‘Saudi Sanctions against Hezbollah Have Failed to Weaken the Party’
Deputy chief of Hezbollah’s Executive Council Sheikh Nabil Qawook
Naharnet | October 29, 2016
Deputy chief of Hezbollah’s Executive Council Sheikh Nabil Qawuq stressed on Saturday that the Saudi sanctions against the party have failed to weaken it, the state-run National News Agency reported on Saturday.
“The political developments and field achievements confirm the failure of the Saudi sanctions against Hezbollah, especially since Saudi Arabia wanted to weaken Hezbollah in Lebanon which has only grown stronger at the political, popular and military levels inside Lebanon and regionally,” said Qawuq.
“By renewing sanctions and terrorism ranking against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia is but reflecting an outrage, despair and disappointment in the face of the Resistance, because the Saudi penalties have changed nothing of Hezbollah’s stances in Syria,” his eminence went on to say.
“Regardless of the pressures, we will not leave our national duty to protect our people and our nation, and we will complete the battle against takfiri terrorism, which has no choice but to be defeated in Syria, and we have no choice but to win.” added Qawuq.
He concluded: “The next phase that Lebanon is approaching will emphasize the strength of the strategic alliance between Hezbollah and Amal movement. Those who were betting on discord and division between the two were disappointed.
“If it was not for the Army, People and Resistance equation which Lebanon renews adherence to at this stage, and without the sacrifices of the Lebanese army and the resistance that has protected Lebanon from being sacked by the ISIL and al-Nusra Front, the Lebanese would not have had the chance to elect a president.”
Conflict, terrorism in Mideast serving Israel: Larijani
Press TV – October 29, 2016
Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani says terrorists have created chaos in the Middle East, adding that the continuation of conflicts and acts of terror will serve the Israeli regime’s interests.
“The [critical] situation and chaos in the region has been created by a number of terrorists and the enemy does not want this chaos to end,” Larijani said on Saturday.
He added that all Muslim countries, including Syria, Yemen and Iraq, are entangled in conflicts and only the Israeli regime benefits from such a chaotic situation.
“Superpowers formed an anti-terror coalition in coordination with 60 countries but since they do not want to see the end of wars in the region and regard such an end as detrimental to the Zionist regime [of Israel], they are fanning the flames of tensions in the region,” Larijani said.
He noted that even American and Israeli experts and strategists have confirmed that the current conflicts in the Muslim world best serve the interests of the Zionists and that any success by Iran and the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, would be detrimental to them.
The top Iranian parliamentarian added that whenever promising prospects emerge for putting an end to the regional conflicts, the world powers rush to hold meetings and try to prolong the crises.
He said these powers have reinforced their links with terrorist groups operating in regional countries and are covertly providing them with weapons and military equipment.
Since March 2011, Syria has been hit by militancy it blames on some Western states and their regional allies. The Syrian military is engaged in an operation to rid the country of Daesh and other terrorist groups.
Over the past months, Syria has managed to recapture swathes of land from Daesh and other groups in the east and north of the country. The Syrian military has used the assistance of fighters from Hezbollah as well as advisory military support from Iran. Russia also helps Syria in the fight against terrorists through a series of coordinated airstrikes on their positions.
This is while Iraqi army troops, backed by fighters from allied Popular Mobilization Units, have been engaged in military operations to win back regions held by Daesh and have managed to liberate most of these areas.
The militants have been committing heinous crimes against all ethnic and religious communities in the northern and western parts of Iraq.
In November We Choose Between War or Peace with Russia
By John V. Walsh | Dissident Voice | October 29, 2016
Every presidential vote, like every other vote, demands that one set priorities, for it is a rare voter indeed who will agree 100% with a given candidate. And surely in the coming presidential election survival must top the list of priorities. What can be more important than survival of human civilization and perhaps humanity itself?
Here is a brief primer on the subject – suitable for printing out for liberal friends.
No Fly Zone over Syria
“I personally would be advocating now for a no-fly zone (inside Syria)….”
Hillary Clinton interview, October 1, 2015, the day after Russia began air operations over Syria. Clinton has held this position since 2013 at least when she admitted it would “kill a lot of Syrians.” She has maintained it right up to the final presidential debate when she went “all-in on Syria no-fly zone” as the pro-Clinton Huffington Post headlined it.
*****
“Right now, Senator, for us to control all the airspace in Syria would require us to go to war – against Syria and Russia. That’s a pretty fundamental decision that certainly I’m not going to make.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford in Congressional testimony on September 22, 2016. Dunford’s alarm is shared by other “national security” experts and those previously involved in implementing such zones.
“What we should do is focus on ISIS. We should not be focusing on Syria. You’re going to end up in World War Three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton. … You’re not fighting Syria any more, you’re fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right? Russia is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk.” (Emphasis, JW.)
Donald Trump in Reuters interview on October 25, 2016, headlined “Exclusive – Trump says Clinton policy on Syria would lead to World War Three.”
*****
So there you are. It is not complicated. We have seen Clinton’s actions over 26 and more years. She has not hesitated to kill hundreds of thousands and destroy entire countries. Libya and now Syria are but the latest examples. There is no doubt what she will do once in office. As Ralph Nader has said, she has never seen a war she did not love. Or as Trump has said, she is “trigger happy.”
Broader U.S. Russia Relations
“Now if this sounds familiar (Putin’s actions in Crimea, jw), it’s what Hitler did back in the 30s….. All the Germans that were … the ethnic Germans, the Germans by ancestry who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, Hitler kept saying they’re not being treated right. I must go and protect my people….”
Hillary Clinton comments comparing Putin’s actions to Hitler’s at a private gathering, March, 2014
“Mrs Clinton has chosen to take up a very aggressive stance against our country, against Russia.
“Mr Trump, on the other hand, calls for cooperation – at least when it comes to the international fight against terrorism.
“Naturally we welcome those who would like to cooperate with us. And we consider it wrong, that we always have to be in conflict with one another, creating existential threats for each other and for the whole world.
“If somebody out there wants confrontation, this is not our choice but this means that there will be problems.”
President Vladimir Putin addressing a group of journalists in Russia, October, 2016.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with Russia and China and all these countries? Wouldn’t it be nice?”
Donald Trump at a rally in Clinton, Iowa, January, 2016, stating a position that he has often voiced.
*****
My progressive friends dismiss this and many other statements of Trump’s with the easy rejoinder that Trump is inconsistent and opportunistic, that one cannot believe what he says. But his statements on Russia are quite consistent. And they are quite the opposite of opportunistic; they do not gain him votes, they have cost him votes. He stated his Russia friendly position from the beginning in the Republican primaries, as, for example, in the statement above which was made in Iowa before the caucuses. That was no advantage to him. The Republican Party at that time was dominated by the neocons, and its Establishment remains hawkish to the present as John McCain, Mitt Romney and many others demonstrate on a near daily basis. Trump has stuck with his position right up through the final presidential debate, even though his own vice presidential candidate has tried to pull him away from it and even though Hillary has used it as a club with which to beat him. There has been no inconsistency and it has been costly for him. That means you can take it to the bank as a matter of principle for him.
In fact, Trump has been as determined and consistent in seeking peace with Russia and Syria as Clinton has been in demonizing Putin and seeking a no-fly zone in Syria. That is a clear and striking difference between them.
A testimony of great value to progressives
On the issue of war and nuclear weapons, it is actually Hillary’s policies which are much scarier than Donald Trump (sic) who does not want to go to war with Russia. He wants to seek modes of working together, which is the route that we need to follow not to go into confrontation and nuclear war with Russia.
— Jill Stein, Green Party candidate for president, interview on October 12, 2016.
If, dear reader, you do not believe that Hillary will put us in a war situation with Russia to advance the power of the Indispensible Nation and the Exceptionals, then please read again the first three quotes at the beginning of this essay. In the absence of Hillary from his Cabinet, Obama has been wary about plunging into a misadventure in Syria. But Hillary does not hesitate when it comes to such bloody undertakings; she revels in them.
And if you have priorities that outstrip the question of survival, then this essay will mean little to you. But I submit that most other questions pale into insignificance next to this one – if not for you, then for your loved ones and for your fellow human beings.
John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com.
Ankara halts airstrikes after Syria vows to ‘down Turkish planes,’ activates air defenses – report
RT | October 29, 2016
Turkish jets have reportedly not taken part in the Euphrates Shield operation in neighboring Syria for a week now over the fears of being shot down by local air defenses after Damascus promised to prevent any aerial incursions.
Ankara halted air support for its ground incursion into Syria on October 22, after Damascus vowed to shoot down Turkish Air Force planes over Syrian skies, a Turkish official told the Hürriyet Daily News on condition of anonymity. The official added that the coalition forces have also decreased the number of flights in northern Syria.
Syria’s air defense capabilities have been widely boosted after Russia deployed its mobile S-400 and S-300 missile batteries earlier this year to protect its personnel on the ground. Russian hardware has the ability to shoot down planes and cruise missiles over at least 250 miles (402km) in all directions from western Syria.
Two days before Turkey halted its military flights over Syria, Damascus, which called the Turkish invasion a violation of national sovereignty, warned that it would shoot down any Turkish warplanes.
“Any attempt to once again breach Syrian airspace by Turkish warplanes will be dealt with and they will be brought down by all means available,” warned Damascus on October 20. The presence of Turkish troops in Syria is a “dangerous escalation and flagrant breach of Syria’s sovereignty”
The response from Damascus came after Turkish planes targeted Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), the fighting wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), near al-Bab in northern Aleppo the day before.
Turkish forces crossed into Syria on August 24, under the pretext of targeting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) positions along the border. Turkey has been supporting the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) on the ground.
In addition to jihadist fighters, the Turkish troops involved in Operation Euphrates Shield also engaged the YPG militia, part of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). One of Turkey’s primary objectives in the operation is to block the path of Kurdish forces trying to form a link between their Afrin and Kobani cantons. Syrian rebels, with the help of the Turkish military, are slowly making their way across northern Aleppo province.
The source told the Turkish daily that the pace of the offensive has been largely impacted by the lack of air support. The FSA’s advance toward Al-Bab has faltered due to the lack of Turkish airstrikes, he said, pointing out that Turkish offensive only secured 5km in the last three days.
Earlier in the week Turkey’s military accused the Syrian government forces of attacking FSA fighters in the city of Marea in northern Aleppo province. Despite the attack which allegedly killed two rebels, Ankara promised to proceed with the operation.
“We will not stop fighting against the Daesh [Arabic pejorative term for IS] terrorist group due to the regime forces’ attacks. The Euphrates Shield operation will be continued until retaking of the city of al-Bab in order to create a security zone for the return of refugees,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Wednesday.
On Friday, Turkish General Staff said in a statement that the FSA had managed to capture around 164 residential districts since the beginning of the operation, which on Saturday entered its 67th day.
At the beginning of October, the Turkish parliament extended cross-border military operations into Syria and Iraq against Kurdish and IS forces for another year.
Read more:
Syria warns it will ‘down Turkish planes next time,’ calls bombing of Kurds ‘flagrant aggression’
‘S-300, S-400 air defenses in place’: Russian MoD warns US-led coalition not to strike Syrian army
Jews ‘blamed for Holocaust’ at House of Lords event
RT | October 27, 2016
Israel has condemned a “shameful” event hosted by the British House of Lords in which Jews were blamed for the Holocaust and Israel was compared to Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).
The session marked the launch of the Balfour Apology Campaign ahead of the Balfour Declaration centenary. The 1917 declaration pledged British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy said the gathering “gave voice to racist tropes against Jews and Israelis alike.”
According to the Times, an audience member was applauded after suggesting Hitler only decided to kill Jews after being provoked by anti-German protests led by a rabbi, Stephen Wise, in New York.
“[He] made the boycott on Germany, the economic boycott… which antagonized Hitler, over the edge, to then want to systematically kill Jews wherever he could find them.”
The speaker also said Rabbi Wise told the New York Times in 1905 there were “6 million bleeding and suffering reasons to justify Zionism.” This quote is often used by Holocaust deniers to suggest the figure of 6 million Jews later killed by the Nazis was a myth.
The audience member – reportedly a member of the anti-Zionist strictly Orthodox Neturei Karta sect – also compared Israel to IS.
“Just as the so-called Jewish state in Palestine doesn’t come from Judaism. This Islamic State in Syria is nothing with Islam. It is a perversion of Islam just as Zionism is a perversion of Judaism.”
Another audience member said, to applause: “If anybody is anti-Semitic, it’s Israelis themselves.”
David Collier, a blogger who attended the session, says he “witnessed a Jew-hating festival at the heart of the British estate.”
The event run by Baroness Tonge, a former Liberal Democrat MP who sits as an independent, and the Palestinian Return Centre.
Tonge reportedly made no attempt to challenge the comments.
She has run into trouble for her own anti-Israeli outbursts and resigned as the Lib Dem whip after claiming the state of Israel was “not going to be there forever.”
The House of Lords event was also run by the Palestinian Return Centre.
Campaigners are calling on Britain to apologize for the Balfour Declaration and show remorse for its “past colonial crimes” in Palestine.
UN failed to organize evacuation of civilians from rebel-held Aleppo – Russian envoy
RT | October 27, 2016
Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations has criticized UN’s failure to properly organize humanitarian evacuations of the wounded from terrorist-held areas of Aleppo. The UN envoy to Syria defended the team, pinning the blame on the warring parties.
“We regret to note that the United Nations has not properly worked out an operation to evacuate the sick and the wounded,” Vitaly Churkin noted at the UN Security Council session, according to RIA.
The ambassador added that the UN work with various opposition groups in Aleppo and the local council was “left to take care of itself.” He stressed that the UN personnel did not “exert the necessary pressure” on “sponsors” of illegal armed groups to convince them to cooperate with the aid workers on the ground.
Besides criticizing the UN team, the Russian envoy also accused entities that have influence over fighters in besieged neighborhoods of Aleppo of not applying enough pressure on the militants to make the most of the Russian-Syrian humanitarian pause.
“External patrons of entrenched groups in eastern Aleppo could not or did not want positively influence the fighters and convince them to stop the shooting, to release civilians or leave the city themselves,” Churkin said.
The ambassador noted that militants in Aleppo continue to get supplies and arms, including portable surface-to-air shoulder launchers (MANPADs) and missiles.
The humanitarian pause was introduced in Aleppo on October 20, as Syrian and Russian jets halted all strikes in the vicinity of the city. While only an estimated ten percent of the city’s populace live in terrorist-held Eastern Aleppo, Moscow is doing everything possible to secure the evacuation of civilians.
Those civilians who want to leave jihadist-held areas may use six humanitarian corridors. Fighters can also leave the city with their weapons by using two other corridors established by the Russians and the Syrians. However, terrorists have refused to leave and instead resorted to shelling the civilian escape routes.
Russian and Syrian planes have stayed out of the city for eight consecutive days. In that time, only a few dozen civilians managed to escape the terrorist-held areas. Meanwhile, the Russian reconciliation centers continued to pour aid into Aleppo.
During the Security Council session, the UN official in charge of humanitarian aid defended the world organization’s actions in Syria, laying blame at both the rebels, Damascus, and Moscow for not allowing the UN humanitarian assistance to take place.
“The United Nations were ready to launch our operations on Sunday, 23 October. However, objections by two non-State armed opposition groups, namely Ahrar as-Sham and Nureddin Zenki, scuppered these plans. The United Nations made every effort to get assurances from all parties, only for the parties to then fail to agree on each other’s conditions about how evacuations should proceed,” said Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Stepen O’Brien.
In the meantime, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent teams working in Aleppo have complained that delivering the humanitarian aid and treating the wounded has been a challenge, as the ICRC failed to “secure the security guarantees of some armed groups.”
Back at the UNSC, O’Brien painted a clear picture for the members of the UN Security Council of human suffering in Eastern Aleppo where terrorists use civilians as human shields.
In a graphic yet poetic account, O’Brien said that civilians – mostly children and elderly – are stuck in basements where “the stench of urine and the vomit caused by unrelieved fear never leaving your nostrils” is omnipresent.
“Or scrabbling with your bare hands in the street above to reach under concrete rubble, lethal steel reinforcing bars jutting at you as you hysterically try to reach your young child screaming unseen in the dust and dirt below your feet, you choking to catch your breath in the toxic dust and the smell of gas ever-ready to ignite and explode over you.”
“These are constant, harrowing reports and images of people detained, tortured, forcibly displaced, maimed and executed,” O’Brien added.
While mentioning the destructive role of terrorist on the ground, the UN envoy to Syria went out of his way to blame Damascus and Moscow for their air raids.
“Aleppo has essentially become a kill zone. Since my last report to this Council less than a month ago, 400 more people have been killed and nearly 2,000 injured in eastern Aleppo. So many of them – too many of them – were children,” O’Brien said.
“Never has the phrase by poet Robert Burns, of ‘Man’s inhumanity to man’ been as apt. It can be stopped but you the Security Council have to choose to make it stop,” the envoy added.
Taking the mic at the UNSC meeting, Churkin criticized O’Brien’s report, which he said lacked factual information and failed to stress the cessation of Syrian and Russian air raids on the city. He asked O’Brian not to recite poetry but base his reports on concrete facts.
“If we wanted to hear a sermon, we would go to church. If we wanted to hear poetry, we would go to a theater,” Churkin said.
Security Council members wanted to hear “objective analysis” of the situation on the ground from O’Brien, the Russian ambassador stressed.
“You clearly did not achieve this,” Churkin said, reminding O’Brien that no strikes have been conducted over Aleppo since October 18. Calling O’Brian’s statement “provocative and unacceptable,” Churkin pointed that in the past eight days Syrian and Russian planes had not flown over Aleppo, staying at least 10 km away from the city.
“This moratorium on the flight lasted eight days [now]. Mr. O ‘Brian, you did not mention a single word about it. You have built your speech so to paint a picture that aerial bombardment did not stop for one day and that it is happening now, as we speak,” said Churkin.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power also criticized the Russian humanitarian corridors in Aleppo.
“Russia made an announcement about 6 humanitarian corridors and urged to take these corridors, including people with arms. But those families were terrified about entrusting their fates to the people who have been bombing their neighborhoods,” she said.
Churkin replied that Power resorted to her usual tactics – “distorting the Russian stance to the point of absurdity.”
“It is terrifying to live here [in Aleppo]. And the US is asking: ‘What can we do?’ We told you what to do – to have both Russian and American military work together on Castello road [in Aleppo]. You said no!” Churkin said.
Power and the US delegation, along with the UK, French, and Ukrainian delegations, later staged a walkout as Churkin passed the floor to the Syrian representative.
Washington Making ‘Extremely Weird Mistakes’ in Syria
Sputnik – 27.10.2016
Washington is making “extremely weird” mistakes in Syria and Iraq, Russian defense analyst Konstantin Sivkov, President of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, told Radio Sputnik, adding that what some describe as errors are in fact “planned” steps aimed at helping US-backed radical forces.
Sivkov mentioned “accidental” airstrikes, as well as Washington’s inability to separate so-called moderate groups from al-Nusra Front as prime cases in point.
“All of these mistakes are extremely weird since they work for the benefit of those forces whom [Washington] backs. Any claims that they are fighting against al-Nusra Front are a myth. They are not really tackling [Daesh] as well. This is an instrument of [America’s] geopolitics. This is why [the US] is not particularly addressing the issue of destroying [these groups] but rather taking them under control to use for other tasks,” he explained.
The defense analyst pointed out that the Pentagon has helped the militants to move from Mosul to Syria at a time when Iraqi security forces, US-led coalition and Kurdish fighters are trying to push terrorists out of the second largest city in the country that has served as Daesh’s stronghold since June 2014. “This is why all of these ‘mistakes’ are, let’s say, planned,” he noted.
In Sivkov’s opinion, the US military and intelligence communities are behind this strategy.
“The US military does not have comprehensive intelligence on Syria. They mainly receive information [on the embattled country] from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This is how separation of duties works there. It is the CIA that is occasionally making these so-called mistakes. I think one should not blame solely the Pentagon. It is much rather a matter of a concerted stance of America’s political, military and intelligence leadership.”
Sivkov further commented on the Pentagon’s apparent decision to launch an operation to free Raqqa in the coming weeks. Earlier, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter suggested that the US had enough resources for two major overlapping anti-Daesh operations, but the Russian defense analyst pointed to another possible explanation.
“At the moment all field personnel is located near Mosul as part of an operation to free the city. This is why Americans do not have enough resources to secure a lasting blockade of Raqqa. What they need is a pretext to justify additional deployment of foreign occupational forces, including those from Turkey, the United States and other countries that have sent their ground troops to Syria without authorization from the Syrian government.”
Initially, Washington intended to focus its efforts on helping Baghdad retake Mosul, with Raqqa taking a back seat. However, since the US’ “minions,” as Sivkov put it, referring to Al-Nusra Front and similar organizations, have increasingly struggled on the Syrian battlefield, the US “needs to take perhaps a large part of Syria under control and deploy its forces to the area.”
Russia reacts to UN aid chief’s Aleppo ‘kill zone’ remarks
Press TV – October 27, 2016
Russia’s UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin has accused the United Nations aid chief of arrogance and bias after he told the UN Security Council that Russian and Syrian airstrikes have turned Aleppo into a “kill zone.”
During a Wednesday Security Council meeting, Churkin accused Stephen O’Brien of making “arrogant” and “outrageous” remarks and failing to recognize that Russia and Syria have been observing a humanitarian pause, which has been in place for the last eight days.
“The moratorium on flights has been in place for eight days. Give us at least one proof or leave those narratives for a romance you would probably write later,” he said.
“If we needed to be preached to, we would go to a church,” the Russian envoy added.
On Tuesday, Russia announced plans to extend the week-long suspension of airstrikes targeting foreign-backed Takfiri terrorists in Aleppo.
Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoi of the Russian military’s General Staff said that Russian and Syrian jets had stayed 10 kilometers away from Aleppo since October 18, and that humanitarian corridors out of Aleppo remained open.
Rudskoi further expressed Moscow’s readiness to organize more ceasefires on the ground in Aleppo to allow wounded civilians to be evacuated.
Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, has been divided between government forces in the west and the militants in the east since 2012. In an attempt to free the trapped civilian population and to end the militants’ reign of terror in the east, the Syrian army, backed by Russian fighter jets, began a major offensive on September 22.
Since March 2011, Syria has been hit by deadly militancy it blames on some Western states and their regional allies.
CNN Celebrates Iraqi Housewife Who ‘Beheaded and Then Cooked the Skulls of ISIS fighters’
Peter Van Buren | We Meant Well | October 4, 2016
When Islamic State beheads someone it is terrorism. When an Iraqi housewife beheads an ISIS fighter and cooks his skull, it is freedom. That is the CNN doctrine.
CNN reports the story of 39-year-old Wahida Mohamed aka Um Hanadi, an Iraqi woman who supposedly leads a tribal militia force of around 70 men south of Mosul. She and her band allegedly helped “government forces” drive Islamic State out of a small town.
“I began fighting the terrorists in 2004, working with Iraqi security forces and the coalition,” she told CNN. CNN cites no other source other than Um Hanadi herself and Facebook in its coverage.
As a result, Um Hanadi said, she attracted the wrath of what eventually became al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, which later morphed into ISIS. “I received threats from the top leadership of ISIS, including from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi himself,” she says. “I’m at the top of their most wanted list, even more than the [Iraqi] Prime Minister.”
Um Hanadi stated al Qaeda/AQI/ISIS planted car bombs outside her home in 2006, 2009, 2010, 2013, and 2014.
Along the way, her first husband was killed in action. She remarried, but ISIS killed her second husband. ISIS also killed her father and three brothers. They also killed, she added, her sheep, her dogs and her birds, and tried to otherwise assassinate her six times.
Where Has Um Hanadi Been Hiding All These Years?
Despite her claim to have worked with the U.S. coalition, to be higher on the ISIS hit list than the Prime Minister, to have been the target of multiple bombing attempts, and to be a very, very, very rare example of a Muslim woman leading Muslim men in combat, I could not find any references to Um Hanadi that predate the CNN report. Um Hanadi does have a self-created social media presence which she updates between battles.
In addition, Um Hanadi may be the luckiest person in Iraq, apparently cheating death on a near-daily basis.
CNN did not explain in its coverage how it came to locate and interview Um Hanadi amid the chaos of present-day Iraq.
The Beheadings
Now, on to the beheadings.
CNN quotes Um Hanadi as saying of ISIS “I fought them. I beheaded them. I cooked their heads, I burned their bodies.” CNN states “She made no excuses, nor attempted to rationalize this. It was delivered as a boast, not a confession.”
“This is all documented,” she said. “You can see it on my Facebook page.”
The CNN reporter wrote that he indeed checked her Facebook page and saw photos, and though he could not verify them, still “got the point.”
Comment
This is propaganda of the worst, and most infantile, kind. In addition to the broad question of whether or not any of this is even true, the question of who set CNN up to meet with Um Hanadi is left unanswered. That CNN would run this story on its television news, and website, is a shameful descent into the decaying corpse of the First Amendment. Media around the globe, including the once venerable New York Times, have reprinted the story.
Lastly is the horrific idea that atrocities such as beheading people are somehow right when an anti-ISIS person does it, and justification for an entire undeclared war by the U.S. when ISIS does it.
CNN have you no shame? Hah, trick question, you bast*rds really don’t, do you?
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Book Review
The Greatest Threat to World Peace? A Review of Daniele Ganser’s ‘USA: The Ruthless Empire’
Review by Marilyn Langlois | November 10, 2023
If you regard the United States as perhaps flawed but overall a force for good in the world . . .
If you scoff at the notion that the US, a republic founded on principles of freedom and democracy, has morphed into a world empire, perpetrating assassinations, coups d’état, acts of terror and illegal warfare . . .
If you want to promote peace but haven’t yet explored deceptive events that precipitate US warmongering . . .
. . . here is a volume that will clear the air and paint an honest picture of the significant, not-so-rosy impact US foreign policy and actions have had in the world around us.
USA: The Ruthless Empire, by Swiss historian and peace researcher Daniele Ganser, is the newly published English language translation of his book Imperium USA, originally written in German and published in 2020. Here is a summary of key points — including some lesser-known ones — along with remedies for a more peaceful future, that are covered in the book. … continue
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