Thursday, September 27, 2018

The Path to World War III

The minimal U.S. press coverage accorded to last Monday’s shooting down of a Russian intelligence plane off the coast of Syria is, of course, a reflection both of lack of interest and of Israel’s involvement in the incident. If one had read the New York Times or the Washington Post on the morning after the shoot-down or watched the morning network news it would have been easy to miss the story altogether. The corporate media’s desire to sustain established foreign policy narratives while also protecting Israel at all costs is as much a feature of American television news as are the once every five minutes commercials from big pharma urging the public to take medications for diseases that no one has ever heard of.

Israel is, of course, claiming innocence, that it was the Syrians who shot down the Russian aircraft while the Israeli jets were legitimately targeting a Syrian army facility “from which weapons-manufacturing systems were supposed to be transferred to Iran and Hezbollah.” Seeking to undo some of the damage caused, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin to express his condolences. He also sent his air force chief to Russia on Thursday to provide a detailed report on what had occurred from the Israeli perspective.

But that story, however it will be spun, is inevitably only part of the tale. The narrative of what occurred is by now well established. The Russian aircraft was returning to base after a mission over the Mediterranean off the Syrian coast monitoring the activities of a French warship and at least one British RAF plane. As a large and relatively slow propeller driven aircraft on a routine intelligence gathering mission, the Ilyushin 20 had no reason to conceal its presence. It was apparently preparing to land at its airbase at Khmeimim in Syria when the incident took place. It may or may not have had its transponder on, which would signal to the Syrian air defenses that it was a “friendly.”

Syrian air defenses were on high alert because Israel had attacked targets near Damascus on the previous day. On that occasion a Boeing 747 on the ground that Israel claimed was transporting weapons was the target. One should note in passing that Israeli claims about what it is targeting in Syria are never independently verifiable.

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Tuesday, September 25, 2018

UK Begged Trump Not to Declassify Russia Docs; Cited “Grave Concerns” Over Steele Involvement

The British government “expressed grave concerns” to the US government over the declassification and release of material related to the Trump-Russia investigation, according to the New York Times. President Trump ordered a wide swath of materials “immediately” declassified “without redaction” on Monday, only to change his mind later in the week by allowing the DOJ Inspector General to review the materials first. 

The Times reports that the UK’s concern was over material which “includes direct references to conversations between American law enforcement officials and Christopher Steele,” the former MI6 agent who compiled the infamous “Steele Dossier.” The UK’s objection, according to former US and British officials, was over revealing Steele’s identity in an official document, “regardless of whether he had been named in press reports.”

We would note, however, that Steele’s name was contained within the Nunes Memo – the House Intelligence Committee’s majority opinion in the Trump-Russia case.

Steele also had extensive contacts with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie, who – along with Steele – was paid by opposition research firm Fusion GPS in the anti-Trump campaign. Trump called for the declassification of FBI notes of interviews with Ohr, which would ostensibly reveal more about his relationship with Steele. Ohr was demoted twice within the Department of Justice for lying about his contacts with Fusion GPS.

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Friday, September 14, 2018

Top Three Charges on Which John Bolton Should be Tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC)

1. Bolton played a key role in hoodwinking the American public into the 2003 US war of aggression on Iraq, for which there was no legitimate casus belli or legal basis for war. The UN Charter forbids the initiation of a war except where a country is attacked and responds in self-defense or where the UN Security Council designates a government as a threat to world order (as it did Gaddafi’s Libya). These attempts to outlaw wars of aggression were a reaction against the Nazi invasion of Poland, etc. People like Bolton, who don’t want any constraints on his power from the international rule of law, are just trying out for the role of people like Nazi generals Günther von Kluge and Gerd von Rundstedt, who led the assault on Poland. (Like Bolton in regard to Iraq, they maintained that they were only defending themselves from a menacing Poland, but nobody believed this lie).

2. As National Security Adviser, Bolton has supported the Apartheid policies of the far-right extremist government of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu toward the Occupied Palestinians.

3. Bolton is in the back pocket of, has spoken for,  the People’s Jihadis (Mojahedin-e Khalq), a group that has been on the US State Department terrorist watch list and which has killed civilians with bombings and attacks in Iran. They even had a base given them for these purposes by Saddam Hussein, in whose company Bolton has fallen, given their alliance with this same Iranian cult.

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Thursday, September 13, 2018

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Explosive Skripal Allegations May Blow Up In Syria

Explosive Skripal allegations will probably blow up in Syria's Idlib where the US/UK axis is cocked, ready to fire. The UK media lost their collective mind over Russia but their masters have not. There is method in their madness.

Today's latest offering is that the 'Russians' in the 'mugshots' released last week are 'already dead' having been 'executed by Putin' to stop them talking, forever. Which neatly avoids the British state asking Russia for help in identifying them. London's failure to do so was already arousing suspicion amongst a cynical public. There is now no point, the would-be assassins are now six-feet below the permafrost of Anglo-Russian relations.

The media here have completely ignored the statement of the head of the anti-terrorist squad of Scotland Yard that he had "No" evidence of Russian state involvement in the crime in Salisbury, preferring instead the cheap barroom brawling of the British prime minister on the floor of the House of Commons cheered on by the vulgar popular press and their more refined elder sisters in the upmarket papers and on the BBC.

I prefer to listen to the police. And watch them. Their most significant act since I last wrote here on this subject has been to erect an array of tents outside the Skripal house in Salisbury which the government had been planning to purchase at way above value by British taxpayers expense. The "decontamination of the house" is the stated purpose.

But as I hope I established here last week the poisoning of Yulia and Sergei Skripal could not have been caused by "Novichok" on the doorknob.

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Monday, September 10, 2018

Obama’s Back, Slamming Trump and Projecting His Own Sins onto GOP

Barack Obama re-entered the political fray Friday, giving a speech at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in which he discussed his favorite and least favorite subjects: respectively, himself and Republicans. It was vintage Obama — meaning, his talk was long on rhetoric and short on reality — and banal enough so that, says President Trump, it put him to sleep.

Obama was in town to accept the university’s Paul H. Douglas Award for Ethics in Government, which is a bit like G.W. Bush getting an oratory prize or Bill Clinton receiving a chastity medal. But, say critics, the one giving Obama the most credit was, well, Obama.

For “while Obama found plenty of time to denigrate Republicans for allegedly stoking fear during these ‘dangerous’ and ‘extraordinary times,’” reports the American Mirror, “he also dedicated a lot of his speech to patting himself on the back for everything from the improving economy to supposedly helping to heal the country’s racial divisions.”

In fact, Obama not only focused on himself — he projected his inner self onto others — as many have noted leftists are wont to do. Consider the topic of race, about which Obama said, “Over the past few decades, the politics of division and resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican Party.”

In reality, playing the race card is the modern Democrats’ modus operandi. Identity politics reigns, with black this, Hispanic that, “white privilege,” and continual tribal appeals. Obama himself spent 20 years attending an overtly bigoted, anti-American church and never missed a chance to sow racial discord.

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Thursday, September 6, 2018

I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration

By Anonymous - The writer is a senior official in the Trump administration

The Times today is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers. We invite you to submit a question about the essay or our vetting process here.

President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.

It’s not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump’s leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.

The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

I would know. I am one of them.

Read the entire NYT - OpEd

Friday, August 31, 2018

A Cancer On the Papacy

This summer, the sex scandal that has bedeviled the Catholic Church went critical.

First came the stunning revelation that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington and friend to presidents, had for decades been a predator-priest who preyed on seminarians and abused altar boys, and whose depravity was widely known and covered up.

Came then the report of a Pennsylvania grand jury that investigated six dioceses and found that some 300 priests had abused 1,000 children over the last 70 years.

The bishop of Pittsburgh, Donald Wuerl, now cardinal archbishop of Washington, defrocked some of these corrupt priests, but reassigned others to new parishes where new outrages were committed.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, Vatican envoy to the United States under Pope Benedict XVI, charged that Pope Francis had been told of McCarrick’s abuses, done nothing to sanction him, and that, as “zero tolerance” of sexual abuse is Francis’ own policy, the pope should resign.

In his 11-page letter of accusations, Vigano further charged that there is a powerful “homosexual current” among the Vatican prelates closest to the pope.

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Thursday, August 30, 2018

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

One Dead McCain, 2.5 Million Dead Iraqis

The grossest thing in American society is the reactionary sentimentality that fill our gossip infected hearts with a chemical reaction every time one of our supposed war heroes moves on to a more peaceful place. The carefully rehearsed statements from useless political figures numb our minds as all those who are sane must collectively wonder what on earth has a fusty bag of bones like John McCain ever done for us? Donald Trump was once new to the political scene and was still capable of burning bridges that were worth burning. It was Mr. Trump’s finest moment when he said that McCain was not a war hero. Such a statement was so necessary one would have to say it was the finest moment the Not-So-Great Pumpkin has ever brought the American people. It goes without saying that the day Trump meets his twisted maker, all politically correct sentimentality for his passing must be resisted.

Donald Trump’s machometer for a war hero was whether or not they got caught. The phrase war hero is a paradox to begin with, so we must forgive the dull Cheeseball for his lackluster definition. His instincts were right. John McCain is no hero.

John McCain was a fierce Zionist, but such a trait is almost as American as apple pie. McCain, more than almost anybody else, pushed for more troops in Iraq. When George W. Bush caved and sent in 20,000 extra troops to Iraq in 2007, Democrats labeled the move “The McCain doctrine”. Americans even dumber than Bush II have begun to label Bush “reasonable”. The reasonable Bush talked of 50 years in Iraq, McCain raised him to 100. McCain was among the most enthusiastic advocates of war in Afghanistan as well. And like his buddy Barack across the aisle, he felt threatened by Libya’s success under Muammar Gaddafi. McCain’s virile posturing against Vladimir Putin has been just as eye-opening as Trump’s bromance with Putin.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?

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Monday, August 27, 2018

Is the US and Its Allies Preparing to Bomb Syria? Towards a “No Fly Zone” in Northern Syria?

Are the U.S. France and Britain preparing to launch  punitive airstrikes against Syria in reprisal for another (forthcoming) “false flag” Chemical Weapons attack allegedly ordered by president Bashar al Assad against his own people. 

U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton is reported to have told his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Patrushev, that “Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may be preparing to use chemical weapons to recapture the northwestern province of Idlib from rebels.”

On August 22, at a press conference in Jerusalem,  John Bolton, Trump’s (“Humanitarian”) National Security Adviser expressed his “concern” intimating that Assad is preparing to “kill his own people”:

“We are obviously concerned about the possibility that Assad may use chemical weapons again, …

if the Syrian regime uses chemical weapons, we will respond very strongly and they really ought to think about this a long time before they come into any decision, because there is no ambiguity in the U.S. position on this point.”

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Thursday, August 23, 2018

The New Cold War Flops

Has there ever been a country so vilified as Russia, a leader so demonized as Vladimir Putin?

It makes me dizzy just to think of all the crimes that have been laid at that particular doorstep. I could spend the rest of this column simply listing them, from the deaths of numerous Russian journalists to the extinction of Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions – that and so much more! The omnipotent Russian President has apparently poisoned so many Russian expatriates in Britain that the streets are awash in polonium, novichok, and god knows what else. Why, it only took a few thousand bucks spent on some Facebook ads that practically no one saw to steal the presidential election from the rightful winner. Vlad the Bad is the all-powerful villain at the center of so many sinister conspiracies that it’s hard to keep track of them.

The anti-Russian campaign that the media has been hyping ever since Trump took office isn’t anything new. Those of us born during the cold war years – the first cold war, that is – remember all too well the atmosphere of hysteria and unreason that prevailed in those days. The fear of Communist agents under every bed was exploited by the War Party to no end – no good end, that is – and one would’ve thought that the collapse of communism and the end of the cold war would put a stop to it.

No such luck. It started in 2003, when the neocons declared war on Russia for Putin’s refusal to sign on to the Iraq war. Richard Perle led the charge, demanding Russia’s expulsion from the G-8.

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Tuesday, August 21, 2018

RIP: Uri Avnery, He Was One Of My Few Middle East Heroes

It was somehow fitting that first news of Uri Avnery’s plight should reach me from one of Israel’s staunchest enemies, the Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. One legend sending sad news of another, you see, a socialist preparing to mourn a fellow socialist, sending his sympathy for the 94-year-old Israeli political philosopher. That same philosopher was once a German Jewish schoolboy, originally called Helmut Ostermann, who refused to give the Hitler salute at school, but who was, when I received Jumblatt’s message – still, just – “an indispensable mind to understand the history of fascism, a major destructive element of the 20th century”. Jumblatt’s words. Avnery, he added, also understood “the history of Zionism, another despicable apartheid theory that is an offshoot of fascism”.

Uri Avnery suffered a massive heart attack at the weekend and died on Monday morning, but he was himself a Zionist, or at least a believer in a left-wing, courageous but humble “light among the nations” Israel; the kind many of us, in our heart of hearts, would like to believe in. He was the sort of Israeli that we bleeding heart liberals go and see when we arrive in Israel because they say what we want to hear.

“Tell Jumblatt that he must break up his sentences into paragraphs,” Avnery told me when I left his Tel Aviv apartment six years ago. “He says everything in one long text and I can hardly breathe.” Lesson duly passed on to Jumblatt from a man who often wrote single sentence paragraphs, an annoying habit of tabloid journalism which does occasionally get a message across rather well.

I must admit that Uri Avnery was one of my Middle East heroes – there aren’t many – and his story is worthy of a movie, though there will be no Spielbergs to direct it: writer, journalist, leftist, veteran of the Israeli army in the country’s War of Independence – and, as he never forgot, the same war which drove 750,000 Palestinians from their home and lands. He played chess with Arafat during the 1982 siege of Beirut – be sure, this will be in the first two paragraphs of the obituaries today – and his angry but gently cynical newsletters would arrive on Friday afternoons, condemning Netanyahu for his hypocrisy and racism, Sharon for his hatred of Palestinians, missives from a book-crammed home in Tel Aviv, close to the sea but in a modest, quiet street where Avnery could ruminate and roar.