Category: Human Rights

Obama and the Baseball Cards

Obama’s legacy; and  this may  well be his prime legacy- and  one he may  remember in his  older years as he stands before the International War Crimes Tribunal, (once its decisions are no  longer controlled by  the U.S.  State Department), was his omnipotent capacity to  decide who shall  live and who  shall   die by  drone anywhere in  the world,  based on  limited pieces of information  provided on baseball  cards. (a kind of  Roman Emperor  type role: – thumbs- up  or down at  the Coliseum)

Baseball Card Kill List DEPICTION
Lawfareblog.com notes ‘This is a mock-up/depiction of what an actual kill-list baseball card looks like. It is not a real baseball card and is not based on any classified information.’

 

Taken together, the secret documents lead to the conclusion that Washington’s 14-year high-value targeting campaign suffers from an over-reliance on signals intelligence, an apparently incalculable civilian toll, and — due to a preference for assassination rather than capture — an inability to extract potentially valuable intelligence from terror suspects. They also highlight the futility of the war in Afghanistan by showing how the U.S. has poured vast resources into killing local insurgents, in the process exacerbating the very threat the U.S. is seeking to confront. The Intercept 

One might almost be forgiven therefore  for coming to  the conclusion that  the intent of the U.S. targeted killing process is  not to  eliminate the sources of terror, but to  exacerbate them.

drone operator
Drone operator cabin- Daily Mail Australia

As we have seen in many a colonial  war, those who  ‘hand in’ terrorists to  the colonial  power inevitably have their own  agendas;  feuding families and clans, or perhaps financial   or property interests, but rarely because they  are in  fact  ‘terrorists”.  In addition we  can be certain  that  US military  and State Dept claims of minimal   ‘collateral  damage’ (accidental  killing of civilians who  get in the way  of a  drone  missile’s large detonation area)  are complete fabrications. And we can be certain too  that drone operators have less than minimal  knowledge of foreign cultural  issues- e.g. the difference between a  wedding party celebrating by firing automatic weapons into  the air and a  terrorist  group in weapons training , let alone  their drone “eyes” having sufficient  definition to  pick  up  who  is who  on the ground.

So,  when  dear President Obama  gives the thumbs down  on that particular baseball  card, he really has no  idea what  he is agreeing  to; other than that  his decision will  kill  someone or more likely , quite a few  people, out there . But of course, if  that Hellfire  missile with  its 9kg warhead  just  happens to  kill a few other  ‘military-age males’  in the vicinity of the explosion,  all  to the good.  By  using  remote killing mechanisms  the US president can appear to  take a Herod-like hands-off approach  to  the art of murder, with  the added benefit of limited  capacity of verifying what  carnage has  actually occurred on the ground.

In addition the United States’  penchant for targeting  supposed ‘leaders’ of terrorist  groups, rather than  their supply lines, infrastructure or financial  backers, means that  drones can be used over and over to  kill  the next leader who  takes the deceased’s  place in  the leadership line; or as in  many cases , the United States simply ‘kills’ the same person  over and over again; such  is the usefulness of remote unverified killing.

United States government lawyers have in  the past contorted themselves in  all  sorts of unusual  positions to justify  remote murder by  executive order,  much as their  contracted psychiatrists  managed to  create a lofty argument that  putting  prisoners through  ‘stress positions’  was not in  fact  totally illegal,  inhumane  torture and contravened  international  human  rights on  a grand scale.

President Obama has even been known  to joke publicly about his life and death  decision-making powers, not too  dissimilar from his psychopathic Secretary  of State ,  Hilary Clinton.

I hope I will  be around to  see  them  stand before the International  tribunal.

Links

https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/the-assassination-complex/

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-presidents-kill-list

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/2013.05.23_fact_sheet_on_ppg.pdf

https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-comment-presidents-national-security-speech

https://www.aclu.org/issues/national-security/targeted-killing

https://www.aclu.org/foia-collection/targeted-killing-foia-database

https://www.aclu.org/foia-document/joint-targeting-cycle-and-collateral-damage-estimation-methodology

https://theintercept.com/document/2015/10/14/geolocation-watchlist/

https://www.lawfareblog.com/kill-list-baseball-cards-and-targeting-paper-trail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2249252/Brandon-Bryant-Drone-operator-followed-orders-shoot-child–decided-quit.html

Patriotism: The Refuge of Scoundrels

The blog heading is one of Mark Twain’s quotes. But here is  a much  better one from Mr Clemens.

Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other people’s countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood of his hands and works for “the universal brotherhood of man”- with his mouth.
– “The Lowest Animal”- Mark Twain

Today, in my little part of the world; it is once again  Anzac Day, originally  commemorated to  mark  the bloody  failure  of the  British  Empire’s coordinated attack on Turkish  positions in the Dardanelles at  Gallipoli   in World War One, but now, ( supposedly) it ‘acknowledges the sacrifice of all those who have died in warfare, and the contribution and suffering of all those who have served.” Strangely however  this commemoration of all  who  have died in  wars is marked by   artillery salutes, marching uniformed men and much  fanfare about  this country’s patriotism. We are encouraged to  believe that Anzac Day now promotes a sense of unity, perhaps more effectively than any other day on the national calendar. People whose politics, beliefs and aspirations are widely different can nevertheless share a genuine sorrow at the loss of so many lives in war, and a real respect for those who have endured warfare on behalf of the country we live in. (New Zealand Government).

I for one,  am  appalled  that  the majority consensus in New Zealand appears to  be that  ‘plucky little New Zealand’  became a real  country  with its own  identity, and not just  a member of the British  Empire, by  maiming and killing its way through  a series of foreign “adventures”.  The one possible exception to this catastrophic jingoistic litany of murder and mayhem, is New Zealand’s very  real  contribution to  the war  against  Nazi Germany and  Japan  during the Second World War, when  a New Zealand invasion by  the Japanese Imperial Army was a high  probability at  one point.

Every  other war  we have fought, we have fought at  the behest  of others-  from  the genocide inflicted on the Boers during the Boer Wars as part of the British  Imperial  Army’s need to maintain  control of South African assets, the First  World War’s bizarre clash of European monarchies , the  staggering level  of genocide  inflicted on Koreans  by  the “Allies’ (including New Zealand naval  bombardment  of civilian areas) during the Korean War, our implicit involvement in American  genocide in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, our explicit connection to  rendering of Afghan suspects to   U.S. torture centres in Afghanistan, and our ongoing  complicity in the Five Eyes  intelligence project,  which  currently serves American  and U.K. interests in  promoting terrorism  around the world and destroying  human rights.

All in all,  it is not a record I for one am proud of.  Our ongoing subservience to  the  paranoid and psychopathic American  war machine and its  business interests, serves no-one’s interests  on this planet, other than  a few  crazed right wing  American  idealogues and the military/industrial  complex.

I was proud of my country  when our prime minister of the time, Norman Kirk, sent frigates to  Muroroa Atoll  in the south Pacific,  to protest  the French  destroying that island with nuclear bombs and contaminating the environment for thousands of miles.  I was proud when  our prime minister of the day,  David Lange, announced we would henceforth  be a nuclear-free nation, and even a little proud when prime minister Helen Clark refused to send   significant ground troops to Iraq  to  support the American  invasion there.  But we have sunk to new lows since those times, in obsequiously following our U.S.  masters into Iraq once more, to   fight a stupendously foolish  war  in Afghanistan,  and to  mouth support for America’s duplicitous  ‘war on terror’   while  unconditionally  supporting the key  centres of terror in the world; Saudi Arabia and Turkey,  along with support for the 60  year  old  brutal  Israeli  occupation of Palestine .

Despite successive  New Zealand governments’ posturings that  we are now a sovereign nation  because of Anzac Day, when are we truly going to be a proud and  independent nation  who  stands in truth  for peace and international justice?

 

 

The Brussels Bombers

The Brussels nail  bombing  attacks occurred on  the morning of March  22nd 2016;  two in the departure area of Brussels international airport near  the town of Zaventem seven miles from Brussels and one in the Maelbeek metro station in the centre of the city.  28 victims and three suicide bombers were killed, and 330 people were injured. Another bomb was found during a search of the airport. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks.

We now know that  Turkey   ‘deported’ the presumed key  instigator of  the Brussel’s attack  to  Amsterdam in the Netherlands,  rather than to Belgium.  Which  meant,  that  rather than being detained as a terrorist in Belgium upon  leaving the plane, he was instead permitted to   drive back  to  Belgium  from  Amsterdam’s  Schiphol  Airport because he was not on any Netherlands wanted list.  Poor bad luck? or was it-as has been  suggested, a cosy arrangement between  Turkey  and the   Israeli   owned  security firm   ICTS International  (owned by ‘former’ Shin Bet intelligence agency  personnel) managing the  security at  the airport.  You will  perhaps recall  that  ICTS International  is the same security agency  that  escorted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on Christmas Day  2009 , without a passport or ticket, to  a  First Class seat on  Northwest flight 253  at  Schiphol Airport, and who  then  attempted to   detonate  plastic explosives hidden inside his trousers.

But the  key issue that Western  media consistently ignore, is  their and their political  masters’ support for anti-Assad  rebel  groups;  who are in  fact,   terrorists. Their ‘moderate’  terrorists have been trained  by Western  intelligence  and sited in Jordan and Turkey  to  inflict  terror on Syrian  populations.  Hillary  Clinton’s  psychopathic need to  kill  and destroy  is reflected in her  weird emails using agents like Google and the Qatari terrorist supporting Al Jazeera media outlet.  Now that , with a little help  from  Russian bombers,  Assad ‘s military is inflicting serious losses on these terrorists groups in Syria- many are rushing  ‘home’ to  safety. But with all  that  training and nowhere to go-whats a good terrorist  to  do  but blow up  something  close to home?

This all  suits the US vacuous political  and military   establishment  very  well. Heightening fear and loathing  about these ‘Islamic’ groups  in European communities, and encouraging right wing imbecilic xenophobia, is incredibly useful  to ensure  that  the Eurozone limits its citizens freedoms, expands its military  and supports NATO  weirdness.

To ensure we all  believe that America is in fact  attempting to  destroy terrorists ( ie the long long looong war!)    the US military   prioritises  killing  heads of terrorist organizations-  the  key advantage  of such vaunted actions is that they can never be corroborated – (unless  of course ISIS agrees that  their man has been killed)!, as opposed to  destroying terrorist supply lines, banking activities, training camps, weapons supply  routes etc,  which can all be independently  verified. The evidence  is mounting that  these fundamentalist Islamic   terrorists are in  fact nothing but mercenaries who  can   conveniently use the  fear of Islamism to  increase their impact on  gullible Western populations.

As Pepe Escobar notes, NATO headquarters is less than  2 kilometers from the  site of the Brussels  terror;  why  choose a metro  station to  create an impact , rather than  the  central supposedly core of Western values sited at  NATO headquarters? Soft targets are of course easy  targets, but they  clearly have less impact  on Western  political  actions than hard targets….

If we are to believe the quoted media response from  ISIS,  that; ‘let France and all nations following its path know that they will continue to be at the top of the target list for the Islamic State and that the scent of death will not leave their nostrils as long as they partake part in the crusader campaign … [with] their strikes against Muslims in the lands of the Caliphate with their jets.’, then  this soft target response to  the ‘11,111 air strikes launched by Western and Gulf states against targets in Syria and Iraq’, then this supposed  ISIS response is certainly  a circuitous route to conquering the crusaders.

Sibel Edmonds, ex-FBI operative, argues however that  the proximity of the  attacks   to  NATO headquarters is no coincidence, and simply forms part of a long sequence  of CIA/NATO sponsored Gladio  attacks in Europe-  or in Belgium, the ‘stay-behind’ Gladio  units were known  as S.D.R.A. VIII , with  strong connections to  far-right organisations.

Despite his  genetically ingrained Russophobic  tendencies, Craig Murray makes the very  good point that  terrorists can in  fact attack  any soft target  at will. Current  anti-terrorist measures , such as at  airports are a complete farce, largely useless,  and result in  long, vulnerable to  attack,  queues.

We live in  a bizarre world of lies, disinformation, half-truths and extraordinary  events where   individuals with  limited intelligence  have accumulated great power,  and  are quite prepared to kill any number of innocents for their own  foolish  ends.

Links

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2016/03/25/erdogan-to-belgium-screw-you-we-will-do-it-again/

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/03/roundup-of-current-news-on-syria.html

ICTS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICTS_International

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/jordans-king-accuses-turkey-sending-terrorists-europe-1687591648

http://www.haaretz.com/israeli-firm-blasted-for-letting-would-be-plane-bomber-slip-through-1.261107

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2016/03/24/probable-cause-with-sibel-edmonds-belgium-bombing-the-missing-context-facts-interests/

http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/operation_gladio.htm

The Earth is NOT Our Playground

For the past two  hundred years since the British  Industrial  Revolution and the rise of consumerism, the Western  World and now the Eastern  and Third Worlds, have adopted a mantra that  says;  ‘we can  do  anyhing we like to  this world- destroy  other species, the natural  environment as much  as we want  in  our pursuit of profit and  things to  consume’.

A few humans are now coming to the realisation that  this mantra is rapidly and progressively destroying this planet- that  we, and the billions of other species on this planet , are doomed  very  soon, to  annihilation, unless we rapidly reverse this hedonistic view of  life.

In my little ‘green  and clean’  country   of New Zealand alone, we mercilessly kill many many millions of other animals we ‘farm’ each year. Each  of those animals, (as every  pet owner well  knows) , just  like us;  has thoughts, feelings and intense fear as they  approach  their deaths by  humans who must  construct  careful  thought patterns to  ensure they  are not unduly themselves destroyed by  the  pain  and psychopathic cruelty they  are inflicting on  each  animal they  encounter for killing. There are harrowing stories in  the links below of animals coming to  their murderers for  comfort  and reassurance before the moments of their deaths.toadstillinthegrass

There are stories too  of the  enormous psychological damage inflicted on  those butcherers by  their  killings  day  after day. And yet incredibly,  we see educated  ‘authorities’  extolling  diets which  endorse and enthuse over those killings. The  so-called ‘paleo’ diet-  where supposedly our prehistoric ancestors somehow had enough time and energy  to  go  on killing sprees and consume vast  amounts of meat. One has to  wonder which    killing corporation is sponsoring such  a diet?

In reality, we  in our early years, like our  fellow  primates, did kill   a few other animals, but predominantly ate  what   came to us in our  travels,  fruit, grains,  roots in  the ground and some times a lucky kill  of another animal.

We are  not ‘predestined’  to be killers in our genes- despite the animal killing industries best  protestations;  we are essentially omniverous animals- and we can  choose not to inflict  cruelty and death  on our fellow species.

But the killing industry is just  a small  part of what  we humans  are blindly doing to  destroy our planet. It is all  part of a vast  and intensely ignorant ‘understanding’,  that  we as humans,  are superior beings who  consequently have the right  to  do  what  we like on this planet.

Nothing could be further from the truth!. We are in  no way  superior beings- we have unique talents,  as many species do, but they  in no  way  equate to  ‘superiority’- whatever  that might mean.

Even humans should be able to recognise that self-definition of superority using those traits  that  that species excels in,  has rather a large flawed element of self-fulfillment. The inherent stupidity of such  an  argument should be visible to  any human;- sadly , it is not.

This self-fulfilling prejudice means that  humans can,  without a qualm, destroy  countless  individual  and total  fellow-species for any reason  the human brain  can come up  with.   Thus we can  pave over the living and breathing earth, create cancerous  concrete growths we call  cities on top  of  the natural  world, destroy billions of acres of forest to   maintain  monocrops  endlessly and increasingly sprayed with poisons -or ‘genetically engineered’  to  self-destruct  and destroy those species relying on them in the process. We can pave the planet  with increasing  labyrinths of tar  we call  roads  or ‘essential  services’, we can  desperately retrieve  more  and more of the stored earth-bound energy   on this planet  to keep  our so-called ‘civilisation’  running;  but, all  for what?

Global  warming is but one small  symptom of this incredible stupidity. Oh yes, certainly one that  will  kill  millions of humans and many billions more of our fellow species, but nothing in  comparison  with  our ongoing hell-bent ride to  destroy the planet we live on with  every   avail able tool  we have  created  since the Industrial  Revolution.

Do  we really hate ourselves this much?

Links

http://www.rollingstone.com/feature/belly-beast-meat-factory-farms-animal-activists

http://www.texasobserver.org/ptsd-in-the-slaughterhouse/

http://werewolf.co.nz/2016/02/killing-for-a-living/

https://verdict.justia.com/2014/05/21/dilemma-humane-execution-humane-slaughter

https://www.rebelpress.org.nz/files/cleangreencrueltyfree.pdf

A Conflagration in the Middle East?- Syria on the Brink

The recent decision by Turkey and Saudi Arabia to agree on joint military operations within Syria with the aim of toppling President Assad, has considerably upped the ante of the possibility of a major war between forces with significant military assets, including nuclear ones.

One might argue that things were going swimmingly for President Erdogan and the Saudi’s support for ISIS and other wahhabist terrorist groups in Syria, until Russia (with the approval of the Assad regime/government) began an unexpectedly successful (to Assad’s opponents) air campaign against ISIS, Al Nusra and the rest of the ‘moderate’ Al Qaeda affiliated opposition in Syria six months ago. Erdogan’s dream of a new Turkic empire extending far into what is now Syria (but which was once part of the huge Ottoman Turkic Empire), while also enriching his family with   income received from Syrian oil transported across the Turkish border by ISIS, looked an incipient possibility – dreams now shattered.

For the Saudi dictatorship, their ongoing goal has always been to break the power (and if possible, exterminate) the Shi-ite ‘heretics’ of Syria and Iran and Iraq, in line with the primitive vision of the Wahhabi clerics that has underpinned the Saudi claim to Mecca for the past 200 years.

And in tandem with these dreams of power and riches and glory, add into the mix, the duplicitous influence of U.K, (think Lawrence of Arabia) and U.S. intelligence agencies, determined to create a power vacuum in the Middle East that only ‘their man’ (Israel) can fill; on the somewhat dubious assumption that the crazies in the Israeli Knesset and Army -let alone the settlers – are in fact controllable), whilst at the same time, maintaining their oil lines and profits for posterity. Now with the added bonus of taking a swipe at any Russian attempt to re-establish itself as an international player of any significance, and simultaneously keeping Iran in ‘check’.

While the Assad regime at the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring”, apparently did respond in a brutal fashion to some of the peaceful demonstrations calling for its overthrow, there is mounting evidence of considerable “investment’ by foreign powers and ‘human rights’ agencies in that not so peaceful uprising. Syrian government forces continue to hold much of the populated areas of Syria, while most of the country-side and desert (with a section of industrial Aleppo and parts of Damascus) has, until now, been held by the rebels. And in fact, where there is Syrian support for the rebels, it largely comes from the Sunni rural areas who have long held sectarian views about their Kurdish, Christian, Alawite or Shi-ite neighbours.

The cosmopolitan citizens of Damascus and Aleppo in the main, have little sympathy and much fear of those religious extremists. So, despite the Assad regime’s many failings and its historical brutality, Assad would undoubtedly be elected overwhelmingly as president in a free and fair election. (not something that the US , UK France and Turkey and the Gulf States would want to see!) Additionally, as rebel supply lines are cut and their troop gathering and command centres targeted, the option of ‘guerrilla tactics” and melting into the local population will be denied to them. Much of the Syrian population will have little sympathy for their cause and their ignorance and brutality.

Things have seriously gone awry for the Syrian destabilisation project. Along with Russian bombing of rebel /terrorist command centres and communication lines, has gone the bombing of the oil supply route into Turkey and now, working in tandem with Syrian ground and air forces, the destruction of rebel military positions. Both Kurds and Syrian ground forces are steadily closing the Turkish /Syrian border to   rebel supply and support; something that Turkey is desperate to prevent.

The House of Saud is desperate also to re-establish some credibility as a significant Middle East player. Their genocidal war in Yemen (with the full support of the United States and innumerable mercenary groups including Blackwater) is going disastrously wrong against Houthi and ex-Yemen government troops; despite their overwhelming superiority in equipment and resources. Playing the ‘Iran card’ in the Yemen is increasingly visibly obvious to the international sector as one more act of dishonesty by the House of Saud, and the incompetence of their military leadership is plain to see.  U.K. involvement in Saudi Arabia , Qatar and Bahrein, and UK  not-so-tacit support of Saudi Wahhabi  extremism  as a “useful  tool” to  promote arm sales and extend UK military   and oil supply influence in the Gulf, goes right back  in an unbroken  line  of command  to  the British Foreign Office’s decision in 1917  to  destabilise the  Turkish Ottoman Empire in the Arabian Peninsula, by  supporting  Saudi  tribesmen  through  the liaisons of T.E. Lawrence.

Shi-ite Iran too, has much to lose if the tide turns again in the Wahhabist groups’ favour. Wahhabi extremism is anathema to Iran’s religious and political movement. A Wahhabi victory could potentially lead to genocide against Shi-ites throughout the Middle East. (note that Shi-ite ‘sects” do not share a similar prejudice against Sunni ‘sects’) Iran has therefore invested heavily in supporting the Assad regime ( popularly known in the West, but inaccurately, as a Shi-ite Alawite regime, but in fact largely secular) with a large number of military advisors and now Hezbollah troops from Lebanon.

As “The Saker” notes, the Russians are currently spread thin on the ground in Syria. The Turkish military is well equipped with NATO and locally produced   hardware and has been actively fighting their Kurdish “terrorists” (read; a community which wants its own autonomy) for many years now – not however with a great deal of success. A full-scale invasion across the Turkish border would not be able to be contained by the Syrians or the Russians and Iran/Hezbollah. The problem would however be maintaining Turkish supply lines once the invasion is complete and the possibility of Russia either upscaling its support for the Kurds inside Turkey, or delivering an invasion across the Black Sea border with Russia into Turkey. Such an invasion would likely lead to military involvement from Turkey’s NATO allies- something that Erdogan is counting on in his brinkmanship style. It is unlikely that Russia would risk such a n invasion, although Russia has been strongly signalling Turkey that its airborne divisions are ready to go in such an event.

And where does China sit with all of this? Syrian pro-government analysts have long been signalling China’s intent to become involved in the conflict, but current Chinese official media responses suggest otherwise. The Chinese government tends to hold a very pragmatic trade-based view of international conflicts. However, should Turkey’s invasion into Syria increase the boldness of the Turkish supported Uighur nationalist movement in Xinyang province in China- then all bets are off.

Then there is the complete unpredictability and schizophrenic approach of the United States to the whole war. On the one hand its intelligence forces have been   supplying training and funding terrorists in Syria or in their training stations in Turkey and Jordan, for at least five years, and actively supporting the overthrow of the Assad regime; while knowing full well, that the only Assad opponents with the capacity to take the place of the Assad military and government institutions, are the jihadists – al Nusra and ISIS- a recipe for hell on earth in Syria;  while on the other hand, talking about democracy and freedom and a secular state. One can only assume that the United States policy and intelligence arms are not completely stupid or crazy, and have assessed that this state of absolute chaos and terror is the scenario they have been aiming for in their years of support for Assad’s overthrow.  One can  assume this from the responses of U.S. politicians like  Senator “Mad Dog” John McCain and psychopathic U.S. politicians like ‘we came, we saw, we brutally murdered Ghaddafi’, Hilary Clinton- but is this really mainstream U.S. policy?

Let us hope some sanity prevails

Postscript

The answer , as noted in  Moon of Alabama’s commentary on the  Syrian  ‘peace’ talks, is clearly no;  sanity is not going to  prevail. The United States and U.K. official policies are to  support Al Qaeda affiliates like Al Nusra in the Syrian  war.  Clearly  there are  significant  strategic gains for the U.K. and the U.S.  in  supporting terrorists over the Assad government.  Perhaps, as with  their unique efforts in Afghanistan , Iraq and Libya,  it  is  simply the creation of complete murderous  chaos in the whole of the Middle East.

Links

https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2016/02/14/the-gates-of-hell-will-be-open-in-the-coming-months-in-syria/

http://southfront.org/turkish-involvement-in-syria-oil-smuggling-business-and-imperial-ambitions-leads-to-global-war/

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/02/the-race-to-raqqa-is-intensifying.html

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13941125001484

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/isis-wahhabism-saudi-arabia_b_5717157.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Russian Move: Syria

The recent decision by  Russia to  intensity its military  support to  the Syrian government in Damascus, highlights some interesting issues for Eastern  governments.

It comes at a time when the Syrian refugee influx via Turkey is reaching a peak  in Eastern European states and Germany/Austria with strident calls from  mainstream  Western  media  arguing the case for more arming of the anti-Assad  terrorist groups in Syria and naturally , a no-fly that can only benefit…. guess who?.

Interestingly, Turkish  President Erdogan, has now done an abrupt about-face in  declaring that President  Assad of Syria should now be part of the transition process in Syria; something that  Erdgan had opposed for  more than 4 years previously.  Is this, as Moon of Alabama proposes, because of the  potential threat of Russian  forces taking out his  Turkish  supplied terrorists in Syria and re-caslibrating the ?  I  have my doubts.  Erdogan is a wily political  player,and used to  navigating the whirlpool of political players in  the Middle East.  Is the Russian move , as Mike Whitney suggests, an attempt to  pre-empt the installation of  a Turkey  based  no-fly zone by  the United States, in Syria , which  would once and for all  eliminate any Syrian government threats to the jihadist  groups  fighting Assad?

However it  would appear  that  some Western  governments and intelligence agencies are perceiving a real  threat  to  the  destabilisation agenda they  have pursued since at  least  2011 in Syria, as a result of a shift in western public  opinion.

How to  rationalize  support for anti-Assad  military  groups who  are clearly  Wahhabist terrorists whilst maintaining a philosophical  stance that  Assad must  go  and is the root of the refugee problem and pretending that  you are fighting terrorism  globally? The information on the the vast  majority of groups opposing  the Ba’ath secular government and military   in Damascus is clear; their need and wish  is, like all  good salafists, to  exterminate those  sects of Islam which  doe  not fit with their  mediaeval  view of  what  Islam  should be- ie Sunni and Sharia.

Let me be clear,  Western  governments are actively supporting this genocidal   and mythical  view of the Middle East. In reality the Ba’ath  military  is largely Sunni  in composition, with elements of Christian and other Muslim sects, as well  as of course many secular Syrians. And useful  to note  perhaps, that the Iraqi equivalent Ba’ath  party of Saddam Hussein  was supposedly Sunni  in character. That is not to  say  that  Assad’s Ba’athist government is not a brutal one;  but in  comparison with the Saudis, with the salafists and other extremists in the Middle East, it is benign; and supported by  the vast  majority of Syrians  as the only alternative to  the vicious  brutal  alternative of chaos  that  Western governments are hoping for in Syria. But, one would never imagine that in your wildest  dreams, that  is the true state of affairs  by  reading Western mainstream media.

The weight of alternative press reports  which  articulate  the threat  from  Western  governments of  further direct  intervention in Syria to  complete their mission of balkanising the  region and  installing   tribal and  extremist  religious groups in Syria  and elsewhere in the middle east is becoming  hard for western public opinion to  ignore.

The apparently unexpected move by  the Russians to  bolster their  military  support and risk   boots on  the ground and potentially another  debacle like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. This move  is in many respects,  a  mirror of that Soviet-Afghan war, with the Gulf States and the Americans, as before , supporting Al  Qaeda and its affiliates, and Russia supporting a secular dictatorship in the form of President Assad and the Ba-ath Party.  Has the Russian  military  learnt its lessons from  the Afghan  war and the wars of Chechnya?- time will  tell.

We have yet  to  see how Israel  will  respond to  this new front opening up  across the occupied Golan  Heights. Its dreams of a slow annexation of Syrian  territory beyond the Golan  Heights, and the  splitting of that  rump state into  splintered largely powerless  enclaves, with the active assistance of the United States , have now been  significantly compromised.

The difference this time around, may be the guerrilla fighting  skills of Hizbollah  and  Iran’s Revolutionary  Brigades.

Postscript

The flurry  of  both   mainstream western  media and  Obama’s superlatively  hypocritical    and;  speaking bluntly,  speech  of  unadulterated  lies; at  the U.N. , expressing concern that  Russia was adding “fuel  to  the fire”  by its Syrian  air-strikes, and that  (bizzarely) chaos might ensue in Syria as a result of Russia actually wanting to   get  rid of the terrorists in Syria. Their messages  are   stretching the  cloth  of credulity to  breaking point, even  for those of  the Western public who  accept everything their politicians tell them.  We are, I believe, seeing the end-game in Western public’s placid acceptance of the   reality  and rationality of the “War  on Terror”.

Mainstream  media are now contorting themselves into  indecent positions to  “prove” that  Russia is not targeting ISIS, but is instead only targeting those “moderate”  anti-Assad groups. Despite the acknowledgement by  Western intelligence agencies that   secular moderate groups fighting the Assad government  are practically non-existent in Syria, we are led to  believe that  Russia is  deliberately leaving the ‘evil ones’,  ISIS, alone and targeting the “good guys”, Al Nusra and  other similar   Al Qaeda affiliate groups, funded and trained by  the US and the Gulf States. Given that all  those groups are fighting to bring down the Assad government  and the Assad military is by  far the greatest opponent of all of those groups; including ISIS ;  one might almost be forgiven  for thinking that the  US wants ISIS to  succeed and roll into  Damascus to bring its rein  of terror to  all  suitably non Sunni  members of that  population.

One is also  intrigued with  Brown  Moses ( or should that  be ‘Brown Nose’?) under his new pseudonym, Bellingcat ,  “proving”  that   the video  and pics of Russian  attacks  were deliberately being  edited by  the Russians to  ensure their “true” target  areas were not identified-again  the meme  that  the real  terrorists were in  fact not being targeted,  but instead targeting   some of the mythical   moderates on the ground.

And again   further  hype from  ” unidentified State Dept officials that   four of the 26 Russian cruise missiles fired from  the Caspian  Sea at Syrian  rebels had in  fact crashed in  Iran with loss of life. The Pentagon  appears considerably concerned  about these new previously unknown  Russian cruise missiles, because they  have much  longer trajectory  than  supposed and can be fired from  far smaller  ships  than the American  ones can, and are hence more mobile.

The decision by  the Obama administration to  supposedly pull  out of direct  involvement with  the  jihadist  groups in Syria  is more likely to  reflect  a concern that  Russian,Syrian, Iranian and Hizbollah groups may very  shortly, if not already, be killing Western intelligence operatives on  the ground in Syria, rather than  any  back-down of intent to overthrow Assad.

Also  expect  an  intensification of ‘independent’ human right s organizations  demanding  that  Assad  (and now the Russians) be tried for war crimes . This war is a tragedy and an  avoidable one, and  the civilian death  toll has been   immense and calamitous.However expecting the Assad government to  have precision guided ammunitions (only available to  the U.S. and its western  allies and Russia and China) rather than  ‘dumb’ bombs and barrel  bombs, does not a war crime make.

More incredibly, the Pentagon is clearly wishing desperately for Russian losses  in fighting  the rebels in Syria and that  they  will “begin to lose in Syria”. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Konashenkov also “lashed out” at a fresh statement from Pentagon head Ashton Carter, who predicted Russian losses in its Syrian operation.

Moscow’s air operation in Syria “will have consequences primarily for Russia itself,” Carter said at a press conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Such  provocative, foolish  and dangerous  statements  amount to  a  direct threat  to  use the United State’s proxy terrorists in Chechnya and other  Russian   muslim populated districts, in retaliation for the Russian  attacks on the United State’s ‘friendly terrorists’ in Syria. Carter added, “I expect that in the next few days the Russians will begin to lose in Syria.”. Should such  attacks come in the next few weeks on  Russian soil, Russia will be in  doubt of their source; with the added bonus of more certainly enlisting the help  of China in this war  against   the West’s terrorists; also  vulnerable to  American  involvement in  Uighur  attacks inside China.

We are seeing a desperate attempt  on multiple fronts to  discredit the Russian  war efforts  in Syria by  Western  powers .  One has to wonder why  do they  wish  ISIS and their favourite ‘moderate’ jihadist  to be  marching into  Damascus? – how important is it to  curry  favour with  Wahhabists in  power in the Arabian peninsula?. As  Gareth Porter notes, or  just maybe its simply a matter of propping up  the US and UK “defence”  Industries for a little longer…?

Links

http://journal-neo.org/2015/09/24/us-blockade-of-syria-a-war-crime/

http://journal-neo.org/2015/09/24/on-russia-israel-clash-over-syria/

https://elijahjm.wordpress.com/2015/09/19/russian-elite-units-on-the-land-of-zabadani-homs-hama-and-aleppo/

http://www.todayszaman.com/latest-news_turkeys-erdogan-says-assad-may-be-part-of-syria-transition-process_399907.html

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/09/30/obamas-ludicrous-barrel-bomb-theme/

http://fff.org/2015/10/02/the-chaos-of-the-war-on-terrorism-spreads-to-syria/

https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/cia-interventions-in-syria-a-partial-timeline/

http://journal-neo.org/2015/09/23/the-secret-isis-safe-havens-nobody-wants-you-to-know-about/

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/ahrar-al-sham-s-apocalyptic-vision-syria-and-beyond-455405201

http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2015/10/16/obama-wont-admit-the-real-targets-of-russian-airstrikes/

Jeremy Corbyn and ‘The Red Flag’

The recent election by  the British Labour Party  members of a new  person to head the party, may  foreshadow a new groundswell  of public opinion  to  negate the years of right-wing propaganda  that has  enveloped many Western  party structures in the past few decades. The Labour Parties and Social Democrats of Europe had become bought enterprises- vehicles for corporate business to make shady deals, rather  than political parties representing those who have been disadvantaged, and the factory  working class.

While the gap  between  rich  and poor across the Western  world has widened significantly  (none more so in my own  country  of New Zealand), as a result of these neo-con or “New Labour”  business policies, we have also  seen  a marked decline in  the industrial  bases  of all of those countries ( save Germany), with   industrial  output outsourced, or simply acquired by  businesses predominantly in China. That decline in western industrial production has resulted in a marked decline in the numbers of the “working class” (ie factory workers). Instead, the service industries (primarily tourism, the hospitality industry, and the provision of support to the disadvantaged) have blossomed, but the collective power of their respective trade unions, has not.  Thus the collective capacity to negotiate or confront the widening economic gap, has dwindled as the need has become greater.

Along with increasing disparity; perhaps even because of it, we have seen the power of media manipulators who represent the rich, consolidated. The media empires  controlled by  people like  Rupert Murdoch, Michael Bloomberg ,Ted Turner, and more recently the Qatari ruling dictatorship  via Al Jazeera,  now have the capacity to bombard the public day and night using multiple media. That barrage of media is unremittingly designed to favour the perspectives of the rich. While western democracies still retain some capacity to deliver independent and non-partisan news; that capacity is a minute proportion compared to the deluge of “news” delivered by the media moguls.   Thus the mogul’s news is seen by  the general  public  as “mainstream”, “orthodox” and not “radical”, and somehow because of that, the real legitimate news.

So, returning to Jeremy Corbyn: will he be able to withstand the certain onslaught of “mainstream” media condemning him as a ‘radical’, ‘communist’, ‘anti-semitic’, ‘terrorist’, ’crazy’, ‘neolithic’, ‘out-of-touch –with –reality’, ‘has-been’ politician. That  war has already  begun  in the U.K. media. See the Daily Mail’s most recent   diatribe  here . Or the U.K. Conservative Party’s  somewhat  bizarre atempt  at  scaremongering  below.

http://twitter.com/Conservatives/status/642765041708740608/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

And will Mr Corbyn stick to his promises should be come to power in Britain? Or will he, like the Syriza Party in Greece, fold under the intense pressures of other more “business-friendly” governments?  If he can indeed keep to  his political  promises, and be elected  as Prime Minster of England in the UKs general election of Thursday 7 May 2020, and not be pulled to  pieces by  the mainstream media  dogs in the interim, he will  have done our international  democratic landscape a great  service; and potentially as service to  our environment and an end to senseless wars (senseless other than to line the pockets of politicians, war manufacturers and international  re-development agencies) . May he be one of the first  markers of a return  to true democratic pluralism rather than  oligarchy, along with  the  demoralised  Syrizas of Greece, the Podemos of Spain  and the other radical  truly left-wing groups re-forming all  over Europe.

I note with pleasure Mr Corbyn’s first political gesture on his election:- the singing of “The International” (completely tunelessly),  in a London pub before his foray out to greet his fellow celebrants of his victory outside Parliament.

The International (The Red Flag) (first chorus)
The people’s flag is deepest red,
It shrouded oft our martyred dead,
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,
Their hearts’ blood dyed its every fold.

So raise the scarlet standard high,
Beneath its shade we’ll live and die,
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
We’ll keep the red flag flying here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Flag#cite_note-5“>[5]

However, this return to representation of the disadvantaged, the marginalised and the impoverished must be matched by  a new understanding of the urgent  need of our species to  co-exist  with all  the others on this planet. The old   fight over the means of production (capitalism versus socialism/communism) must be replaced by one which  questions at  every  turn, our need to  produce and “grow” countries’  economies. A sustainable world for all the remaining species on  this planet , along with an end to  all  wars, is an incredibly urgent goal  for humanity at  this late, late hour.

Links

http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2015/09/14/gordon-campbell-on-corbyn-trump-and-outsider-politics/

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2015/09/epic-challenges-facing-jeremy-corbyn-labour-leader

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/15/leftwing-evangelical-christianity-corbyn

The Exodus: the Refugee Crisis

The swirl  of humanity across the globe has been  a constant since ancient times.

In my little corner of the world, the traversings and re-travsersings of the Polynesians across the wide Pacific,  travelling thousands of miles in their double hulled canoes  , was a constant  over hundreds of years , settling both inhabited and uninhabited islands .

In Eurasia and across Africa, the flow of humanity has ocurred for millennia. Our species has been wanderers from  our first  arrival  on this planet  as a specific  primate species, as the International Organisation for Migration website attests.

Having said that, we know that  wars  and natural  disasters create the necessity for families to  flee  to  safer ground, and safer countries. In addition the gross discrepancies in  living standards between  various populations across the globe creates a drive for those who  consider themselves disadvantaged to   travel  to more prosperous environments.

None of this would be unremarkable -indeed it is an obvious response for any human to    move to  a better place- we are indeed nomads on this planet. What  makes it remarkable at  this moment are the obvious drivers behind the disasters  and impoverished societies of those immigrants;  and the fact  that most of those drivers are created by  the very  countries the immigrants want to migrate to!

The devastation of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria – to name just  a few of the countries bombarded by  Western countries; predominantly the U.S.,  U.K., France , Italy, and to  some degree Germany,  with  a few tag-alongs from  other Western  European and  non-European western governments elsewhere, is the most significant cause for the huge influx of  refugees and migrants from  the Middle East  into  Europe. The  decision by  the West to  support  the anti-government groups   in Syria prolonged  what would likely have been  a short but brutal war by  the Syrian dictatorship against  a few western oriented  groups   and many more  salafist sunni  extremist groups. The decision by  the U.S., the U.K. France and its proxies in Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar  and Turkey (not to  mention Israel)  to  actively fund arm and train  these  terrorist  groups, has created a life of hell  for much of the Syrian  population. unfortunately for the population of Yemen, the sea and land blockades by Saudi  forces  and their “allies” means those desperate Yemen peoples have no chance of escape from  the  war hell imposed by  the Gulf dictatorships.

It is likely that,  just  as in Iraq and Libya  the creation of totally destabilized  middle east territories with  no  central  governing structure  and ripe for total  exploitation, was exactly the intent of these Western  governments. Now the chickens have come home to roost. While we know Western  “intelligence” agencies are in  fact  far from being “intelligent”, we can  anticipate that, even they,   after first  seeing the catastrophe that Iraq has become as a result of Western  sanctions and military  intervention,  would understand the implications of repeating that exact same  process  in Libya and Syria.  It is a supremely beautiful but vicious  irony that  those impoverished and desperate people from those brutalized countries  are  now “invading” the West . Well, that is what  mainstream  media would have us believe.  Recent reports query  for instance why suddenly, previously safe  refugees in Turkey  are now fleeing that country  to  Europe.

What  would seem  a just   response therefore, would be for those countries involved in  the defilement  of Middle Eastern countries  through  war and economic rapacity, to   take a commensurate  number of refugees into  their countries based on  their military  input into the ravagement  of those destroyed  environments. The United States will  of course have to  take many millions of refugees, as will  the U.K; followed next by  France, the Gulf dictatorships and Israel  and some of the other  western counties like Canada , Australia and New Zealand.

http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/map-world-refugees/

The BBC link here, gives a more detailed graphical  analysis of the  source, the routes and European destinations of refugees.

In addition,  those  western  corporations and their complicit governments  that  have despoiled the vulnerable economies and environments of Africa ad other developing countries around the globe , will  make corresponding redress to  those countries in the tangible  form of infrastructure development,  re-development of  sustainable agriculture  and  the return  of environments to their former natural states as directed by  the populations of those  developing countries.

Too much to  ask?-

 

Links

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/28/migrants-refugees-and-asylum-seekers-whats-the-difference

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/09/selective-demonization/

http://syrianrefugees.eu/

http://levantreport.com/2015/09/09/guest-analysis-by-steven-chovanec-the-refugee-crisis-isnt-the-real-problem/

Greatest Threat to Free Speech Comes Not From Terrorism, But From Those Claiming to Fight It: The Intercept

We learned recently from Paris that the Western world is deeply and passionately committed to free expression and ready to march and fight against attempts to suppress it. That’s a really good thing, since there are all sorts of severe suppression efforts underway in the West — perpetrated not by The Terrorists but by the western politicians claiming to fight them.

Read more here

What more do I need to say?

Link

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/13/greatest-threat-free-speech-comes-terrorism-claiming-fight/

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2015/05/us-intelligence-predicted-us-support-for-rebels-in-syria-would-lead-to-fall-of-ramadi.html

Judicial Watch download of State Dept document 2012

U.S. Dept of Defence classified report on Syria 2012
U.S. Dept of Defence classified report on Syria 2012 (page 1)

This World is not a Commodity: The Planet versus the Trans Pacific Partnership

The latest Wikileaks  release  outlines the secret  deals being conducted by   Western  state  on behalf of international  companies under the Trans Pacific Partnership deal, to  ensure those companies can  engage in whatever malpractice and destruction of the environment they  choose to . If those companies object  to  anything a local  state is doing to  restrict  their trade or profits, that  state entity can be sued in  a  highly partial  court of law without  any  jurisprudence standing (ie i totally biased without safety measures against conflict  of interest  of the legal  agents involved.

If the consequences of the TPP were not so  incredibly damaging for the environment and the future of this planet-this piece of  negotiation would be seen  as pure farce and another mighty demonstration of the woeful  lack of intelligence of the political  parties and individuals involved.

Common Dreams describes the bill  as a “Fast track to Hell”; which  in many respects,  the deal is.

A Hell  of climate hothouse change and  unfettered environmental  and species destruction; let alone  a hell  for human “consumers” of unregulated and unsafe products and significantly reduced capacity to  respond to  public health issues like  rates of tobacco  consumption . But more particularly it is a madhouse.

A truly insane drive to  destroy the planet  with  unregulated commodification before any of us get  the smallest  opportunity to  save  our species and the other remaining species on  this planet  that  are “useful” to us, from  the wholesale destruction of this planet  through  the insanity of  “market forces” .

That   supposedly sane  negotiators from  all  those Pacific countries could seriously  consider this Partnership  deal  as some thing  worthwhile to  even consider for a moment is deeply disturbing, and  is  a spectacularly horrifying litmus test  of how  irrevocably  the human species has departed from  any sense of connection with the planet  it depends upon  to  survive.

The  signing of  the TPP  will surely show that  the human species really  doesn’t deserve this planet.

Postscript

Common Dreams identifies a further draft  international  treaty,  the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), which will  further  strengthen  the power of the international  corporates.

All  of this would make perfect  sense if the only  thing that mattered on this planet was making money  (for the rich)….

And if any of us need a reminder, a Stanford University study,  released June 19th 2015 notes  what  should be blindingly obvious to  any one who  looks around beyond their smartphone; that  we have entered a massive  species loss period which  is likely to  result in  the extinction of our own species . Sawing off the limb we are sitting on,  is the  comment made by Paul Ehrlich , the lead  researcher for the study…

Links

Analysis of the TPP Investment Charter

https://wikileaks.org/tpp-investment/TPP-Investment-Chapter-Analysis/page-4.html

 Fast track  to  Hell-Common Dreams

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/04/16/fast-track-hell-trade-bill-officially-introduced-congress

We’re treating soil like dirt. It’s a fatal mistake, as our lives depend on it– 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/25/treating-soil-like-dirt-fatal-mistake-human-life
http://350.org/press-release/350-responds-to-introduction-of-tpp-fast-track-legislation/

The Rise and Fall of BITs
http://www.otago.ac.nz/politics/otago061036.pdf

It’s Our Future
http://www.itsourfuture.org.nz/what-is-the-tppa/

A Gunpowder Plot Against Democracy-George Monbiot
http://www.monbiot.com/2014/11/04/a-gunpowder-plot-against-democracy/

Stop TTIP!
https://stop-ttip.org/

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/06/03/wikileaks-strikes-again-leaked-tisa-docs-expose-corporate-plan-reshaping-global

Stanford researcher declares that the sixth mass extinction is here
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/june/mass-extinction-ehrlich-061915.html