.-led coup ousted the democratically elected government in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014. (I had grabbed the attention of the audience; yet stares of incredulity persisted.)

In contrast to Crimea’s bloodless political secession from Ukraine, the Ukrainian government’s “anti-terror operation” against ethnic Russians in the east who resisted the coup authorities in Kiev has killed an estimated 10,000 people, many of them civilians. Yet, in the mainstream U.S. media, this carnage is typically blamed on Putin, not on the Ukrainian military which sent to the front neo-Nazi and other right-wing militias (such as the Azov battalion) contemptuous of ethnic Russians. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine Merges Nazis and Islamists.”]

A few weeks before the professor’s remarks, after a speaking engagement in Moscow, I had a chance to do a little souvenir shopping on the Arbat. The behavior of the sales people brought me up short. It was decades since I had served as a CIA officer in the Soviet Union; the shopkeepers then were usually taciturn, allergic to discussing politics, and not at all given to bragging about their leaders.

This time it was different. The sales people wanted to know what I thought of President Putin. They were eager to thrust two coffee cups into the shopping bag that I had filled with small gifts for our grandchildren. On one was emblazoned the Russian words for “polite people” under an image of two men with insignia-less green uniforms – depicting the troops that surrounded and eventually took over Ukrainian installations and government buildings in Crimea without a shot being fired. The other cup bore a photo of Putin over the Russian words for “the most polite of people.”

The short conversation that ensued made it immediately clear that Russian salespeople in Moscow – unlike many “sophisticated” Americans – were well aware that the troubles in Ukraine and Crimea began in Kiev on Feb 22, 2014, with “the most blatant coup in history.” And, not least, they were proud of the way Putin used the “polite green men” to ensure that Crimea was not lost to NATO.

Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. During his 27-year career as a CIA analyst he headed the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch. In retirement, he helped create Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

March 18, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How Hillary Clinton Lied Her Way to War in Libya

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teleSUR | March 18, 2016

Declassified emails released in January and February reveal that Hillary Clinton was one of the main instruments in spreading chaos and extremism in Libya when the U.S. secretary of state personally pushed for the ousting of late Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi.

Clinton’s emails reveal that she and her staff were aware that civilians they claimed to be protecting were not actually in danger from government forces.

Less than a month ahead of the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973, a resolution which authorized a no-fly zone to protect civilians on March 17, 2011, Hillary’s assistant, Huma Abedin, in an email dated Feb. 21, 2011, stated: “Based on numerous eyewitness reports, it is the Embassy’s assessment that the government no longer controls Benghazi. This is likely the case for Ajdabiyah as well.”

Abedin went on to write that sources in Benghazi reported that Libyan Interior Minister Abdul Fattah Younes had “changed sides” and was “now with the protesters in Benghazi.” The mood in Benghazi and Ajdabiyah, according to the email, was “celebratory” and all posters of Gadhafi had been “knocked down.”

Crucially, this email was written at a time when Clinton was aware that no government crackdown was taking place in either Benghazi or Ajdabiyah.

This was despite anti-government protests kicking off in Benghazi and Ajdabiyah a few days before, at a time when the U.S. and France and other Western governments were claiming government forces were involved in the mass-killing of protesters and civilians.

However, on March 2, 2011, a few days before the passage of the U.N. resolution, U.S. State Department official Harriet Spanos sent an email informing Clinton that “Security Reports . . . confirm that Benghazi has been calm over the past couple of days.”

“Economic activity is going on in Benghazi,” she added in the email, with shops and banks open and “[m]obile and landline phones… working… and Internet has returned.”

The moment of truth came 11 days into the NATO bombing, which continued for several months, when Clinton’s top adviser, Sidney Blumenthal, who was not employed by the state department but by the private Clinton Foundation, laid out the reasons for the Washington-led intervention and the eventual ousting of Gadhafi.

Without once mentioning “humanitarian” purposes, in a March 27, 2011 email Blumenthal stressed to Clinton the importance of pressing for a “final win” by ousting Gadhafi in order to boost U.S. President Barack Obama’s then low approval ratings.

Ousting the Libyan strongman, argued Blumenthal, would further establish “security in North Africa, securing democracy in Egypt and Tunisia, economic development, effect throughout Arab world and Africa, extending U.S. influence, counter-balancing Iran, etc.”

Further highlighting his complete and utter disregard for the human cost of the intervention, in the same email Blumenthal informed Clinton about the horrors committed by U.S.-backed forces in Libya, which included members of al-Qaida.

“Speaking in strict confidence, one rebel commander stated that his troops continue to summarily execute all foreign mercenaries in the fighting.” Such actions are considered war crimes and in violation of international resolutions and conventions.

The emails also reveal that the Obama administration and Clinton were aware of the threat of al-Qaida in the eastern part of the country, which had for years been suppressed by the Libyan leader.

The emails also show that claims made by NATO at the time, including alleged atrocities committed by Gadhafi’s forces such as rape and mass killings, were rumors used by Clinton and the Obama administration to help sell the intervention to the world.

It is clear the NATO intervention was not intended for humanitarian purposes. So what were the intentions of Clinton and the Obama administration? [Beyond the long planned and ongoing destruction of any and all enemies of Israel*] The same as most U.S. interventions: financial interest.

The emails reveal that most of the intelligence Clinton received on Libya was from Blumenthal, who was preparing to make substantial financial gains from the fall of the Libyan leader.

According to Vice News, the intel briefs on Libya were “prepared by Blumenthal’s business partner and former CIA operative Tyler Drumheller, a consultant with plans to take advantage of economic opportunities in a post-war Libya.”

Both men worked with the U.S.-based security company Osprey, a start-up that hoped to profit from medical and military contracts with Libyan rebels amid the chaos of the conflict, according to Vice News.

Five years later, the opportunism of Clinton and the Obama administration which resulted in one of the most disastrous interventions in recent decades, aiding the rise of extremist groups in the oil-rich African country and contributing to Europe’s ongoing refugee situation can be seen for what it was: a devastating assault on the people of Libya rooted in lies, deceit and narrow, imperial self-interest.

*Also in the cited Vice article but not presented by teleSUR:

… Much of the intelligence Blumenthal fed to Clinton was quite odd. One email suggested that Libyan elites wanted warm relations with Israel, another that European spy agencies were encouraging tribal leaders to declare a semi-autonomous tribal zone in the east of the country. […]

On Aug. 27, 2012, for instance, Blumenthal’s intelligence claimed that a new Libyan president would “seek a discreet relationship with Israel.” Then, Clinton forwarded on the e-mail to her top policy aide Jacob Sullivan with a note attached: “If true, this is encouraging. Should consider passing to Israelis.”

March 18, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

America’s Genocidal Wars

By Stephen Lendman | March 17, 2016

America’s pure evil is unequaled by any previous regime in history – inflicting more harm on more people over a longer duration.

None match US ruthlessness. Centuries of slaughter reduced its native population to a small fraction of its original numbers.

Five centuries of slavery were horrific. Black Africans were captured, branded, chained, force-marched, beaten, encaged, and stripped of their humanity.

Around 100 million human beings were sold like cattle. Millions perished during the Middle Passage, packed into filthy coffin-sized spaces, filled with human excrement, victims of dysentery, smallpox and other epidemic-level diseases, women raped and beaten, others flogged or clubbed.

Anyone believed diseased was dumped overboard like garbage. Modern-day genocide continues in new forms. WWII and endless US wars following involved mass extermination, countless millions perishing from violence, starvation, preventable diseases and overall deprivation.

Civilians are treated as ruthlessly as combatants in all US wars. State-sponsored genocide reflects their barbarity, ongoing in multiple theaters now.

High crimes demanding accountability go unreported. Wars of aggression masquerade as humanitarian intervention, responsibility to protect and democracy building.

Unparalleled US hubris and arrogance threaten humanity’s survival. America is the world’s leading exponent of terrorism, ISIS and likeminded groups its creation, CIA operatives teaching their recruits the fine art of committing atrocities.

All US wars are waged lawlessly without mercy. John Kerry’s indictment of Daesh’s (ISIS) genocidal crimes belies its US creation, America bearing full responsibility for its existence and criminality.

On Thursday, Kerry ignored where blame lies, saying “(i)n my judgment, Daesh is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims.”

“Daesh is genocidal by self-proclamation, by ideology, and by actions, in what it says, what it believes, and what it does.”

Its fighters are “also responsible for crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing directed at these same groups, and in some cases also against Sunni Muslims, Kurds, and other minorities.”

Claiming “what (it) wants to erase, we must preserve” belies longstanding US imperial policy – waging endless wars of aggression, using ISIS and other terrorists as proxy foot soldiers, wanting all sovereign independent states replaced by pro-Western puppet ones, believing genocidal slaughter is a small price to pay.

Obama, Kerry, as well as other current and earlier top US officials are unindicted war criminals – guilty of the supreme crime against peace, responsible for genocidal mass murder.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

March 18, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Iran, US: Confrontation Continues

By Nikolai BOBKIN – Strategic Culture Foundation – 17.03.2016

On March 10, leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei met the newly elected Assembly of Experts. He said the United States harbors plans to change the state structure of Iran, but an attempt to stage a coup d’état is doomed to fail.

The Iranian spiritual leader noted that Iranians must not forget what the West has done to their country. They must always remember who Iran has to deal with. The West does not represent the entire world community; it’s just part of it. The Ayatollah warned that those who wish Iran ill will soon have to stay in line willing to normalize the relations.

The Assembly of Experts of Iran is a deliberative body of eighty-eight mujtahids (Islamic theologians) that is charged with electing and removing the supreme leader of Iran and supervising his activities. The members are elected from lists of candidates by direct public vote for eight-year terms. President Hassan Rouhani is a member of the Assembly, as well as other top officials. If Ayatollah Khamenei (76) is not able to continue in the office, the Assembly will elect another person to perform his duties. The spiritual leader called on the Assembly members to serve the interests of the state and preserve allegiance to the values of Islamic revolution.

According to him, today the normalization of the relationship with the United States does not serve the Iranian interests. The US is still viewed as a threat.

The Iranian nuclear dossier was closed in July 2015, but it did not lead to normalization of the relationship. The US continues to exert economic pressure on the Islamic Republic. The United States lifted the sanctions against Iran only partially with numerous reservations unlike America’s European allies who lifted them all on January 17. Obama’s temporary softening his position on Iran was nothing more than just another tactical move.

President Obama extended the status of national emergency vis-a-vis Tehran despite the recent lifting of nuclear-related sanctions stipulated in Iran’s agreement with the P5+1 group of countries, President Barack Obama told the Speaker of the US House of Representatives in a letter on March 9.

“Certain actions and policies of the Government of Iran are contrary to the interests of the United States in the region and continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States. For these reasons, I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared with respect to Iran and to maintain in force comprehensive sanctions,” the President informed the Congress.

US firms will still be largely left out of the market. Washington tries to expand the sanctions regime internationally.

This time the United States wants to impose additional sanctions related to Iran’s recent launches of ballistic missiles. The US Congress wants the administration to immediately bring the issue before the UN Security Council. It’s not clear what the Security Council has to consider. Could the Iranian missiles be nuclear-tipped? Probably yes, but Iran has no nuclear warheads to be fitted on the missiles. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) created the Iran Task Force within the Department of Safeguards, reporting directly to the deputy director-general for safeguards. The task force is responsible for all technical activities that now are carried out under the Joint Plan of Action and to be carried out under the new agreement between Iran and the P5+1 upon its entering into force. The Joint Plan of Action is being implemented according to the United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 and the decisions taken in December 2015. The Council simply has nothing to discuss.

Still, the US continues to stick to its present course. The US wants the discussion on Iran to go beyond the missiles program to include the destabilization role of Iran in the region, especially the security of Israel. During the recent visit of US Vice President to Israel, it was stated that Tehran’s Middle East policy was no less dangerous than the activities of international terrorist organizations. Israel’s motivation for rising tensions is clear. Tel Aviv is involved in a bargain deal with the United States over increased military aid in view of the nuclear deal concluded with Iran. It’s hard to understand why the Obama administration puts Israeli security interests above the interests of the United States and why the mission to counter Iran is given higher priority than the fight against terrorism.

Surprisingly, that’s what US military top leaders do. Gen. Lloyd Austin III, the head of the US Central Command and Gen. Joseph Votel – the head of the US Special Operations Command who has been nominated to replace Austin – told lawmakers that Islamic State fighters represent the greatest short-term threat to US security in the Middle East.

But over the long-term, both men are more concerned with Iranian support for terrorist groups and interference in neighboring governments’ operations.

In reality, Tehran’s regional policy is focused on providing aid to the Syrian government in its fight against the terrorist organizations that have seized parts of the Syrian national territory. In 2015, 37 thousand foreign mercenaries were fighting the Syrian army. The absolute majority of them infiltrated Syria from Turkey. Ankara’s main enemy are not terrorist groups, but the Syrian Kurds – the only ground force capable of fighting the Islamic State on the ground. It’s an open secret that in 2013 President Obama allowed the CIA to arm rebels. The arms shipments were paid for by another US vassal state – Saudi Arabia, which provided recommendations on who the weapons should go to. As a result, the weapons went right into wrong hands.

By accusing Iran of supporting international terrorism, the US does not shy away from outright provocations.

For instance, Iran was ordered by a US judge to pay more than $10.5 billion in damages to families of people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and to a group of insurers.

US District Judge George Daniels in New York issued a default judgment Wednesday against Iran for $7.5 billion to the estates and families of people who died at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. It includes $2 million to each estate for the victims’ pain and suffering plus $6.88 million in punitive damages. Daniels also awarded $3 billion to insurers including Chubb Ltd. that paid property damage, business interruption and other claims. Earlier in the case, Daniels found that Iran had failed to defend claims that it aided the Sept. 11 hijackers and was therefore liable for damages tied to the attacks. Daniels’s March 9 ruling adopts damages findings by a US magistrate judge in December. While it is difficult to collect damages from an unwilling foreign nation, the plaintiffs may try to collect part of the judgments using a law that permits parties to tap terrorists’ assets frozen by the government.

It’s clear, the US wants to rob Iran. For instance, a new US export restriction against China’s ZTE Corp. for alleged Iran sanctions violations is likely to disrupt the telecom manufacturer’s sprawling global supply chain and could create substantial parts shortages, according to sanctions experts. Under the measure announced by the Commerce Department on March 7, US manufacturers will be banned from selling components to ZTE, which is a major global supplier of telecom-networking equipment. In addition, foreign manufacturers will be prohibited from selling products containing a significant amount of US-made parts to the Chinese company. The Commerce Department said ZTE planned to use a series of shell companies “to illicitly re-export controlled items to Iran in violation of US export control laws.” It said ZTE acted “contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.”

Under the circumstances, there is no alternative to the decision made by the Iranian top leadership to improve relations with the whole world, except the United States. Sticking to such a policy seems to be a natural thing to do. It’s also easily understandable why Tehran is reluctant to seek ways to normalize the relations with the United States.

There is no thaw in the bilateral relationship. Instead, the countries are in for a new round of confrontation.

March 17, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Clintons’ $93 Million Romance with Wall Street: a Catastrophe for Working Families, African-Americans, and Latinos

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By Richard W. Behan | CounterPunch | March 16, 2016

For 24 years Bill and Hillary Clinton have courted Wall Street money with notable success. During that time the New York banks contributed:

* $11.17 million to Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992.

*$28.37 million for his re-election in 1996.

*$2.13 million to Hillary Clinton’s senatorial campaign in 2002.

*$6.02 million for her re-election in 2006.

*$14.61 million to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008.

*$21.42 million to her 2016 campaign.

The total here is $83.72 million for the six campaigns,i ii disbursed from eleven congenial banks: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, UBS, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, Barclay’s, JP Morgan Chase, CIBC, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley.iii iv

Then there were the speeches. Sixteen days after leaving the White House in 2001, Mr. Clinton delivered a speech to Morgan Stanley, for which he was paid $125,000. That was the first of many speeches to the New York banks. Over the next fourteen years, Mr. Clinton’s Wall Street speaking engagements earned him a total of $5,910,000:v

*$1,550,000 from Goldman Sachs.

*$1,690,000 from UBS.

*$1,075,000 from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.

*$770,000 from Deutsche Bank.

*$700,000 from Citigroup

After she resigned as Secretary of State in 2012 Hillary Clinton took to the lecture circuit as well. Some of her income has come to light during the current presidential campaign—the infamous $675,000 she was paid for three speeches to Goldman Sachs. That disclosure, however, belittles her financial achievement and the scope of her audiences. She also addressed the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Ameriprise, Apollo Management Holdings, CIBC, Fidelity Investments, and Golden Tree Asset Management. In doing so she earned another $2,265,000.vi

No other political couple in modern history has enjoyed so much money flowing to them from Wall Street for such a long time—$92.57 million over a quarter century.

During a CNN forum on February 3, Anderson Cooper wondered if Goldman Sachs’ $675,000 might impact her prospective presidential decisions. Defending her integrity with undisguised indignation, she described her independence from the banks:

Anybody who knows me, who thinks that they can influence me, name anything they’ve influenced me on. Just name one thing. I’m out here every day saying I’m going to shut them down, I’m going after them. I’m going to jail them if they should be jailed. I’m going to break them up.vii

Her campaign website confirms her fierce determination to oversee the banks and hold them strictly to account. “Wall Street must work for Main Street,” the website claims, outlining her program for “Wall Street Reform:”

Veto Republican efforts to repeal or weaken Dodd-Frank

Tackle dangerous risks in the big banks and elsewhere in the financial system.

Hold both individuals and corporations accountable when they break the law.viii

$675,000 might be insufficient to elicit Ms. Clinton’s sympathetic ear, but a quarter century of accepting tens of millions of dollars is not so easily dismissed. It would likely have some impact on the Clintons’ sense of gratitude and certainly on their social, cultural, and political environments.

Over that period of time, while one of them or the other held public office almost continuously, the couple accumulated a net worth of $125 million.ix x Measured by family wealth, this inserted the couple into the top 1% of American families by a factor of 16 ($7.88 million is the threshold).

The Clintons found that stratum of society agreeable. In New York, their home upon leaving the White House, they moved easily among other multimillionaires, the celebrated, wealthy, and accomplished people of the city. Lloyd Blankfein, Robert Rubin, and Henry Paulson are examples, CEOs of the benefactor Wall Street banks. The couple could scarcely avoid adopting the mindset, language, values, and political perspectives of the people who now constituted their peer group.

Breaking up banks, jailing the lawless executives, forcing Wall Street to work for Main Street: Hillary Clinton’s stern proclamations of impartial law enforcement and strict regulation are difficult to take seriously.

Wall Street doesn’t. One bank executive assured his clients, “We continue to believe Clinton would be one of the better candidates for financial firms.” He was quoted in a CNN Money article, “Wall Street Isn’t Worried about Hillary Clinton’s Plan,” which stated,

Hillary Clinton unveiled her big plan to curb the worst of Wall Street’s excesses…. The reaction from the banking community was a shrug, if not relief.xi

There is good reason for the banks’ sanguine view. Over the 24 years of the romance, the Clintons first reoriented their political party, gave it a new name, the New Democratic Party, and put it at Wall Street’s service. Then they engineered financial opportunities for the New York banks of immense value—running into the hundreds of billions. And through the years as President, Senator, and Secretary of State the Clintons supported Wall Street’s interests at every necessary turn and without fail.

In the early 1990s, chairing the Democratic Leadership Council, Bill Clinton ushered in the centrist, triangulating New Democratic Party, explicitly to be more business-friendly—and to attract the financial support of corporate America. Wall Street supported his 1992 campaign handsomely, and Bill Clinton became the first president under the new banner. Hillary Clinton was at his side, a de facto minister-without-portfolio.

When he appointed Robert Rubin of Goldman Sachs as Secretary of the Treasury Department, Clinton established a precedent. For the next 24 years every Administration would find Wall Street executives to serve in the position. The New York banks became the primal clients of the New Democratic Party.

But the working families of America and the African-American and Hispanic communities—the party’s historic constituencies—were betrayed and abandoned, deprived of effective representation in Washington. The Clintons’ political campaigns over the next decades became monumental hypocrisies, Bill donning sunglasses to play his saxophone for Arsenio Hall, Hillary visiting black churches to hug the parishioners. They speak warmly to the traditional constituencies with carefully scripted political rhetoric, currying their favor, depending on them for electoral victory, but effectively obscuring the truth of their betrayal.

The traditional constituencies were not only betrayed, but targeted. On taking office Mr. Clinton announced, “The era of big government is over.” On that cue he co-opted two issues long

used by Republicans to mask their party’s racism: “welfare” and “crime.” To address the issues two laws were passed in Clinton’s first term that savaged the betrayed constituencies.

The first was The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. It fulfilled Clinton’s promise to “end welfare as we know it,” and the punishing effects it set in motion have yet to abate. Since the end of the Clinton Administration, poverty in the U.S. has nearly doubled: “… the number of Americans living in high-poverty areas rose to 13.8 million in 2013 from 7.2 million in 2000, with African-Americans and Latinos driving most of the gains.”xii

To show how tough on crime he could be, Clinton next guided The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 through Congress. A flurry of prison construction quickly followed, an industry of private for-profit prisons took hold and flourished, and a skyrocketing population mostly of young black males soon filled them, most frequently charged with drug offenses, non-violent and victim-free.

Sixteen years later the effects of the law were described in a searing book: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

The author of the book is a distinguished legal scholar and human rights activist, Michelle Alexander.

Ms. Alexander well understands how the Clintons and their creation, the New Democratic Party, left working families and communities of color without a political voice. And no one addresses the tragedy more forcefully. Her latest work is an article, “Black Lives Shattered,” in the February 29, 2016 issue of The Nation. She details how the two Clinton laws have devastated African-American families and sent millions—particularly those young black males—to prison. In the article’s caption, she asks, The Clinton’s legacy has been the impoverishment of black America—so why are we still voting for them?

The online version of her article carries a different title, Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote . Her compelling case is abbreviated in the subtitle:

From the crime bill to welfare reform, policies Bill Clinton enacted—and Hillary Clinton supported—decimated black America.

When pressed, and with limited enthusiasm Hillary Clinton now apologizes for the laws, suggesting they are no longer quite so appropriate.

But she has not, cannot, and unquestionably will not mention two other laws passed at the bidding of President Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin.

These laws enriched the Wall Street banks by hundreds of billions of dollars, but they too devastated working families, African-Americans, and Latinos.

The first was The Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, repealing the Glass-Steagall legislation of 1933. Now it was legal once more for financial institutions to mix commercial and investment banking. Goldman Sachs et al. could now use depositor’s funds, insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, to buy up “subprime” mortgages, the high-interest debt obligations of typically low-income, black, and Latino families.

The next law was The Commodity Futures Modernization Act. Now Goldman Sachs et al. could transform packages of those “subprime” mortgages into complicated derivatives called “mortgage-backed-obligations,” have them fraudulently rated as AAA investments, and sell them around the world, without limit, without restriction, without regulation, at immense profit.

For eight years the bubble inflated, and then it collapsed in the last year of George Bush’s Administration. Real estate values plummeted. The stock market was hammered. So was the U.S. economy. And so tragically were many low-income, African-American, and Latino families. $13 trillion in household wealth vaporized. Nine million workers lost their jobs. Five million families were evicted from their homes.xiii

This is what the Clinton Administration, and the New Democratic Party, had wrought.

The banks were caught with hundreds of billions in mortgage-backed derivatives still in the pipeline, the market values of which were dropping like stones. Wall Street’s prospective losses were horrific; bankruptcies loomed. But George Bush’s Treasury Secretary was the obligatory Wall Streeter: Mr. Hank Paulson, recently CEO of Goldman Sachs. In a heartbeat Mr. Paulson rammed through Congress The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. It was known as the “Troubled Asset Relief Program,” and it handed Mr. Paulson $700 billion of taxpayers’ money to buy the near-worthless securities from the banks.

Hillary Clinton, now the U.S. Senator from New York, voted for the bill, telling a New York radio station the next day, “I think the banks of New York..are probably the biggest winners in this.”xiv

Eagerly, Mr. Paulson started buying, typically paying the banks half again the market value of the “troubled assets.”xv But a presidential campaign was underway, and soon he would have to stop.

Barack Obama, overcoming Hillary Clinton in the primaries, was elected as the second president from the New Democratic Party. Mr. Obama’s campaign contributions from Wall Street:

*Goldman Sachs: $1,034,615

*JP Morgan Chase: $847,855

*Citigroup: $755,057

*Morgan Stanley: $528,182

The total here is $3.7 million.xvi (Hillary Clinton’s campaign, apparently thought more likely to succeed, was supported with $14.6 million from the banks.xvii)

President Obama’s choice of Wall Street bankers to head his Treasury Department was Mr. Timothy Geithner, lately the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Mr. Geithner wasted no time in resuming the “troubled asset” purchases, and his execution of the program was no less profitable for the banks than Mr. Paulson’s.xviii

Wall Street’s grip on the New Democratic Party, however, and its influence in the Obama Administration, appeared in the Department of Justice as well. Mr. Eric Holder joined the Administration from the law firm of Covington Burling, which represents in Washington most of the Wall Street banks. Charged with prosecuting their criminal behavior, Mr. Holder found the banks “too big to fail.” Instead of criminal indictments and lawsuits, then, Mr. Holder negotiated with each of the banks a financial penalty to be paid from corporate funds. No corporate executives were jailed, no personal fines levied, no records of criminal conduct filed, no salaries reduced, no bonuses denied.

Today the Wall Street banks are larger and more powerful than ever, and Mr. Holder has returned to Covington Burling. President Obama, however—of the New Democratic Party—has provided no similar relief to the brutalized working families and communities of color. Their struggles continue, the crime and welfare laws have not been repealed, and the title of a recent study tells the tragic truth: During Obama’s Presidency Wealth Inequality has Increased and Poverty Levels are Higher.xix

Because of the Clintons’ romance with Wall Street and their corrupt New Democratic Party, the New York bankers and the Clintons are richer today. Others—betrayed, abandoned, savaged—are not.

Notes

i“Two Clintons. 41 years. $3 Billion,” Washington Post, November 19, 2015

ii“Occupy Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street Speeches,” Huffpost Politics, February 28, 2016

iii“Hillary Clinton. Top 20 Contributors, 1999-2002,” http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php/type==C&cid..

iv“Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush Still Favorites of Wall Street Banks,” Huffpost Politics, October 22, 2015

v“$153 Million in Bill and Hillary Speaking Fees, Documented,” Robert Yoon, CNN, Updated February 6, 2016.

vi“Hillary Clinton Made More in 12 Speeches to Big Banks That Most of Us Earn in a Lifetime,” https://theintercept.com/2016/01/08/hillary-clinton-earned-more-from-12-speeches-to-big-banks-than-most-americans-earn-in-their-lifetime/

vii“Clinton Defends Wall Street Speeches at CNN Town Hall,” Time, February 4, 2016

viiiFrom Hillary Clinton’s campaign website, under “Wall Street Reform,” http://hillaryclinton.com/issues/wall-street

ix“Hillary Clinton net worth: $45 Million,” http://www.celebritynetworth.com/

x“Bill Clinton net worth: $80 Million,” http://www.celebritynetworth.com/

xi“Wall Street Isn’t Worried about Hillary Clinton’s Plan,” CNN Money, October 8, 2015.

xii“Poverty Has Nearly Doubled Since 2000 in America,” International Business Times, August 9, 2015

xiii“Wall Street Reform: Wall Street must work for Main Street,” http://hillaryclinton.com/issues/wall-street

xiv“Hillary Clinton’s Tough Talk on Wall Street,” http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/13/hillary-clinton..

xv“Troubled Asset Relief Program,” Wikipedia

xvi“Barack Obama. Top Contributors, 2008 Cycle,” http;//www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php/cid=…

xviiWashington Post, “Two Clintons. 41 Years. $3 Billion”

xviiiSee Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street, by Neil Barofsky, passim.

xixhttp://www.counterpunch.org/2016/02/26/during-obamas-presidency-wealth-inequality-has-increased-and-poverty-levels-are-higher/

Richard W. Behan lives in Corvallis, Oregon. He can be reached at: rwbehan@comcast.net.

March 16, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

US State Dept Pledges to Retain Sanctions Until Russia Returns Crimea

Sputnik — 16.03.2016

48c581ed-2d60-4ab7-aa80-6075262893e4Washington will not lift the sanctions imposed after the reunification of Crimea with Russia until Moscow decides to “return Crimea to Ukraine,” the spokesman for the US State Department said.

Crimea, which has a predominately ethnically-Russian population, seceded from Ukraine to rejoin Russia two years ago following a referendum on March 16 in which over 96 percent of voters supported the move.

“We will not accept the redrawing of borders by force in the 21st century. Sanctions related to Crimea will remain in place as long as the occupation continues. We again call on Russia to end that occupation and return Crimea to Ukraine,” John Kirby said in a statement Wednesday.

He added that Washington remains committed to “a united, sovereign Ukraine.”

In 2014, the United States, the European Union and some of their allies imposed a series of economic sanctions targeting key Russian sectors as well as a number of individuals and entities over Russia’s reunification with Crimea and its alleged interference in the conflict between Kiev and independence supporters in eastern Ukraine, denied by Moscow.

March 16, 2016 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Syria: The Guardian View on… Things they Just Made Up

OffGuardian | March 16, 2016

The Western MSM are all a flutter: Russia are pulling out of Syria (sort of). They can’t quite decide if it’s a victory, or a defeat. They don’t know if it’s because they ran out of money, are giving up, or it’s all a big lie – but they all agree on two things: 1) Russia has not achieved anything and 2) This is a massive a surprise.

Such a surprise that Putin announced the plan five months ago, in a story printed in the Telegraph. This is what the Western world has come to, I suppose, if a politician SAYS he’s going to do something and then actually DOES IT, this is… surprising. How sad.

The Guardian are firmly of the belief that this is “A Bad Thing” – in fact they are so against Russia leaving Syria, that one almost forgets they were just as strongly against Russia entering Syria in the first place. Because Russia and reasons.

Whether in the petulant and childish summation “written” by Shaun Walker, or this one of their ridiculous “Guardian view” editorials (written anonymously, of course), the battle lines are being drawn: The fight is with reality.

The Walker piece is standard Walker-fare. Long on snide one-liners, short on content. Long on narrative, short on evidence. He describes the withdrawal as a move “analysts never saw coming” – presumably because none of them read the Telegraph. It’s threaded throughout with dishonest and inappropriate things:

… the end forever of the burgeoning bromance between the Turkish and Russian presidents…”

A less creative reporter, one with a sense of shame perhaps, would have used the phrase “worsening of Russia-Turkish relations.” Walker is above such things – there is nothing so serious it can’t be livened up with mockery and snarkiness. Not even war. He continues:

Not to mention the repeated insistence that the Syria bombing has not resulted in any civilian casualties, despite ever-mounting evidence to the contrary.”

The link to this “mounting evidence”? It’s a Guardian aticle from 4 months ago – about a family who got bombed. The rebel commanders and American “experts” (the only sources quoted) know it was the Russians because “it happened at night”.

Oh and then this:

But if there is indeed now a withdrawal, it will prevent the Syria mission from turning into a long, drawn-out affair with rising Russian casualties.

Rising… from three. Who were all killed by Turkey.

For while it is true the mission of defeating Isis has not been accomplished…

And here, here we come to the most insidious and important lie. It’s a theme that is repeated in “The Guardian View..”. The headline proclaims:

Russia’s Syria U-turn: no kind of victory”

Which is, literally, as factually incorrect as a statement can be. It is not a U-Turn, observe the Telegraph link above, and it is certainly a kind of victory.

If there is one thing that Mr Putin’s announcement makes plain, it is that Russia’s claim that it was moving into Syria to combat Islamic State”

This has been a favorite line in the press since the Russian operation began – it is a lie. Russia never made such a claim. Sergey Lavrov, on fighting terrorism in Syria, famously said:

If it looks like a terrorist, walks like a terrorist, acts like a terrorist… it’s a terrorist”

The stated aim of the Russian intervention was assisting their ally in combating terrorism and bringing a negotiated settlement to the region – as they have been trying to do since 2012. Additionally, the Russian air force is continuing to bomb ISIS and provide air support for the SAA advance on Palmyra, and then Raqqa. To deny this – when evidence abounds – is to be insane.

More and more we see the Western, neocon narrative is being propped up with utterly baseless statements. From Obama’s foolish description of a Syrian “quagmire”, to the ridiculous idea Russia is trying to unseat Merkel by flooding Europe with refugees. The collapse of analysis and rhetoric into hysteria betrays the inherent dishonesty of the position. As a friend of mine is fond of saying: If they honestly believed the truth to be on their side, they would not feel the need to lie.

Maybe, with Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq, western journalists have forgotten that wars are not meant to last – maybe years of reporting on American interventions, designed to prolong conflict for the sake of profit margins, have scrubbed out of our collective mind the idea that an action can be brief, decisive and efficient.

The following are a list of facts totally omitted from the Guardian articles on Syria the last few days:

Huge gains on the ground, destruction of the enemy supply lines, destruction of enemy materiel, extended peace talks, refugees returning home and a ceasefire agreement. This, in the Guardian view, is “no kind of victory”. Which makes you wonder whose side they are on.

March 16, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Tunisian Foreign Minister Denounces Legally Baseless Intervention in Libya

By Svetlana Alexandrova – Sputnik – March 15, 2016

Tunisia strongly opposes any military intervention in Libya outside the framework of international law, Tunisian Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui told Sputnik.

In January, media reported that US President Barack Obama was making plans to open a third front against Daesh in Libya, following military operations in Syria and Iraq started by a US-led coalition in 2014.

“The impact of any foreign involvement or military strikes in Libya will be significant to our security. We are saying to our partners, who are willing to hit the strongholds of terrorists, that they have to inform us about their plans and, of course, we are against any strikes without legal ground. We think that any strike should be made [according to] the international legal framework and UN,” the minister said.

He added that the international community should shift its focus and help Libyans strengthen bonds and resolve their differences.

“We would like to see a new national accord government in Libya assume power and taking care of the terrorism issue. It is a task for the Libyans, not for foreigners to fight terrorism in Libya,” Jhinaoui pointed out.

Libya has been engulfed in conflict since the 2011 overthrow of long-term leader Muammar Gaddafi and the subsequent civil war. There are currently two governments in Libya: the internationally-recognized Council of Deputies based in Tobruk and the Tripoli-based General National Congress. The two sides came to an agreement on December 17, paving the way to the formation of the Government of National Accord.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that any military operations against terrorists in Libya should only be possible if the UN Security Council agrees to them.

March 15, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Libya military intervention needs UN approval, says Russian FM

Press TV – March 14, 2016

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says any military operation in Libya requires the approval of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Lavrov said during a joint press conference in Moscow with visiting Tunisian Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui on Monday that Russia is aware of some plans for military involvement in Libya, but insisted that those plans could be implemented only with the permission of the 15-member council.

“We know about what’s being discussed openly and not so openly on plans of military intervention, including with the situation in Libya. Our common position is that this is possible only under the UN Security Council’s decision,” Lavrov said.

The top Russian diplomat also noted that a possible mandate for an operation against the terrorists in Libya must be defined unambiguously so as not to allow misinterpretations.

Russia says that the US-led military alliance NATO abused a United Nations resolution in 2011 to protect Libyan civilians from slain Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s forces in order to pursue regime change and political assassinations during a popular uprising across the North African country.

The remarks come as New York Times recently reported that the Pentagon and the highly secretive Joint Special Operations Command have provided the White House with “the most detailed set of military options yet” in Libya.

France’s Le Monde newspaper also reported last month that the country’s special forces and members of the country’s external security agency Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) were in Libya for “clandestine operations” in cooperation with the US and Britain.

Meanwhile, a UN panel is also investigating claims that Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Sudan have violated an existing arms embargo by providing weapons to warring groups operating in Libya.

In mid-February, Libya’s internationally recognized Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni accused Ankara of interference in his country’s internal affairs.

Since 2014, when militants seized the capital Tripoli, Libya has had two parallel parliaments and governments.

Daesh took advantage of the chaos and captured Libya’s northern port city of Sirte in June 2015, almost four months after it announced its presence in the city, and made it the first city to be ruled by the militant group outside of Iraq and Syria.

March 14, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US Foreign Policy Gurus Say Souring Relations with Russia Was Washington’s Fault

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By Andrei AKULOV – Strategic Culture Foundation – 13.03.2016

It was quite different in the 1990s — early 2000s. Significant improvements were achieved in the relations between the US and Russia, including in the sphere of military cooperation. Those days there was no doubt the Russia-US relationship had a great future.

The military met each other as friends and allies to discuss what could be done to boost cooperation and prepare for joint actions to counter terrorist threats. Then the process got stalled. The relations deteriorated. All the efforts applied went down the drain. What really caused it to happen? Today US foreign policy old timers and savvies have something to say about it.

Consistent disregard for Russia’s interests by the US, as well as Washington’s dismissive attitude towards Moscow in the post-Cold War era, have led to strained relations between the two, former US Defense Secretary William Perry told The Guardian on March 9.

Perry said that a complete lack of regard for Russia as a power or a dialogue partner from Washington officials played a crucial role in this reversal.

According to the opinion of former US Defense Chief, reckless expanding NATO, making plans to deploy a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, and supporting the so-called «color revolutions» in former Soviet republics were all steps in the wrong direction, which were all taken without ever even considering Russia’s concerns.

Perry also denounced the George W. Bush administration’s decision to station a US missile defense system in eastern European countries – particularly in Poland. He also emphasized that the US support of the so called «color revolutions», was another serious blow to bilateral relations between Moscow and Washington.

Jack F. Matlock Jr., ambassador to the USSR from 1987 to 1991 and the author of the book titled Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended, has his own views on the matter.

According to him, after the USSR ceased to exist the United States insisted on treating Russia as the loser. The former ambassador writes that Russian President Vladimir Putin was the first foreign leader to call and offer support when terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. He cooperated with the United States when it invaded Afghanistan, and he voluntarily removed Russian bases from Cuba and Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam. In return, he got further expansion of NATO in the Baltics and the Balkans, and plans for American bases there; withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; invasion of Iraq without UN Security Council approval; overt participation in the «color revolutions» in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan; and then, probing some of the firmest red lines any Russian leader would draw, talk of taking Georgia and Ukraine into NATO.

Speaking at the meeting of the Committee for the Republic, an organization established by former diplomats and government officials, Mr Matlock went on to lambaste Obama for using the State of the Union to personally attack Russian President Putin.

«His comments were totally out of place», Matlock said. He also attacked Congress for their own interference in passing the Magnitsky Act. «The Russians are reacting to a policy of insufferable arrogance and humiliation», he said. He criticized the whole policy with regard to Ukraine and «regime change». «If you can think that you can solve all problems by removing a leader, you’re wrong. Didn’t we learn the lessons from Iraq?» asked the former ambassador.

Henry Kissinger is clearly still one of America’s foremost foreign policy gurus who served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as United States Secretary of State in the administrations of presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He believes that instead of trying to break Russia, America’s goal should be to «integrate» it into the international order taking Moscow’s interests into account.

According to the US foreign policy vet, that would begin with recognition of the realities of Russian power and interests, treating Russia like the great power that it is, and on that foundation exploring «whether their concerns can be reconciled with our necessities».

The opportunities to change the relationship for the better are here to stay.

On March 3, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that a policy of confrontation with the West is not something that Moscow wants. «We are not seeking confrontation with the United States, or the European Union, or NATO. On the contrary, Russia is open to the widest possible cooperation with its Western partners. We continue to believe that the best way to ensure the interests of the peoples living in Europe is to form a common economic and humanitarian space from the Atlantic to the Pacific, so that the newly formed Eurasian Economic Union could be an integrating link between Europe and Asia Pacific», the Russian foreign policy chief wrote in an article.

US candidates in the presidential race (except Republican candidate Donald Trump), as well as many in the Obama administration, find the idea of trying to work with Russia appalling when they speak in public. There is a reason to believe they don’t entirely share that view, but at least that’s what they say. No matter who wins in November, a new president will have to shape new policy on Russia. He or she will have to make decisive choices. It presupposes immense responsibility. The Americans are normally reluctant to admit mistakes, but it’s important to understand what is the root of the problem. That’s when the opinion of foreign policy gurus stands one in good stead.

March 13, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Is the Media an Accomplice in Drone Murders?

By Emran Feroz – teleSUR – March 11, 2016

Since 2001, the United States has been killing people with weaponized drones, most times not knowing the identities of the victims.

The victims of drone strikes are nameless and invisible, despite the fact that most of them are civilians.

The Pentagon announced this week that more than 150 al-Shabab fighters have been killed by a U.S. drone strike in Somalia. The Pentagon spokesmen repeatedly talked about “fighters” and “terrorists” which “posed an imminent threat to the U.S.” But as usual, he offered no proof of his claims.

This kind of language has become normalized when it comes to the U.S. drone war, which is not just taking place in Somalia, but also in countries like Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. What is significant regarding the regular attacks in these countries is the media coverage. In fact, it practically does not exist. The many victims of drone strikes are nameless and invisible. And if they appear in any media reports, all of them are completely dehumanized and described as “terrorists,” “suspected militants” or any other similar euphemism.

This was also the case after the latest strike in Somalia, a country the U.S. is officially not at war with. Shortly after the Pentagon’s announcement, many news outlets adopted the U.S. government’s version of the incident. The New York Times, for example, wrote about the killing of “150 fighters who were assembled for what American officials believe was a graduation ceremony.” “Militants” was also the term the Washington Post used to describe all the victims. It is necessary to point out that many other well-known media outlets from all over the world did the very same thing. As usual, there was a huge lack of any critical scrutinizing. Instead, media once again became a mouthpiece of the U.S. government by quoting its military officials and spreading their one-sided views constantly.

Since 2001, the United States has been killing people with weaponized drones, most times not knowing the identity of the victims. As of today, at least 6,000 people have been killed by these drone strikes. According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, only 4 percent of drone victims in Pakistan were identified as a-Qaida members. But vastly more than 2,000 people have been killed there by drones during the last years.

Another country which is suffering heavily under drone strikes is Afghanistan, the most drone bombed country in the world. Between 2001 and 2013, 1,670 drone strikes took place in the country. It was in the city of Kandahar, the Taliban’s former stronghold, where the first strike by a weaponized drone took place in October 2001. The target, Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, was not killed on this day, but many other unknown people have been in the years since.

One of these people was Sadiq Rahim Jan, a 21-year-old food vendor from Paktia, eastern Afghanistan. He was murdered by a drone strike in July 2012. A few days later, media outlets in Kabul described him as a “Taliban commander.” The family members of Aisha Rashid have also been killed by a drone strike. The Afghan girl was four years old when a missile hit the pick-up of her family in Kunar, also in the east of the country. Fourteen passengers, including Aisha’s parents, were murdered. Only she survived – barely – with a ragged face. Initially, all the victims were described as “militants” by Afghan government officials and local media outlets.

Tariq Aziz, from North Waziristan shared a similar destiny. The 16-year-old anti-drone activist was killed by a drone strike in November 2011, together with his 12-year-old cousin Waheed. Unlike the case of Malala Yousafzai, the young Pashtun girl which was nearly killed by a member of the Pakistani Taliban and received a Nobel Peace Prize, Tariq’s case is widely unknown.

In all the mentioned cases, as well as many other, significant media coverage was nonexistent – or it described the victims as terrorists, extremists, militants, al-Qaida members, and so on. This is happening on a daily basis and there are also reasons why it is happening.

In the case of Sadiq, for example, his family became outraged after they noticed that local media outlets described their son and brother as a “Taliban commander.” On that day, the young Afghan was the only person who has been killed in the area. He never had any connection with any insurgent group, not to mention being a commander of them. One of the media outlets which spread these news was Radio Azadi, an Afghan branch of the US government’s external broadcast services. It should be more than obvious that the main aim of such a media platform is not spreading objective information.

Another example for this behaviour is Tolo TV, Afghanistan’s leading mainstream television channel. Last year, the channel’s news website reported that in July 2015 drone strikes in the eastern province of Nangarhar killed “nearly 250 Taliban and Daesh [Islamic State] insurgents.” The main source for this “reporting” was the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Afghan intelligence service, which was built by the U.S. in the first days of the NATO invasion.

Tolo TV was created in 2004 by Saad Mohseni, an Afghan businessman who is being called an “Afghan Rupert Murdoch” and is considered one of the most powerful men in Afghanistan. The channel’s creation was mainly funded by the notorious United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which is widely known as one of the most important foreign policy tools of the White House.

In general, one can assume that many media outlets in Afghanistan were not created to support journalism and press freedom but to install media institutions who can be useful to represent particular interests. This is also the case in other countries which suffer from drone strikes.

Noor Behram, an investigative journalist from Northern Waziristan, is known for taking pictures of the drone murder scenes and spreading the victims’ faces. After Behram talked with journalists from Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, he experienced that for them, a beard, long hair and a turban or a pakol, a traditional Afghan cap, is enough to describe male drone victims as “terrorists.” But nearly every man in this area looks like that. According to this logic, everyone, even myself when I am staying there, must be a terrorist.

Besides, Behram’s results fit into Washington’s practice that all military-aged males in a strike zone are considered as “militants.”

The U.S. and its allies needed propaganda organs to construct and justify their war on a medial level. Despite the question if this is moral or not, one should agree that it is also very logical because every war is based on propaganda – it was always like that and probably will never change.

But what remains is the question why so many people still believe such a biased media coverage and its constructed narrative of a good war which is only hitting the bad guys.

Emran Feroz is an Afghan-Austrian journalist, writer and activist currently based in Germany. He is the founder of Drone Memorial, a virtual memorial for civilian drone strike victims.

March 12, 2016 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

White House: US Continues National Emergency Over Iran

Sputnik — 09.03.2016

The United States extended the national emergency vis-a-vis Tehran despite the recent lifting of nuclear-related sanctions stipulated in Iran’s agreement with the P5+1 group of countries, President Barack Obama told the Speaker of the US House of Representatives in a letter on Wednesday.

On July 14, 2015, Iran and the P5+1 group of negotiators, comprising China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States plus Germany, signed a historic accord to guarantee the peaceful nature of Tehran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of sanctions.

“The national emergency with respect to Iran that was declared on March 15, 1995, is to continue in effect beyond March 15, 2016,” Obama stated.

“Though lifting of nuclear-related sanctions constitutes a significant change in our sanctions posture [with Iran], non-nuclear related sanctions remain in place.”

The United States, Obama explained, lifted nuclear-related sanctions against Iran after the International Atomic Energy Agency issued a report in January verifying that Iran implemented key nuclear-related steps specified in the JCPOA.

“Nevertheless, certain actions and policies of the government of Iran are contrary to the interests of the United States in the region and continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States,” Obama claimed.

Earlier this week, according to reports, Iran carried out ballistic missile tests that Washington vowed to raise with the UN Security Council if confirmed.

March 10, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

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