Author: paulm100m

No flies in Syria

The recent cruise missile attack  by  the U.S.  and its allies the U.K.  and France ( former colonial exploiters  in  the region) raises some interesting dilemmas for Western  military planners .

If we are to believe the Russian military  assessment of the strike, 71 of the of 103 cruise missiles  were brought down  by  Syrian  air defence systems,  particular via the Russian made Pantsir surface-to-air missile  systems.

While the United States and its two allies have claimed that  the missile  attack  was in  response to  their espoused  view that there had been  a gas attack  by  the Assad military in Douma against  the  civilians trapped there, the evidence seems to  suggest  that  this attack was aimed at  eliminating the air support threat  from  the Syrian  Air Force for the jihadists those 3  Western governments have been extensively supporting since the start  of the war to  overthrow the Assad regime.

Having failed in  their bid to  convince the United Nations of a ‘no-fly’ zone in  Syria  on  multiple occasions ( ie elimination of Syrian  government aircraft from the skies above rebel-held territory) ; the use of a chemical  weapons attack  as a pretext  for bombing airfields  has become the next  best  option. Using  The American   government  ( and Muslim Brotherhood)  funded Syrian American Medical  Society (SAMS),  and the largely British intelligence funded and managed White Helmets to  produce videos purporting to  show a chemical  weapons attack  in  Douma, Western media has been united in  showing moral  outrage at  ‘animal Assad’s” killing of his own people, and baying for more attacks on the Syrian military.

The apparent logic given  by  Western media and politicians  for ‘animal Assad”  to  drop  barrel  bombs filed with   toxic chemicals on  the people of   Douma was to demonstrate that there was no  hope for the rebels there and they  should surrender. According to  this logic, it was worth  the risk of a repeat of the previous cruise missile attacks  ordered by  President Trump  last  year  for the Assad regime to drop a few barrels of toxic chemicals on  Douma  to  dislodge the few remaining  “rebels’  there who  were already negotiating an  exit  with the Syrian government from the enclave . One assumes those politicians and the Western media think  their publics are very  very  stupid….Unfortunately for Western intelligence, the overrunning of the last  of the rebel enclaves in Ghouta  and their departure in  buses to  Idlib came far sooner than they expected,  allowing the Syrians and Russians and journalists like the respected British Robert Fisk, to enter the area where the supposed gas attack  had occurred and interview civilians and medics there .

One finds it strange that  neither Western media nor their governments have bayed for large cruise missile attacks on the Al  Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra,  or ISIS, or any  of the other  head-choppers supported by  Gulf and Western states. And that in  fact there have been no  reported cruise missile attacks by  Western countries on ISIS throughout this entire war. How could this be  one wonders?

The chemical  weapons scam is largely similar to  the earlier and still  ongoing farce  in  the Western media about Assad’s “barrel bombs”. “Barrel  bombs’  are nothing but impromptu explosives packed in   drums  and  dropped from government helicopters and  fixed wing aircraft. They  are in  fact, unguided ordinance, which the majority  of the  aerial  weapons  at play  in Syria by  the United States and its allies,  as well as the Russians and the Syrian government, are. But  we are somehow expected to  believe that  packing  munitions into  oil  drums and dropping them  on  targets creates   far worse  dangers,  chaos, injury  and death   than those caused by  other unguided munitions. But again  the ‘barrel  bomb’  farce is one more attempt by  the Western  media and politicians to  remove the threat  to their tunnel  based jihadists from  aerial  warfare of any kind. If the Syrian airforce can be removed and then  the Russian airforce, then  ISIS and the other Al  Qaeda affiliates and salafists out to  exterminate all  Christians , Allawites, Shi-ites and other non  fundamentalist  Sunni sects in Syria, will  have a much free-er hand on the ground.

Despite American  denials, it would appear that in  fact  the  vast majority of the cruise missiles were therefore  aimed at  Syrian  airfields, rather than the alleged chemical  weapons storage and production facilities ( which had been vetted by  the OPCW as ‘clean’  just  last  October 2017). The Syrian and Russians had in  fact deployed most of their more effective anti-missile stations around those airfields; and if they  are to believed,   destroyed the vast  majority of the incoming missiles at  those airfields. There is some speculation that  Russian  electromagnetic interference jamming   systems may have played a part in  the incoming missiles’ lack  of effectiveness,  but that  cant be confirmed as yet.

It would appear  that  the Americans ,French  and British  are relying on  their NATO fellow members of the OPCW to  influence  the public statements of the OPCW in  regards to the alleged Douma gas attack , whilst acknowledging that the inspectors themselves will  draw their own conclusions which  they  can not publicly release as OPCW staff ( but will  likely leak  to  the public or Wikileaks if they  do  not coincide with the political narrative) .  Note that  the most recent media release by  the OPCW on  their survey  of the Dhouma site in Syria states that  “On arrival at Site 1, a large crowd gathered and the advice provided by the UNDSS was that the reconnaissance team should withdraw. At Site 2, the team came under small arms fire and an explosive was detonated. The reconnaissance team returned to Damascus. “

Very clearly, the battle to partition Syria by  the West and its Gulf allies using jihadists is far from over.

But -as in  previous unilateral totally illegal strikes  ( ie not approved by  the U.N. Security Council) by  Western governments on  states that do   not comply with the Western political  and economic agenda , this latest missile attack  provides ample rationale  to  China, as the upcoming dominant global  power,  that  missile   strikes on  countries who  do  not acquiesce to its political  and economic agenda, are a completely legitimate response, in  the future.

It  may not be too  long before China’s aircraft  carrier armada are patrolling the seas off  the United States, the U.K and France..

 

Postscript

A more detailed assessment of the cruise missile numbers and targets from  Joe Quinn at  sott.net

https://www.sott.net/article/382908-About-Those-Nice-New-Smart-Missiles-And-The-Chemical-Weapons-Sites-in-Syria

Links

https://russianmilitaryanalysis.wordpress.com/2017/04/10/u-s-cruise-missile-strikes-in-syria-brief-analysis/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_bomb

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-chemical-attack-gas-douma-robert-fisk-ghouta-damascus-a8307726.html

http://eng.mil.ru/en/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12171300@egNews

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/04/syria-pentagon-hides-attack-failure-70-cruise-missiles-shot-down-.html#more

https://www.opcw.org/

Robert Fisk’s Douma Report Rips Away Excuses for Air Strike on Syria

America First – R.I.P.

From Cold to Hot War..

“On the Beach”

The recent very  fake news from  the White Helmets about Assad’s government gassing civilians in Douma in Ghouta province of Syria has clearly been orchestrated by  Western intelligence agencies ( who  largely control  the White Helmet’s agenda   and their Al Qaeda affiliates on  the ground in  Syria). As has been noted elsewhere,  Syrian government forces have no  need to  gas anyone;  they  are on  a roll  and likely to  overrun  all  Al Qaeda rebels in  the Ghouta area in  the next week..And in fact  Syrian  government forces and Russian  advisers now control the area where the gassing supposedly occurred. An unfortunate fact  for the U.S.  now gunning for war…

The appointment of John Bolton as Secretary of State for the U.S., who  along with  U.S.’s U.N.  representative, Nikki Haley,  know  no other response to   perceived threats to  U.S. global  omnipotence than  war  and more war,  is a solid indication that  the U.S.  intelligence community and State Dept  is indeed preparing for war  with  Russia.

If we combine those changes to  U.S.  administration, with  the farcical  attempts by  the U.K.  government to  blame Russia for the Skripal’s near death  experiences in Salisbury, and advance  agreement by  the French  sock-puppet Macron to obey the U.S.’s every  command in fighting the Assad  government if a gas attack  just happens to  occur in  Syria ;  we are left with no  option other than war.

Russia has given  categorical  statements at  the U.N. , and to  the U.S. , that  missile attacks  against  the Syrian  government will  be responded to “at source”  ie by attacking   U.S.  French or U.K.  aircraft ,  airbases  or aircraft  carriers that  carry  out such  attacks.

As noted in  a previous post on  this site;  the argument in NATO command and the Western  “think tanks”, is that by destroying once and for all, the  threat of Russia as an state entity capable of having an independent  foreign policy  and  economic pathway,  all  the other dominos;  China,  Iran,  North Korea who  currently oppose Western global  control,  will  inevitably  ‘fall  into line”

We know from previous experience,  that  Western  countries;  particularly those who have signed up  to  NATO,  will indeed  fall   into line with their masters, and  both  acquiesce and actively participate in  whatever horrific actions the Americans and their British  allies  have decided upon.

The blatantly  absurd arguments about Saddams’  little trucks full  of WMD,  or the  viagra given  to  Libyan soldiers so  that they could rape Libyan  civilians, or any of the  ridiculous other  casus belli formulated in  the rather small  brains of the military strategists  in  London  and Washington  over the past 60  years since the second world war, have been  promulgated by  a compliant (or perhaps ‘bought”)  Western  media without analysis, and accepted as fact by  the vast majority of the Western world’s population. We do  not need rational or factual  arguments,  any old rationale, however ridiculous,  will  do  to destroy another country  and its population.

We are after all,  as members of the Western world-  defenders of democracy  and freedom  and civilised  humanity-  are we not?…..

Except this time, making war with  Russia as  a major nuclear power, and with  very formidable weaponry,  will  not be the ‘cake-walk’  it was supposedly going to be in Iraq. In  addition it is unknown  at  this point,  but likely,  that China will  have to take a stand beside Russia  in the lead-up  to  war-knowing they will  be next  if Russia falls. The writing is on  the wall  for the Chinese with  Trump’s ‘trade war”,  and the Chinese have demonstrated they  will  not be bullied by  the U.S.

If  you think  that none of  this could  be possible , (we wouldn’t risk global  war-  would we?) it is well  to be reminded about  the last  Western  allies in  the pursuit of ….something….  invaded Russia.

Or to be reminded of the total barbarity of the Western invasions of North Korea  during the Korean War , the still ongoing excuses by  the U.S.  for its totally vicious devastation of Vietnam  and its population during the Vietnam  War. But right now in Yemen,  where millions of civilians are starving and dying  because of Saudi  bombing ( coordinated by  U.S.  and U.K.  ‘advisors’)  and  a naval  blockade of food  ably assisted by  the US  Fifth Fleet,  we see clear evidence of active complicity in  massive war crimes by  the U.K.  and U.S.

Why  should such barbaric partners therefore  need things like evidence or truth  when responding to  allegations  by  the jihadists they  support in  Syria, of gas attacks  by  the Syrian military ( and therefore Russia).

There is a higher goal  here-  the pursuit of more money  and power…

Links

The Rush to War

Trump’s Rush to Judgment on Syria Chemical Attack

Syrian War Report – April 9, 2018: Another ‘Chemical Attack’ Story Triggers Escalation In Region

Russia controls Douma, guarantees impartial investigation; that makes US attack MORE likely

The Rapidly Evolving Skripal Story: Evidence of the Destruction of an Anglo-American Plan

https://disobedientmedia.com/2017/01/us-supported-syrian-white-helmets-involved-with-war-crimes-committed-by-rebel-groups/

https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/04/all-russiagate-roads-lead-to-london-as-evidence-emerges-of-joseph-mifsuds-links-to-uk-intelligence/

http://www.syrianews.cc/last-terrorists-of-douma-jaish-helmets-sams-collaborate-in-massacre/

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/423846-syria-attack-trump-war-russia/

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13970122001526

Control 101: Creating Consensus Reality

 

Faking News

As the great journalist John Pilger notes in  his 1st April  2018  article about the Ecuadorean  Government’s silencing of Julian Assange , we are being subjected to  a constant battering on  many fronts to  ensure we only listen to the ‘right’  information about the world around us.

The demonisation  of Russia can partly be explained by  Western Government’s concerns about the role of RT.com  providing an  alternative meme ( in most cases as legitimate -and often more so   than its Western news-agency  counterparts) to that  expressed through what is termed Mainstream media (MSM) . Mainstream Media is in  essence, western media which  toe the dominant  political party line –  whether it be anti-Russian,  anti-Trump,  pro-‘intervention’ ( read  ‘killing’)  in  other countries, or most importantly,  pro-consumerism.

But this attempted silencing of alternative media stories, no  matter how legitimate or truthful they  are, not only extends to  foreign  entities like Russia or China ,  it also  includes any  highly visible figures like Assange  who  do not espouse what is known to be ‘right’ by  our esteemed leaders, and the multitude of internet  bloggers who  research  and analyse the stories behind the stories.

The recent bizarre attempt by western governments and MSM,  to conflate alternative opinion as ‘fake news”,  borders on  the psychotic.  It  is a  witchhunt against  those who do  not respect  the  often  infantile repetitive lies told in  the MSM or by  apparently intellectually impaired politicians such  as U.K’s Foreign  Secretary  Boris Johnson, or for that  matter  Donald Trump. By  now the old lies about  the reasons we must fight  wars in  ‘foreign’ lands  for ‘freedom  and democracy”  or  to “save civilians”, are wearing remarkable thin.

Thus the  ‘establishment’ is now flailing around for a further reason why  we should just  accept that   the mass-killing  of ‘other’ people is good for them. In  John Pilger’s belief,  this media frenzy  against  those who detour from  the party line is  a  significant threat to  the establishment, with the intended  war against  Russia and China looming and the drums beating ever louder – they can  not afford a dissenting “fifth column” in  their midst who  can undermine the thirst  for war or the need for civilians to rally behind the flag.

As the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal  has made clear;  it is not just  Russia and the ‘enemy’  who  is manipulating public opinion through  ‘slanted stories’ and  twitter bots! SCL, Cambridge Analytica’s British parent company,  prides itself on  its capacity to manipulate public opinion in  both  foreign lands and internally in  the UK.  We can be sure that there are many other western  companies and intelligence services who, despite their actual  minimal real intelligence,  aim  to manipulate public opinion at  home and abroad. In the United States, this is an  easy  task. The vast majority of Americans have limited education,  no understanding of foreign countries and no memory  for history-  an ideal  subject for manipulation!

In the United States therefore we have something passed into  law by  Congress  in  2016  called

The Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act would ensure America’s national security infrastructure helps counter the false narratives that harm our security — delivering truthful information and making the world a safer place for the United States and our allies.”

Note .. that as written into the NDAA, the legislation’s provisions establish an inter-agency body “to track and evaluate counterfactual narratives abroad that threaten the national security interests of the United States and United States allies,” and to develop “procedures to expose and refute foreign misinformation and disinformation and proactively promote fact-based narratives and policies to audiences outside the United States.”

Where the ‘facts”  come that  the public needs re-education on,  and the ‘false facts’  that  the public needs protection from,  do  not of course need to  be stated. Our respective governments always know best! -don’t they??

As we have seen in  the ludicrous litany  of lies put out by  the British government  around the Salisbury  nerve gas poisoning affair, all  the key  mainstream  UK and other Western media have jumped in lock-step to  push the U.K government Russian-basking charges without once examining the implausibility of the  facts presented. Whether these media agencies and their journalists  are  paid,  bribed, coerced or blackmailed into  regurgitating this British  propaganda, is unknown  at  this point,

This is of course not something new.  State entities  have always attempted to manipulate their publics to ensure compliance to  the  official  line -whether it be going to  war, or maximising the potential threats of other states  to  maximise profits for the corporates who  fund the ruling “elite” . In  all  cases, the states’ manipulatory processes are for  short-term  gain and almost  inevitably have a long term negative impact  on  their public.

The most telling  and catastrophically fatal example of this flaw in  our ‘democracies”, is the media  and political drive for corporates to produce more ‘things’  and for their publics to consume more things.  All analysis shows that in  a closed system  like our little world, this drive inevitably leads to  planetary disaster – but it helps keep  political  parties in  power…for now….

Postscript

A  useful analysis of military  propaganda here from Adam  Ramsay here 

Note also  the “The Times” (U.K.) fascinating attempt to shut down academic dissent around the  U.K. government’s version of events in  Syria 

 

Links

http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-isolation-of-julian-assange-is-the-silencing-of-us-all

Roger Stone: Obama’s National Censorship Board is Very Real

https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/gec/  Global Engagement Center (U.S.)

The Poison in our Body Politic

Control 101: Creating Consensus Reality

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/philip-hammond/syria-stop-asking-questions

Demonic Russia

Over the last few years we have seen an increasing crescendo  of Western  media implicating Russia in wars of aggression,  threats to  its neighbours  and more recently involvement in  gas attacks in  both  Syria and now the U.K.

Russia as one of the major  international  suppliers of natural  gas and  oil , is like Iran ( and previously Iraq and Libya) , one of the few states not aligned to  Western corporate  interests. And  like China, (a major oil  importer)  operates a defence arsenal -both  conventional  and nuclear,  which is  largely independent of Western  suppliers.

After the breakup  of the Soviet bloc in the 1990s, and the resultant Yeltsin  years of asset stripping by  newly emergent  Russian “oligarchs” and Western companies, Russia under Putin  has slowly regained some of  the strengths it had acquired as a communist nation. But this time with  a much  stronger ethnic Russian  flavour, as the Baltic states and many of the Eastern  ‘Stans’  of Soviet times, devolved from  the newly formed  Russian  Federation .

Western  interests had intended that  any Russian  resurgence would be minimal  and closely aligned to  Western  corporates. However President Putin’s presidency has had a strong focus on  Russian  nationalism, independence and self-reliance-all anathema to  Western  ‘think-tank” and government foreign  policy planners..

With  NATO pushing hard against Russian  borders in  the West, and the Polish  and Baltic states electing ever more nationalist  governments, Russia  has responded with  increasing its defence arsenal –  both  nuclear and conventional. The capabilities of many of these new weapons , like the Kalibr cruise missile and the newly announced Russian hyperspeed missiles have come as a surprise to  Western  defence analysts. Russia’s military  successes in  supporting the government of Syria against  the Western  and Gulf State supported jihadists attempting to overthrow the Syrian regime have also  confounded Western military  analysts.  Russia’s  brief war on its borders in Ossetia and in Georgia  and its seizure of the Crimea  and its centuries old Russian naval  base there, after Western intervention in the Ukraine , also  came as a surprise to  those in  the West  who  expected easy  victories there.

However what  is much more of a threat  to  Western interests than  all  of the above, is Russia’s capacity to be an overland ( and thus secure) conduit for China’s vast consumer production  to  Europe and beyond . Bizarrely though, it is the military  and economic  pressure by  the West  which  has cemented  the alliance between  China and Russia and further enabled the “One Belt One Road” project . In addition, this reinvigorated Russo/Chinese alliance will  ensure China’s access in  the long-term  to  essential  oil  for its factories which is not  at  risk from  maritime attack or blockade by  the U.S.  or its allies.

While Russian capacity to  understand or even work as an  equal  partner  with its ever-more-powerful  eastern  neighbour is  currently limited- this China/Russia  alliance has enormous future consequences for global  trade and dominance ( should global  warming and environmental  destruction not impede or destroy world capacity for  human ‘progress” in the meantime!)

While the U.S. remains the largest  economic, and by  far the largest  military  power in  the world;  that power is indisputably waning. Endless fruitless wars have drained its coffers, as well  as inflicting enormous suffering on  so  many of the world’s populations. Rampant corruption at  all  levels of American  society,  but particularly in  Washington, has left government and strategic vision entirely in  the hands of greedy  corporates,  whose only ‘vision’  is more power and money for themselves. It’s strongest  ally,  the U.K.  has long suffered from  the loss of income from the colonial  states it is now largely unable  to ravage, but its moneyed classes hold still  to  a vision of a truly “Great” Britain. The “City of London” , the mercantile capital  of the world in  many respects,  has reaped,  and continues to  reap, enormous profits from  the largely illegal  siphoning of capital  from  what  were once the state enterprises of the Soviet Union into London’s coffers,  via Russian  ‘oligarchs‘ .  The British press  and politicians like to portray  these  “oligarchs’  as “Putin’s men” ,  whereas in  most instances they  are extremely anti-Putin because of Putin’s  nationalist  views and his desire for Russian money to  stay inside Russia .

The recent Kemerovo mall  fire tragedy in Siberia, with  its obvious implications of corruption and negligence at  the Siberian   governorship level, will  both require and assist  Putin  to  further crack  down on corruption in Russia.

Now, entrance the ‘Novichok’  affair…Moon of Alabama and  Craig Murray,  among many others,  have effectively destroyed any  argument by London’s   ‘ruling classes’ ,  that this was indisputably a Russian  government initiated nerve agent attempted murder of a   Russian  ex double agent and his Russian daughter.  However what  seems often missed in  these accounts of the counter-arguments to  the British  Government’s spin  on  the attempted murders is the extraordinarily implausible likelihood that  such  nerve agent deaths would not only occur within  a few kilometers of Britain’s only Chemical Weapons facility at  Porton  Down near  Salisbury, (where disgusting and inhumane  activities are carried out in  the name of the Western  world, and in direct  contravention of the U.K.s obligations as a signatory  to  the UN Conventions on the prohibition of chemical and biological weapons),  but that  a few weeks before, the BCC had aired a  British  /American  spy drama called “Strike Back” in  which Novichok   was used  by  a disgruntled ex-Russian  spy.  The laws of probability say  that  those two  events, and the actual  attempted murders,  cannot be coincidence.  Now add in  into  the mix the current controversy  over Facebook personal details being leaked to  benefit Trump’s presidential  campaign  by  SCL subsidiary , Cambridge Analytica.    As Bella Caledonia notes: SCL is a very  British  company dedicated (and funded by  the British  Ministry of Defence) to  manipulate public opinion  in  a multitude of foreign  and domestic environments.  There in Bella Caledonia’s post you will  note that  in  2005 SCL ” went public with a glitzy exhibit at the DSEI conference, the UK’s largest showcase for military technology.  It’s ‘hard sell’ was a demonstration of how the UK government could use a sophisticated media campaign of mass deception to fool the British people into the thinking an accident at a chemical plant had occurred and threatened central London.” And the Novichok affair gets rather messier for  Western  ‘intelligence’   here..

As SCL notes on its website: ‘SCL is experienced in using data driven communication to achieve behavioral change in civilian groups. National programs across the spectrum from social programs, health campaigns, and educational initiatives can all be designed using advanced data analytics informed by our behavioral tools. SCL combines the micro-segmentation data from the target audience and combines it with behavioural profiles to increase the effectiveness of information campaigns.’

Hmmm- might a display of ‘novichok” in  some quiet little British  city be helpful in  pushing the case that Russia ( and instrumentally  Vladimir Putin)  is indeed the demon  we have always thought her to  be? And here is the ‘proof’  in 5 slides  that  Her Majesty’s Government was able to  persuade its NATO allies that  Russia  did indeed  do  the deed. Demonstrably we are indeed talking about totally incompetent UK politicians , defence planners and easily bought NATO allies  here…

And finally,  with  the appointment of  the psychopath John Bolton as the new  U.S.  National  Security Advisor,  whose only known diplomatic strategy  is to  kill  people he doesn’t like in  vast  quantities,  we have the capacity for those with  very  limited intellectual  capacity to  destroy  the earth (in a nuclear armageddon)  much earlier than planned….

And Country Joe’s song is just  as relevant now as it was then in 1969…

 

Postscript

Gareth  Porter provides a possible alternative explanation as to  why  the purported Novichok nerve agent did not immediately kill the Skripal’s, as it should have done.

Links

Strategic Communications Laboratory (SCL Group)        https://sclgroup.cc/home

SCL – a Very British Coup

Shadow Democracy

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dispatches/2005/09/you_cant_handle_the_truth.html

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/422502-west-russia-diplomats-skripal/

Will America accept its defeat or will it challenge the Russian Bear and the Chinese Dragon? (1/3)

Will America accept its defeat or challenge the Russian bear and the Chinese dragon 3/3?

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/03/the-geo-political-poker-game-wheres-the-off-ramp-by-.html#more%22%22

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/with-expulsions-of-russians-the-westen-masseconfronts-putin

Salisbury Nerve Agent Attack Reveals $70 Million Pentagon Program At Porton Down

http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2018/865-no-spirit-of-liberty-the-salisbury-case-corbyn-and-the-need-for-dissent.html

http://syriapropagandamedia.org/doubts-about-novichoks

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/03/clinton-state-department-discouraged-novichok-discussion.html#more

https://www.rt.com/news/422871-russia-questions-uk-skripal-case/

An Alternative Explanation to the Skripal Mystery

“There is no safe place, and we cannot leave”: the barbarity of Israel’s occupation of Palestine

A small  quote from a 2014 United Nations report from  UNICEF on  the systematic brutality of Israeli  forces against  children in  the occupied territories..

Nine-year-old Mohammed Jaber remembers how he took his pocket money and went out with his 5-year-old sister Ghina, as the long summer day of fasting came to an end, in the month of Ramadan. “My parents try to keep me indoors, but I was bored, so we went to buy jellybeans and chips,” he says. Once on the street, in the densely populated al-Bureij refugee camp, he heard that the neighbours had received a call warning of an air strike. Mohammed rushed back home. There are no shelters in Gaza, so his parents and their six children took cover in a bedroom.

“Mohammed remembers the last war two years ago. He knew what was going to happen,” his mother Mariam explains, recalling how the child, white with fear, ran and picked up a pillow to cover his face and ears. “I thought he was going to suffocate himself,” she says. Suddenly, the deafening explosion sent pieces of shrapnel and glass flying through the room. “All my children started screaming. I managed to calm them down, but after that they were in shock; they would not speak.

“Since then, Mohammed has started bedwetting again, and my 5-year-old daughter Ghina keeps saying, ‘Mama, people will bomb our house.’ Whenever her father goes out, she clings to him. She thinks he will not come back if she lets him go.” Mariam does not know what to tell her young children. “I cannot tell them the truth, that there is no safe place, and we cannot leave.”

Jonathan Cook  in  his article  about the recent arrest  by  Israeli  soldiers of the 16 year Palestinian  girl, Ahed Tamimi,  outlines in detail how  Palestinian  children  are systematically targeted  and brutalised by  Israeli  authorities.

With  specific  demeaning  laws for ‘Arabs” as opposed to  Jewish  settlers. With  walls  constructed to  keep  out the rightful  Arab  occupiers of their own lands in Palestine. With  the evil  brutality of Israeli  settlers against  the people and children  they  have stolen their lands from ( and Israeli  laws which  allow that brutality to  be wiped away) – with  the ongoing imprisonment of children  without trial (or a “Military” ( read show-trial) trial  for those  Arab  adult and children  captured  or killed or  tortured for their ‘misbehaviour’ against  Israeli  troops on  their own  lands  -it is small  wonder  Palestinians remain  angry  against their oppressors.

One day  soon perhaps,  the  Israeli  population will begin  to  understand that  their continued oppression of the rightful  owners of Palestinian lands can only lead to the destruction of Israel. Continued fictional  presentations of Arabs as  lesser beings  by  a bigoted society only exacerbate the inevitability of that  end.

Only  negotiation with  real  truth  and honesty  by  the Israeli  entity with Palestinians, and and an  acknowledgment and compensation for   the dreadful  wrongs committed by  that  entity over the last 70 years ,  will  allow a one state solution to  occur ( the only viable solution) , where Jews and Arabs can once more live harmoniously together  in  Palestine/Israel.

Why prolong this agony?

 

Links

https://pchrgaza.org/en/?p=10321 Israeli forces continue systematic crimes in the occupied Palestinian territory

https://www.unicef.ca/en/children-bear-the-brunt-of-renewed-fighting-in-gaza

https://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/oPt_74266.html

https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/gaza-1-million-children-suffering-unlivable-conditions

Unicef ” State of Palestine 2018-2022 https://www.unicef.org/about/execboard/files/State_of_Palestine_undaf_2018-2022.pdf

https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2018-01-08/ahed-tamimi-children-targeted-israel/

https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2018-01-21/israeli-army-concerned-gaza/

Slapping an Israeli Soldier More Newsworthy Than Shooting a Palestinian Child in the Face

http://www.hsj.gr/medicine/the-relationship-between-war-trauma-ptsd-depression-and-anxiety-among-palestinian-children-in-the-gaza-strip.php?aid=11302

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/01/palestinian-ahed-tamimi-remain-jail-trial-180117132422405.html

New Zealand & its role in the current Korean crisis

I note with sadness but no surprise, that New Zealand has once more joined the Western cabal aiming to destabilise North Korea.

Given that New Zealand  and her  allies inflicted horrific genocidal acts on North Korean civilians in the Korean War (with many millions dead) and the subsequent 50 years of threats of nuking North Korea, annual massive war games on the Korean armistice line, a refusal by the Americans to negotiate a peace treaty, and ongoing threats to decapitate the North Korean leadership, it is small wonder that the North Korean regime feels its only safety is in a nuclear deterrent.

The hypocrisy of the US and its ‘allies” to advocate for a ‘non-nuclear’ Korean peninsula, while patrolling its waters with nuclear armed weaponry, no longer astounds me.

The symbolism of a shared North/South Korean flag at the Winter Olympics must be deeply troubling to those whose only negotiating option is war.

Perhaps our esteemed  new Foreign Affairs Minister,  Mr Winston Peters, might wish to read some history?

George Monbiot and “The Unseen World”

A wonderful  and hugely sad post by  George Monbiot on the world around us , which  we, for some reason  differentiate as “nature”. And the inexorable tragic loss of  species,  lives and our own humanity in  the process-and ultimately, our own survival….

http://www.monbiot.com/2017/12/28/the-unseen-world/

 

Christmas 2017 & The Dishonest Broker

In the last few months we have seen the Trump administration reeling from one extraordinarily stupid move in foreign policy, to another.

Firstly  we have the tragedy and farce of the declaration that the US will ‘accept’ Jerusalem as Israel’s capital; somewhere that all Western nations have been loathe to go (officially) whilst fully accepting and unconditionally supporting the reality of the triumphalism of the apartheid racist Israeli entity.  A two state solution has, since 1948, been known to  all  parties  as a totally non-viable option, and will never happen.

It is of course possible that the Israelis finally realise that the nation of Israel has no future in the long term , unless it grants full right of return to all Palestinian and full compensation for lands stolen since 1948 and lives destroyed… The alternative for Israel does not bear thinking about.

It is not that Trump’s declaration changes anything;  what is upsetting for the West and for China and Russia, is that it makes plain that there never was a two state option- and that the United States has always been the Dishonest Broker in the ‘peace process’ .

Now we can start to face reality in Palestine- and it is not a pretty picture for the Israelis.

The ludicrous aspect of this, is that for those modern day Israelis whose ancestors came from the Levant; they are of exactly the same ethnic Semitic lineage as the ‘dirty Arabs’ they despise . We have seen more than 60 years of completely farcical “peace’ negotiations; the Israelis have never had any intention of returning any of the lands stolen by war or genocide, and both the ‘disinterested” broker and the Palestinian negotiators have always known that.

Then  we have the  ongoing playground bully tactics to North Korea by  the United States president and his policy  advisors and chiefs of staff.  A country that knows full well the epic scale of barbarity the American nation is capable of;  having endured American genocide in the Korean War and the continuous threats from various U.S. presidents and US generals since that time to blast them back into the stone-age. With its back against the wall, North Korea has only one option- to continue to develop enough nuclear ICBMs to substantially debilitate the American economy ( Given that of course from the American side, there will be no negotiations with North Korea until they ‘behave’ )

And then we have dear Nikki Haley the United States ambassador to the United Nations displaying bits of what are supposedly Iranian made missiles launched by the Yemenese Houthis against their Saudi aggressors ,who are currently killing thousands of Yemen citizens with cholera and millions through starvation…

But hey Nikki!- what ‘s more important? -the lives of a few million Yemenese? Or the need to destroy Iran to serve the interests of the Israeli supporters and Saudis who pay Congress and the Washington ‘think-tanks’ ? One hopes that karma is not for real:- Nikki’s future lives are not going to be exactly pretty…nor will it be in this life should true international justice be finally served.

It is not that Trump has really changed anything;- the brutality, cynicism, duplicitiousness and lack of humanity of United States foreign policy has remained largely unchanged since the Second World War. Trump has simply made it very clear what it  has always been about for the United States:- money!

The facade has been removed…We have  seen  a dramatic transition from  a President able to so  plausibly lie through his teeth  (and win  a Nobel peace prize for it), to  one who  seems  to  say  (or tweet) whatever  fleeting thought is on  his mind at  the time ,  but whose sole  immediate directive for decision-making is money  and power, rather than  a longer term strategy of deceit  to reach  the desired same end.

It is disturbing to think that these great leaders of the ‘Free World’ are supposedly the best of humankind- a sad indictment on us all

Links

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/world-will-not-mourn-decline-u-s-hegemony/ 

The Essential Alternative to Animal Slaughter

“Freezing works” (ie slaughter house ) in New Zealand; from Teara.govt.nz

A recent front page article in  my local New Zealand newspaper disparaging   the future on  non meat based proteins, prompted  me to  respond.

In  2016 New Zealand mercilessly slaughtered 28,387,595 lambs,  adult sheep,  calves,  adult steers and cows,  pigs,  and goats; with young lambs totalling over  18 million of those deaths. Two of the major “meat companies’  in  New Zealand respectively  had an income from  those deaths of  just over $10 million  and $17 million. Animals  are indoctrinated to  become used to being shifted from  pasture to  pasture with  dogs and men on  farm  bikes;  and then , when  the  killing season  starts, are herded into  tightly packed   fenced areas and  forced onto   truck  and trailer units  for the long tortuous drive to  the ‘meatworks’.

Teara.govt.nz notes that  ‘in 2009 there were about 80 meat-processing plants in New Zealand, employing about 26,500 people and exporting to about 150 countries.’

A recent article in  the New York Times noted a research study  where sheep  were able to  distinguish  between the faces of different humans;-  hardly a surprise to most of us who  have emotional  connections to  our pets, but obviously so  to the scientists. (https://nypost.com/2017/11/08/sheep-learn-to-recognize-emma-watsons-face )
What it therefore correspondingly tells us  is that  those millions of  sheep   and other animals  we kill for fun  and profit every year  in New Zealand  who  are  transported to  the killing fields of the abattoirs around New Zealand and then  savagely killed and cut up; are very well  aware of the  pure terror they  and their  fellow beings  have to  endure before they die and are consumed for pleasure by  humans..

There is  undeniable scientific evidence that  humankind’s reliance on meat  production has  contributed significantly to the  vast loss of species habitat  across the world ( and particularly so in New Zealand ) ,which will  if not checked in  the near future, along with its impact  on  climate change,  lead to  the destruction of all  life on this planet.

The other ‘unfortunate truth’  is that  there is irrefutable evidence that  every  new element of human ‘progress’  results in  the destruction of more and more species on this planet-  species which  which  humans are in direct  connection for our mutual  survivability.

Look  around,  almost every  aspect of what  we call  ‘progress’  is  our relentless transfer of the living and vibrant to  the inanimate-  the concrete, the tar,   the electronics, the cut down  trees…….we are inexorably deadening the planet  with our ‘progress”.

In addition recent studies of insect  populations  in Europe reveal  rapid declines in  flying insects likely due to  monoculture, deforestation and  insecticides. Without insects,  we all  die ;  rapidly

Consequently we have no  choice as a species than  to give up  killing our fellow species for protein and profit   and begin  to  live a more sustainable and humane  life-  and we have to make that change very  soon!

Links

The Nonhuman Rights Project https://www.nonhumanrights.org/

The World as Samsara (Illusion)

Each human being creates from infancy, an internal mental world of what the world is – what is good and bad – safe and unsafe; what the names of  the ‘things’ are ‘out there”, and how the world works . And where do those judgements come from?- they come of course from our experiences after birth. Are they reality?-in one way they are- they are our reality. Some pieces of that reality will be shared- what we like to call ‘culture” or ‘norms’ or any other excuse to define the world other than by its real aspect- but they are simply the random experiences we have acquired since birth.

But in a more fundamental way they are of course, completely fictional. This construction of the world from our thought processes has almost nothing to do with reality, and all to do with our mind’s interpretation and synthesis  of the random events of childhood and later life we are exposed to. We are conditioned to believe we are no more than the patterns of thoughts we have acquired, (i.e. my thoughts are ‘me’) but we are in fact much more than that.

Zen Buddhism asks :” who was I before I was born?’

Or perhaps the master Osho described it with more clarity, by saying (paraphrased)  “our minds are a tool which you can use with care and attention to assist you; but they are not ‘you’ ”.

“Reality” the way our minds perceive it, can therefore be anything we choose it to be- but that choice is based on the narrow possibilities of our earlier experience till this moment.  Beyond (or under, or behind) our thoughts is pure being- our essence, or as Maori of New Zealand put it -‘Mauri’ –  which is inescapably interconnected with every other living ( and not so living) thing. That mauri is within us from the day we are born till the day we die- and long before and after that. It is always there, but shrouded by man’s constant thoughts.

How to experience that space of pure joy and oneness that is always with us? The techniques of the ages are there for us to use. -meditation is the primary and most direct path- but prayer, mindfulness, fasting and many other techniques also have that capacity to progressively strip away the mind chatter to expose the essence of ourselves and the universe within.

Our thought patterns -what many describe as our ‘ego’- are intensely malleable. We believe we are a constant person -’me’ -but in reality we shift from moment to moment in our thoughts. In addition, because we are individually defenceless primates who rely on our fellow community members for safety, we have an intense need to agree with the thoughts of other members of our primate community. ‘Group think’ is more pervasive in human society that most of us would like to think!

Individually and collectively, humans are also very good at providing self-justifications for their thoughts and actions. Our age-old justification for the use of violence  is just one proof to that!

The joy and peace is within us: we need merely to retrieve it .

As the Buddha said: We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.