Category: War and Peace

America’s Exceptional Interest in Wars

We have often heard that  it is in  America’s “interests”  to  start this or that  war, to   “defend democracy and human  rights”  or some other  envisioning of the United States as that  Shining City on the Hill  of freedom  and light.  However when  we come to  examine what  particular Interests  are at  stake for the United States in  these  aggressions,  we somehow fail  to  note that  those interest  are solely business interests-  –  and not just  any businesses-  but big business-  large powerful corporations  with  tentacles in  many countries  whose financial  interests  may  either be jeopardized or opportunities   lost  if this or that  country  is not subjugated  once again  by  the U.S.  military  for  the profit margins of United States’ businesses.

Pity the poor country  that  dares to not bend its knee to  U.S.  corporate interest…it will be  sanctioned,  ridiculed,  its minority  groups funded and trained to  create  instability,  (or worse),  and if that  doesn’t succeed in  bringing that  recalcitrant country  to  the ‘negotiating’  table-  then  a little genocidal  war might help.

As U.S Major-General  Smedley  Butler has often been  quoted:

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. (1933)…

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism….

Supporting big business in  any way the U.S.  military  can ( regardless of international  conventions,  human  rights, human  lives,  human  decency  or any other ‘soft’  issue) is and always has been,  therefore the complete and total  sum  of United States international  relations-  it has no  other purpose.

We may  wonder who  profits from  the apparently senseless endless war  waged by  the United States in  Afghanistan-  could it be that  the CIA is once again filling its coffers with  the blood of  the drug-addicted? -or who  profits  from  supporting Israel’s slow genocide of the Palestinian  people,  or who  profits from  the human  catastrophe that  is the Saudi  war on Yemen?

“Foolish”  and soft issues like  the global  emergency ( maybe more like global  ‘catastrophe’?) are therefore a complete irrelevance. American exceptionalism  is seen in its true form-  red in  tooth  and claw as Alfred Lord Tennyson  wrote about nature. No  morality,  no ethics,  pure barbarism  and pure profit.

It is small  wonder that those poor American  soldiers coming back  from  America’s pointless and endless wars  of total  barbarism,  struggle  to  come to  terms with their “moral  injury” to  the propaganda they  have been  force-fed from  an  early age,  of the United States being a civilizing  and enlightened country in  a world of barbarism.

U.S. bases surrounding Iran
U.S. bases surrounding Iran

Peculiar to  those  pink-skinned Americans who  front for big business in  the military  and  in Washington, is a deeply entrenched racism  of those who  are “other” and darker skinned:-   whether they  be  Plains Indians,   Filipinos,  Japanese,  Koreans, Vietnamese, Iraqi’s, Libyans, Syrians-  even  the Slavic Russian  and Serbian nations ..  the list  goes on  and on  and on….

It is time for the world to  recognise the savagery  and brutality of United States’  international  relations.  It is time to press for reparations for the  environmental  destruction,   the war destruction,  war crimes,  loss of life,  the torture  and the  murders  that  the United States has inflicted on  the world in  the fictitious name of “democracy  and freedom” in  the past  100  years. It is time to  end this  barbarism  and stupidity.

The United States is indeed ‘exceptional’,  but not quite in the way  that  their propagandists planned it. The American  state is  exceptional  in  it being a war  machine;  the government’s role is largely to  fund and plan  wars which  will  assist  the American  armament industry to  sell more weapons at  home abroad.

Links

https://original.antiwar.com/andy_corbley/2019/07/01/how-does-the-war-on-terror-stack-up-to-some-of-historys-most-infamous-genocides/

https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-united-states-of-genocide-putting-the-us-on-trial-for-genocide-against-the-peoples-of-korea-laos-viet-nam-cambodia-iraq-and-elsewhere/5352227

https://www.thenation.com/article/naming-americas-own-genocide/

https://www.globalresearch.ca/united-states-war-crimes/5561468

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/meet-american-empires-dr-death/

Democracy & the Power of Persuasion

Patient dummy
The dummy in the hospital bed

That  racist old warmonger, Winston Churchill,  has often been  quoted as saying,  “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”…

Is it true now?-  and was it ever true?

The capacity of taxpayer funded government institutions to  manipulate public opinion has grown over the past 100  years as the theories of propaganda and  the power to  influence  individuals’  beliefs with  media, particularly electronic media, has grown   exponentially.

Modern  government bureaucracies  have always constructed ‘stories’  for their publics about how the world is:  who  is our ‘enemy’ – what  is ‘safe’ and what  is  ‘appropriate’ etc;  and the major medium  in  the past has been  via  status quo  newspapers ( the vast majority of modern newspaper and visual  media publishers are  active mouthpieces of  state propaganda  ( as in  the U.K.  with the BBC and The Guardian)  perhaps because of the enormous  costs of printing and distribution which  requires substantial  funding from  status quo funders.

Solely online social  media however;  blogs and online newspapers require far less input and resources, and their legitimacy  and media sources can  be easily hidden. They are easily accessible at minimum  cost  to  every  member of society, and the public can be ‘fed’  the official line-subtly and invisibly through  advertising   and other online  preference algorithms. The one small  downside of the electronic medium  world for  governments however,  is that  ‘rogue’  alternative media outlets also have access to  this cheap  media distribution process  (hence the desperate measures by  ‘respectable’  news outlets and governments to  promote the ‘fake news’  narrative and the need for  major  search  engine algorithms  to  be tightly controlled by  ‘respectable governments.

To  foster  and maintain the government narrative therefore requires more and more input to  feed the official  media line. As Craig Murray  notes, in the U.K. there are very large amounts of tax payer money  going into   manipulating public opinion for the benefit of those currently in  power.  The 77th Brigade of the British Army, the Integrity Initiative, MI5 and MI6 and GCHQ all run major programmes of covert online propaganda. These information warriors operate on twitter, facebook, and in comments sections across the internet. 

We can  be sure that  those U.K. manipulation agencies also exist everywhere across the world where there is sufficient taxpayer money, and sufficient need to  maintain  the status quo.

We could accurately call  these individuals and agencies,  the ‘Secret  Thought Police’.

Perhaps, if those agencies had some access to  a higher truth;  a global  need for a better life for all, saving the planet  or simply creating a more equitable world,  we might be able to  possibly argue that  those secret agencies are to  our mutual  benefit. But the reality is far from  that. Those agencies are designed to  entrench  those in  power with more power,  and with more money,  and to  negate,   satirize  and destroy by  whatever means available, alternative arguments, alternative strategies  that  might benefit and save ourselves and the planet. They  are in  consequence,  administered by  humans with limited understanding of their world,  with vast  prejudices  and with limited ethics and morality.

With  those huge resources  of thought engineering at  their disposal,  ‘governments’ which   across the world,  have  demonstrated their blindness and  total incapacity to  respond to  the catastrophes of global   heating and species loss facing us now, have instead steadfastly maintained their incestuous linkages with  the very corporations and  industries which  have created the nightmare unfolding day  by  day  in front of us.

When  many Western  governments,  but especially the U.K.  and U.S.,  have  knowingly and actively collaborated with states,  individuals and agencies over many years in  many countries   that   create  public fear  through  violence (the anatomy of terrorism), then  we have a sick  and debauched set of governments who  have no  moral right to  govern. Certainly  the current  leaders of Britain  and United States will,  in  the future, be key defendants  in  the dock  for war  crimes in Yemen  and other countries.

The Colour revolutions of the  past  10  years , (harnessing local  discontents with   resources from  foreign  governments and NGOs  and businesses such  as Soros) which have destabilized both  authoritarian  and socialist  governments alike across the globe,  have also, perhaps inadvertently , cast into question the authority of ‘democratic’ governments. Election results  are  more easily able to be questioned and invalidated in  their eyes of their voting publics.  Even  those  governments who  have destabilised   other foreign  governments with  such  tools for many years;  particularly the U.K.  and the U.S. , now find  themselves the victims of such  anti-establishment processes.

We have the somewhat  unique situation of the U.K.s Brexit poll  being questioned by  many in  the U.K.;  not because  the voting was flawed,  but  simply because it was not the result that  the powers that  be ,  wanted. The U.K.   may therefore  hold further Brexit votes until  they  get  the answer they  want;  a process which naturally underlines the key premises of the democratic system-  that  you vote for a party or issue  at  a certain  moment in  time  to  make longer term changes which  you may  or may  not disagree with later.

The recent Hong Kong riots  are an  example of the complexity of the issues where governments are actively destabilised by internal groups. The fears that  the proposed new extradition laws from  semi-autonomous Hong Kong to  mainland authoritarian  China will  create opportunities for Hong Kong dissidents to be controlled or  imprisoned in  China are  likely correct. As a former British  colony , ceded by  the  Qing dynasty of China  to  the British after the  First Opium War,  a brutal  and ethically bankrupt  war raged by  the British  to  ensure  a good supply of Chinese opium addicts, British  Hong Kong was  governed by  a British  Governor appointed by  the British “Crown”  and who  had  significant powers of authority up  to  1997 . The current dissidents therefore hancor for a non existent time when  there was in  fact a democratic Hong Kong not controlled by  ‘foreigners”. It is very  likely that , in the current anti-Chinese climate being rapidly developed by  U/S.  intelligence agencies,  that  their British  underlings are supporting the dissidents in  Hong Kong to put further pressure on Communist China,  along with  the  National  Endowment for “Democracy”,  an  NGO front for the U.S.  government destabilization agenda.

We are in  desperate need of change. Our ‘democratic’  system  is deeply flawed,  easily manipulated by  the powerful, and does not benefit in  the  longer term or even,  in  many cases,  the short term ,  its constituent publics.

 

Links

https://www.army.mod.uk/who-we-are/formations-divisions-brigades/force-troops-command/77-brigade/ 

How To Spot A Twitter Troll

https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/trojan-horse-the-national-endowment-for-democracy

 

 

 

 

Links

http://www.twainquotes.com/19100424b.html

The New Ukraine: A Pathway to Peace with Zelenskiy?

With  the election of the  comedian Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine may possibly be entering a new era-  or not….

With  no  known  specific  policy  agenda items Zelenskiy is a blank  canvas,  but there are drivers that  indicate where  the new government may  head,  based on  historical  trends.

While promising to  eliminate the endemic corruption that  has been  rampant in  Ukraine since  the Soviet Union was dismantled on December 25th  1991 ( as have many  other recent politicians like Brazil’s new president Bolsonaro or President Trump’s ‘draining of the swamp’) Zelenskiy’s credentials are not promising. His main  backer appears to be the  Ukrainian /Israeli/Cypriot  billionaire ( the second or third richest  person  in Ukraine) Ihor Kolomoyskiy,  who  fled Ukraine in  2016  (to  Israel?) after being accused by  Ukrainian officials of embezzling $5 billion from  his now nationalized Privatbank.  Once favoured by  the post Maidan   Ukrainian government and appointed governor of the  Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Kolomoyskiy is  also   accused of  using his wealth  and paramilitary  forces  to  threaten other businesses into  submission. Wikipedia notes that: Kolomoyskyi has used Privat’s “quasi-military forces” to enforce hostile takeovers of companies, sending a team of “hired rowdies armed with baseball bats, iron bars, gas and rubber bullet pistols and chainsaws” to forcibly take over a Kremenchuk steel plant in 2006,[26]and has used “a mix of phony court orders (often involving corrupt judges and/or registrars) and strong-arm tactics” to replace directors on the boards of companies he purchases stakes in.[27

You  may be amused (or not)  of this account of  Kolomoyskiy’s  behaviour  in 2014  in attempting to  reclaim  his ‘rightful’  ownership of “Ukrtransnafta”  a Ukrainian  company which  manages the transport of oil through the Ukrainian pipeline network.

Kolomoyskiy also owns the TV channel on which Zelenskiy’s comedy programmes were shown and has provided security, lawyers, and vehicles for the candidate.  Zelenskiy however,  denies,  somewhat  implausibly, any influence  by  Kolomoskiy on his political  agenda as president.

The former President Poroschenko, the confectionery  billionaire and   apparent CIA asset, attempted to  portray  Zelenskiy ( and all  the other presidential  candidates) as Putin’s stooges;  a  ploy that  has been used extensively by   Ukrainian American  intelligence assets in the Ukraine since the breakup  of the Soviet Union. Zelenskiy, while speaking Russian,  does not appear to  have the inclination or motivation to  break  away  from  these current Ukrainian  mindsets,  although he has indicated a willingness to  at  least  talk  to  the Russians about the breakaway  primarily  Russian  speaking  oblasts of  Donetsk and  Lugansk .

Despite a lack  of  evidence ( somewhat  surprising in  this age of satellite  imagery) Ukraine and many  Western  governments have continued to  insist  that  Russia is directly militarily involved in  the breakaway  regions. The Minsk  Protocol of 2014, designed to  halt the   savage war between  the  breakaway Donbass paramilitaries and the Ukrainian   government and paramilitary forces (many of the paramilitary  having neo-nazi connections and using nazi-like terms to describe their  ‘untermenschen’ Russian speaking opponents) , has failed to  stop  the fighting,  with  both  sides accusing the other of breaking the agreement.  Kolomoisky   himself has been  accused  of ‘funding the Aidar, Azov, Donbas, Dnieper-1, and Dnieper-2 battalions that engaged in a brutal campaign of looting, torture and murder during Kiev’s Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) military action against eastern Ukraine, starting in April 2014 as well  as being involved in  the burning of Odessa’s Trade Union building with much  loss of life .  Russia issued a warrant in 2014 for Kolomoyskyi’s arrest  for “organizing the killing of civilians”.

Despite monitoring by  an independent OSCE force, violations of the ceasefire by  both parties  continue to  occur on  a day  by  day  basis.  We can be thankful at  least  that  former president  Poroschenko’s attempts to  further stir up  racial  hated using the bigotry  of the far right groups,  have not won the day  in Ukraine ( for now).  For  that, Zelenskiy and the Ukrainian  Jewish   communities too  will  be thankful; despite his  billionaire sponsor’s apparent support for those groups; Patriots of Ukraine, Right Sector (Pravy Sektor) and White Hammer .

While   inflation and unemployment have reduced somewhat  since 2017,  Ukraine  continues to  be  mired deep in  a financial  crisis,  with   the EU and IMF stating that  they do  not consider Ukraine has done enough  to  reduce  government corruption  or  government subsidies . Zelenskiy will  be caught between  the need to  satisfy  his billionaire supporters,  satisfying  the demands of the IMF  and EU, while appeasing his voters and improving their lot,  and somehow reducing the scale of the conflict  in  the East.

As the media onslaught and  historical emnity to  ‘foreigners’   and national ‘patriotism’  of western  Ukrainians has surged   since Soviet days ,  the window of opportunity for reconciliation between Eastern ,  largely  Russian  speaking Ukrainians  and  the Western  EU oriented populations has begun  to  close.  Fears of a Russian invasion  have been  fanned  relentlessly by    intelligence operatives from U.S.  and U.K.  and several  other Western European  states with  Ukrainian media increasingly hyping the perceived threat  to  the benefit of the oligarchs and  political  forces.  As Ukraine’s biggest  trading partner,  and with   its  many hundreds of years of ethnic , religious  and language  connections , Russia  seems unable to  counter that  spin. For the medium  term  at  least  that  may mean  a Ukrainian nation both  divorced from  its historical  Rus  roots,  and also unable to  to  achieve recognition as a European  nation.

A nation  which  can   achieve harmonious integration of both of these paths ,  despite outside  interventions ,  would be the best  of futures. Can Zelenskiy begin  the  perilous journey  down  that  pathway; juggling the  competing interests of Russians,  Europeans and Americans  whilst maintaining Ukrainian independence?- it is just possible….

Links

https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/22/the-buried-maidan-massacre-and-its-misrepresentation-by-the-west/

ConsortiumNews comments to  the above webpage  by  “Abe”

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

https://www.wsj.com/articles/putin-shows-carrot-and-stick-to-new-ukraine-leader-11556210091

https://www.rferl.org/a/so-far-zelenskiy-is-high-on-charisma-and-light-on-policy-do-ukrainians-care-/29868871.html

https://program.ze2019.com/

https://www.politico.eu/article/volodomyr-zelenskiy-ihor-kolomoisky-the-comedian-and-the-oligarch-ukraine-presidential-election/

 

Zelenskii beat Poroshenko – what will happen next?

https://www.thenation.com/article/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-election-zelenskiy-oligarch/mutual-friends-and-borrowed-cars-how-ukraines-would-be-leader-is-linked-to-tycoon-idUSKCN1RS147 

The Moral Right to Govern

The  arrest  of Julian  Assange  for absconding while  on bail from  a UK court;  (a charge that  normally requires a non custodial ( non-prison) sentence) and  his proposed extradition to  the United States for  ‘conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer network in 2010″  alongside Chelsea Manning, raises important issues , not only for journalistic freedom, but also puts into  question the right of those in power to  have any  moral  capacity to make any decisions for  the publics they  supposedly represent .  Assange’s real  crime is that  his website Wikileaks exposed, and continues to  expose, the criminal  behaviour of state actors.

The U.K.  judge, Judge Michael Snow,  presiding over Assange’s arrest,  made the highly unprofessional  and unscrupulously  biased comment  when  describing Assange in  his  legal judgement as a “narcissist, who can’t get beyond his own selfish interests” and found him guilty of failing to surrender to bail in 2012.  No  doubt “Justice” Snow, considered it contemptable that  an  upstart  colonial  boy like Assange should challenge his imperial  betters in  such an unseemly way.  The personal characterization of Julian Assange by Judge Michael Snow was “highly improper,” Mads Andenas, former UN special rapporteur on arbitrary detention noted.    Should being   a narcissist ever become a chargeable crime then  certainly most judges and every politician would be spending long periods in  incarceration. As Craig Murray  notes: One key fact gave away Snow’s enormous prejudice. Julian Assange said nothing during the whole brief proceedings, other than to say “Not guilty” twice, and to ask a one sentence question about why the charges were changed midway through this sham “trial”. Yet Judge Michael Snow condemned Assange as “narcissistic”. There was nothing that happened in Snow’s brief court hearing that could conceivably have given rise to that opinion. It was plainly something he brought with him into the courtroom, and had read or heard in the mainstream media or picked up in his club. It was in short the very definition of prejudice, and “Judge” Michael Snow and his summary judgement is a total disgrace.

Its noted that  the current prime minister of the U.K. Theresa May  stated in  related to  Assange’s arrest  that “This goes to show that in the United Kingdom, no one is above the law”. . One assumes   that  May  will   therefore proceed to  the nearest  Police Station to  confess her direct  complicity  in genocide in Yemen, and that her predecessor Cameron  will  come forward to be  charged with war crimes in Libya and Syria and that  the ever determinedly evil  Tony Blair will  finally confess to  his monumental  war crimes in Iraq and elsewhere.

Similarly the media’s  constant attempts prior to Assange’s  arrest over the previous 6 years to  characterize him  as some objectionable human  being;  including his not  emptying the kitty litter for his little cat (who was voluntarily extradited to safety in November 2018) ,  or his personal  hygiene (one wonders how much  those journalists  might smell  after being incarcerated in  virtual  solitary  confinement for 7 years?) clearly demonstrates the depths to  which   Western  mainstream  journalism  has sunk, and its cosy-ing up  to “intelligence’  services determined to punish  and get  rid of Assange. ( as well as the extensive limitations of its case in  attempting to justify locking Assange up).   One can  expect  the (linked) type of response from  newspapers like the Daily Mail,  but  Mainstream  media’s attempts to  character assassinate

Assange have continued after his  arrest. Note the language in this screenshot from  the  ‘respectable’  news outlet  Reuters from 12th  April  2019 ,  stating that   Assange  was being indited for sexual  offences (charges which  as the U.N. has noted,  were dropped almost two  years ago). Wikipedia notes: ‘On 19 May 2017, the Swedish chief prosecutor applied to the Stockholm District Court to rescind the arrest warrant for Julian Assange,[39] effectively ceasing their investigation against Julian Assange.[40] The case may be reinstated until the expiration of the statute of limitations. Additionally, Britain’s arrest warrant pertaining to bail violations remains open. In 2013, Sweden tried to drop Assange extradition but the English Crown Prosecution Service dissuaded them from doing so.[41]‘

There appears to  be some  not inconsiderable discrepancy  between  the intent and motives of the two  women  involved in  the Swedish  rape cases and the Swedish  prosecution’s account of events.

Or  we can note another ‘respectable’  media  U.K.  outlet,  with its  ongoing wild accusations  ( screenshot below)   that  Assange and Wikileaks were somehow

connected to  Russia’s “military intelligence  spy agency”  who supposedly ( without a shred of evidence)  had   hacked the U.S.  Democratic Party’s  servers,  exposing the very  real corruption within  the party to ‘select”  Hilary  Clinton  as a presidential  hopeful..

The  numerous attempts by  the UK Justice system  to  force Sweden  to  maintain  its prosecution case for rape against  Assange,  despite their clear resistance, is one more  line of evidence of conspiracy  against  justice by  those currently  in  power in  the United Kingdom.  Ms. Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions  tweeted that the expulsion of Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London exposed him to “risks of serious human rights violations”. 

However it should be noted that  the U.K.;  like its ‘partner’  the U.S. , takes no  cognizance of its  extensive human  rights violations, as it  is  apparently above international  law. In December 2018 the U.N.  has noted that the U. K.  should: ‘abide by its international obligations” and allow Mr. Assange safe passage out of the embassy.

“States that are based upon, and promote the rule of law, do not like to be confronted with their own violations of the law, that is understandable. But when they honestly admit these violations, they do honour the very spirit of the rule of law, earn enhanced respect for doing so, and set worldwide commendable examples,” said a statement released by the Working Group.

In December 2015, the Working Group concluded in its opinion No. 54/2015 that Mr. Assange – who at the time had a European arrest warrant issued against him for an allegation of crimes committed in Sweden ‑ was being arbitrarily deprived of his freedom and demanded that he be released.

“Under international law, pre-trial detention must be only imposed in limited instances. Detention during investigations must be even more limited, especially in the absence of any charge” said the experts. “The Swedish investigations have been closed for over 18 months now, and the only ground remaining for Mr. Assange’s continued deprivation of liberty is a bail violation in the UK, which is, objectively, a minor offense that cannot post facto justify the more than 6 years confinement that he has been subjected to since he sought asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador.”

“Mr. Assange should be able to exercise his right to freedom of movement in an unhindered manner, in accordance with the human rights conventions the UK has ratified,” the experts added.

Of course it should be remembered that  those U.K.  and U.S. people in  positions of power are the very  same people who  ultimately will  face extradition  to  The Hague and life-time imprisonment  for their war crimes and facilitation of genocide in Iraq,  Afghanistan, Libya,  Syria and now Yemen,  and whom Wikileaks has exposed as genocidal  abnd corrupt  psychopaths,  time and time again.

It is now high  time for the public in  both  the  United States and the United Kingdom,   to  acknowledge that  those who  rule    those two  nations (and who  view themselves as the ‘elite’  despite all  the evidence  to  the contrary of their minimal  vision and intelligence),  are simply  parasites  who  have no  moral  right to  rule. That  in  fact  they  are the people who  need to be in  the dock  now for  their well documented war-crimes and murders of many millions of people world-wide in  their corrupt drive for power and more money.

They  are  in  fact  truly psychopaths.

Perhaps the conclusion can  best  be left to  a quote from President Roosevelt in 1944 and  recently re-quoted by  the courageous and articulate Richard Falk: It seems apt to recall President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1944 message on German war crimes directed at the German people in the midst of World War II: “Hitler is committing war crimes in the name of the German people. I ask every German and every man everywhere under German domination to show the world by his action that in his heart he does not share these insane criminal desires. Let him hide the victims, help them to get over their borders, and do what they can to save them from the Nazi hangman. I ask him also to keep watch and to record the evidence that will one day be used to convict the guilty.” (emphasis added) Is this not precisely what Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange have been doing?

As Richard Falk notes,  the attempt to  extradite Assange to  answer for  his access to,  and publication of, criminal  wrongdoing by  state actors, and thereby  muzzle the release of further information on  state criminal  activity, is indisputably an international  act of criminality  in  itself.

https://defend.wikileaks.org/take-action/

Links

https://www.rt.com/news/456290-assange-uk-judicial-system-us/

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/754-assange-indictment/d093e7dc7982f7fe4c24/optimized/full.pdf#page=1

https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/04/1036491

Chelsea and Julian are in Jail. History Trembles.

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/05/iraq-war-judge-to-review-tony-blair-prosecution-ban

Assange’s arrest shows us very clearly who supports freedom of speech, and who doesn’t

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/12/julian-assange-charges-press-freedom-journalism

Anonymous Message To The Captors Of Julian Assange

Julian Assange Arrested, Take Action Now

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/04/12/how-you-can-be-certain-that-the-us-charge-against-assange-is-fraudulent/

Assange’s ‘Conspiracy’ to Expose War Crimes Has Already Been Punished

https://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/julian-assange-criminal-or-benefactor/

https://intpolicydigest.org/2017/06/21/analysis-julian-assange-case/

 

The Pink Supremacists

Christchurch is my old hometown;  long before the earthquakes that shattered the city, long before multiculturalism  thankfully arrived ,   and long long  before Mr Tarrant decided it was his mission to  save the ‘white”  world  from  those “others” by murdering 50  people in two  mosques in March  2019. Certainly there has always been  racism  in little old  New Zealand-  but  in my experience a greater  tolerance of diversity  than in  many countries. Our  current Prime Minister Jacinda Adern  is thankfully a symbol  of that  tolerance and compassion.

Mr Tarrant is however not a symbol  of white supremacy  ( he is ,  as the headline of this post  suggests ,  in  reality   pink skinned;  not ‘white’;  a fact  which  rather  detracts from  the white power rhetoric) but he is rather;  a symbol  of  grief, fear and  loss. Like so many  angry  men  across the world, he found a rationale for the expression of that  anger and violence. In Mr Tarrant’s case, it was ‘white’  supremacism;   but for others  it might be  Salafist    murderous  jihadi fundamentalism, or Hindu  or Buddhist ‘righteous’  anger. In fact  anything to  avoid the real  grief and loss gnawing at  their psyche . In  Mr Tarrant’s case it was ,  almost indisputably the suicide of his father in 2010 when he was 18 , and more explicitly his discovery of the body  after his father shot himself  after he was diagnosed with cancer as a result of asbestos exposure. In the case of Anders Breivik, the Norwegian  who  killed 77 Muslim children in an attack  – it was perhaps the  separation of his parents at  an early age and the subsequent  split from  his father at  15.

What  might we be able to  say  about Osama bin Laden  and his childhood, or even  Genghis Khan?

Please note ,  none of this   rationale in  any way  condones or excuses the violence of such individuals,  but it can  give a rationale for their actions,  and hence an opportunity to  remove and reduce such  risks in  others .

And it is important  also  to  note that  by  far the greatest  violence by  such  angry  men is not committed  by  their own  hand,  but via the hands of others. Those men  ( and some women) who  manipulate others into  carrying out  their acts of violence  against  those ‘others”. In recent times those mass murderers have been  politicians and military  men and specifically those in  the Western ‘democratic’   nations. One can  only speculate on  the childhoods of sociopaths like John Bolton, the US advisor who  advocates the  killing of so  many Arab people,  but more importantly the Iranian people,  in the supposed belief that  this will  protect  the apartheid state of Israel,  or U.S.  Secretary  of State Mike Pompeo  who  apparently sincerely believes that  war against  Iran  will  hasten the Second Coming and the Rapture . Or we could list  a few women like  Gina Haspell  CIA director who is  clearly able to  internally rationalise her brutish  actions in  torturing people in a systematic manner,  or note the psychopathic glee of Hilary  Clinton when she learns of  Muammar Qaddafi’s brutal  death.

Such  people  use their  concoctions of beliefs to  rationalise their  brutal  and violent actions…when in  fact  they  are  simply  frightened little people who  need our compassion – and to  be taken  away  from  any capacity to  control  other’s lives.

 

Venezuela Madness

President Trump has  recognised as President of Venezuela, a man  who  has never stood for the Presidential  role  but who presides over  the Venezuelan  national  assembly: Juan Guaidó— a man  who  the New York Times (1/22/19) describes as “virtually unheard-of”—and who has now – at  the behest of the Trump administration- proclaimed himself the country’s new leader. Guaido  was elected President of the National Assembly of Venezuela in December 2018, and was sworn in on 5 January 2019.  He appears to  have strong links into  the American  neocon  ‘thinktank’  and policy   systems and strongly supports  the United States  re- taking more ownership  of Venezuela’s extensive oil  reserves, (the largest in  the world)  and the privatisation of many state-run  services which  currently fund health  and welfare  in Venezuela.  In  addition,  according to  ConsortiumNews,  he hads a long history  of involvement in  the violence associated with Popular Will party  which   formed the shock troops of the guarimbas that caused the deaths of police officers and common citizens alike. He had even boasted of his own participation in street riots. And now, to win the hearts and minds of the military and police, Guaido had to erase this blood-soaked history.   According to  Consortium News, Within 48 hours, Guaidó quickly tried to seize control of Venezuela’s major US-based oil refiner and use its revenue to help bankroll his US-backed coup regime.  Guaidó is attempting to fire the directors of Citgo Petroleum, which is owned by Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA, and seeks to appoint his own new board……This plan would involve the creation of a “new hydrocarbons agency” that would “offer bidding rounds for projects in natural gas and conventional, heavy and extra-heavy crude.” In other words, these are rapid moves to privatize Venezuela’s oil and open the door for multinational corporations. As David Pear notes- this is essentially a racist  white supremacist  counter-revolution 

The current President of Venezuela is Nicolas Maduro,  who  was  re-elected in  a disputed election ( ie some of  the opposition parties  chose not to  run  a candidate and then disputed the election)  in January  2019 . Maduro has used increasingly repressive measures to  maintain  his powerbase and repress  opposition, whilst  confronting increasingly violent  opposition groups.  Telesur (a news agency funded by the Government of Venezuela and  other governments such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Bolivia ), notes that the ‘National Assembly has been in a situation of contempt of court for almost two years. After the election of deputies in December 2015, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) candidates in Amazon State filed a complaint because their opponents had purchased votes to win the election. The court subsequently condemned the fraud and the Electoral Power Tribunal demanded that the election for these three seats be redone. Since the Speaker of the National Assembly refused to comply with the judicial and electoral authorities, the National Assembly was declared in “contempt of court.” Decisions and votes emanating from the legislative power are therefore null and void as long as the speaker of the National Assembly fails to authorize the return to the polls.”

The United States has implemented wide-ranging sanctions against the  Maduro  administration since 2014 ,  claiming that it is a dictatorial regime. The sanctions ,  along with  declining oil  prices and to  a lesser extent, structural  failures by  the socialist  Bolivarian presidents, Chavez and Maduro  administrations ,  has resulted in  an  economic disaster for Venezuela,  with  rampant inflation  and high  unemployment . The working classes and peasants who  formerly supported the Maduro  government because of its extensive redistribution of state owned oil  wealth  and its  health and social  policies, appear now to be  increasingly angry  with  the Maduro  administration for the economic failures they have recently endured.  Mainstream  media in  the West  and many Western  politicians are now able to  insist that  it is solely the  socialist  agenda of the Chavez/Maduro  administrations  that  has caused this economic crisis, while  ignoring the very  deliberate attempts by  the United States to de-stabilise the country  over an extended period of years via sanctions and supporting an  attempted coup  in 2002,  and using its pressure with other Latin American  states to  isolate the Venezulean  administration.

The United States and its Western  and Latin American ‘allies’  have a desperate need to  invalidate the socialist  wealth  distribution policies of Venezuela;  both  to  ensure its corporate elites, the “comprador”,  continue to  receive their ‘rightful’  incomes, and bank  accounts in  Miami , but also  to  ensure that their home populations do  not begin  to understand that  state ownership  and wealth  distribution is a very  valid and effective method to ensure a  sustainable and fair world. (where would we be -God forgive!!-if we had an equitable, efficient, sustainable   and accountable economic process that  ensured a country’s assets actually returned to  all  of its population?)

 The appointment of Elliot Abrams by  the Trump  administration to  coordinate ‘diplomatic’  efforts to  replace Mafuro is a clear indication of the regime change efforts of the United States. The contemptible Abrams was heavily involved in  the  coordination of terrorist activities by  the  Reagan  era contras in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and would clearly be  a key contender for  long-term incarceration if there was in  fact a neutral   international  War Crimes Tribunal. As the Guardian  article on  the 2002 notes:  the crucial figure around the coup was Abrams, who operates in the White House as senior director of the National Security Council for ‘democracy, human rights and international opera tions’. He was a leading theoretician of the school known as ‘Hemispherism’, which put a priority on combating Marxism in the Americas.

What  Guaido and his American  neocon  advisors seem  to fail to  understand,  is that his possible ascension to  the Venezuelan presidency  ( a re-run of the coup  of  the U.S.  2002 attempted coup ), while  allowing the US regime to  remove sanctions and its stranglehold over the Venezuelan  economy,  will  inevitably lead to  a nationalist  backlash  in Venezuela as it becomes clear that  the majority of the country’s resources are being sold off  to  US corporates and the IMF,  with  possible negative implications  for the  recently installed intellectually impaired Bolsonaro  extreme right wing administration  in neighbouring   Brasil-as it becomes clear who  is pulling the strings in  that  country.

In addition,  as the centre of global  power inexorably moves from  the United States to  China , Latin American  states aligned to  increasingly erratic  and violent U.S. corporate and  state imperialist  ambitions, will  find themselves isolated.

What  is also  equally disturbing is the alacrity which  which  EU nations have fallen in line behind the United States’ sponsored coup  in Venezuela. Their insistence on  interference in  another country’s domestic issues and their pronouncements on who is the ‘legitimate’  ruler of Venezuela do  not bode well  for human  rights and the international  rule of law.

Postscript: Stansfield Smith  at  Covert Action lists  a damning history of U.S.  intervention  in Venezuela and beyond

See another unpleasant history of U.S.  intervention  in  Venezuela here at  Telesur https://www.telesurenglish.net//opinion/The-History—and-Hypocrisy—of-US-Meddling-in-Venezuela–20190128-0016.html?

https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Understanding-Venezuelas-Crisis-An-Interview-With-Guillaume-Long-20190129-0005.html

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/venezuela-why-capitalism-not-socialism-blame-corruption?

History of US Interventions in Latin America (courtesy of @asadabukhalil on Twitter.)

Or read David Pear’s analysis that  this is essentially   a racist  counter-revolution http://www.unz.com/article/us-and-canada-are-backing-an-elite-white-supremacist-minority-in-venezuela/ 

Links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Guaid%C3%B3

The Making of Juan Guaidó: US Regime-Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader

https://venezuelanalysis.com/video/14253

https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Ongoing-Coup-in-Venezuela-What-If-Same-Scenario-Happens-in-France-20190126-0007.html

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bank-of-England-Refuse-to-Return-US1.2BN-Venezuelan-Gold—20190127-0003.html

Yet Another U.S. Coup Attempt to Eradicate the Bolivarian Revolution

Venezuela’s US-Backed Coup Leader Immediately Targets State Oil Company and Requests IMF Money

US Backs Coup in Oil-Rich Venezuela, Right-Wing Opposition Plans Mass Privatization and Hyper-Capitalism

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bank-of-England-Refuse-to-Return-US1.2BN-Venezuelan-Gold—20190127-0003.html

‘Resistance’ Media Side With Trump to Promote Coup in Venezuela

 

The Madness of Military Intervention in Venezuela

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/01/venezuela-trumps-coup-attempt-is-based-on-a-seriously-flawed-plan.html

The Vultures of Caracas

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-us-sanctions-united-nations-oil-pdvsa-a8748201.html

Your Complete Guide to the N.Y. Times’ Support of U.S.-Backed Coups in Latin America

“Death to Wikileaks”: the battle for truth

The recent Guardian article penned by  Luke Harding – of famed ‘the Russians are invading Ukraine with  a convoy of (mythical)  tanks”  and other anti-Russian hysteria,  and  co-author Dan Collyns,  alleges that  Paul  Manafort, U.S.  convicted felon and former Republican  campaign  chief for Donald Trump’s election campaign, met  and conspired with  Julian  Assange of Wikileaks  to  ensure Hilary  Clinton was not elected President.

The authors of the Guardian story, Dan Collyns and Luke Harding, were in Ecuador recently with Equadorian , Fernando Villavicencio, who ‘assisted’  with this story  and who they had previously worked  with on  other  evidence -free  stories. Villavicencio ( Fernando Villavicencio, oil exsindicalista refugee in the US)  has fabricated claims about people visiting Assange in the past. In May he claimed Farage visited Assange on 28 April  2009, a month after Ecuador initiated its 8 month-long isolation of Assange, banning phone calls, all visits and  internet. Assange’s isolation at  the Embassy coincided  with the  defeat of Ecuadorean president  Rafael  Correa to  U.S.  supporter Lenin Moreno. The Guardian article states ; based on  the allegations from  Villavicencio,  that Manafort entered the Equadorian  Embassy  in London  where Assange is currently in  refuge,  and spoke   to  Assange, on  several occasions.  But as  Craig Murray  notes ,  the Equadorian Embassy  security files,  let alone the London Police records,   strangely show no  evidence of such  meetings.  Embassy employees who were there during that entire time period  also say they never saw Manafort or heard of his visit.

Assange and Wikileaks; and also  separately,  Paul Manafort, are  now proposing legal  action  against  the Guardian.  Wikileaks is raising money here for their legal  appeal. In likely response to these legal  threats, the Guardian has now edited its original  story  to  soften  the tone  of the allegations.  See the edits here  at   https://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/1706143/diff/0/1. If both libel  actions are successful  against  the Guardian;  its capacity to   survive financially are questionable -as will be its reputation as a reputable news-source.  Why  then would the Guardian  take such  a risk? It is to be noted that  legal  libel proceeding costs in  the U.K.  can be up to  140  times the costs of similar proceedings in  Europe ( ironically this is a Guardian link) .

Wikileaks’ crime is not only that it did the unpardonable;  it published leaked   information that  accurately and truthfully described war  crimes committed by  both  the U.K. , the US and  other Western states,  but more importantly  Wikileaks also  has put into  question the very  lucrative financial  dealings of the City of London  and also the Maltese government.    Without these illegal   financial dealings,  (primarily via Russian ‘oligarchs’ who  have  fled Russia), it is possible  that  the City of London   and much of the British  economy,  could collapse.

These murky financial  dealings  intermesh  with   much of the  terrorist activities carried out by  Western (particularly U.S.) intelligence agencies  to  ensure  their corporate sponsors  retain  their supplies of cash regardless of the  impacts on  lives  and the local environment. South  American  right wing governments and  their military/intelligence agencies have played a key  role in  these activities –  hence the arrival  of the very  dubious Fernando Villavicencio and his timely allegations of  collusion between  Trump,  Assange and the Russians.

Jimmy Llama notes  many  convoluted links to  neo’liberal’  thinktanks,  shady  corporates and   U.S.   and other individuals    such  as Bill  Browder,  famed for instigating  the U.S. Magnitsky Act ( Russia  has now accused Browder of Magnitsky’s murder) and a key player in  the Russiagate allegations.

These allegations are one of many determined concerted media  efforts to  ensure that once  Assange is  no  longer under the protection of the Ecuadorian  London  Embassy,  there will  be limited public backlash   against  those governments responsible for his subsequent  deportation to  the U.S.  –  his show-trial and likely disappearance..

That  process is after all ,  standard practice  already by  the United States and others;  make allegations against  someone you don’t like or need ,  inform  the necessary  Western authorities,   and a  drone   can  eliminate any unnecessary  evidence forthwith.

Julian Assange and Wikileaks have indeed played a very dangerous game-  unmasking the  extremely brutal  and vicious  international  game of exploitation and greed by  those  in  positions of power  in  the name of “democracy and freedom”…

Links

 

https://theintercept.com/2018/11/27/it-is-possible-paul-manafort-visited-julian-assange-if-true-there-should-be-ample-video-and-other-evidence-showing-this/

Assange Never Met Manafort. Luke Harding and the Guardian Publish Still More Blatant MI6 Lies

https://www.latimes.com/ct-julian-assange-russian-visa-20180917-story.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-held-secret-talks-with-assange-in-ecuadorian-embassy

https://www.couragefound.org/2018/11/the-guardian-publishes-fabricated-claims-of-paul-manafort-visiting-assange/

https://www.gofundme.com/wikileaks-suing-the-guardian-over-manafort-story

https://archive.fo/9w6Zv

The Fate of Julian Assange: Chris Hedges Interviews Consortium News Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria

A Written Guide to the Guardian’s Smear Campaign Against Assange

The Truth About Fernando Villavicencio, the Guardian’s Source for Their Anti-Assange Campaign

Russiagate Part One: The Story That Everyone Missed

Russiagate Part Two: Malta

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-really-killed-sergei-magnitsky-16612

https://wikileaks.org/Statement-Julian-Assange.html

https://justice4assange.com/

Misreporting Manafort: A Case Study in Journalistic Malpractice

https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Why-No-Outrage-Over-Ecuadors-Illegal-Constituent-Assembly-20181130-0016.html

Brazilian Indigenous Guardian of the Amazon Murdered: & Facebook..

In the last few weeks Facebook  has become assiduous in   removing “fake news’  newsposts  from  its servers.  Telesurtv is one such example-  now  reinstated

One might be forgiven for thinking that Facebook  serves interests other than  truth and honesty in  its promotion of the ‘fake news’  meme,  when one looks at just one such  media article listed on  the Telesur website  Telesur is one of the few English language media outlets in  South America that promotes indigenous rights against  the rapaciousness of corporate entities ( predominantly   US-based).

The history of  the U.S. ongoing  intervention in South  America to promote its own  interests ( ie US corporate profits) has resulted in many many thousands  if not  millions of of deaths,  the decades long support of South American tyrannical  regimes ,  death  squads,  torture and the oppression of South America’s working classes, peasants and indigenous population-  as well  as the rape of its incredible environmental heritage for logging and  meat production companies, and the facilitation of the drug trade .

The recent U.S. sanctions against Venezuela are just one more example of the techniques used by  the United States to  destabilize various Latin  American  governments that  do not suit U.S.  corporate interests.

How much longer does South  America have to endure  the tortures of this ignorant  bully from  the North  I wonder? How much longer will  supposedly ‘honest’  American media portray  U.S.  interventions as being upholding ‘freedom  and democracy’?

Sadly this distortion and manipulation  of ‘truth’ by  powerful  American  companies  for the benefit of corrupt  U.S. businessmen has been  an ongoing reality for the past century.

Craig Murray   beautifully outlines  the Facebook  censorship  issues from  another perspective here,  and the  extraordinarily ignorant and inept role of the Atlantic Council. 

Links

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazilian-Indigenous-Leader-Guardian-of-the-Amazon-Murdered-20180816-0009.html?

http://www.yachana.org/teaching/resources/interventions.html

https://www.telesurtv.net/english

Facebook Censorship, Mad Ben Nimmo and the Atlantic Council

America Unhinged

Perhaps it  should not be a surprise that  the United States political  scene is becoming increasingly deranged  with its talk  of ‘treasonous Trump” , and  it’s ( and the U.K.’s) media screaming headlines  about the  purported but totally unsubstantiated ‘hacking’  of the U.S.  presidential  elections by  Russia, and where any foreign media or politician  that  does  not support the “Democratic” Party’s view of American politics, is subverting democracy  .

After all ,  we have seen more than a hundred years of American  politicians  trumpeting the United States as  the international  beacon of freedom  and hope for the oppressed,  while at the same time committing endless wars against  vulnerable countries ( almost exclusively populated by  darker skinned  peoples) who  dare to oppose its economic demands . And indeed has conduced a  long-standing violent war  against  its own  vulnerable populations.

Perhaps now we simply   see  American society, previously  unable to  differentiate between  the constant lies  it has told the world over the past century and more, and the reality  of its sordid and brutal  foreign  policies, now turning in  on itself- cannibalizing what  remains of its   democratic processes , innovative thinking and compassion for the underdog..

Sadly , with  such  immense natural  resources, the United States has squandered its opportunities  to build a truly democratic  open  society  that provides free education, healthcare  and job opportunities  for   all;   and protects the environment in real  ways while building a prosperous and sustainable  future for its human  citizens ..It has  instead become an oligarchy  where greed  and  brutality rule ..

A nation  is in  deep  trouble when it begins to  believe the lies it tells itself – here’s just one bizarre example of American  groupthink..

As Bill  Van Auken at  the World Socialist  Web,  (and bear in  mind that  Putin is no  socialist!) quotes: “1964 is a year of crisis and decision. Will America continue to aid the communist enemy, to disarm in the face of danger, to bow before communist dictators in every corner of the earth? The decision is yours.”

Postscript:

Perhaps a quick  read of Code Pink’s Assessment of American Foreign  Policy might also  be instructive?

 

Links

https://eand.co/how-russia-conquered-america-without-firing-a-bullet-36d9f0132b8c

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/07/detente-bad-cold-war-good/

https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/war-criminals-theirs-and-ours

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/433793-putin-helsinki-interrogations-russiagate/

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/19/pers-j19.html

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/20/pers-j20.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5971475/Flake-suggests-TREASON-Senate-floor-saying-Trump-gave-aid-comfort-enemy.html

https://blackagendareport.com/russiagate-ruling-class-diversion

https://www.al-akhbar.com/Opinion/254619/

Trump’s Treasonous Traitor Summit or: How Liberals Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the New McCarthyism

The Utility of the RussiaGate Conspiracy

CODEPINK  War Profiteers: The U.S. War Machine and the Arming of Repressive Regimes*

The Barbarism that is Israel

 

We have witnessed the incredible barbarity shown by  Israeli soldiers towards Palestinian  protesters  in  the last  few weeks of the “Day of Rage”  and the marking of 70  years of  theft and violence by  the Israeli population  against  Palestinians since the Nabka:   70  years of murder,  terror,  torture  and imprisonment,  for the crime of not giving away  the lands of their  ancestors to  the settler invaders.

Penned  in Palestinians who  are , as one journalist  put it, “like sheep  for the slaughter”.

Despite the dictatorial  behaviours of the Turkish  President,  and his many other shortcomings ,  President Erdogan is quite specifically accurate in  calling  Israel  an ‘apartheid state”. Israel has, over the past 70  years,  progressively ‘acquired’  former Palestinian land and walled in  those remaining who  dared to  stand up to  the U.S.  funded  military might of Israel.   Arabs  in Israel, (who have the exactly the same genes as the original  Jewish inhabitants of Israel); are discriminated against  in  a very systematic and ‘legal’  way by  the Israeli  state.  Settler extremism,  violence   and bigotry  reinforce those laws.  We only need to  look  at  the extreme racist  rants of Israelis in  leadership  positions in  Israel,  to  convince ourselves of the obscenity of their stance. Or perhaps you might like to  endure this list of disgusting anti-Palestininan   behaviours and statements   from  a series of Israeli  ‘leaders”  by  the Angry Arab

Thus the latest  targeted killings of largely defenceless  ( apart from  stones and a few molotov cocktails) Palestinians protesting their illegal  walling in  by  Israel, are just  one more example of the barbarism that is the state of Israel.  A systematic, crude and vicious attempt to  destroy the Palestinian people in order  to acquire their lands. The extraordinary bravery and tenaciousness of  generations of Palestinians since the Nabka ,  should never be  forgotten.

As Jonathan  Cook  notes: the Wests’ direct  and implicit endorsement of Israeli   very literal  terrorism  towards Palestinians over the past 70  years , will  result in  further atrocities by  Israeli  troops and settlers.

From http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/mapstellstory.html

And as the former UN Rapporteur for Palestine puts it ‘The feeble Israeli claims of its right of self-defense or attributing Palestinian martyrdom to Hamas are so shallow and lacking in credibility as to discredit further rather than provide justifications for this exhibition of homicidal violence on a massive scale not as isolated incident but as a series of arrogant reenactments.”

 

Links

https://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2018/05/15/gaza-grief-horror-outrage-remembering/

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1227956–  65 laws that discriminate against  non-Jews in Israel

The Stomach-Churning Victim Blaming by “Labour Friends of Israel”

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

West’s Failure to Act Will Be Cause of the Next Gaza Massacre

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-primer-on-israeli-politics.html