Sunday, November 13, 2016
The many, many, many, many, ,many, many, many, many sins of the New York Times
A must read from Robert Parry:
New York Times: Apologist for Power
.....In my journalistic career, I have found both extremes troubling: the Times’ assumption that the authorities are almost always right and the conspiracy theorists who follow up some “what I can’t understand” comment with a patently absurd explanation and then get angry when rational people won’t go along.
Though both attitudes have become dangerous for a functioning democracy, the behavior of the Times deserves the bulk of the blame, since the “newspaper of record” carries far more weight in setting public policy and also is partly to blame for creating this blight of conspiracism.
Some of the Times’ failures are well known, such as its 2002 front-page acceptance of claims from officials and allies of George W. Bush’s administration that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program and had purchased some aluminum tubes to do so. The Times’ bogus story allowed Bush’s top aides to go on Sunday talk shows to warn that “we must not allow the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
But the “aluminum tube” story was only part of a long-developing pattern. As an investigative reporter in Washington since 1980, I had seen the Times engage in similar publications of false stories planted by powerful insiders.....
....Even in the rare moments when the Times claimed it was standing up to the Bush administration, such as publishing James Risen’s article in December 2005 exposing the warrantless wiretapping of Americans, the reality was not exactly a new chapter in Profiles in Courage.
It turned out that the Times had been sitting on Risen’s story for more than a year – it could have been published before the 2004 election – but Bush demanded the story’s suppression. The information was finally shared with the public in late 2005 only because Risen’s book, State of War, was scheduled for publication in January 2006 and included the disclosure, a prospective embarrassment for the Times.....
....For instance, on Aug. 21, 2013, when a mysterious sarin gas attack outside Damascus, Syria, killed several hundred people, the Times simply fell in line behind the U.S.-driven rush to judgment blaming the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
There were immediate reasons to doubt that conclusion – Assad had just invited in United Nations inspectors to investigate cases of Syrian jihadists using chemical weapons – but the Times and other major Western outlets simply fingered the already demonized Assad.
Though we now know that U.S. intelligence analysts did not consider Assad’s guilt a “slam dunk” – and later key elements of the case against Assad collapsed, such as the Times’ miscalculation of the maximum range of the sarin-laden rocket – the Assad-did-it stampede almost led to a major U.S. military retaliation against what now appears to have been the wrong people.....
.....For instance, in a recent summary of “October Surprise” cases, the Times misled its readers on two of the most important incidents, 1968 and 1980.
Regarding the election of 1968 between Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey, the evidence is now overwhelming that Nixon’s operatives went behind President Lyndon Johnson’s back to sabotage the Paris peace talks that Johnson felt could end the Vietnam War, a development that also would likely have helped fellow Democrat Humphrey.
That evidence now includes declassified FBI wiretaps of Nixon’s conspirators and Johnson’s own taped phone conversations – as well as various admissions and other corroborations from participants – but the Times has always turned up its nose toward this important story. So, the history doesn’t exist in New York Times World....
....The so-called Deflategate case was also marred by the sloppiness of the halftime measurements of the footballs and the ignorance of many NFL executives about the laws of physics and how weather affects the internal air pressure of footballs, as determined by the Ideal Gas Law.
But the “scandal” took on a life of its own with the NFL leaking exaggerations about the discrepancies in the initial air-pressure measurements and false claims about the proper air pressure in the footballs of the other team, the Indianapolis Colts (the one accurate gauge, used by the NFL officials, showed that the Colts’ footballs were underinflated for both the first half and second half).....
Cartoons on the pollsters from the MSM ....
we should say a big "Thank You" to these idiots. Their stupidity has woken up more folks to the fact that the MSM has become irrelevant.
Dual Citizenship holders ... Loyal to Whom or What?
This is a must read!
I will never stop reiterating that in my opinion, folks holding dual citizenship are at most like bigamists and at least like traitors to the land they have migrated to, live in and enjoy what that land bestows on them and yet does not give that land their 100% loyalty. A most deplorable breed of deplorables.
Dan Eden at ViewZone
Dual Citizenship -- Loyal to Whom?
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
-- Theodore Roosevelt 1907
....... In 2009 it was revealed that the NSA had secretly taped conversations of Congresswomen Jane Harman [pictured above on the right with Israeli Knesset Speaker, Dalia Itzik] negotiating with two AIPAC spies accused of giving sensitive information about US military activities to the Israeli government. In the taped conversation she is being asked to dismiss their espionage charges in return for large political contributions and (are you ready) a chairmanship of the US Intelligence Committee! One has to assume that they thought they could actually "arrange" for this to happen. This information was secretly revealed by the NSA to Nancy Polosi prior to the selection of the committee chairman and was a factor (let's hope, anyway) in Harmon's failure to obtain this highly sensitive position. After all was said and done, however, the case against the two Israeli lobbyists was dismissed -- against the insistance of the FBI. No satisfactory reason has been given for this.
Unfortunately, such an act of treason remains unchallenged and Jane Harman remains at her congressional job and enjoys being the third wealthiest member of Congress. Only in America!
The examples of Kahane, Mahonm, Goodman and Weinmann raise the question of when a U.S. citizen ceases to be, or should cease to be, a U.S. citizen. U.S. Law at one time clearly stated that an American citizen owed first allegiance to the United States. A U.S. citizen should not fight in a foreign army or hold high office in a foreign country without risking expatriation. What the heck happened?.......
....I don't know about you, but dual citizenship is fine with me for an ordinary citizen. But if you hold an official position that demands that you put American interests above all else -- if you should look transparent and fair to the rest of the world regarding your formation of Middle East foreign policies, then this is a dangerous trend. Even if there were no pro-Israeli agenda, the fact that decision makers have a bias or an allegiance to one of the parties involved in the current conflict should have raised red flags long before now.
If you think we're being unfair here, ask yourself: How you would react to the Head of Homeland Security if he or she were a dual national with citizenship in Iran, Lebanon or Saudi Arabia? Ask yourself why you don't feel the same about Israeli dual citizenship. Then you will understand how powerful the Israeli lobby has been in "adjusting" your acceptance of their special status.....
RIP Leonard Cohen
One of my favorites is "Dance Me to the End of Love" the actual song and not how the music sounded in the movie "Scent of a Woman"
The second vid is from that particular scene in the movie.
Very believable "dirt" about the Clintons and their close associates
There's plenty of very nasty stuff on the Podesta brothers and other close associates of the Clintons going around. It seem the DC elite have a penchant for sex with the most vulnerable of human beings ... children.
Perhaps, plenty of the stuff as mentioned in the blog below is just pure rubbish ... for example, the stuff collected from 4chan about the Evie's Crib blog. I personally went through almost 80% of the postings there and came away with a feeling that everything there is kosher. Nothing looks suspicious, not to my eyes.
However, if some of the stuff as listed in the below is accurate, then plenty of the folks in the Clintons' inner circle must be sent to prison....or at the very least investigated in depth.
From DCPizzaGate
Suspected Pedophile Ring Exposed
DC Pizza Gate: A Primer UPDATED 11/9
I’ve created this blog to share the information 4chan has collectively gathered and researched about a suspected pedophilia and human trafficking ring that we seem to have uncovered existing within our DC politicians and the elite class.
It all started with one incredibly suspicious email that had skeptics suggesting they weren’t actually talking about pizza, but rather in code. Here it is;....
Trump triumphant
The US Election results from the BBC, at least in my opinion, had all the best graphs, charts and interactive maps I wanted to see the day after.
Donald Trump's life story BBC coverage on Nov 10.
Long before he was a contender for the US presidency, Donald Trump was America's most famous and colourful billionaire.
Once considered a long shot, Trump is now the next president of the United States.
Scepticism over Trump's candidacy stemmed not only from his controversial platform on immigration and outrageous campaign style, but from his celebrity past.
But the 70-year-old businessman had the last laugh when he defied all predictions to beat much more seasoned politicians in the Republican primary race.
And he has now gone a step further by winning the presidential election, after one of the most divisive and controversial contests in living memory against Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.....
Deplorable Soros-funded NGOs (No Good Organizations) behind anti-Trump protests
They want to kill Democracy in order to "save" it. *Sigh*
— MariaS Nunes (@Dodocanspell) November 13, 2016
#cdnpoli #TOpoli #tcot "Has George Soros Committed Treason?" IMO, yup, a 1k times over! https://t.co/8CvQ4QjlJb— MariaS Nunes (@Dodocanspell) November 13, 2016
Sunday, November 6, 2016
News, views and opinions from the Alternative Media ... week ending November 6
Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews
NYT Admits Key Al Qaeda Role in Aleppo
As much as The New York Times and the mainstream U.S. media have become propaganda outlets on most foreign policy issues, like the one-sided coverage of the bloody Syrian war, sometimes the truth seeps through in on-the-ground reporting by correspondents, even ones who usually are pushing the “propo.”
Such was the case with Anne Barnard’s new reporting from inside west Aleppo, the major portion of the city which is in government hands and copes with regular terror rocket and mortar attacks from rebel-held east Aleppo where Al Qaeda militants and U.S.-armed-and-funded “moderate” rebels fight side-by-side.
Almost in passing, Barnard’s article on Sunday acknowledged the rarely admitted reality of the Al Qaeda/”moderate” rebel collaboration, which puts the United States into a de facto alliance with Al Qaeda terrorists and their jihadist allies, fighting under banners such as Nusra Front (recently renamed Syria Conquest Front) and Ahrar al-Sham.
Barnard also finally puts the blame for preventing civilians in east Aleppo from escaping the fighting on a rebel policy of keeping them in harm’s way rather than letting them transit through “humanitarian corridors” to safety. Some of her earlier pro-rebel accounts suggested that it wasn’t clear who was stopping movement of civilians through those corridors....
David Coldewey at TechCrunch
Turkey blocks social media sites again
to stall protests — here’s how to access them
Turkey has once again blocked access to social media in an apparent effort to keep a lid on protests; many in the capital and elsewhere are demonstrating following the arrest of a number of opposition leaders.
Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube are reportedly blocked or at least being throttled to the point of inaccessibility, reported Turkey Blocks. The outage started late last night and seems to be ongoing. The government also blocked internet access entirely for several days in some locations earlier this week.....
From EuroNews
Turkey rocked by protests after high profile arrests
Police have fired tear gas to disperse crowds of demonstrators in Istanbul.
Many are angry about the arrests overnight of several pro-Kurdish politicians.
Fighting broke out between police and protesters in a number of cities.
Officials say 10 protesters were detained in Ankara, five in Antalya and seven in Istanbul.
Steven Sahiounie at GlobalResearch
Erdogan's al-Qaeda mercenary army of uyyghur Chinese jihadist..
...Pres. Erdogan’s mercenary Army are all Chinese citizens of the far Western region in China, and home of the Uygur people, and are Sunni Muslims. The Uygur people are an ethnic group of Muslims living near the far west frontier of China and they speak the ancient Turkic language, which is the root of the modern Turkish language now spoken in Turkey. Their province is Xinjiang, and their capital city is Urumqi.
For many years, Pres. Erdogan has supported the Uygur’s claims of oppression by the Chinese government. Pres. Erdogan has made speeches in which he compared the Uygur people to the ancestors of the people of Turkey. Pres. Erdogan feels there is a close historical and ethnical tie between modern Turkey and the Uygur people. In a speech, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that “Eastern Turkestan is not only the home of the Turkic peoples, but it is also the cradle of Turkic history, civilization, and culture. The martyrs of Eastern Turkestan are our own martyrs.” His designation of Eastern Turkestan is actually the Chinese province of Xinjiang, the home of the Uygur people.
Pres. Erdogan used his own mercenary Army of Chinese citizens: the Uygurs. He had allowed them Turkish passports, which they used to pass legally through Central Asia to arrive in Turkey. The immigration officials at the airport in Turkey recognized these special passports, and would confiscate them, but allow the Chinese to pass through legally and enter Turkey. Pres. Erdogan had arranged for them to be transported from the airport in Turkey into Syria through the large and porous border area North of Idlib, which was once a mid-size town in North West Syria.....
— Conflict News (@Conflicts) November 6, 2016
Joseph Thomas at NewAtlas
What the Philippines Says Vs. What it Does
....President Duterte's rhetoric is meant to stir up public support more than actually signal his nation's real intentions. Other nations throughout Asia are also pursuing a "pivot" away from the United States and its attempts to reassert itself in Asia Pacific. However, they are doing it quietly, incrementally and are attempting to make whatever concessions they must with Washington to stave off large-scale, concerted attempts to destabilise or even overturn political order in each respective nation.
The Philippines has a long journey ahead of itself in establishing a more independent and self-sustaining nation state. It faces not only countervailing forces it must navigate amid Beijing and Washington's ongoing jockeying for regional power and influence, but also internal challenges to overcome.....
What you're not being told
Gary Younge at InformationClearingHouse
Note to America: Don’t Be So Sure You’ve Put Trump Behind You
I’ve been living in Britain for the last year and have returned to the United States to cover the election from a small town in Indiana—with the experience of Brexit on my mind.
On June 24, a significant proportion of the British electorate woke up and thought they were living in a different country. Britain narrowly voted to leave the European Union. It felt like the politics of fear, isolation, and xenophobia had delivered an utterly devastating and enduring blow to the body politic. There are many lessons from that night, and indeed we in Britain are only just beginning to learn them. But as it relates to the American elections, I want to dwell on just three.
The fact that the messenger is deranged doesn’t mean the message itself contains no significant truths.
First, don’t let the polls guide your strategic decisions about voting. If you want Hillary Clinton to win, vote for her. If you favor Jill Stein, vote for her. Don’t cast your vote thinking you’re compensating for a result that has not been declared but that you think you’ve factored in. You don’t know....
From Telsur
John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman,
is a little known figure outside Washington but an immensely influential person.
In the latest episode of The Empire Files, journalist Abby Martin examines the leaked emails from Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta and the man himself, whom Martin calls “one of the most powerful people in Washington.”
“Understanding who John Podesta is, and his political rise, sheds light on who really pulls the levers in our society,” says Martin.
Together with his brother Tony, Martin calls John Podesta one of the “most influential corporate lobbyists in the world.”
Podesta is a little known figure, despite his connections to the White House, which includes work for both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. It is likely your average person in the U.S. only heard of Podesta as a result of the release of his email by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks.....
Jason Ditz at Antiwar
UN Slams Aleppo Rebels Amid Accused Poison Gas Attacks
Rebels Continue Offensive Against Western Aleppo
A coalition of rebels including al-Qaeda’s-Nusra Front and the Free Syrian Army are continuing their offensive against the government-held western half of Aleppo. The UN harshly criticized them for their use of “indiscriminate” weapons, warning it could amount to war crimes.
Perhaps the biggest issue, though as-yet-unproven, is reports that the rebels have begun to use chlorine-filled shells in their attacks. Syrian media reported 35 civilians were suffering from effects of the toxic gas, though the rebels denied using them....
#cdnpoli #tcot #TOpoli Writing's on the wall 4 end days of Erdogan. US/EU+gang make use of him viz Syria n now... https://t.co/uZCUtYugnl— MariaS Nunes (@Dodocanspell) November 5, 2016
The Saker at his blog
The Russian media just loves the campaign to demonize Putin
Last May I wrote an article entitled Counter-propaganda, Russian style in which I explained that far from banning or censoring the western anti-Putin/anti-Russia campaign, the Russia media reported about it in meticulous detail. Half a year later, not only is this still true, but the level of coverage has now sharply increased. Check out this screenshot from the latest (and most watched) weekly news show:
Remember that roughly 80% plus of the audience watching this are strong supporters of President Putin. You can imagine what they think when they see these reports. The fully understand that the West hates Putin so much precisely because Putin is one of them, a real Russian who cares for the interests of the Russian people. So when the West demonizes Putin, it is really all the Russian people who are demonized and their conclusion is simple: the West does not hate Putin, the West hates *us*. As for “Blame it on Putin” – it has now become a real joke.
One of the main effects of this kind of demonization is that the Russian public fully understands that there is no way back. In practical terms, most Russians believe that even if Russia pulled out of Syria, stopped supporting the Donbass or even decided to hand Crimea to the Ukies, the West would still continue to demonize Russia and try to subdue her. Furthermore, the Russians remember that the only time....
Patrick Cockburn at UNZ
This Is What Will Happen to Mosul After Isis Is Pushed Out
I visited Mosul on the day it fell to Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and a small detachment of US Special Forces on 11 April 2003. As we drove into the city, we passed lines of pick-up trucks piled high with loot returning to the Kurdish-controlled enclave in northern Iraq. US soldiers at a checkpoint, over which waved the Stars and Stripes, were shooting at a man in the distance who kept bobbing up from behind a wall and waving the Iraqi flag.
If there had ever been any sympathy between liberators and liberated in Mosul, it was disappearing fast. Inside the city, every government building, including the university, was being systematically looted by Kurds and Arabs alike. I saw one man who had stolen an enormous and very ugly red and gold sofa from the governor’s office dragging it slowly down the street. He would push one end of the sofa a few feet forward and then go to the other end and repeat the same process. The mosques were soon calling on the Sunni Arab majority to build barricades to defend their neighbourhoods from marauders.
We parked our vehicle near a medieval quarter of ancient stone buildings while we went to see a Christian ecclesiastic. When we got back, we found that our driver was very frightened and wanted to get out of Mosul as fast as possible. He explained that soon after we left a crowd had gathered, recognised our number plates as Kurdish and debated lynching him and setting fire to his car before being restrained by a local religious leader moments before they took action.
The oil city of Kirkuk was captured at about the same time by the Peshmerga, despite having promised the Americans and Turks that they would do no such thing. Again, .....
After a devaluation #Egypt is in trouble. I explain why— Amr Khalifa (@Cairo67Unedited) November 7, 2016
My latest: Nightmare on the Nilehttps://t.co/wsvdJfJ3fh
Vijay Prashad at Alternet
Why the U.S. and Western Countries Could Be Bluffing
About Military Intervention in Syria
Five years ago, a high-octane media campaign pushed for war on Libya. Voices in the Gulf Arab press, in particular, cried out for blood. Al-Arabiya, the media conglomerate owned by the Saudi kingdom, led the way. It suggested that genocide was on the horizon in Libya’s eastern cities. The forces of Muammar Qaddafi, it said, had moved swiftly against the rebellion. Qaddafi’s legions would not only crush the rebellion, it suggested, but it would kill a great number of civilians.
The Western press echoed al-Arabiya, with far less understanding of the dynamics that involved Qaddafi and the Gulf Arab sheikhs. After all, in 2009, at the Arab League summit in Doha (Qatar), Qaddafi looked directly at the King of Saudi Arabia and said, “You are propelled by fibs towards the grave. You were made by the British and protected by the United States.” King Abdullah, furious, said to Qaddafi, “the grave is before you.” Personal animosity from the Gulf Arab emirs should not be underestimated. Only someone with little understanding of the Arabic media would have given al-Arabiya any credibility.
It was shocking then to have the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon say that he was getting his information on Libya through “press reports.” What press was the UN secretariat reading? Was it the Arabic language press, with al-Arabiya in the lead, or was it reading the Western press, which was largely mimicking the coverage in the Gulf Arab media?...
Guys, this is good news.— Deplorable Scott (@ScottPresler) November 7, 2016
FBI Director Comey knows Trump is going to win. He isn't charging Hillary, so Obama can't pardon her.
??????
From Telsur
The Venezuela Recall Referendum story
The Venezuelan opposition has effectively called for a coup after President Nicolas Maduro announced the recall referendum would be put on hold until allegations of fraud could be investigated.
The mainstream media have jumped on the news, declaring Maduro's decision to delay the referendum "evidence" that he is a "dictator." But what is really happening in Venezuela? What does the recall referendum mean and how will it affect the people?
ISIS has set 19 oil fields ablaze leaving a vast toxic cloud over Mosul and surrounding towns#EnvConflictDayhttps://t.co/ZNQkmpTn9H— Brendan McDonald (@7piliers) November 7, 2016
From ZeroHedge
Wikileaks Exposes Collusion Between Clinton Campaign, State Department, And
New York Times
And the hits just keep on coming.
At the same time as the latest Wikileaks email dump revealed an email sent from the gmail account of DOJ assistant attorney general, Peter Kadzik, to the gmail account of John Podesta, warning him of a FOIA case that would make it "a while before the State Department posts the [Hillary] emails", an off-the-record communication which the DOJ apparently had no complaints about, we learned of another coordinated, collusive event, this time involving not the Department of Justice, but the Secretary of State, the New York Times, and the Clinton campaign.
In an email dated March 1, 2015, just one day before the NYT's story revealing that Hillary Clinton had a personal email server, a State Department official, Lauren Hickey, coordinated with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign staffers Heather Samuelson as well as Philippe Reines and Nick Merrill, on a statement given to The New York Times regarding how to frame its landmark story.
In the email also sent from the gmail account of State Department press aide Lauren Hickey (laurenashleyhickey@gmail.com), the government employee told Clinton aides that then-State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki had “just cleared” a statement to a New York Times reporter. Hickey attached the statement, which appeared to include a change made at the behest of the Clinton aides.
“Yes on your point re records - done below,” she wrote although it is unclear what change the Clinton campaign had requested.
Hi guys - Jen just cleared. She made the highlighted change -- just rephrased a line about NARA updates state is undertaking. Yes on your point re records - done below. And yes will let you know -- should be in the new few minutes.
The statement describes the State Department’s efforts to respond to document requests from the House Benghazi Committee, which uncovered the existence of Clinton's server.
“From the moment that the Select Committee was created, the State Department has been proactively and consistently engaged in responding to the Committee’s many requests in a timely manner, providing more than 40,000 pages of documents, scheduling more than 20 transcribed interviews and participating in several briefings and each of the Committee’s hearings.
One day after the exchange, the New York Times published its "groundbreaking", if preapproved report revealing Clinton's server to the public. A short time later, Hillary Clinton would announce her candidacy for president.
In a briefing Wednesday afternoon, ......
On the killing of a fish-seller in Morocco
Stephen Lendman at GlobalResearch
ICC to Investigate US War Crimes in Afghanistan? Hold the Cheers
.....On October 7, 2001, US-led NATO forces attacked Afghanistan without just cause – less than four weeks post-9/11, naked aggression planned months before that fateful day.
Appalling war crimes followed, continuing daily. All post-WW II US wars were and continue being waged illegally against nonbelligerent countries reflecting over 70 years of unaccountability.
No US government or military official ever faced charges for Nuremberg-level high crimes. It’s irrelevant what Bensouda does or doesn’t do.
The 2002 American Service Members’ Protection Act (ASPA, aka The Hague Invasion Act) “protect(s) United States military personnel and other elected and appointed officials of the United States government against criminal prosecution by an international court to which the United States is not party.”
It authorizes the president to use “all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any US or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court.”
It prohibits the extradition of anyone from America to the ICC. In a November 2000 open letter, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Zbigniew Brzezinki, former CIA director Richard Helms and other US signatories said Washington must put “our nation’s military personnel safely beyond the reach of an unaccountable international prosecutor operating under procedures inconsistent with our Constitution.”
Kissinger’s high crimes are well-documented.Brzezinski got Jimmy Carter to sign a secret directive, authorizing aid for Mujahadeen fighters combating the pro-Soviet Russia government in Kabul, aiming to induce Moscow’s military intervention which followed, what Brzezinski called “the Afghan trap.”.....
#cdnpoli #tcot #TOpoli U gotta wonder if the Empire took the Mafia handbook n "improved" on it a 100fold https://t.co/RFHXY08vim pic.twitter.com/mZHLChWHBk— MariaS Nunes (@Dodocanspell) November 3, 2016
Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews
Phony ‘Corruption’ Excuse for Ukraine Coup
If Ukraine becomes a flashpoint for World War III with Russia, the American people might rue the day that their government pressed for the 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s allegedly corrupt (though elected) president in favor of a coup regime led by Ukrainian lawmakers who now report amassing, on average, more than $1 million each, much of it as cash.
The New York Times, which served as virtually a press agent for the coup in February 2014, took note of this apparent corruption among the U.S.-favored post-coup officials, albeit deep inside a story that itself was deep inside the newspaper (page A8). The lead angle was a bemused observation that Ukraine’s officialdom lacked faith in the country’s own banks (thus explaining why so much cash).
Yet, Ukraine is a country beset by widespread poverty, made worse by the post-coup neoliberal “reforms” slashing pensions, making old people work longer and reducing heating subsidies for common citizens. The average Ukrainian salary is only $214 a month.
So, an inquiring mind might wonder how – in the face of all that hardship – the post-coup officials did so well for themselves, but Times’ correspondent Andrew E. Kramer treads lightly on the possibility that these officials were at least as corrupt, if not more so, than the elected government that the U.S. helped overthrow. Elected President Viktor Yanukovych had been excoriated for a lavish lifestyle because he had a sauna in his residence....
More DESTRUCTION: 40 Saudi airstrikes attack 6 #Yemen regions today & destroys family homes in Yemen region of Nihm. pic.twitter.com/OQ2oBhS68N— Yemen Post Newspaper (@YemenPostNews) November 6, 2016
Hillary Clinton: A Career Criminal ...
and to think that this woman might be leading the declining Empire which might have had a chance to recover with a Trump presidency, is beyond vomit-inducing. If she gets to the WH, nuclear war is in the cards and the end of the US Empire is certain.
Maybe that's for the best for planet Earth long suffering from USA's wars on its nooks and corners, but not for Canada joined at the hip (literally ... just look at the map) with America.
The below is from December 1996
David N. Mayer at Ashbrook programs and publications
Clinton Presidency: The Most Corrupt in American History
History does repeat itself. On November 5, the American people re-elected Bill Clinton to a second term in the face of allegations of serious abuses of power by the President and members of his administration. Like the allegations about the break-in at the Watergate Hotel that George McGovern unsuccessfully tried to raise during the 1972 election, the allegations about the Clinton adminstration’s abuses of power failed to capture the attention of the American people–partly due to the failure of Clinton’s rivals, Bob Dole and Ross Perot, to raise the issue until very late in the campaign, and partly–indeed, largely–due to the successful efforts of Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media to "stonewall" the issue, which they misleadingly called a question merely of "character."
The question of abuse of power goes beyond the matter of Clinton’s character: rather, it is an important substantive issue. In a presidential campaign, no single issue is more important than how an incumbent president has used the awesome powers of his office–whether the president has adhered to his oath of office, to faithfully execute the laws and to "preserve, protect, and defend" the Constitution of the United States, which limits his powers. Yet this issue was not adequately debated during the campaign, and the American people–except for those who regularly read the Wall Street Journal, the only daily national newspaper that has been fully covering the various Clinton administration scandals–cast their votes in ignorance of the matter. Like Watergate, however, the issue of President Clinton’s abuse of power cannot (and must not) disappear: it must be faced, if we are to remain a nation governed by the rule of law.....
How close are we to a nuclear war???
Worth a read.
Eric Zuesse writing at Strategic-Culture
This Is No ‘New Cold War’; It’s Far Worse Than That
Here is the reason why we are currently even closer to a civilization-ending nuclear war than was the case during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962:
During the Cold War, the two sides agreed that any war between the capitalist side and the communist side would escalate to nuclear war between the US and the USSR and constitute Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D.). Therefore, because of this mutual acceptance of M.A.D., hot war did not develop during that entire period, from 1945 till the Soviet Union dissolved and ended its military alliance the Warsaw Pact, both of which ended in 1991. Throughout that 45-year period, called «the Cold War», there was no hot war between the two nuclear superpowers, because both sides believed that any hot war would end in M.A.D. — mutual annihilation, and the end of civilization.
It would end that way because any hot war between the two sides would terminate either in one side surrendering to the other, or else in at least one of the two sides (presumably to be started by the one that’s on the brink of defeat in the traditional hot war) nuclear-attacking the other (as being its only alternative to defeat). In other words, M.A.D. recognized and accepted the fact that for a nuclear power to attack a nuclear power with non-nuclear weaponry will almost certainly provoke a nuclear war at the moment when one of the two is losing (or about to lose) the conventional conflict to the other. Nuclear weapons are weapons of last resort, but they exist in order to prevent defeat. That is what they exist for. If Japan had had deliverable nuclear weapons, then the end of World War II would have been considerably delayed. Japan would have lost because it had no allies, but the end of WW II would have been very different than it was.
Only M.A.D. avoided the Cold War becoming a hot war. ........
......... Also in 2006, later in that year, specifically on 18 November 2006, was published at Global Research, which is an independent Canadian online international site dealing with geostrategy, a superb summary of the connection that this plan has to America’s string of invasions in the Middle East. It’s titled «Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a ‘New Middle East’», by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, who explains:
It should be noted that in his book, «The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geo-strategic Imperatives», Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former US National Security Advisor, alluded to the modern Middle East as a control lever of an area he, Brzezinski, calls the Eurasian Balkans. The Eurasian Balkans consists of the Caucasus (Georgia, the Republic of Azerbaijan, and Armenia) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan) and to some extent both Iran and Turkey. Iran and Turkey both form the northernmost tiers of the Middle East (excluding the Caucasus4) that edge into Europe and the former Soviet Union.
The Map of the «New Middle East»
A relatively unknown map of the Middle East, NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan, and Pakistan has been circulating around strategic, governmental, NATO, policy and military circles since mid-2006. It has been casually allowed to surface in public, maybe in an attempt to build consensus and to slowly prepare the general public for possible, maybe even cataclysmic, changes in the Middle East. This is a map of a redrawn and restructured Middle East identified as the «New Middle East».....
Julian Assange, world shaker and mover
The below from Ted Talks dated mid 2010
Chris Anderson: Julian, welcome.
It's been reported that WikiLeaks, your baby, has, in the last few years has released more classified documents than the rest of the world's media combined. Can that possibly be true?
Julian Assange: Yeah, can it possibly be true? It's a worry -- isn't it? -- that the rest of the world's media is doing such a bad job that a little group of activists is able to release more of that type of information than the rest of the world press combined.
CA: How does it work? How do people release the documents? And how do you secure their privacy?
JA: So these are -- as far as we can tell -- classical whistleblowers, and we have a number of ways for them to get information to us. So we use this state-of-the-art encryption to bounce stuff around the Internet, to hide trails, pass it through legal jurisdictions like Sweden and Belgium to enact those legal protections. We get information in the mail, the regular postal mail, encrypted or not, vet it like a regular news organization, format it -- which is sometimes something that's quite hard to do, when you're talking about giant databases of information -- release it to the public and then defend ourselves against the inevitable legal and political attacks.
CA: So you make an effort to ensure the documents are legitimate, but you actually almost never know who the identity of the source is?
JA: That's right, yeah. Very rarely do we ever know, and if we find out at some stage then we destroy that information as soon as possible. (Phone ring) God damn it.
(Laughter)
CA: I think that's the CIA asking what the code is for a TED membership.......
The below published yesterday
From RT
Assange: Clinton is a cog for Goldman Sachs & the Saudis
(JOHN PILGER EXCLUSIVE VIDEO & TRANSCRIPT)
Whistleblower Julian Assange has given one of his most incendiary interviews ever in a John Pilger Special, courtesy of Dartmouth Films, in which he summarizes what can be gleaned from the tens of thousands of Clinton emails released by WikiLeaks this year.
John Pilger, another Australian émigré, conducted the 25-minute interview at the Ecuadorian Embassy, where Assange has been trapped since 2012 for fear of extradition to the US. Last month, Assange had his internet access cut off for alleged “interference” in the American presidential election through the work of his website.
‘Clinton made FBI look weak, now there is anger’
John Pilger: What’s the significance of the FBI's intervention in these last days of the U.S. election campaign, in the case against Hillary Clinton?
Julian Assange: If you look at the history of the FBI, it has become effectively America's political police. The FBI demonstrated this by taking down the former head of the CIA [General David Petraeus] over classified information given to his mistress. Almost no-one is untouchable. The FBI is always trying to demonstrate that no-one can resist us. But Hillary Clinton very conspicuously resisted the FBI's investigation, so there’s anger within the FBI because it made the FBI look weak. We've published about 33,000 of Clinton's emails when she was Secretary of State. They come from a batch of just over 60,000 emails, [of which] Clinton has kept about half – 30,000 -- to herself, and we've published about half.
Then there are the Podesta emails we've been publishing. [John] Podesta is Hillary Clinton’s primary campaign manager, so there’s a thread that runs through all these emails; there are quite a lot of pay-for-play, as they call it, giving access in exchange for money to states, individuals and corporations. [These emails are] combined with the cover up of the Hillary Clinton emails when she was Secretary of State, [which] has led to an environment where the pressure on the FBI increases.
‘Russian government not the source of Clinton leaks’
JP: The Clinton campaign has said that Russia is behind all of this, that Russia has manipulated the campaign and is the source for WikiLeaks and its emails.
JA: The Clinton camp has been able to project that kind of neo-McCarthy hysteria: that Russia is responsible for everything. Hilary Clinton stated multiple times, falsely, that seventeen U.S. intelligence agencies had assessed that Russia was the source of our publications. That is false; we can say that the Russian government is not the source.....
Monday, October 31, 2016
Turkey tracking ... for month of Oct, 2016
How long before this country erupts into the kind of hell it helped create for the Syrians? I give it less than a year. Either Erdogan will be killed (by the West's powers-that-be or by a Kurdish assailant or a member of the other cult whose leader is enjoying the protection of the USA) or there will be another coup and a civil war. The writing's on the wall.
Turkey dismisses 540 soldiers from naval, air forces over alleged links to failed coup
Turkey dismissed 540 soldiers from its naval and air forces command over suspected links with U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen and his network, accused by Ankara of orchestrating a failed coup in July, the defense ministry said.
AKP official killed in suspected PKK attack in Turkey's southeast
Deryan Aktert is suspected to have been killed by PKK in second attack on officials in two days
A member of the ruling party in Turkey's restive southeast has been killed in an attack blamed on militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a local official said Tuesday.
Deryan Aktert, head of a local office of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Diyarbakir province, was hit by gunfire at a gas station and later succumbed to his injuries, the official told AFP on condition of anonymity......
Turkey extends state of emergency for additional three months The Turkish government has extended the state of emergency, first implemented in the aftermath of the July 15 coup attempt, for an additional three-month period, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus announced on Oct. 3.
“One of the decisions taken by the cabinet is an extension of the 90-day state of emergency and its renewal from 1 a.m. on Oct. 19,” Kurtulmus told reporters after the weekly cabinet meeting in Ankara.
The Turkish constitution authorizes parliament with the right to extend the duration of a state of emergency by a maximum period of four months, each time at the request of the cabinet.
Is Hypocrisy International going to report this as ethnic cleansing of Kurds by Turkey? I don't think so. @amnesty https://t.co/XwgKqYwW3h— Gilgo (@agirecudi) October 3, 2016
Turkey's Erdogan Sued by Germans over War Crimes Against Kurds
The lawsuit highlights an incident in Sirnak, Turkey, where Kurdish residents were burned alive by the Turkish military.
Several German politicians and public figures have filed a lawsuit against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, alleging that he’s guilty of war crimes against his country's Kurdish minority, The Local reported.
Lawyers Britta Eder and Petra Dervishaj told German state broadcaster ARD that their clients see it as “a moral duty to bring a suit here in Germany against the systematic war crimes taking place in Turkey.” ....
Turkish F16 Fighter Jet Downed by PKK Fighters - Reports
A Turkish F16 fighter jet has been downed by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) guerrillas according to reports.
Turkish fighter jets had been shelling the Qandil region in the Kurdistan Regional Government (Northern Iraq) since 18:51 Thursday evening.
Local sources have reported that one of the fighter jets was downed at around 21:30 local time, as the aerial aggression continued.
Truck bomb attack on soldiers kills 18 in Turkey
Ten Turkish soldiers and eight civilians were killed on Sunday when suspected Kurdish militants detonated a five-ton truck bomb that ripped through a checkpoint near a military outpost in the country’s southeast, the prime minister said.
Another 27 people, including 11 soldiers, were wounded in the blast which hit the Durak gendarmerie station, 20 km (12 miles) from the town of Semdinli, in one of the most deadly attacks in the region of recent times.
The mountainous Hakkari province, where the attack occurred, lies near the border with Iraq and Iran and is one of the main flashpoint areas in a conflict that has pitted Turkey’s army against the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for 32 years.....
Iraqi prime minister disinvites Turkey from operation
to liberate Mosul from ISIL
Turkey will have no role in the liberation of Mosul from Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said.
“Turkish forces will not be allowed to participate in the liberation of Mosul under any circumstances,” Abadi said during a visit to the city of Karbala on Oct. 9, Al Sumaria news channel reported....
Two suicide bombers kill themselves after Turkish police call to surrender: TV
Two suicide bombers detonated explosives, killing themselves in an area near the Turkish capital Ankara on Saturday after police called on them to surrender
'Motorbike bomb' blast in Istanbul wounds 10: governor A bomb attached to a motorbike exploded near a police station in southwest Istanbul on Thursday wounding 10 people, the provincial governor said.
The blast occurred in the Yenibosna neighborhood, several kilometers from Istanbul Ataturk Airport, the country's largest. Television footage showed damaged vehicles, shattered glass and broken windows in the residential area.
Governor Vasip Sahin said all of the wounded were civilians and that investigations into who might be responsible were ongoing. There were no immediate claims of responsibility on Thursday.....
Turkish Police Kill 4 Kurdish Civilians in Yüksekova Four people have died in Kurdish district Yüksekova in Turkey's Kurdish region after police fired on civilians from an armoured vehicle.
Aydin Tümen, Serhat Buldan, Rahmi Sefali and Nejdet Isyözü lost their lives while two others, Semsettin Çakmakçi and Memet Ali Kaya, were wounded as a result of the armed attack.
Policemen patrolling the area in an armoured vehicle raked people in the district market with bullets in Hakkari's Yüksekova (Gever) district center.
Police soures have said the gun that was fired malfunctioned and the incident was an accident.
However witnesses have said they were fired on by police as they tried retrieving the bodies of those killed and wounded.
OSMANIYE, Turkey.Three people were injured Wednesday in a PKK attack in Turkey's southern province of Osmaniye, according to the governor.
Kerem Al told reporters that five mortar shells were fired from Amanos Mountains into nearby Gebeli and Selimiye neighborhoods.
The wounded, including a mother and her 4-year-old son, were taken to the hospital following the attack, and were in good condition, Al said.
An operation is ongoing to catch the terrorists, he added.....
BINGOL, Turkey. Two police officers were martyred
when they were caught in a PKK terrorist bomb attack in eastern Turkey, according to sources on Sunday.
One officer died immediately in the vehicle bomb attack in Genc, a southern district of Bingol province, a security source said on Sunday. A medical source later said one of the six officers wounded in the blast died in hospital. Both sources spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.
The remaining five injured officers and four wounded civilians were treated for non-life-threatening wounds.
The explosives-packed vehicle exploded late Saturday as a police vehicle passed.
Two Turkish soldiers martyred in SE Turkish province
Explosives planted by PKK terrorists are detonated; two soldiers martyred, two others wounded
Two Turkish soldiers were martyred and two others were wounded in the town of Hani in the southeastern Turkish province of Diyarbakir, as explosives, planted by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were detonated during the field search mission.
...
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Some of the News, Views and Opinions from the Alternative Media....week ending Oct 30
Justin Ling at VICE
The Liberal Party Has Scheduled More Than 100 Cash-For-Access Events in 2016 Alone
If you wanted an audience with Finance Minister Bill Morneau during his two-night engagement in Vancouver this past April, it would have cost you between $1,000 and $1,500.
If you were looking for facetime with the Honourable Amarjeet Sohi, Minister for Infrastructure and Communities, in Surrey in February, that would run a cool $500.
But for some quality time with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself, at one of his 16 fundraising events held in 2016—which have been dubbed by the media 'cash-for-access' events—you'll likely be paying the maximum allowed: $1,525.
These details, which come from a breakdown of every Liberal Party fundraiser and "appreciation event" for deep-pocket donors held in 2016, shows that the governing party has been charging a hefty sum to be in the same room as a senior member of the Canadian government.
All-told, the Liberals have held 89 fundraisers so far this year, and have another 10 scheduled for October and November. The list includes all fundraisers with ministers and parliamentary secretaries, as well as the one event with the prime minister's senior advisor, Gerry Butts.
For quality time with Butts, Trudeau's right-hand man, in Charlottetown in August, it would be a steal at just $125.
Most events also have special pricing for youth members, or for those who are already donating large amounts to the party.....
Andre Akulov at Strategic-Culture.org
Djibouti Turns into Springboard for US Military Intervention
The US is dramatically increasing the tempo of its military operations in MENA (the Middle East and North Africa), especially in the Horn of Africa.
Djibouti has an important role to play in the military planning. The small republic guards the entrance to the Red Sea and Suez Canal to make it a perfect springboard for launching military interventions in Africa and the Middle East.
Housing 4,000 military and civilian personnel, Camp Lemonnier, the US military base in the country, is the hub of a network of American drone bases in Africa. It is used for aerial strikes at insurgents in Yemen, Nigeria and Somalia, as well as exercising control over the Bab-el-Mandeb strait - a strategic maritime waterway linking the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean through the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea. In 2014, America signed a new 20-year lease on the base with the Djiboutian government, and committed over $1.4 billion to modernize and expand the facility in the years to come.
According to Stars and Stripes, the US Air Force deployed F-16 fighters and KC-135 to Djibouti in July. Until the publication, the information had been kept secret. The aircraft remain on standby amid concerns over the situation in South Sudan, including threats to the lives of American citizens there. In July, about 50 combat-equipped troops were sent to protect US diplomatic personnel amid widespread violence and civil unrest in that country. The US has provided assistance in form of training and equipping of the elite presidential guard; employment of foreign instructors to teach army recruits; development of riverine forces; training of commandos. This aid is rendered despite the fact that South Sudan uses child soldiers.
Under Obama, this country receives waivers to the prohibition on US security assistance under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act (CSPA), despite recent reports by UNICEF that children in the country are forcefully recruited into the armed forces. ....
Terrorists attacked #SyrianArmy positions in #Aleppo's south-west using rockets with poison gas - source https://t.co/dFB5k1AAIT #Syria pic.twitter.com/JeEvVVO3gg— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) October 30, 2016
Prof Michel Chossudovsky at GlobalResearch
Clinton's no-fly zone over Syria will not save lives, it will lead to war with Russia
In a Senate Arms Services Committee hearing, Dunford said, responding to questions from Republican Senator Roger Whicker (Mississippi)
“Right now, Senator, for us to control all of the airspace in Syria it 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.” (Senate Armed Services Committee, September 22, 2016, emphasis added)
At the third presidential debate, Hillary Clinton reasserted her commitment that if elected president, she would implement a no-fly-zone, intimating that the objective was to “save lives”:
“I think a no-fly zone could save lives and could hasten the end of the conflict. I am well aware of the really legitimate concerns you have expressed from both the president and the general,” Clinton said in response to a question from Fox News debate moderator Chris Wallace.
“This would not be done just on the first day. This would take a lot of negotiation and would also take making it clear to the Russians and Syrians that our purpose here was to provide safe zones on the ground … I think we could strike a deal and make it clear to the Russians and the Syrians that this was something that we believe was in the best interest of the people on the ground in Syria.” (Fox News, emphasis added)...
Mother Agnes and Vanessa Beeley speak to RT
Amb Craig Murray at his blog
Blanket Corporate Media Corruption
....I was in Washington last month to chair the presentation of the Sam Adams Award to heroic former ex-CIA agent and whistleblower John Kiriakou. There were on the platform with me a dozen or so former very senior and distinguished officers of the CIA, NSA, FBI and US Army. All now identify with the whistleblower community. There were speeches of tremendous power and insight about state abuse, from those who really know. But as usual, not one mainstream media outlet turned up to report an award whose previous winners and still active participants include Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning.
Similarly my statement of definite knowledge that Russia is not behind the Clinton leaks has caused enormous interest in the internet. One article alone about my visit to Assange has 174,000 Facebook likes. Across all internet media we calculate over 30 million people have read my information that Russia was not responsible for these leaks. There is no doubt whatsoever that I have direct access to the correct information.
Yet not one single mainstream media journalist has attempted to contact me.
Why do you think that might be?....
Description at video post: Saudis are deliberately bombing farms in Yemen, which may lead to survivors starving when the war is over. 357 strikes in 20 provinces targeted farms, animals, water infrastructure, food stores, agricultural banks, markets and food trucks, with 60% of the population already dependent on food aid. Post-war Yemen may totally rely on food imports most probably coming from Gulf States. According to international law targeting infrastructure objects is a war crime.
Yet it’s not stopping Britain and the US from helping Saudi Arabia.
Archbishop of Aleppo Mgr. Jean-Clement Jeanbart (translation from Italian at GlobalResearch)
US Sponsored “Moderates” “Have Sown Terror Everywhere”:
Testimony of the Archbishop of Aleppo
The whole world is terrified at the sight of the images from Aleppo that the mass media have been presenting in recent days. Many of our friends abroad are concerned and want to hear from us. We are living tragic moments in our history and what’s happening here continues to make Aleppo and its people suffer, people that for more than five years have been unable to have peace, so harassed and massacred by armed groups that have come from all over the world, to conduct a self-styled holy war, in a country governed (according to them) by atheists and infidels!
For five years now the terrorists here have been calling the shots, where the civil authorities of the country have not managed to be present. They have sown terror everywhere, killed tens of thousands of innocent people, destroyed thousands of factories, businesses and institutions of public services, looted houses and stolen, without any concern, assets of the country and the citizens. They have have made victims of many innocent people, kidnapping and brutally murdering countless peaceful people, including nuns, priests and even bishops.
This still going on today: this morning a dozen shells fell in two of our residential areas, causing further destruction and in one neighborhood, numerous deaths and injuries.
Battles are raging on the outskirts of the city: the rebels from the “Al-Nusra Front” are attempting to take positions in areas considered strategic, almost completely depopulated and almost entirely destroyed, that they seized and held until last June at the city’e edge. ...
...The hardest thing for Christians who are currently present in Aleppo would be the prospect of having to live, morning and evening, in anxiety in this situation of insecurity: destabilizing disconcerting uncertainty. They are afraid for the next day, and the future of their children troubles them greatly. Imagine that one day a Muslim fundamentalist state would be imposed on them — for them this is an unbearable nightmare.
This is why we turn to our brothers in France and throughout the West, and we beg you to help us ensure that this does not happen. We are not asking you to make war for us, but only to end the unjust claims of your allies that want to impose antiquated laws, laws that are unbearable for the people of the twenty-first century who want to be free to choose their culture, their style life and, finally, their faith. We call on our brothers in France to pray for us and all women and all men concerned about human dignity and love of freedom, to come to our rescue to save our dear country from the depth of the fundamentalist regime they are trying to put us in. Please help us to continue to live in dignity on this blessed land of our birth!........
#cdnpoli #tcot #TOpoli I wonder why the pipeline cud not have been planned https://t.co/nOg8J1tW18 better than this. pic.twitter.com/WASdiyQ33j— MariaS Nunes (@Dodocanspell) October 28, 2016
Pepe Escobar
The Aleppo / Mosul Riddle
There’s no question Baghdad needs to take back Mosul from ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. It could not do it before. In theory, the time is now.
The real question is the conflicting motivations of the large “who’s who” doing it; the Iraqi Army’s 9th Division; the Kurdish Peshmerga, under the baton of wily, corrupt opportunist Barzani; Sunni tribal lords; tens of thousands of Shi’ite militias from southern Iraq; operational “support” from US Special Forces; “targeted” bombing by the US Air Force; and lurking in the background, Turkish Special Forces and air power.
Now that’s a certified recipe for trouble.
Much like Aleppo, Mosul is – literally – the stuff of legend. The successor of ancient Nineveh, settled 8000 years ago; former capital of the Assyrian Empire under Sennacherib in the 7th century B.C.; conquered by Babylon in the 6th century B.C.; a thousand years later, annexed to the Muslim empire and ruled by the Umayyads and the Abbasids; the key hub, from the 11th to the 12th century, of the Atabegs medieval state; a key Ottoman hub in a 16th century post-Silk Road spanning the Indian Ocean all the way to the Persian Gulf, the Tigris valley, Aleppo and Tripoli in the Mediterranean.....
#cdnpoli #tcot #TOpoli London mayor's intent is 2enable the spread of islam, just like leaders of EU/US/Canada/Aus https://t.co/DfItPtZBGy— MariaS Nunes (@Dodocanspell) October 28, 2016
Mark Taliano at GlobalResearch
Life in Syria, as Recounted by a Syrian
Stories from Syrians are conspicuously absent from mainstream propaganda stories.
I asked Ammar about life in Syria, and this is what he wrote:
“As everyday morning my sister was going to the university when a bloody Takfiri Salafi Wahhabi suicide bomber blew up bomb car at the bus stop which led to the martyrdom and injury of many civilians and university students who were going to their exams , after 10 minutes another suicide bomber blew up himself at the same place taking advantage of the gathering of people and ambulance teams, usually when a terror attack happens we call all family members and friends to make sure they all are ok . but this time no one answered! Then we started looking for her in hospitals . . . the shock was in the bloody views there ; many burned bodies and human body parts were on the ground , there i saw my sister a body without soul . . .”
Almost every new story from the West demonizes Vladimir Putin. Ammar, however, has direct contact with Russian agencies. This is his assessment.
“about Russian aid , I see the biggest humanitarian aid provided by our Russian brothers is fighting the US NATO founded brutal terrorism and supporting Syrian armed forces against western backed barbarian terrorism as well standing with Syria in International forums furthermore the Russian aid for in need Syrian civilians represented in food like rice , sugar , tea , canned meat and fish and medical aid that includes medicines, emergency medical supplies, antibiotics and medical products for the treatment of a variety of diseases as well they brought a doctors who made physical check up to needy people. these aid were distributed directly by Russians to needy people thanks to American European sanctions against Syrian people and against Syrian economy , prices got so expensive , economical situation became harder, targeting Syrian infra structures by the illegal US-led coalition aircrafts also Looting and theft Syrian industrial plants and then Sold cheaply to Turkey by their mercenaries. All these reasons iincreased the suffering of Syrian people moreover targeting Syrian central bank and Syrian pound caused to lose a lot of Syrian pound purchasing value.”....
Tim Johnson at McClatchyDC
The strange tale of a dating site’s attacks on WikiLeaks founder Assange
....A company representative, identifying herself as Hannah Hammond, emailed Assange’s Swedish and British legal agents offering $1 million for him to appear in a five-minute tongue-in-cheek television advertisement. In a subsequent exchange Sept. 19, the representative wrote that “the source of the $1,000,000 is the Russian government.”
In a curious twist, she offered what she said were three facts about Assange’s London attorney that are “unknown to the public,” including details inside her home and an event in her son’s life, suggesting a capability to conduct surveillance.
Taylor, the Assange lawyer, said the details appeared “to create the impression that the members of his team were under close surveillance and/or to bolster the bona fides of the claim that the offer was linked to a State. Its inclusion does appear quite menacing.”
A lawyer identifying himself only as “James” responded the next day, slamming the offer as an “elaborate scam designed to entrap” Assange and embarrass him for ties to Russia.
The dating site representative sought to pull the veil off “James.”
“Julian: We know it’s you writing. The offer expires at midnight, October 31st 2016,” she wrote back on Sept. 21, according to copies of the emails posted by WikiLeaks on its website.
By early October, toddandclare.com went on the offensive. It filed a civil complaint in a British court against Assange, seeking 295 pounds sterling – about $359 – in damages because it said it could no longer use his services due to the “child sex offenses in Nassau.”
The suit, said Taylor, Assange’s lawyer, “seems to be designed to evade defamation law in the U.K. They’ve put highly noxious information knowing that it would be made public.”
The global tussle between the online dating company and WikiLeaks went public in mid-October when the anti-secrecy group voiced public doubt on whether toddandclare.com actually existed, or served only as a vehicle to attack Assange.....
From Catholic World Report at Off-Guardian
Syrian Catholics denounce Western media biased reporting on Aleppo
From Sott.Net
What's wrong with the planet? Saudi Arabia to be reelected to UN Human Rights Council
As the death toll in Yemen surpasses 10,000, Saudi Arabia, one of the principal parties in the conflict, is poised to be reelected to the UN human rights body. Saudi airstrikes are responsible for the majority of the nearly 4,000 civilian deaths in Yemen.
A secret ballot vote at the UN General Assembly on Friday will select the 14 members of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), or a third of its 47 members. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, China, and Japan are running for the four seats from the Asia-Pacific region, and are all expected to secure seats.
Riyadh's term at the UNHRC would be the third in a row, and its presence at the body has been increasingly puzzling to human rights groups, given its record of twisting arms at the UN to hush up its rights abuses.
#cdnpoli #tcot #TOpoli MSM won't tell u that US killed 22 Somali soldiers + civs in "friendly fire". https://t.co/T3gjNjMDm2— MariaS Nunes (@Dodocanspell) October 26, 2016
Ann Wright at ConsortiumNews
It’s like we are back to the 1800s when the U.S. Army rampaged against Native American tribes across the American West. The militarized police and the use of the National Guard this week in responding to the Standing Rock Sioux Native American challenge in North Dakota to big oil and its dangerous pipelines reminds one of Custer’s Last Stand against Sitting Bull.
In fact, the portrait of Sitting Bull is on one of the most popular t-shirts available to supporters of the “water protectors,” as those are known who protest yet one more oil pipeline that crosses sensitive watershed areas and major rivers of the United States.
Four days last week, I joined hundreds of Native Americans and social justice campaigners from around the United States and around the world, in challenging the Dakota Access Pipe Line (DAPL), the 1,172-mile, $3.7 billion dollar scar across the face of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois.
Last week, I photographed the area along Highway 6 south of Bismarck where the Energy Transfer Partnership contractors were busy digging the trench for the “Black Snake” as the pipeline is called.
I also counted 24 police cars returning to Bismarck at shift change around 3 p.m., a huge number of state law enforcement personnel and vehicles dedicated to protection of corporate business, instead of the rights of citizens.
Huge machines were chewing up the earth near water sources for all of North Dakota. The pipeline was rerouted from near Bismarck so if the pipeline breaks it would not endanger the water supply of the capital city of the state. But it was relocated to where it will cross the Missouri River and will jeopardize the water supply of the Native Americans and all Americans living in southern North Dakota and downstream of the Missouri River.....
Max Blumenthal at Alternet
Inside the Shadowy PR Firm That’s Lobbying for Regime Change in Syria
Posing as a non-political solidarity organization, the Syria Campaign leverages local partners and media contacts to push the U.S. into toppling another Middle Eastern government.
......By partnering with local groups like the Syrian civil defense workers popularly known as the White Helmets, and through a vast network of connections in media and centers of political influence, The Syria Campaign has played a crucial role in disseminating images and stories of the horrors visited this month on eastern Aleppo. The group is able to operate within the halls of power in Washington and has the power to mobilize thousands of demonstrators into the streets. Despite its outsized role in shaping how the West sees Syria’s civil war, which is now in its sixth year and entering one of its grisliest phases, this outfit remains virtually unknown to the general public.
The Syria Campaign presents itself as an impartial, non-political voice for ordinary Syrian citizens that is dedicated to civilian protection. “We see ourselves as a solidarity organization,” The Syria Campaign strategy director James Sadri told me. “We’re not being paid by anybody to pursue a particular line. We feel like we’ve done a really good job about finding out who the frontline activists, doctors, humanitarians are and trying to get their word out to the international community.”
Yet behind the lofty rhetoric about solidarity and the images of heroic rescuers rushing in to save lives is an agenda that aligns closely with the forces from Riyadh to Washington clamoring for regime change. Indeed, The Syria Campaign has been pushing for a no-fly zone in Syria that would require at least “70,000 American servicemen” to enforce, according to a Pentagon assessment, along with the destruction of government infrastructure and military installations. There is no record of a no-fly zone being imposed without regime change following —which seems to be exactly what The Syria Campaign and its partners want......
From Xinhuanet
Saudi-led airstrikes kill 27 civilians across Yemen provinces
At least 27 civilians, mostly children and women, were killed on Saturday in three Yemeni provinces by airstrikes from a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia, officials and residents said.
Early Saturday morning, the Saudi-led air strikes hit residents' homes in two villages of al-Sharaf and Mabaran in al-Salo district of the southwestern province of Taiz, killing 10 villagers on the spot and flattering several mud-brick houses to the ground, according to the local officials and the residents.....
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