ThereAreNoSunglasses

American Resistance To Empire

Taliban Civil War

[The CIA/Mi6 is behind all of this “Taliban split” news, including the
fake negotiations and the fake replacement for Mullah Omar. Most of the
key Taliban leaders involved in these charades, either the split, or the negotiations, have been CIA guinea pigs at Guantanamo, where they all received CIA ‘reconditioning.’

RAW involvement is incidental, other than its contribution to the CIA
programming (SEE: The Indian Art of Turning Jihadis Into Anti-Jihadis
and the War On Pakistan). 

Once again, we see the anti-Taliban faction, Fidai Mahaz Mujahideen the remains of the loyalists who followed Dadullah (SEE: Mullah Dadullah Faction Exposes All the Fake Taliban Negotiations), fighting the new CIA Taliban under Mansour.  This time, they not only fight in the south on their home turf, they hit the forces of coalition-supported, Gen. Dostum (SEE: Taliban kill 25 militiamen loyal to first vice president Gen. Dostum).  The real Taliban loyalists are willing to fight a civil war within the Taliban in order to stop the US-created fake Taliban.

This will be another war without borders, fought by the first Islamic Caliphate.]

5 dead in gunbattles between rival Taliban factions

hindustan

  • AP, Kabul

At least five were killed in gunbattles between rival Taliban factions in southern Afghanistan, a top official with the insurgent group said on Saturday. The clashes took place at a time when members of the Taliban meet in Pakistan to resolve a leadership crisis following the death of its former leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

It was the first confirmed report of deadly Taliban infighting after an announcement last month that Mullah Omar had been dead for more than two years. Mullah Omar’s family objected after his former deputy Mullah Akhtar Mansoor was named the new Taliban leader and rivalries have spilled into violence, said Ahmad Rabbani, head of a committee trying to reunify the group.

Rabbani spoke from the Pakistani city of Quetta, where hundreds of Taliban loyalists are meeting in an effort to resolve the split.

The five deaths came after Taliban commander Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, loyal to Mullah Omar’s family, led hundreds of gunmen against Mansoor supporters in the southern Afghan province of Zabul, where the Taliban have long had a fighting presence, Rabbani said.

Rabbani said his committee hoped to reach a decision on who should lead the Taliban whose leaders have been based in Pakistan since their regime was overthrown in a US-led invasion in 2001 by Tuesday.

Meanwhile, at least 13 police were reported killed in separate attacks in eastern and southern Afghanistan.

Col Asadullah Ensafi, the deputy police chief in eastern Ghazni province, said at least eight officers were killed and 15 wounded in separate Taliban attacks on police checkpoints on Friday in Andar and Qarabagh districts.

Insurgents have intensified attacks on police checkpoints in recent months, as they typically have few men and are vulnerable. Casualties have soared.

Separately, Ensafi said an Afghan forces airstrike killed 16 insurgents and wounded 17 late on Friday in Ghazni’s capital.

The war with the Taliban has been particularly tough this year for Afghan forces, who are fighting without international combat troops backing them up after the US and NATO pulled out last year.

Separately, in the Chora district of southern Uruzgan province, five police officers were killed when their vehicle hit roadside bomb, said Abdul Qawi, the Chora police chief.

Austria’s OMV sues Turkey for pulling out of Nabucco pipeline project

Austria’s OMV sues Turkey for pulling out of Nabucco pipeline project

FOX NEWS LATINO

 

Austria’s OMV, the largest oil and gas company in Eastern and Central Europe, is suing Turkey and its prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, for pulling out of the Nabucco gas pipeline project, the Austrian business weekly Trend reported.

OMV is seeking damages for Turkey’s decision to back out of the project, which was supported by the European Union and would have built a pipeline to carry natural gas from Azerbaijan to Europe, reducing dependence on Russian gas.

Ankara withdrew from the project and agreed in May to a deal with Russia for an alternative gas pipeline, the TurkStream.

OMV, which filed suit with a World Bank international arbitration panel in June, refused to comment, Trend said.

The Austrian energy company liquidated OMV Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH, a unit created to build Nabucco, at a loss of 177 million euros ($197.9 million), the business weekly said.

OMV said during the release of its quarterly results that it was developing a strategy for expanding cooperation with Russia to shore up revenues amid the collapse of oil prices on the global market and production cuts in Libya and Yemen, two countries where it operates.

The Austrian energy company’s revenues plunged 38 percent in the second quarter, compared to the same period in 2014, despite higher production.

OMV signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia’s Gazprom, as well as with Anglo-Dutch supermajor Royal Dutch Shell and Germany’s E.ON, to double the capacity of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which links Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea.

Gazprom and OMV also have an agreement in place to bring the South Stream pipeline, which will carry Russian gas via the Black Sea through the Balkans to Europe, avoiding Ukraine, to Austria. EFE

Egypt Gets Its Own “Supergiant” Natural Gas Deposit In the Med

Italy’s Eni Finds ‘Supergiant’ Natural Gas Field off Egypt 

abcnews_logo_v2

The Italian energy company Eni SpA announced Sunday it has discovered a “supergiant” natural gas field off Egypt, describing it as the “largest-ever” found in the Mediterranean Sea.

The news came a day after Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi met in Cairo with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, the Egyptian leader’s office said.

Eni said the discovery — made in its Zohr prospect “in the deep waters of Egypt” — could hold a potential 30 trillion cubic feet of gas over an area of 100 square kilometers (38.6 square miles).

The discovery well is 190 kilometers (about 120 miles) from the Egyptian coast, and is at a depth of 1,450 meters ( 4,757 feet) in the Shorouk Block, the company said.

“Zohr is the largest gas discovery ever made in Egypt and in the Mediterranean Sea and could become one of the world’s largest natural gas finds,” Eni said in a statement. “The discovery, after its full development, will be able to ensure satisfying Egypt’s natural gas demand for decades.”

“Eni will immediately appraise the field with the aim of accelerating a fast-track development of the discovery,” the energy company said.

Descalzi was quoted by Eni as saying that the discovery reconfirms that “Egypt still has great potential” energy-wise. He said “important synergies with the existing infrastructures can be exploited, allowing us a fast production startup.”

Eni has been in Egypt since 1954 through its subsidiary IEOC. It is the main hydrocarbon producer in Egypt, with a daily equity production of 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent, the company said.

Israeli, Jordanian Officers, Accompaning Al-Nusra Terrorists Killed In Southern Syrian Airstrikes

Israeli, Jordanian Officers Killed among Tens of Other Al-Nusra Commanders in Airstrike in Southern Syria

farsnews

Israeli, Jordanian Officers Killed among Tens of Other Al-Nusra Commanders in Airstrike in Southern Syria

TEHRAN (FNA)- The Syrian air force killed a large number of Takfiri militant commanders, including senior Israeli and Jordanian officers, in airstrikes on terrorists’ positions in the Southern province of Dara’a.

At least 42 Al-Nusra Front Takfiri terrorist commanders, including 3 Israeli and Jordanian officers, were killed in the Syrian warplanes’ air raids in Dara’a.

Military sources said that the Syrian airstrikes on al-Nusra Front positions incurred heavy losses on the Takfiri terrorists.

In similar operations on Friday, over 100 militants of al-Nusra Front were killed in the Syrian fighter jets’ operations in Dara’a.

The sources said that, over 100 terrorists, most of them from al-Nusra Front, were killed in a series of army airstrikes that targeted their gatherings in Dael town in the countryside of the southern Dara’a city.

On Thursday, the Syrian army troops killed 46 terrorists in military operations in Aleppo city.

The terrorists were killed in al-Sayyed Ali area.

Meanwhile, the army killed terrorists of al-Nusra Front, and destroyed their arms at the Western neighborhood of Bosra al-Sham in the Eastern countryside of Dara’a.

2 Dalit Women Sentenced To Be Raped for Brother’s Indiscretions With Brahmin Woman

Sentenced to rape?! 1,000s call for action as Indian community council ‘orders’ abuse of 2 sisters

Russia-Today

© amnesty.org.uk

Over 60,000 people signed an Amnesty International UK’s petition demanding the government intervene in the case of two Indian sisters sentenced to rape and humiliation for their brother’s deed by a local council dominated by a higher caste.

An unelected all-male council from a village in India’s Baghpat district handed down the ruling on July 30, ordering Meenakshi Kumari, 23, and her sister, 15, to be raped as well as paraded naked with blackened faces.

The council deemed this an appropriate punishment for their brother’s elopement with a married woman from the higher Jat caste. The brother, known as Ravi, is reportedly from the Dalit caste, which is India’s lowest, formerly known as the “untouchables.” He ran away with his beloved despite fears of retribution.

“Nothing could justify this abhorrent punishment. It’s not fair. It’s not right. And it’s against the law. Demand that the local authorities intervene immediately,” Amnesty International said, calling on people worldwide to sign their petition to persuade the Indian government to intervene.

Fearing for their safety, both sisters fled their village along with their family back in May. Their house was looted soon thereafter.

The Jat caste is very powerful in the village, Amnesty quoted Sumit Kumar, another of Meenaksh’s brothers, as saying. “The Jat decision is final.”

Amnesty UK’s Urgent Action Coordinator, Rachel Alcock, told the Mirror that such “disgusting” punishments are common in the villages all over India. “These Khap courts routinely order vile sexually violent punishments against women. India’s Supreme Court has rightly declared such orders illegal.”  

The Supreme Court has labeled such local councils “kangaroo courts” and branded their decisions as illegal. However, this has not halted such local trials in various states.

Meenakshi has filed a petition with the Supreme Court, asking for protection. Harassment complaints have also been launched against locals and the police from her village.

As for the supposedly runaway lovers, there have been conflicting reports over their whereabouts and whether the woman consented to elope.

According to Amnesty’s version of events, there are concerns over the safety of Ravi’s lover. Zee Media reported that the couple were allegedly in love with each other prior to the woman’s marriage. After she was married to another man in February, she reportedly fled and eloped with Ravi in March.

The Times of India says the runaway couple “had to return, due to pressure from the girl’s family and the UP [Uttar Pradesh] police,” citing the text of Meenakshi’s petition. The petition reportedly claimed that the “elopement invited the wrath of the Jat community and UP Police and as a retaliatory measure her family members were abducted and tortured by police.”

Meenakshi’s brother was allegedly accused in “a false narcotics case” and arrested.

According to the New Indian Express, the couple was found in the city of Meerut, two months after they eloped, and the woman accused Ravi of abducting her. Local police denied the existence of a council “diktat” altogether, saying that the man has been jailed in Meerut, awaiting trial on charges of abducting a married woman.

The widespread problem of rape in Indian society was brought into the global spotlight in December 2012, when a brutal gang rape case in Delhi prompted thousands of people to protest in the streets and hold candlelight vigils. Six men, including one underage teenager, took part in the horrific attack, raping and killing a 23-year-old physiotherapy student. Four adult attackers were eventually sentenced to hang, while one hanged himself in prison. The court, however, has stayed the executions to allow for appeals.

The public outcry persuaded the Indian government to double prison terms for rapists to 20 years. New legislation was also introduced, making it a crime for police officers to refuse to open cases when allegations of rape are made.

The National Crime Records Bureau estimated that one woman gets raped every 22 minutes in India. In May 2014, two teenage cousins were gang-raped and murdered in the small village of Katra Shahadatganj, in Uttar Pradesh.

‘Witchhunt’—US Strong-arms Finland To Arrest Russian Porn Thief/Hacker

[SEE: ‘Witchhunt’: Moscow slams Finland’s arrest of Russian citizen on US request]

“Some media reported that Senah has long been known to the online community as a hacker. The reason for this could serve as a recording on the forums webmasters pornographic websites in 2005. As the party with the nickname Mayor, the alleged hacker | Maxim Senakh hacked a few porn sites and abducted up to 20% of the traffic. No trace in the American press and on the official resources of law enforcement agencies in this regard could not be found.”What America has found in Senahe?

rus finnish border cross

The Ministry of Justice to establish a Russian person’s detention

emb finland moscow

 

Published 08/27/2015

The Ministry of Justice confirmed that a Russian citizen Maxim Senakh were detained 08/08/2015 Finland. Detention took place at the request of the United States Federal Department of Justice and an extradition agreement on extradition between Finland and the United States. Senakh have been prosecuted in the state of Minnesota, a number of computer fraud and irregularities. Senakhin suspected of being of significant benefit to the alleged criminal conduct. A US court has ordered Senakhin be imprisoned.

Agreement between Finland and the United States, as well as due to an offense according to the provisions of the extradition law, a person suspected negotiable in the crime can not be detained to secure extradition, even if the request for his extradition has not yet been presented.

US authorities will receive the formal extradition request to the Ministry of Justice within 45 days of arrest under the threat that otherwise Senakh released.

After the arrival of a request for transfer of proceedings in Finland will continue so that the National Bureau of Investigation carried out the transfer of the investigation, after which the Ministry of Justice to request the Supreme Court for an opinion on the request for extradition. If the Supreme Court considers that the donation is not of legal conditions, the Ministry will reject the request. In the opposite case, the Ministry of Justice is considering whether to grant extradition.

For more information:

Justices Juhani Korhonen, tel: 02951 50208 (e-mail: juhani.v.korhonen@om.fi).

justices Hannu Nursery, tel 02951 50430 (e-mail: hannu.taimisto@om.fi).

Tulosta Bookmark & ​​Share

This document
По-русски
Updated 08/27/2015

© Embassy of Finland, Moscow © Consulate General of Finland, St. Petersburg

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ARAB REVOLUTIONS

arab revolutions

[Notice Nasralluh and the “Hezbocat” emblem…definitely Hezbollah site.  Don’t know what to make of the following article.  It is crammed full of information, but who knows whether any of it is true?  Just another surfing accident?]

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ARAB REVOLUTIONS

Report that can seriously turn the Lebanese street: Siniora killed Hariri and was in connection with Mossad.

The Algerian newspaper sunrise published a report: “ahead of three days of the issuance of the report from the israeli Winograd Committee, appeared Winograd report was expected to overthrow the government of Olmert, while the second is ratified information contained in it .. it means a coup, magic turn on the magician and ignited a fire under conspirators feet on Lebanon.

Everyone here in Lebanon are wondering about the secret return of serious information posted on the Website Zionist nearly three weeks ago to the fore again? What is now trading in the media landscape and the Lebanese street on the Prime Minister “Fouad Siniora,” and accused him of employment in favor of the Zionist Mossad and his involvement in the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, all news circulated the Arab media and the world on the basis of the report of the “Israeli” but quickly close the file, which returned to open again after the assassination, “Wissam Eid,” Chief, Division of information in the Lebanese Internal Security Forces, which is interpreted by some views the opposition as “the liquidation of internal between conspirators on Lebanon followed Pantqamat,” adding that “the conspirators began to expose their plots and reveal their plans sordid themselves” .

Report are prohibited from publishing

The roots of the story while the Zionist military censorship prevented the deployment of a topic in the Hebrew newspaper Ha’aretz on 08 January current, which reads as follows:

“Officer” Israeli “former Aaron Goldberg and accused of betraying the Israeli state through the sale of the information super-secret intelligence Russian and currently imprisoned in a military facility awaiting trial on charges of treason, confirms that, during his tenure at the Mossad between 1970-1989 as an officer of a field, managed via a third party the recruitment of Mr. Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister, backed by the U.S. administration. ”

The report adds: “Israeli officer high-level had been discharged from the army after he was convicted of selling arms and ammunition to the Mafia Israeli believes that its customers organizations subversive belonging to Fatah and Hamas in Yehuda and Samaria, and then discharged from the IDF after completing a prison in secret because to position the former military and security, imposed strict conditions Attorney General out of Israel, and it seems According to the novel, which leaked attorney Gilad Lavigne defense lawyers.

Have suffered a former general and his family difficulties material considerable denial comprehensive and County Court of his friends and neighbors and relatives, Vanazl in the village of Dogmegal north of Tel Aviv, away from public life between 1994 and 2003, after which the progress of the Attorney General at the request travel for tourism to the State of Lithuania to visit his son, who have a trade office there. ”

Russian intelligence and “treason”

The report continues narrative story Fjord: “lawyer confirms that the psychological state of the unfortunate and distress material and loss of friends and friends made the officer, who served in the Mossad for many years a man حاقدا looking for revenge, took advantage chance leaving Israel and tried to stability in Lithuania, but intelligence Russian Foreign learned his command, I called and worked to recruit him and asked him to return to the country in order to be activated after a period. ”

He continues, defense counsel in telling the story of the officer the high-level forbidden from talking with the press says: not recognized Gen. Goldberg any activity that affects the state of Israel, but returned immediately and contact his colleagues and disciples of former Mossad in order to tell them what had happened to him with Russian intelligence, what was of them, but transferred him the judiciary, which ordered the police to arrest him on charges of treason charges passed accurate information about his previous work in the IDF and the Mossad for the Russians, note that Gen. Goldberg and always according to his lawyer had leaked information is correct and is important for the Russians to convince them of his honesty in collaboration with them, while the Attorney General that the Goldberg has already collaborated with the Russians, and then returned and regrets she did try contacting Mossad coverage and to inform them about it.

Goldberg insists on his innocence, as does his lawyer, who received an order from the Attorney General in writing today to stop the transfer of the former general messages to the press culpable because what threatens borne the security of the State of Israel.

Details of the process of recruiting Mossad Siniora

As for the most important and most dangerous what is stated in this report, the outlawed is about telling the recruit Lebanese Prime Minister “Fouad Siniora” for Mossad in the seventies, says the report on the lips of the lawyer, citing his client’s former general that “Goldberg worked in his youth operations officer responsible for training and follow-up workers with an Israeli intelligence external Mossad in Lebanon, and that the dossier as “light” with the number 345 548 handed to him for follow-up and training, go to Beirut through the airport in Paris, a French passport forger and booked himself a furnished apartment in Park High in Mount Lebanon, and from there Contact Customer Noor , whose real name is Fouad Siniora Mohammed from the city of Sidon, so he بتدريبه on the means of communication, secure messaging and information gathering technology and mislead investigators. ”

The report adds the words of the same source: “It was that in 1974 he saw Siniora Mr. Goldberg twice after the first in Israel after he was transferred to Greece in secret and then to Tel Aviv and was in the year 1976, and the second in Paris, and also by a Jordanian passport forger and took place in the year 1977. ”

In three meetings The purpose of the meeting is to train light and follow its evolution in the collection of information, especially since relations began to be consolidated with the elite of the Palestinians and Lebanese.

Siniora, “the most important client of the Zionist entity”

The report adds in the context of his narrative of the novel serious: “It appears that after he arrived, Mr. Siniora to power at the head of Lebanon, see Gen. Goldberg client former Fouad Siniora, or light on the TV screen Vtzl on the spot, especially since the latter had come always in his hand a gift the coach is a famous Lebanese candy on behalf of his family and was adamant that it made his hands. ”

The report adds: “General Goldberg prevented from adding any contact through his lawyer with the press, and it seems that the revenge of the judge who يحاكمه will not continue and will stop at the borders of detection Siniora كمجند for the benefit of the State of Israel for decades, something that may not be harmful significant, because what he did to Mr. Siniora publicly in the second Lebanon war waged by Nasrallah and Iran on civilians in Israel, and what to do after the war of meetings semi-public in Washington and Beirut with reporters, officers and diplomats, ministers Israelis, and what he did from the parking publicly against Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, all of those things combined make up great services for the benefit of the State of Israel can not recruit in the Mossad, whatever, whatever the degree that provided. ”

Hariri’s assassination at the hands of those closest it

Site “Failaka Israel” who talked about the story of “recruiting Mossad Fouad Siniora since 1974,” published a report prepared by Professor إيلياهو Bniemson, known Bmaadath of the Zionist entity and its support for the Palestinians, Bnasimmon transfer is also about Goldberg “involvement Siniora in the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri , “he said:” It was a key point of efforts to uncover the murder of Hariri is based on trying to figure out who the person is close to him, pointing to the Siniora, who know the killers itinerary motorcade, and is the one who gave the killers heading signal from Parliament to his home hours assassination? ? .., some observers official accused security of the former, which has not lost sight of the procession only day of the assassination, known as Wissam al-Hasan, who was rewarded by Fouad Siniora on its failure to protect his master Rafik Hariri that the eye is responsible for the largest security apparatus in Lebanon, a branch of information which was supported by the strength and funded and trained by America and Britain, France and several Arab countries. ”

Serious secrets revealed Siniora

While he called the disclosure about the history of Siniora spoke Professor Bnasimmon, saying: “Let’s review the history of Siniora public to see if his actions match and described the alleged informant secret among the elite of Lebanon to the Israelis or not: arrived Fouad Siniora at the beginning of his appearance social and quickly to the Office of President Salim Hoss, the leader of the Sunni sect Crowned at the beginning of the era of Elias Sarkis, 76, until the arrival of money and bribes Rafik Hariri in Beirut in 1982.

Action Siniora in the President’s Office Salim Hoss as an intern in the office of the prime minister, a position he held Salim Hoss for periods of several before and after the emergence of Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese political scene, but as soon as the emergence of the name of Rafik Hariri, financially and politically, leaving Fouad Siniora, his work with the teacher, a former economy Salim Hoss , and jumped to Hariri boat upside.

Was that the same last accountant key to his companies in Lebanon, and then chairman of one of its banks big in Beirut Bank (Mediterranean), which Thumper through it Fouad Siniora in the years 1987 to 1992 on the Lebanese pound, fell to its exchange rate against the dollar than fifty pounds to three thousands of pounds for one U.S. dollar.

Thus flew billions of Lebanese deposited in banks, including the four banks fully owned by Rafik Hariri. ”

He adds Professor Israeli: “To the memory of all, President Salim Hoss presented in 1984 for trying to blow up a car bomb which are charged at the time, former intelligence chief of Lebanon’s pro-Israel, called Johnny Abdo, an inventor formula employment open to Israel, and a guide Ariel Sharon’s invasion of Lebanon In 1982, “pointing out that” Johnny Abdo is a companion and adviser Saad and Nazek and Fouad Siniora, the main political and security which Siniora also lined with Rafik Hariri, after the political prominence in Beirut. ”

Allies beat each in difficult moments

As noted at the beginning of the article that most of this information circulated Lebanese media since the days is not a small figure, what is the secret behind their appearance and more days Alvartin, especially since the leaks on both occasions sources Zionist media, It is clear that Olmert’s government began to sense that they were uttered breath Last The report of the Winograd will knock out inevitably, in an attempt to save what can be saved, creating what can be described as a success, Olmert is currently seeking to weaken Hezbollah or involvement in an internal war or make a conglomerate domestic and international against him eventually leads to weaken and disarm, and These attempts are months ago, and more cooperation with the ruling group in Lebanon, which correspond interests with the interests of the Zionist and American, but it seems that the failure of the this team in that endeavor, which culminated in the failure of the process of the recent terrorist targeting “Wissam Eid” to achieve its objectives The choice of personal target and timing were very stupid, and did not Ahakqa required both involving Syria and its Lebanese allie in the process, or to ignite the internal front of Lebanon, which made the party Zionist in an awkward position is no salvation from him – by his belief – only by clicking on the lebanese ally “Fouad Siniora “in order to move more effectively than ever before, but it is clear that all of the conspiracy against Lebanon and his people strangled in darkness after the defeat of their balance.

* Sunrise correspondent of Beirut: Walid Arafat

– تقرير خطير يقلب الشارع اللبناني: السنيورة قتل…
marebpress.net|By ‎مأرب برس‎

Syrian Army Captures Batch of Obama’s Turkeys In Aleppo, Trained for 30 Whole Days

rats-confessed-990x260

sabinachiaburuMercenary-terrorists confess being trained in Turkey by US, Qatari and Saudi personnel ~ [Report & Video]

A number of terrorist, who were caught recently in Aleppo , confessed to receive military training in Turkey by U.S, Saudi and Qatari personnel.

In interviews broadcast by the Syrian TV on Sunday, terrorist Ahmad Mustafa Mastari said he worked within a terrorist group for 4 months before attending a 45-day training course in Salqin, Idleb and later they headed to Turkey where they received military training by U.S, Saudi and Qatari personnel for 30 days and returned to Aleppo.

“I was among the force that attacked Jam’yat al-Zahraa in Aleppo, we were about 250 persons, but the operation failed and we were arrested by the army” Mastari said.

He added “I had fought in al-Qarmid camp, Wadi al-Daif in Idleb, Kifr Nabouda in Hama and later we went to Saladin neighborhood in Aleppo where we were shelling the area,  then putting the dead bodies inside the buildings”.

Another Terrorist called Zakaraya Sharraq al-Zait said planning for the latest attack on Aleppo began about 3 weeks ago, adding that his 60-member group infiltrated into some buildings but the army besieged the area and caught all who were still alive.

rats-confessed

Terrorist Mohammad Aqel Akk said U.S, Qatari and Saudi personnel trained them for 45 days in Salqin, Idleb and later they went to complete their training in Turkey where every trainee was given USD 200.
“We then returned to Aleppo and commenced a huge attack on army posts in Aleppo, but our operation was a failure and we got caught,” he added.

Terrorist Hassan Hassani said his 60-member group tried to attack Jam’yat al-Zahraa area in Aleppo but they failed and got caught.

Terrorist Yousef Ismael Qanti said about 600 gunmen from different groups attacked al-Zahraa neighborhood, and the operation failed and he was injured and arrested later.

Terrorist Qasem Abdullah said he spent 5 months training in Turkey and was receiving SYP 15,000 per month, adding that he was among a group of 50 gunmen who took part in the attack and that they failed.

“A number of us, including me, were injured in the attack and we decided to surrender to the army” he said.

 

Turkish Man Killed In Ukraine, NOT By Russian Mafia, By Victim’s Brother Seeking Revenge

[There is always more to the story.  This report makes it appear that this wan an act of the Russian mob against a Turkish businessman (SEE: Turkish businessman killed by Russian mafia in Kyiv, report says).  Digging deeper, we find-out that Emir Cevdet was involved in a murder and a rape.  He allegedly killed his beauty queen wife and then raped her lesbian Russian lover, who turned-out to have a brother in the Russian mafia.

He was killed for revenge.]

Invariably bomb murder in the alleged orders! He killed the girl he raped her lover?

medya radar

14/08/2015 Friday

Image processed by CodeCarvings Piczard ### FREE Community Edition ### on 2015-08-14 09:24:33Z | http://piczard.com | http://codecarvings.com

Image processed by CodeCarvings Piczard ### FREE Community Edition ### on 2015-08-14 09:24:33Z | http://piczard.com | http://codecarvings.com

Media Radar » Agenda » Amir claims Invariably bomb murder! He killed the girl he raped her lover?
AGENDA
14/08/2015 Friday, 10:45

Invariably bomb murder in the alleged orders! He killed the girl he raped her lover?

No way the program connects to the phone to tell me if I found the amazing Erol Köse said.
Invariably Emir’s death has left a question mark in the mind. Every day he puts forward a new claim. Who allegedly killed his wife cheated with orders Invariably, which spoiled the Patriots Viju Industrious?

In he does not, No way programs Emir Cevdet spent the patriotic name of Viju about Invariably murder and that orders Invariably beloved by the Vijan, after talk that should not be considered as Vijdan escort connected Erol Köse Live phone.

The Patriots responded to allegations from Vijan Erol Köse said:

Erol Köse, the son of my uncle CALLED AROUND dolandırdı

“Name Cevdet Orders Orders are not infallible infallible. Atilla the 2000s when his new album in the Stone “I have a friend make me an assistant,” he said. That person Cevdet infallible.

Positive children was very positive, and then began to come to me on the phone “Erol brother took money from us to your partner,” he said. I called Cevdet physically introduced himself as the son of my uncle to me like that.

I said, “Cevdet Why did you do it,” I said, began to cry. He said the family is in a bad way, but I decided I could not forgive him his job. We cut to salute in the morning.

Necati Şaşmaz’s brother had CALLED RIGHT to LEFT defraud

Then I look at the people we meet are stuck with luxury. Invariably Necati introduced himself as the brother and the others were cheating. Then the wife Nazli twitter account Industrious “He conned me,” he began to write.

Industrious called me spoiled. “Erol Bey saved me,” he said. “Cevdet introduced himself to me as your partner, you were deceived me,” he said.

Cevdet called me “my wife that the EU take into account the psychology of it bad,” he said.

My daughter called me again, he said that peace.

Killer’s girlfriend has RAPE

I recognize that girl from Vij. Atilla Taylor called me and said Cevdet killed. Cevdet raped girl who killed herself by leaning per weapon he killed a friend.

Besides learned that killed two women. One of those women may Patriots from Vij. The killer left them free now continues in police inquiries. “

“911 Dust Lady” Dies From Cancer

AFP FILES-US-ATTACKS-5YEARS A AOT USA NY
911 “DUST LADY”, Marcy Borders

9/11 ‘Dust Lady’ dies after cancer battle

The Jersey Journal reported that the mother of two, from Bayonne, N.J., was diagnosed with stomach cancer in August 2014.

In November that year, Borders told the paper: “I’m saying to myself

‘Did this thing (9/11) ignite cancer cells in me?

I definitely believe it because I haven’t had any illnesses. I don’t have high blood pressure…high cholesterol, diabetes.”

 

Destroy Countries, Create Refugees—NOW DEAL WITH THEM

The Western Powers have created a global war refugee crisis through their Imperial adventures and now have to deal with the consequences of their actions.  Even though the United States is the primary creator of refugees in most of those wars, we are largely unaffected by this human tidal wave.  America’s European partners in crime in starting these criminal wars have no choice but to confront the immorality of the situation set in motion by Western governments. 

Since the EU is incapable of finding a consensus opinion on the proper course for getting these Syrian, Libyan, Yemeni, Somali refugees to safety, the matter must be resolved by the individual countries of Europe.  Where the EU and NATO have failed to establish a common border, the states are erecting individual barriers to the human flow.  Claiming that the walls steer the refugees to established safe zones (Schengen areas), everybody “passes the buck” on individual responsibility to help our fellow man, whenever collective responsibility would solve Europe’s refugee problem.

Fix settlement quotas in Europe, establish common control at the Mediterranean, systematically create safe corridors, safe sheltering and safe conduct to their designated settlement areas.  Anything less than that is immoral and inhumane.  

BETTER YET—END THE WAR….STOP CREATING NEW REFUGEES.

A Spanish tourist watches Pakistani migrants arriving at a beach in the Greek island of Kos after paddling an engineless dinghy from the Turkish coast August 15, 2015. United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) called on Greece to take control of the "total chaos" on Mediterranean islands, where thousands of migrants have landed. About 124,000 have arrived this year by sea, many via Turkey, according to Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR director for Europe. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

Africa: Calais Migrants – a Microcosm of a Misunderstood Crisis

all africa

analysis

If tabloid headlines are anything to go by, the United Kingdom is fighting off the greatest invasion force threatening the island since the Blitz. The invaders this time are migrants and asylum seekers sneaking a ride on lorries, trains and ferries to get across – or underneath – the English Channel.

News footage of groups of young men climbing fences and breaking into trucks at Calais look dramatic, but the ‘swarm’ of migrants at Calais, as depicted by British Prime Minister David Cameron, is in fact 3,000 to 5000 people, many of whom are not actually trying to get into the UK at all. A sizeable minority have applied for asylum in France and are staying in the informal settlement near Calais known as the Jungle while waiting for the outcome of their application.

All over Europe, fences are going up, physically and metaphorically. Hungary expects to complete its new border fence by the end of August. Macedonia announced a state of emergency and deployed riot police at the border last week. Until then it had dealt with the influx by giving migrants 72-hour transit papers, enough time for them to buy a ticket, cram onto a train and cross further into Europe to become somebody else’s problem. First among those ‘somebody else’ is Germany, which expects to receive more than 750,000 new asylum applications in 2015.

A Europe unable to cope?

The challenge is certainly great for Germany, where new arrivals are sleeping on floors in makeshift accommodation. But it is in southern Europe that a real humanitarian crisis is unfolding. The EU border agency, Frontex, have recorded 340,000 ‘migrants detected’ from January to July this year, almost three times as many as the same period last year. Of those, around 160,000 have taken the relatively new route from the Middle East and Turkey to the easternmost islands of Greece. More than 50,000 have arrived in Greece in the month of July alone. Wracked by economic and political crisis, Greece is rife with xenophobic attitudes towards migrants.

But the people arriving on Greek holiday islands in leaky dinghies are not migrants. While those taking the route from Libya to Italy have tended to be a mix of refugees, especially from Syria and Eritrea, and economic migrants, particularly from West Africa, the composition of the boat people arriving in Greece this August has been, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, over 80% Syrians, 15% Afghans and the rest mostly Iraqis. The vast majority will qualify for refugee status.

The crisis Europe is not facing

The United Kingdom is not facing an invasion of illegal immigrants launched from Calais. Nor is the rest of Europe facing a migration crisis. Certainly, there are well-established economic migration routes from the poorer parts of the world to the richer. Since there are no longer any legal ways for low-skilled migrants to enter Europe, many choose to travel irregularly.

The journey they make has been made both easier and more dangerous for the migrants by the political collapse of Libya and turmoil in Egypt. Human smuggling networks can work with near impunity in both countries, mistreating migrants en route, before packing them onto unseaworthy vessels and steering them towards European waters in hope of rescue. An estimated 2,500 people have perished in the attempt so far this year.

A humanitarian crisis

Southern and South-Eastern European countries, particularly Greece, are facing a humanitarian crisis, where saving lives and providing food and shelter must take precedence over immigration control, regardless of whether those arriving are ‘illegal’ economic migrants or refugees. Despite the rush to build fences, secure borders and pass the buck, there is a growing appreciation across European capitals that ‘illegal migration’ is not a crime punishable by a watery death sentence. Prompted by one of the largest Mediterranean disasters in history, where 800 people drowned, the EU relaunched a large-scale search-and-rescue operation in April.

A global displacement crisis needs global solutions

The reason for the enormous rise in the number of people making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean is not economic migration, but war, persecution and violence. In short, Europe is experiencing its share of a global displacement crisis driven by an upsurge in conflict across the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. The world has not seen so many people uprooted by conflict and persecution since the end of World War Two.

More than 80% of all refugees remain in their near region, many in refugee camps, others self-settled in nearby urban centres. But life in camps is getting increasingly destitute and devoid of hope for many refugees, particularly those fleeing never-ending conflicts, like those in Somalia, Syria and Iraq. Syria’s neighbours are coping with around four million refugees – in Lebanon refugees make up one in four of the country’s population. Humanitarian aid, while at record levels, does not cover the basic needs of refugees.

If European governments want to see a sustainable and ethically viable end to the chaotic and deadly passage across the Mediterranean, a first step would be to provide more financial support to refugee hosting countries, not only to support refugees, but to bolster domestic stability in host-countries. Beyond that, a global burden-sharing mechanism for resettling refugees would both alleviate the pressure on countries of first asylum and make refugee arrivals in Europe more orderly and manageable.

For this to happen, European governments must first acknowledge that the situation at Calais, Lampedusa and Kos are not a European migration crisis, but a global refugee crisis.

Dr Anne Hammerstad is a research associate of the South African Institute of International Affairs, and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the School of Politics and IR, University of Kent, Canterbury. She is the author of The Rise and Decline of a Global Security Actor: UNHCR, Refugee Protection and Security.

Sympathetic Portrayal of Pro-Syrian Warlord By Jewish Press–ALMONITOR

Syria’s Lords of War

USNEWS

Car dealer and amateur astronomer Hatim Ali Staiti became a warlord and now commands a notorious militia known for fighting for the regime.

Fighters of the jihadist group Al-Nusra Front stand on the top of a pick-up mounted with a machine gun during fights against regime forces on April 4, 2013, in Aziza, on the southern outskirts of Aleppo, Syria.

Fighters of the jihadist group Al-Nusra Front battle against regime forces near Aleppo, Syria, in 2013.

By: Fehim Taştekin, Columnist for Al-Monitor
Al-Monitor

For Syrian opposition forces, National Defense Forces militia fighting alongside Syria’s regime are the most heinous of foes. The opposition calls them “shabiha,” a term used to refer to unofficial militias that support the Syrian regime.

A shabiha member I met in the Akrama neighborhood of Homs, Syria, told me why he took up arms and joined the militia, on the condition that I not use his name or photo. He cited two events that led him to give up driving a taxi and take up arms. First was the murder of Gen. Abdo Khodr al-Tellawi with his two sons and cousin in Homs’ Bab Tadmor district on April 17, 2011, while they were going to the general’s home in the Zahra district. Tellawi, whose arms and legs were chopped off, was an Alawite — a religious minority of which embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is a member.

The second event came soon after, when a bus headed to Zahra was stopped and 13 people were killed, including three women. One woman was forced to march naked in the streets. All the victims were Alawites, he said. But Alawites did not retaliate, and kept silent for four months. The rebels continued their violent anti-Alawite campaign, cutting off roads and picking up Alawites.

He added: “They even opened fire at funerals. Twice I was able to save myself from their checkpoint by speaking with Sunni Arabic dialect. Of course Sunnis suffered also. They set up their own checkpoints; so did we.”

In Tartus, a man asked me what, as a journalist, I was looking for in Syria. I replied, “I want to observe how the war affected the society and economy.”

He said, “Ah, you are looking for me,” and invited me to his villa in the village of Douheir Taha. In his large living room, alongside memorabilia from Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow and other places, there were guns, bullets, binoculars and field radios.

He introduced himself, saying, “I am Hatim Ali Staiti. I am a commander in the National Defense Committees you call shabiha. I was a car dealer. My hobby was astronomy,” he said, pointing to a telescope.

He went on: “You are skeptical. You don’t believe I was a businessman. Come with me.”

We went upstairs. He showed me his wall safe, which held three passports, many checkbooks, a little cash and three hand grenades. “This safe was full of money before the war,” he said. Then he opened his computer to show his photographs from the Damascus, Qalamoun, Kassab and Homs fronts.

I asked him how he came to turn from businessman to warlord.

“As the proprietor of Al Zaim company, I had offices in Tartus, Aleppo, Damascus, Raqqa and Idlib. I had 200 people working for me. When the clashes broke out, 250 of my cars were either stolen or destroyed. I went to the [showroom] of Abu Enes at Banias. He had been working with me for five years. The [showroom] was closed. From then speakers of nearby mosque came the calls, ‘Come to jihad. Alawites to graves, Christians to Beirut.’

“Suddenly Abu Enes appeared and agitated the crowd against me, saying, ‘This man is an Alawite.’ We barely escaped with two of my workers who were with me,” Staiti said.

“I called a friend in Hama. We had been working together for seven years. I told him what happened, expecting to hear his sympathy. Instead he said: ‘The time of Alawites is over. We will win this war in one month and take everything, including your wives and daughters.’ I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it.”

Staiti continued: “I couldn’t stand around and wait for them to carry out their threats. So, I set up a group and joined the war. We participate in operations alongside our national army. Today I have 93 fighters. I lost 12 of them in clashes. I was a global traveler enjoying life, now I sleep on mountains. I sent my children away to another villa I own because I had accumulated too many enemies. These people were not religious types. We used to have fun, drink together.”

His only dream is to see the end of the war and return to his business. “My money is running out. We don’t get salaries. Only at Zahra, the state gave me a bonus for winning a battle but I distributed it to my fighters. Of course we don’t spend money [on] guns. The ammunition comes from the army.”

Staiti was among the many I heard called shabiha in Homs and Damascus who said the uprising had not started peacefully, as some claim. He related one incident: “On April 15, 2011, a group of men stopped my Alawite friend Nidal Jennud, who used to sell fruits and vegetables at Banias. He was ordered to swear at Bashar Assad and the Prophet Ali. His friend with him did it and was let go after a beating. Nidal swore at Bashar but not at the Prophet Ali. He was cut apart with machetes. Until that day, there were no problems in Banias. This was clearly part of a design against Syria. They hired people to demonstrate at Banias, paying them 5,000 Syrian pounds each [roughly $11 at the time]. Al Jazeera was reporting this as an uprising against the regime. Someone came and bought a Kia Rio from me for 700,000 pounds cash [roughly $15,000]. Two days later, mukhabarat [Syrian military intelligence] people came and asked if that person had bought a car from me. Turns out that Qatar had sent money to pay the demonstrators, but this man bought a car for himself with the money. The idiot who was the middle man in the money transfer went to police to complain that he was swindled. That’s how the story came out.”

I asked him about the May 2, 2013, massacres at Baida, where as many as 165 people were killed. In Turkey, government officials had been saying that Assad was cleansing the coastal area of Sunnis to set up an Alawite state. Baida is not far from where Staiti was. He told me about the incident he was involved in:

I was there during the Baida massacre. It is a bit complicated. A six-soldier army patrol came to Baida to detain a wanted person. The patrol was led by Maj. Samir Ammuri. Baida people hid the wanted man and kept directing the patrol to wrong addresses. When the patrol was leaving Baida after an hour of futile searches, they were hit with a roadside bomb. All were hurt. Samir radioed for help. The official imam of the town, Sheikh Ahmed, tried to pacify young people in the village. He told soldiers that he was trying to end the incident and that they should not take action. Soldiers lost contact with the sheikh. They asked our help to recover their casualties. As we were going there, a military vehicle carrying civilian staff working for the army was attacked when crossing the Kous bridge. When we got there we came under heavy fire. We were 60 people. We returned fire and clashed for 45 minutes. A military detachment coming from another direction mistakenly attacked us. Hearing that Sheikh Ahmed, his wife and son were killed, their relatives took up arms. In the village, pro- and anti-state groups began clashing. It got out of hand. Everybody was fighting everybody else. Then army officers came and took control. The village was littered with corpses. You couldn’t tell who was pro-regime and who wasn’t. Why should the state do it? Investigations were carried out. There was no Sunni cleansing. They are still there. Some Sunni families left when the troubles started. Fear was mutual on both sides. But it soon calmed down and people returned to their homes.

I told him that I met a group of soldiers in Daraa and showed the photos from Baida of soldiers kicking bodies and asked why they did it. They were angry with me. Staiti objected, too, saying, “Wait a minute. Those were not bodies they were kicking, but detainees. I was one of the kickers.” He added: “In the Baida protests, they were shouting, ‘Alawites to the graves.’ Alawite villagers heard it and assembled. I was there, too. I was determined to break the heads of 15 people. When we got there, the mukhabarat had surrounded the demonstrators. They tried to calm us down and even detained some of our people. When we started kicking, they too kicked around a bit to appease us. We said the mukhabarat is handling the matter and left. We later heard that the mukhabarat had released the demonstrators and even apologized. We went crazy. The kicking video was taped by one of us. Because of his stupidity the tape was leaked to Al Jazeera.”

To show that he has no enmity toward Sunnis, he shouted to his neighbor who was building a villa next door. The man expressed his gratitude for getting water and electricity for his construction from Staiti, who said his other neighbor was also a Sunni. “Go talk to him, ask what you want,” I was told.

Staiti fiercely rejects the label “Alawite minority regime” affixed to the Assad regime. He said, ‘’As an Alawite, I have no privileges. I couldn’t even get the credit I needed from the bank. The state sets credit limits for different parts of the country. My Sunni neighbor from Daraa got more credit, and quicker, than I could. The state is not granting privileges to us because this is an Alawite area. True, there are powerful Alawites who could get what they want from the state, but there are 10 times more Sunnis who could do the same. In Tartus all the mukhabarat were Sunnis. The governor of Tartus is a Druze, the security chief is Sunni, the police chief is Sunni, and the mayor is Sunni. Today there are more Sunni refugees than the population of Tartus. If there is ever a fight between a local Alawite and a Sunni refugee, that Alawite will be in big trouble.”

When I reminded Staiti of speculation that if Assad loses the war, he will set up an Alawite statelet, Staiti said, “We will reject Assad if he does anything like that. We are fighting for all of Syria.”

In Staiti’s village, on a green hilltop overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, there is a mosque and a church. People seem to be aware of the bitter results of sectarian conflict. Staiti is not alone in saying that people realized quickly that the sectarian war that engulfed them was fabricated and imposed on them, hence the perceptible change in peoples’ attitudes against sectarianism.

Erdogan/Davutoglu Double-Cross Obama, Rat-Out Pentagon’s Rebels To Al-Qaeda

Obama’s Ambitious FRAC/ARCTIC Drilling Strategy Has Been Shot Full of Holes By Saudis

[SEE:  White House defends Arctic drilling plan ; Shell gets final permit for Arctic ]

Does Arctic Drilling Have A Future With Sub $50 Oil? 

OILPRICE

By
Posted on Mon, 24 August 2015 22:23 | 0

Italian oil group ENI is expected to begin production from the Goliat Field off Norway in a few short weeks. The project, which has cost $5.6 billion, is expected to produce 34 million barrels of oil per year by the second year of production.

Yet ENI seems to be bucking the global trend, as would-be Arctic drillers in other parts of the region hand back leases or allow them to expire, citing high risks and high costs as major contributing factors. Successful environmental campaigns as well as an increased global awareness – and political will – to address climate change have also been influential.

All this against a backdrop of global oil prices below $50 a barrel and an outlook of continued oil market volatility.

With Arctic exploration and production being so expensive, the risks so great, and the current market conditions relatively unfavorable, one might ask why Shell, ENI, and others would continue.

Related: Low Oil Prices: Assessing The Damage So Far In 2015

The main reason is resource potential. The Arctic holds the last, great, untapped oil and gas reserves. The U.S. Geological Survey in 2008 estimated that the Arctic contains 22 percent of the world’s undiscovered hydrocarbon resources, totaling 90 billion barrels of oil, 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids.

But those resrources come at a significant cost. One estimate put project costs in the Alaskan Arctic at 50 – 100 percent greater than an equivalent project in Texas.

Shell has discovered this first hand. The company has sunk $6 billion into its arctic ambitions, and experienced several high-profile setbacks, including the abandonment of its drilling campaign in the Beaufort Sea after its oil rig ran aground in 2012.

Related: Oil Price Collapse Triggers Currency Crisis In Emerging Markets

For many opponents, the environmental cost is simply too high. Environmentalists such as Greenpeace and the National Resource Defense Council, among others, argue that there is no safe way to develop the Arctic region’s oil and gas potential.

U.S. Democratic presidential hopefuls agree. Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley and independent Bernie Sanders have all opposed drilling in the Arctic. Of course, campaign promises are an imperfect indicator of policy action in office. But companies would be wise to take note.

Moreover, with momentum building for this year’s COP 21 climate talks in Paris – and a genuine possibility of reaching global accord on climate action – there are many arguments to support a cutback of such high-risk hydrocarbons exploration.

In a letter in Nature magazine last January, scientists demonstrated that development of oil and gas resources in the Arctic would be “incommensurate” with efforts to limit average global warming to 2C.

Low oil prices and, perhaps more importantly, oil market volatility, is another major factor. Even the great arctic oil explorer Statoil has begun to feel the pinch. Norway’s national oil company has announced it will not be drilling any wells in the far northern Barents Sea this year. The company led the world’s most active arctic exploration campaign in 2014.

Related: This JV Could Trigger A Shale Boom In An Unexpected Venue

At one time ENI held 89 offshore leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas but has allowed many to expire without drilling.

In Greenland, several companies, including Statoil and Engie (formerly GDF Suez) have handed back their licenses. High costs, lack of infrastructure, and climate have made the area particularly difficult for drilling. That British company Cairn Energy had no commercial success after a two-year campaign no doubt influenced others’ decision making.

Meanwhile, back in Norway, Arctic drilling has its own critics. Though not on the scale of Greenpeace’s “kayaktivists”, both Christian Democrats and the Liberal Party have opposed the government’s efforts to redefine the ice edge – which has been gradually receding – and allow companies to develop previously unexplored areas of the Arctic.

Norway is optimistic that companies taking a long term view on oil prices and supply outlook will still be interested in its latest bidding round, which offers acreage in the Barents Sea.

In the meantime, Shell is not expected to begin commercial production until 2030, and any new contracts awarded under Norway’s bid round would likely have a similarly long horizon. Much could change by then.

By Alexis Arthur Of Oilprice.com

 

About the author

Contributor

Alexis Arthur

Alexis Arthur is energy policy associate at the Institute of the Americas, a think tank on Western Hemisphere Affairs based in La Jolla, Calif.

 

 

FSB (Russian Intelligence) Stops Sale of Russian Oil-Drilling Co. To Texas Outfit

[Bloomberg erased the following report from American sites immediately after posting it.  Fortunately for us (us early worm-getting birds), it had already been posted by Forbes in Russia.  The Russian FSB stopped the sale of Eurasia Drilling Co., which would have led to Schlumberger owning the whole drilling company within a short time.]

Bloomberg reported claims FSB transaction Schlumberger and Eurasia Drilling

forbes .RU  [RUSSIAN TRANSLATION]
Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia hinders the biggest deal in the Russian drilling business – the sale of 45,65% Eurasia Drilling Co. (EDC) Schlumberger oilfield services company for $ 1.7 billion, said Tuesday the agency Bloomberg , citing two knowledgeable sources.

According to the source, the FSB is concerned that the transaction western company to get too big impact on the Russian market of oilfield services. A final decision has not been made, the source said. The deal must be approved by a government commission to monitor foreign investment, which considers the transaction in the strategic sectors of the Russian economy. The commission consists of 21 people, among them – the head of the FSB, Alexander Bortnikov, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, and Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.

The press service of the FSB declined to provide you with comments. Official representatives of Schlumberger and EDC declined to comment on the process of approval of the transaction with the Russian regulators. The representative of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russia also declined to comment.

The fact that the deal EDC and Schlumberger have influential opponents, said in July, sources Forbes, familiar with the negotiations. One source said that it was the “siloviki”, two – it’s “structures act in the interests of” Rosneft “.” “Rosneft” and she negotiated the purchase of EDC, but they ended without results, said two people close to the state-owned companies. A source in the “Rosneft” has denied involvement in the company to a delay in the approval of the transaction.

Vice-president of Eurasia Drilling Investor Tom O’Gallaher August 20, he said the company does not know what are the fears of Russian regulators. “This is more a political issue, not the practical difficulties with which we could overcome Schlumberger” – quoted him as saying Bloomberg.

The world’s largest oilfield services company Schlumberger in January 2015 announced its intention to acquire 45.65% stake in EDC, the largest player in the Russian market of oilfield services and drilling services. The transaction amount will be $ 1.7 billion. At the same time Schlumberger reserves the right to subsequently consolidate 100% EDC.

The transaction is scheduled to close in the first quarter of 2015, but its approval was delayed. FAS has put forward a number of conditions to the transaction, in particular, the mandatory sale of shares in EDC Russian investors in the case of new sanctions. The issue of trade was also submitted to the Government Commission on Monitoring Foreign Investment, which has not yet made a decision.

US Stocks Plummet 1000 Points After China Drop—Today Another 1000 Point Drop Expected

[Yesterday, the precious Dow dropped 1000 points when it opened, after the Chinese market dropped by 7%.  Look for a similar drop when it opens again this morning, after China falls another 7 (SEE: Dow drops 1000 points, US stocks plummet at open ).]

China Stocks Plummet Another 7 Percent Amid ‘Mood of Panic’ 

nbc-logo

The CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen dropped 7.1 percent, while the Shanghai Composite Index collapsed 7.6 percent to close below the psychologically significant 3,000-point level.

Underscoring the panic gripping the retail investors who dominate China’s stock markets, all index futures contracts fell by the maximum 10 percent daily limit, pointing to expectations of even deeper losses.

After the turmoil in China rocked world equity and commodity markets on Monday, policymakers elsewhere in Asia sought to soothe fears about the broader impact on the global economy.

“I think it’s important that people don’t hyperventilate about these type of things,” said Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose country is heavily exposed to China, the biggest consumer of its commodity exports. “It is not unusual to see stock market corrections. It is not unusual to see bubbles burst in particular markets and for there to be some flow-on effect in other stock markets, but the fundamentals are sound.”

Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso also said Chinese stocks, which had more than doubled in the six months to May, had been a bubble that was now bursting.

“There’s also suspicion on whether China’s official GDP figures reflect the real state of the economy,” he told a news conference after a cabinet meeting in Tokyo.

After a year of heady gains, Chinese markets have been buffeted by increasing signs that economic growth is faltering.

Saudis Foot the Bill for Zionist TV Campaign Against Iran

Photo: Kaster Pool/Reuters /Landov

Television stations across the country are being flooded with $6 million of advertisements from a group called the “American Security Initiative” urging citizens to call their U.S. Senators and oppose the nuclear deal with Iran.

Though the American Security Initiative does not reveal donor information, the president of the new group, former Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., is a registered lobbyist for Saudi Arabia. Coleman’s firm, Hogan Lovells, is on retainer to the Saudi Arabian monarchy for $60,000 a month. In July 2014, Coleman described his work as “providing legal services to the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia” on issues including “legal and policy developments involving Iran and limiting Iranian nuclear capability.”

The co-chairs of the American Security Initiative include former Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., former Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and former Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga. Chambliss works at DLA Piper, another lobbying firm retained to influence U.S. policy on behalf of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia.

The advertising effort is part of a fierce lobbying campaign to convince senators to support legislation expressing disapproval of the international accord with Iran, which will lift economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for inspections of the Iranian nuclear industry to ensure that it remains peaceful. The vote is scheduled to take place in September.

Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-led Persian Gulf governments have long viewed Iran as a regional adversary. The rivalry stems from the Sunni-Shiite sectarian divide, and experts also believe Iranian oil exports could challenge Saudi Arabia’s dominance in the market. The crises in Syria and in Yemen have become proxy wars between the two nations as Saudi Arabia and Iran are playing an active role in fueling opposing sides in both conflicts.

Last month, Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that senior Saudi officials have reversed course and now express support for the Iran deal.

But analysts believe that Saudi Arabia is still trying to kill the deal, just not in public. As Newsweek reported, Saudi officials speaking on condition on anonymity have attacked the deal. And Saudi media outlets tied to the royal family have also widely condemned it.

Photo: (L-R) U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter meets with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdul Aziz and his security leadership at the Al-Salam Palace in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, July 22, 2015 to reassure the kingdom of America’s support after Washington struck a nuclear deal with Iran.

IDF Raid In Syria Intended To Rally Jewish Lobby In US

‘Israeli bombing of Syria aimed at rallying US Jews against Iran nuclear deal’

jerusalem p

The Israeli reprisals against targets in Syria which were launched on Thursday and Friday were a means to rally American Jewish public opinion against the Iran nuclear agreement, pro-Iranian and Hezbollah officials told Arab media over the weekend.
Quneitra israeliidf car syria

Photographs showing the vehicle which was bombed by IDF forces in the Syrian province of Quneitra were published on Friday, Arab media reported.

Five people inside the vehicle were killed in the airstrike. The group was suspected of firing rockets toward Israel in an attack on Thursday.

According to the official news agency of Syria, SANA, the vehicle which was destroyed by the Israeli air force was a civilian vehicle carrying five Syrian nationals. Syria said the attack was “part of the enemy’s (Israel’s) aid towards Islamist terrorist operating in the region.”

The news agency also reported that during the time of the aerial attack, insurgents attempted to take over the town of al-Baath, but they withdrew after a tough battle.

Provincial governor Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Qader visited the city’s Buildings and Transportation Authority to view damage caused by the Israeli Air Force attack on two buildings.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah was on high alert on the southern border. The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai quoted what he called “insiders” as saying that the Shiite organization heightened security along the border with Israel “for fear of attempts by Israel to drag Lebanon into the escalation with Syria in something that is less than war, but more than a standard military operation.”

Hezbollah operatives believe that Israel may be planning to take action against them because the Israeli leadership considers the current situation as “critical” due to the signing of the nuclear deal with Iran.

“For the last 35 years, Iran was able to assist resistance movements led by Hezbollah and Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip despite imposed sanctions against it,” said Arab sources.

“What would happen then, if Iran had nuclear capabilities in addition to its economic and military capabilities? It would be more powerful, particularly after Russia opened its strategic warehouses.”

It also stated that “the Israeli escalation came in parallel to the accusations of Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who blamed Iran for being responsible for firing rockets into northern Israel and while the Israeli air force began to attack Syria.”

According to the report, “Israel wants to mobilize the American Jewish side, before the vote in Congress on the nuclear deal.”

Saudi War In Middle East Aims To Forcefully Convert Or Kill All Shia Muslims and Christians

[Anyone who can’t see by now that the real “Sunni Caliphate” will be “Greater Saudi Arabia” has not been paying attention to Saudi aggression in the region.  This has been Obama’s goal from the beginning, to hand control over the problematic Middle East to his Saudi patrons. 

(This seems to confirm the normally scoffed-at conspiracy theory, that it has been the Saudis, NOT THE JEWS, who have controlled this so-called “war on terror” from the beginning.)

  War-mongering king Salman has been arrogantly open about his intentions to cleanse the Middle East of Shiites and other religious apostates (this would include Christians, obviously), even whike he pretends to be fighting against the Caliphate of ISIS.  The Saudi royals and their Gulf subordinates have been creating their own Sunni Caliphate, right before our eyes.  The fact that the world’s only hope for humanitarianism, the United Nations, would allow a tribal Arab king to murder thousands of Shia Houthis while conducting its religious ethnic-cleansing operation on the rest of them is proof that human compassion is just another commodity that can be bought and sold like anything else.]

 We will destroy the Houthis if they do not come to reason [i.e., convert to Sunni Islam–ed.].”–Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir

[Such is the human condition, when laid bare before us. 
Where is God in this equation?]

[SEE:UN Capitulation To Saudi Demands Equals Partnership In Ethnic-Cleansing of Middle East]

Religious eugenics

Russia-Today

How Saudi Arabia is sponsoring a frightening new movement in the ME

Catherine Shakdam

© Khaled Abdullah
Blanketed by its wealth and protected by political alliances, Saudi Arabia has covertly run and promoted a new movement in the Middle East: religious eugenics, under the false pretense of opposing the rise of Iran. From Syria to Bahrain and Yemen the evidence is overwhelming.

Earlier this August, the Red Cross added its voice to those of other humanitarian and rights groups in its condemnation of Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, lifting the lid on Riyadh’s little house of horrors in southern Arabia.

In no uncertain terms Peter Maurer, the head of the international Red Cross told reporters he had seldom witnessed such degree of devastation. He said: “Yemen after five months looks like Syria after five years … The images I have from Sanaa and Aden remind of what I have seen in Syria.”

He stressed “the firepower with which this war is fought on the ground and in the air is causing more suffering than in other societies, which are stronger and where infrastructures are better off and people are wealthier and have reserves and can escape.”

A country in ruins, Yemen is also a nation in permanent mourning, as every day its people are relentlessly slain – casualties of a violent and murderous colonial war – the latest victims of Riyadh’s expansionist military campaign in the Middle East.

According to official UNICEF tallies, “close to 2,800 people have been killed and almost 13,000 people injured (including 279 children killed and 402 injured, respectively). An estimated 1 million people have been internally displaced (an increase of 122 percent since the crisis began), and some 400,000 people have sought protection in neighboring countries.”

While such figures are horrifying, they fall short of the truth. Agencies on the ground have already said that well over 500 children have been killed in Saudi-led air raids, most specifically in northern Yemen, where the war has been most devastating and aggressive. On average, children account for a quarter of all deaths and casualties.

For those who have managed to find shelter, living conditions are catastrophic. With no water, no electricity, little food and no access to health facilities ten million children are at risk of disease and starvation – again, North Yemen has suffered the brunt of this crisis.

Never in its history has Yemen experienced such a degree of pain and utter despair. But while wars are generally ugly affairs since they require their fill of blood before the canons finally fall silent, Saudi Arabia’s campaign in Yemen is far from ordinary.

But not only that, Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy in the Middle East is betraying a disturbing and rather ominous covert agenda, one which resonates with ethnic engineering and religious eugenics.

And if so far few have connected the dots, their hands tied by Riyadh’s overbearing and overarching control on media outlets and the grand political narrative, it is high time we learn to recognize Al Saud’s campaign for what it really is: a concerted effort to cleanse the region of all religious minorities, beginning with Shia Islam, its self-appointed nemesis.

To put it in simple terms – under Saudi Arabia’ suffocating grip, religious minorities are dying a slow and painful death.

From Syria to Bahrain, the kingdom’s eugenics campaign threatens the region’s religious and ethnic patrimonies, in a fashion reminiscent of Nazi Germany, when Jews and Gypsies were labeled undesirables.

Saudi Arabia is now building 600 mile wall to keep dangerous people out. What a concept! #tcot#pjnet#FoxNewspic.twitter.com/u056SB7HxW

In an interview this April, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir lifted the veil on Riyadh’s determination to carry through its agenda, no matter the price, no matter the impact. He asserted: “This campaign is having a huge impact in Yemen and it is not over yet. For us failure is not an option. We will destroy the Houthis if they do not come to reason.”

If subtitles were running they would read – the Houthis will be destroyed because they represent a religious challenge to Wahhabism’s hegemony in the region. The Houthis, and the majority of all northerners in Yemen are Zaidis, a branch of Shia Islam.

Is it then a surprise that while South Yemen has benefited from humanitarian aid, North Yemen has witnessed a spike in violence, its seaports targeted to prevent food and medicine to be ferried in? Riyadh is quite simply profiling aid to carry out its religious cleansing, punishing millions for their rejection of Riyadh’s religion.

Saudi Arabia is an absolute theocracy, and as such its very raison d’ être is rooted within its violent and reactionary interpretation of Islam: Wahhabism, the ideology which inspired the likes of Al Qaeda and Islamic State. One of the main tenets of Wahhabism actually calls for the destruction of all religious sects, Islamic or otherwise. For Wahhabis there can be no greater glory than to massacre “apostates.”

And while Riyadh’s neo-eugenics movement has taken on different forms, operating under various denominations depending on the countries it has targeted, the underlying current has been the destruction of religious pluralism.

Let me ask you this: Is there a real difference between Manama’s campaign to strip Shia Bahrainis from their nationality because the House of Al Khalifa seeks to eliminate all political and religious competition, and Islamic State’s murderous rampage against religious minorities in Iraq and Syria? And though Bahrain’s campaign might appear more “elegant” in that it is more covert and pernicious, the intent remains the same.

From the language used to the policies it has carried out in the Middle East, Riyadh has pushed the sectarian card, christening the resistance movement against its eugenics movement, the so-called Shia crescent threat.

The real threat here lies with Riyadh’s twisted crusade and sickening sectarian agenda.

Catherine Shakdam
Catherine Shakdam is a political analyst, writer and commentator for the Middle East with a special focus on radical movements and Yemen. Her writings have been published in world-renowned publications such as Foreign Policy Journal, Mintpress News, the Guardian, Your Middle East, Middle East Monitor, Middle East Eye, Open Democracy, Eurasia Review and many more. A regular pundit on RT, she has also contributed her analyses to Etejah TV, IRIB radio, Press TV and NewsMax TV. Director of Programs at the Shafaqna Institute for Middle Eastern Studies and consultant for Anderson Consulting, her research and work on Yemen were used by the UN Security Council in relation to Yemen looted funds in 2015.

BILLARY—“that depends on what you mean by “emails”

The Deceptions of Hillary Clinton

lew rockwell

 

While the scandal surrounding the emails sent and received by Hillary Clinton during her time as U.S. secretary of state continues to grow, Clinton has resorted to laughing it off. This past weekend she told an audience of Iowa Democrats that she loves her Snapchat account because the messages automatically disappear. No one in the audience laughed.

Clinton admits deleting 30,000 government emails from her time in office. She claims they were personal, and that because they were also on a personal server, she was free to destroy them. Yet, federal law defines emails used during the course of one’s work for the federal government as the property of the federal government.

She could have designated which of the government’s emails were personal and then asked the government to send them to her and delete them from government servers. Instead she did the reverse. She decided which of her emails were governmental and sent them on to the State Department. Under federal law, that is not a determination she may lawfully make.

Yet, the 55,000 emails she sent to the feds were printed emails. By doing so, she stole from the government the metadata it owns, which accompanies all digital emails but is missing on the paper copies, and she denied the government the opportunity to trace those emails.

When asked why she chose to divert government emails through her own server, Clinton stated she believed it would enable her to carry just one mobile device for both personal and governmental emails. She later admitted she carried four such devices.

Then the scandal got more serious, as Clinton’s lawyers revealed that after she deleted the 30,000 emails, and printed the 55,000 she surrendered to the feds, she had the server that carried and stored them professionally wiped clean.

She had already denied routing classified materials through her server: “I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. … (I) did not send classified material .”

Then, the inspector general of the State Department and the inspector general of the intelligence community, each independent of the other, found four classified emails from among a random sample of 40.

Then the State Department inspector general concluded that one of the four was in fact top secret. Since it discussed satellite imagery of a foreign country and since it revealed intercepts of communications among foreign agents, it received additional legal protections that were intended to assure that it was only discussed in a secure location and never shared with a foreign government, not even an ally.

When Clinton was confronted with these facts, she changed her explanation from “I did not send classified material” to “I never sent or never received any email marked classified .” Not only is she continually changing her story, but she is being deceptive again.

Emails are not “marked classified.” They are marked “top secret” or “secret” or “confidential.” Her explanations remind one of her husband’s word-splitting playbook.

Last weekend the State Department located 305 of her undeleted emails that likely are in the top secret or secret or classified categories.

What should be the consequence of her behavior with the nation’s most sensitive secrets?

If Clinton is indicted for failure to secure classified information, she will no doubt argue that if one of the above markings was not on the email, she did not know it was top secret. If she does make that incredible argument — how could satellite photos of a foreign country together with communications intercepts of foreign agents possibly not be top secret? — she will be confronted with a judicial instruction to the jury trying her.

The judge will tell the jury that the secretary of state is presumed to know what is top secret and what is not. The only way she could rebut that presumption is to take the witness stand in her own defense and attempt to persuade the jury that she was so busy, she didn’t notice the nature of the secrets with which she was dealing.

Not only would such an argument be incredible coming from a person of her intellect and government experience, but it begs the question. That’s because by using only her own server, she knowingly diverted all classified emails sent to her away from the government’s secure venue. That’s the crime.

Will she be indicted?

Consider this. In the past month, the Department of Justice indicted a young sailor who took a selfie in front of a sonar screen on a nuclear submarine and emailed the selfie to his girlfriend. It also indicted a Marine who sent an urgent warning to his superiors on his Gmail account about a dangerous Afghan spy who eventually killed three fellow Marines inside an American encampment. The emailing Marine was indicted for failure to secure classified materials. Gen. David Petraeus stored top-secret materials in an unlocked desk drawer in the study of his secured and guarded Virginia home and was indicted for the same crimes. And a former CIA agent was just sentenced to three years in prison for destroying one top-secret email.

What will happen if the FBI recommends that Clinton be indicted and the White House stonewalls? Will FBI Director Jim Comey threaten to resign as he threatened to do when President George W. Bush wanted him to deviate from accepted professional standards? Will Clinton get a pass? Will the public accept that?

Reprinted with the author’s permission.

The Best of Andrew P. Napolitano

Andrew P. Napolitano [send him mail], a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written nine books on the U.S. Constitution. The most recent is Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Lethal Threat to American Liberty. To find out more about Judge Napolitano and to read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit creators.com.

US Navy Eager To Pick A Fight With China To Create Mission For Useless Littoral Combat Ship

[The US Navy might as well dream-up its own missions, to justify their place in the war of terror, the Army has been doing it since the beginning of this global disaster.  The Army, Marines and CIA have been training terrorists and posing as terrorists in order to justify their fight against terror, why shouldn’t the Navy do the same in its shift to the Pacific?  Compounding tensions in the shallow S. China Sea to keep Congress from cancelling the LCS program is merely par for the course.  (SEE:  What Price Freedom? Questions Surround LCS-1 US Navy’s First Littoral Combat Ship Enters Dry Dock for Repairs)]

LCS to Boost U.S. Presence in Disputed South China Sea

military dot com

LCS to Boost U.S. Presence in Disputed South China Sea

The speed, maneuverability and shallow draft of the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship makes the platform well suited for the South China Sea, Pentagon leaders said while releasing a new Asia-Pacific maritime strategy document.

“The LCS is ideally suited for a role in the South China Sea. It is fast, light and flexible and it has a fifteen foot draft so it can go places other vessels cannot go. We plan to have four LCS ships in Singapore on a rotational basis by 2018,” David Shear, assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, told reporters on Friday.

The service has long planned to rotate the ships through Singapore as part of the Pentagon’s shift to the Pacific. However, the increasing LCS fleet size underscores the potential value of the platform in the South China Sea region, where there are many shallow ports inaccessible to larger-draft ships.

The Navy is preparing to receive four more of its shallow-water Littoral Combat Ships between now and February, effectively doubling its current fleet and paving the way for more deployments.

On Aug. 11, the Navy formally accepted delivery of LCS 6, the USS Jackson, during a ceremony at the Austal USA shipyard in Mobile, Ala.

Following this delivery, the service is preparing to accept delivery of LCS 5, the USS Milwaukee, in October of this year and the USS Montgomery, LCS 8, in December of this year, Naval Sea Systems Command spokesman Chris Johnson recently said.

On the heels of these deliveries, the Navy plans to receive the USS Detroit, LCS 7, in February of next year, he added.

“By early next year, the Navy will be operating eight littoral combat ships and we’ll be accepting four more by the end of 2016. The Navy will continue to accept ships at that rate for the next several years making the LCS class the second largest surface combatant class in the fleet and the key to our ability to operate in shallow, coastal waterways around the world,” Johnson recently told Military​.com.

Shear explained that stepping up LCS missions in the South China Sea is part of a broader strategic effort to maintain presence and patrol the area in light of China’s recent efforts to build artificial land structures in the contested Spratly Islands.

China’s island building, referred to by Pentagon officials as land reclamation, has been ongoing effort to further fortify their territorial claims in the region. Pentagon officials have said the China has reclaimed over 2,000 acres of area over the last 18 months, more than all other claimants in the region combined.

In June, Pentagon officials publicly acknowledged that China was placing weapons on the reclaimed islands.

“Our approach to the South China Sea has been robust. We have engaged China repeatedly at the highest levels to implement a permanent halt to reclamation. We of course have a very strong and persistent military presence designed to maintain peace and stability,” he said.

The Spratly Islands includes an area of more than 750 reefs, small islands and atolls in the South China Sea off the coasts of the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam. Highly disputed for centuries, the area is rich in oil and natural gas. Countries claiming rights to territory in the Spratly Islands include China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan, and Brunei.

Shear referenced an ongoing congressional effort to add funds to the 2016 defense bill slated for arming and training U.S. allies in the Pacific.

The South China Sea includes strategically vital waterways, important to international trade. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has criticized China’s artificial island-building and said the U.S. would not be deterred by China’s moves.

“China has said it has stopped reclamation but it is not clear to us if they have stopped or are just finishing up. There is the potential for militarization of these features. We call for a permanent halt to all of these activities. The U.S. does not recognize the sovereignty claims of these artificial islands,” Shear said.

Under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, negotiated in the 1980s and updated in the 1990s, an island is defined as a “naturally formed area of land above the water at high tide.” Also, article 60 of the U.N. Convention says “artificial islands are not entitled to territorial seas.”

Shear added that the U.S. would continue to step up its military presence in the area and work closely with allies in the region. He cited the deployment of V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and two new missile-defense capable destroyers to Japan. Furthermore, the Navy’s new high-tech DDG 1000 Zumalt-class destroyer is slated for the Pacific.

“US forces currently present in the South China Sea conduct a variety of presence operations. We are in the South China Sea on a regular basis,” Shear said.

Shear also added the Navy’s new P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane will also continue to help military efforts in the Pacific. “We have a vested interest in ensuring that territorial claims are resolved peacefully,” he explained.

Obama’s Human Flotsam Washes Ashore In Macedonia—Repelled By Tear Gas

Macedonian police teargas thousands of refugees crossing from Greece – reports

Russia-Today

Migrants camp near the village of Idomeni at the Greek-Macedonian border, August 20, 2015. © Alexandros Avramidis / Reuters
Macedonian police fired tear gas at crowds of thousands of migrants and refugees trying to cross the border from Greece, Reuters reported. The country declared a state of emergency on Thursday over the migrant crisis.

Police fired tear gas from behind barbed wire as an angry crowd demanded passage through Macedonia.

READ MORE: Macedonia declares state of emergency over surge in migrants & refugees, ready to deploy army

Thousands of migrants were stranded near the Macedonian town of Gevgelija trying to get in from Greece, where they entered Europe. They aim to travel on to prosperous northern European countries.

Macedonian government sent riot police and army troops to restore order and deal with the inflow of people choking rail hubs.

Greece and other Southern European countries are being deluged by tens of thousands of refugees from troubled regions of the Middle East and North Africa. The EU is struggling to deal with the arrivals, with members bickering over quotas to accept them.

IDF Jets Bomb Syrian Positions In Golan

RT NEWS

 

An Israeli airstrike against a Syrian military outpost in the Syrian Golan Heights killed one soldier and wounded seven others, Reuters quoted a Syrian army source as saying on Friday. Israeli jets attacked a base on Thursday night in the Quneitra area near the Israeli borders, according to Syrian state television. The Israeli military said it had retaliated against rockets that earlier hit an Israeli village near the Lebanese border. The attack reportedly set off fires but caused no casualties.

 

 

Israeli planes hit car in Syrian Golan, 5 civilians killed – Damascus

 

An Israeli airstrike hit a car in a village in the Syrian Golan Heights along the border, killing five civilians, according to the Syrian army. The attack took place in a village near Quneitra, Syrian state television reported, citing a military source. The air raid comes a day after Israel launched strikes against Syrian army posts in the border area. They were conducted in retaliation for what Israel said were rockets fired from Syria into Israel by Palestinian militants, Reuters said.

 

NATO propaganda centre is opened in Riga

NATO propaganda centre is opened in Riga

pravdaPravda.Ru

NATO propaganda centre is opened in Riga. Riga

Source: Pravda.Ru photo archive

An official ceremony marking the opening of the Strategic Communications Center known as NATO Center of Excellence was held in Riga today. Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, Estonian Foreign Minister Marina Kaljurand, and the US Senator John McCain were present at the event.

The Centre is meant to coordinate the NATO activities, and prepare informational and psychological operations of the Alliance.

The main objective of the Centre, as it was declared, is combating the so-called Russian propaganda.

Such NATO information offices are also present in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The capital city of Latvia Riga is to host a special conference on the strategic communications during the next two days. Representatives of the NATO countries, as well as Ukraine and Georgia plan to discuss the role of social media during the conflicts. Influence of the Mass Media on the society in the period of critical situations will be also discussed by the experts.

NATO worries over the fact that more than a quarter of Latvian residents have Russian roots and speak Russian, that leads to support of the Russian Mass Media they consider to be propagandistic

– See more at: http://english.pravda.ru/news/world/20-08-2015/131696-riga-0/#sthash.XipPkVcN.dpuf

S. Korea Answers Propaganda Broadcasts, Balloons and Provocations With Artillery Fire

[SEE:  The people flying balloons to North Korea (carrying dvds, memory sticks and cash)  ; South Korea: Propaganda broadcasts at North to resume after landmines ; North Korea Promises ‘Military Counter-Action’ to Joint US-South Korea War Games]

Rival Koreas trade artillery, rocket fire at border

12 NEWS TX

By HYUNG-JIN KIM
Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – South Korea fired dozens of shells Thursday at rival North Korea after the North lobbed a single rocket at a South Korean town near the world’s most heavily armed border, the South’s Defense Ministry said.

The North was backing up an earlier threat to attack South Korean border loudspeakers that, after a lull of 11 years, have started broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda. The broadcasts are in response to Seoul’s accusation that the North planted land mines on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone that maimed two South Korean soldiers earlier this month.

The ministry said in a statement that its artillery shells landed at the site where North Korea had fired its rocket. There were no other details from the military and no reports of injuries.

North Korea didn’t respond militarily to South Korea’s artillery barrage Thursday, but its army later warned in a message that it will take further military action within 48 hours if South Korea doesn’t pull down the loudspeakers, according to South Korea’s Defense Ministry.

Authoritarian North Korea, which has also restarted its own propaganda broadcasts, is extremely sensitive to any criticism of the government run by leader Kim Jong Un, whose family has ruled since the North was founded in 1948. Pyongyang worries that the broadcasts could weaken Kim’s grip on absolute power, analysts say.

The artillery exchange also comes during another point of tensions between the Koreas: annual U.S.-South Korean military drills that North Korea calls an invasion rehearsal. Seoul and Washington say the drills are defensive in nature.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye convened an emergency National Security Council meeting and ordered South Korea’s military to “resolutely” deal with any provocation by North Korea.

About 80 residents in the South Korean town where the shell fell, Yeoncheon, were evacuated to underground bunkers, and authorities urged other residents to evacuate, a Yeoncheon official said, requesting anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.

In the nearby border city of Paju, residents were asked to stay home. On Ganghwa Island, residents in villages near a site where South Korea operates one of its loudspeakers were also evacuated, according to island officials.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that a total of about 2,000 residents along the border were evacuated.

Pyongyang has claimed that Seoul fabricated its evidence on the land mines and demanded video proof.

While the Koreas regularly exchange hostile rhetoric, it is also not unusual for fighting to occasionally erupt. Last October, North Korean troops opened fire at areas in Yeoncheon, after South Korean activists launched balloons there that carried propaganda leaflets across the border. South Korea returned fire, but no casualties were reported. Later in October, border guards from the two Koreas again exchanged gunfire along the border, without any casualties.

Before that, the Koreas tangled in a deadly artillery exchange in 2010, when North Korean artillery strikes on a South Korean border island killed four South Koreans. Earlier in 2010, an alleged North Korean torpedo attack killed 46 South Korean sailors.

North Korea’s army said recently in a statement that the South Korean propaganda broadcasts were a declaration of war and that if they were not immediately stopped “an all-out military action of justice” would ensue.

South Korea has said the two soldiers wounded from the mine explosions were on a routine patrol in the southern part of the DMZ that separates the two Koreas. One soldier lost both legs and the other one leg.

The Koreas’ mine-strewn DMZ is a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula still technically in a state of war.

___

This story corrects the name of the island to Ganghwa.

State Terrorism Is State Terrorism, Even When It Is Made By America

[This is a blast from the past, one of the first articles posted on No Sunglasses, 8-19-2008.  The message remains the same,

war criminals
even though Barack Obama has since replaced the Bush dictatorship and multiplied US state terrorism exponentially. 

When read in tandem with the following piece, the message seems highly relevant today (SEE: Escaping The Age Of Mass Delusion—Humanity’s Only Hope).]

If We Could Speak to the People, What Would We Say?

Peter Chamberlin

If we could reach beyond the news filter that keeps real news from the
American people, what would we say? If we figured-out how to get one message
out to the people, what could we say that would actually motivate them to
take a stand for themselves, for their families, for their country and their
world?

The same studies that power the social planners claim that barely 10% of any
group of people follow reason, meaning they cannot be reasoned with. The
same studies also predict that a clear majority of any targeted population
will respond to fear in a shock scenario. We might try reasoning with the
sleeping sheeple, but we would have better odds if we tried to scare them
awake. If we can convey a true image of the evil being done with our
consent, then we might shock the people into the harsh light of reality.

Our leaders are about to allow the economic collapse of the United States,
without telling you beforehand, or helping American citizens to make
emergency preparations.

Their solution to the problem is to seize control of the post-collapse world
militarily, eliminating everyone who gets in the way. This military solution
accepts a very large loss of human lives as necessary “collateral damage” to
the brave plan to take control of the world. When the American people are
overwhelmed by the economic catastrophe, they will hardly notice large
planned population reductions.

All of this is an acceptable solution to our government. For those who try
to protest after the “hammer goes down,” there are hundreds of detention
camps, capable of holding thousands of dissidents, waiting to accept your
silent screams.

But until we get to that point of no return, steps are being taken to reduce
and eventually eliminate all protests to governmental violence.
The Constitution is being reduced piecemeal to a powerless piece of paper.
The courts are bowing down to executive decrees.

Mankind is being kept in check by his own fear. In the face of fear we react
like herd animals, bunching together in search of elusive safety, making us
easily manipulated by those who have mastered the psychology of fear.

Terror is a key element of American politics. Votes are obtained by
frightening the people into your corner, or away from your “unsafe”
opponent. Candidacies are won and lost by negative campaigns of lies and
half-truths that paint your opponent as an unreasonable madmen and yourself
as a heroic messianic figure. US leaders depend upon political terrorism to
get their way in the world, from the local level of “Homeland Insecurity,”
to the international arena, where acts of bloody terrorism are routinely
committed to frighten the locals into political compliance.

“Terrorism–n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a
person or an organized group against people or property with the intention
of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological
or political reasons.”

State terrorism has been an integral part of American government for many
decades. Beginning with the terror campaign of carpet-bombing and
fire-bombing of civilian centers in Germany at the end of World War II (and
the a-bombs), American and British scientists have studied the psychology of
mass fear. This wholesale terror campaign was a new type of warfare,
targeting civilians, instead of concentrating on government centers. The aim
was political terrorism, to turn the citizens of Germany into political
tools to be used to force the German government into submission. By studying
the socio-economic repercussions of the fire-bombing, the American and
British psychologists and sociologists learned how to herd entire
populations through the tactics of fear.

Acts of violent terrorism for political and economic gains have continued
since “the Great War,” against both friend and foe.
Historically, American terror operations like “Operation Gladio” have been
aimed at our allies in Europe even more than against our enemies.
In “Gladio,” (as in all American terror campaigns committed under the banner
of “democracy”), public figures and officials are assassinated, attacks are
carried-out upon police and military forces of sympathetic governments,
trains are bombed with great loss of life, and “madmen”
go on public shooting sprees, all for the sake of scaring European national
opinion into America’s corner.

As always, American terror is hidden by the use of proxies and mercenary
forces, who are blamed for attacks committed covertly by our military and
intelligence agencies. The “war on terror” itself is probably the world’s
longest-running terrorist operation, intended to create the impression that
American-sponsored terror attacks are really the work of a new non-existent,
highly-organized global terrorist adversary. In simpler terms, the United
States government
is the center of world terrorism. Our own government, our
“defender”
against terrorism, is responsible for most terrorist attacks upon innocent
people in the world, that thousands of American troops are defending
against. American-trained forces are killing American soldiers who then
retaliate further against innocent civilian populations where the terrorists
choose to hide.

“Our government” is not really ours at all, having long ago surrendered our
national sovereignty to a consortium of global financiers through the
Federal Reserve System that controls the US.

“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes her laws.”
Mayer Amschel Rothschild

In the process of bringing the US under the control of the international
financiers, represented by the Rothschild interests centered in Europe,
American industry has been destroyed (except for the military-industrial
complex
, needed to pound the recalcitrant world into submission), while the
sham called “democracy” was constructed to create the impression amongst the
unruly people that they actually have power. When the self-appointed
American aristocracy allowed the common man the “right” to vote, it was done
to stave-off more violent opposition and to deceive with the impression of
shared power. Today, decent folk, believing in the illusion of “fair
elections,” remain a real obstacle to saving American freedom from the
hidden dictatorship, which owns all the candidates produced in the
“two-party” system. As long as the majority believes in the system and
continues to empower its candidates, the dictatorship can remain hidden. In
order to expose the hidden machinations of the secret dictators we have to
burst the bubble of illusory democratic power.

At the same time, the fact that the dictatorship wishes to remain hidden,
playing the game of democracy, pretending to seek the counsel of the people,
then they are vulnerable. If they choose to continue the charade of
democratic government, then they have to limit their actions to those which
appear to be “freely” granted by the people through their “representatives.”
As long as those representatives hold the seats of power given them by the
overlords, they will answer only to them. But if enough people call the
representatives to task for failing American democracy they can at least be
forced to publicly answer the charges of failure. If the masses put the fear
of democracy and righteous retribution into the minds of the Congressional
slaves of the money-powers, then they too will begin to retreat from their
open support for measures calling for more war and less freedom. If the
people fully use the First Amendment powers to make democracy work then we
can turn the tide against the center.

They cannot openly carry-out the violent measures required for creating a
world dictatorship and a permanent state of war, taking the brazen violent
steps that have been planned, such as launching nuclear first strikes, or
using biologic attacks to “cull the herd.” As long as the real terrorists
are pretending to be democrats they must act accordingly. Until the world
rises-up against the American imperialist forces in sufficient numbers to
frighten the American people into becoming willing participants in the
genocide of half the earth, other lesser, though equally as threatening,
provocations will continue to be found to frighten us into authorizing the
slaughter.

By placing the will of the people into their formula, they have created a
time lag between cause and effect, where the planned actions must be
preceded by a provocation that motivates the people into consenting to their
own destruction. By incorporating a basically moral people into a completely
immoral plan for world domination, the master controllers have constructed a
flawed plan that depends upon a scientific effort to change good people into
bad. In a country as religious-natured as this one, the great leaders may
have falsely calculated that they can make a nation fear so much for its
life that it would sell its soul for a little peace of mind.

American state terrorism has also been directed against the citizens of the
United States themselves, through more subtle “silent weapons.”
For the entire duration of American terrorist operations against the world,
our government has waged war upon the minds of its loyal citizens through an
arsenal of psychological, economic, and legislative weaponry. The purpose of
these attacks has always been to destroy the American economy and the minds
of the people, while using the economic destruction to justify the full use
of the American military power against the rest of the world.

American leaders consistently work against American interests, while
enriching themselves and their wealthy sponsors who reap opportunity from
our Nation’s demise. In order for these anti-American power-brokers to force
the world into a global dictatorship with them at the helm, they have to
play the “democracy” card, while simultaneously undermining it. Our leaders
have to persuade us into allowing them to destroy democracy in the name of
preserving it. We the People have to be persuaded to peacefully allow the
planned destruction to take place before it can take place. We have to
accept our bleak fates, before it can become our fates.

But the scary truth about the American state terrorist acts that have been
committed so far is that they have provided the needed practice for the
despicable acts that are yet to come. The American war upon the human race
will utilize every weapon in our arsenal, once the way for their use has
been cleared. Weapons of mass destruction come in many forms. In a war for
control of the earth’s resources it would seem more logical to use the
weapons that kill, such as biological weapons, as opposed to those which
merely destroy everything. Instant Death is about to enter the world through
American hands.

The tragedy of our time, perhaps the ultimate tragedy of all time, is
roaring down the highway of life right at us, or is the greater tragedy the
weakness of the mind of man which is allowing this to happen? If we have the
power of change within us and we do nothing, inaction is an act of suicide.

We have to overcome this innate human weakness to prepare our fellow man for
the things that are about to befall this battered planet. So many things are
avoidable in this existence through the use of foresight; if only it was a
common human trait. Any sane person who sees oncoming danger will
automatically step out of its way. As a rule, we humans rarely choose to
step out of the way. Mankind has never been called “sane,” by anyone’s
definition. We must secretly harbor a deep desire to become “road kill” on
the cruel highway of life.

peter.chamberlin@hotmail.com

Russia Agrees To Ship S-300 ABM Missile Systems To Iran

Iran, Russia Reach Agreement on Delivery of S-300 Missile Systems

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Only technical details remain to be resolved in ‘done’ deal, Russian deputy foreign minister says, according to Russia Today.

Haaretz and Reuters

s 300ARCHIVE – S-300 missile system outside Moscow, Aug. 27, 2013.AP

Russian state arms producer Almaz-Antey in June said it would supply Iran with a modernized version of the S-300, among the world’s most capable air defense systems, once a commercial agreement was reached.

Russia says it canceled a contract to deliver S-300s to Iran in 2010 under pressure from the West. But President Vladimir Putin lifted that self-imposed ban in April following an interim nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the most vocal critics of last month’s final nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, has expressed Israel’s “dismay” at Russia’s decision to supply the S-300s to Tehran.

On Tuesday, Iran’s Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan told the Fars news agency that Iran was also negotiating with Russia to buy fighter jets, in a likely attempt to upgrade its aging fleet of mostly U.S.-made jets for which it cannot obtain spare parts or upgrades due to long-standing hostility between the two countries. He did not provide further details.

Escaping The Age Of Mass Delusion—Humanity’s Only Hope

“Human rebellion and dissent cannot be forever suppressed: ‘They await only one breath of freedom in order to awake once more.’”

[How about uniting the non-delusional thinkers around the idea of impeaching our dictator?  (SEE: Bringing Barack Obama To Justice For War Crimes Committed and Crimes In Progress).]

How To Escape The Age Of Mass Delusion

How To Escape The Age Of Mass Delusion

the federalist

Stella Morabito

By

Mass delusion is an important tool of oppressors because they can’t survive free expression. That’s why the First Amendment’s a target.

Nearly 100 years ago, Walter Lippmann wrote about “the manufacture of consent” in his classic work, “Public Opinion.” On the heels of that book, Edward Bernays penned a little volume called “Propaganda,” in which he stated that an elite would always be responsible for making the public aware of “new ideas” which the public would then act upon as the elite nudged them into it. Related, but more in-depth is Jacques Ellul’s 1962 book, “Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes.”

Political propaganda aims to mobilize the masses to move an agenda forward. That’s most effectively done when the masses are unaware of the process. It’s what “community organizers” work towards, whether they know it or not. Once the masses are mobilized to push for a cause, the propagandists’ goals can be put into law.

In fact, many newly propagandized ideas seem to have taken America by storm just in the past decade or so. Same-sex marriage is only one of those ideas. Transgenderism is now eclipsing that notion, and its propaganda techniques—wrapped in the language of civil rights—are getting Americans on board with the idea of erasing all sex distinctions in law, including their own. It’s as though Americans are buying into a fast-talking sales pitch without being allowed to read the print, whether it’s large print or small.

There’s more on the horizon: a singles’ rights movement that promises to end legal recognition of all marriage. Then there is transhumanism, which includes a push to end “fleshism” by enacting laws that protect non-biological entities from discrimination.

Propaganda Is Directing Us Leftward

American conservatives are by and large clueless about propaganda methods and tactics. And it shows. There are virtually no conservative social psychologists around. You’d think once a liberal social psychologist hits the public over the head with this fact some on the Right would take notice and at least try to get clued in.

American conservatives are by and large clueless about propaganda methods and tactics. And it shows.

Meanwhile, the Left has been employing social psychology and depth psychology on the masses for decades. President Obama’s campaign staff was filled with social psychologists. In this context, those who believe conservatives can subsist on reason and logic alone are kidding themselves. It’s no wonder GOP leaders are caving on so many principles, and being absorbed so easily into the Left’s machine.

A lot of people are scratching their heads today, wondering how life got to be so surreal, so fast in the United States of America. Based on the silencing tactics revealed by the LGBT lobby, many observers are likely now thinking: “Gee, I thought marriage equality was merely a gay rights movement. I didn’t realize that fascism was part of that package.” The Great Unraveling continues at a rapid clip when slipping on a pronoun in these days of transgender rule could cost you your career or earn you massive social media rallies chanting “hater” at you.

Even benign reminders of the First Amendment—embodied in Religious Freedom Restoration Acts—are quickly dispatched by mob hysteria. One day a supposedly principled leader like Indiana Gov. Mike Pence promotes the RFRA, and the next day he folds and essentially signs on with the mob.

Even benign reminders of the First Amendment are quickly dispatched by mob hysteria.

There seem to be few independent thinkers left. But even they don’t seem to know what hit them. A woman gets banned by her gym and labelled a bigot because she told management that a man—who she only later learned “identified as female”—entered the locker room while she was getting undressed. Comedians who dare tread into trans territory are shut down. Never before have the media and pop culture dictated in such a draconian manner how each and every one of us is supposed to think about identity. Our own identity.

The list goes on. The unrest and rioting from Ferguson to Baltimore seem to be happening on cue also, with media propaganda that urges it on. There is no real debate on the merits of policies that depend on a blind faith in man-made global warming: those who disagree are labelled “deniers.”

Our Age of Mass Delusion and Logicide

But it was all so predictable.

One of the best books that cracks the code on what we are living through was written by Dutch psychiatrist Joost A. M. Meerloo about 60 years ago. Mull over the first line of his book’s forward, and you will think he is writing about today: “This book attempts to depict the strange transformation of the free human mind into an automatically responding machine – a transformation which can be brought about by some of the cultural undercurrents in our present-day society as well as by deliberate experiments in the service of a political ideology.”

When it comes to understanding the inner workings of social psychology and political correctness, we seem to be at a loss.

That’s from “The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing” (1956). There is indeed a war on the private mind, as Kevin Williamson explained in a recent National Review column. Unfortunately, too many Americans have been sleeping through most of its propaganda battles, and for a very long time. When it comes to understanding the inner workings of social psychology and political correctness, we seem to be at a loss.

Meanwhile, the power elites who now control the media, academia, and Hollywood seem to understand social psychology well enough to exploit it on a massive scale. They have engaged in psychological warfare against the private mind by inducing “collective belief formation.” There’s really nothing new here. Conditioning and nudging the masses into groupthink is a very old trick of all wannabe dictators. The bloody twentieth century is filled to the gills with examples.

Yet it feels like we’ve awakened to an ambush. A lot of Americans watched in shock while cultish mobs suddenly attacked the RFRA that Pence initially defended. But the groundwork for mass hysteria like this was stealthily laid for decades, and the minefields sown.

The groundwork for mass hysteria like this was stealthily laid for decades, and the minefields sown.

Family breakdown led to community breakdown, which we can see in the decline of trust in society. Ignorance was cultivated in the schools through political correctness and squashing free debate. The academy’s disparaging of western civilization virtually wiped out respect for any serious study of history and civics, as well as for the Socratic method and the rules of civil discourse. Political correctness sewed confusion into the language, particularly regarding identity politics. Youth are now set to be programmed for conformity through the K-12 “Common Core” curriculum mandates.

All of that and more promotes the semantic fog that allows for mind rape. It amounts to an act of “logicide,” to borrow a term from Meerloo, whom I will continue to quote below. To kill logic and reason that might stand in their way, wannabe dictators “fabricate a hate language in order to stir up mass emotions.” Leaders in Indiana, Arkansas, and Louisiana have been unable to understand this tactic and are grossly unprepared to deal with it. So they simply surrendered. In effect, they joined the mob, further endangering everybody’s freedom.

The Link Between Crowds and Power

The whole image of such mass delusion in America is surrealistic, especially to comfortably insulated Americans who believe our first freedoms could never really be thrown away in the face of such a full-frontal, PC-induced attack. Most cannot grasp that such mobs are mentally detached from reality. And participants in the mob action cannot comprehend that they are actually cutting off their own freedom of expression, as well as everybody else’s.

Why would anyone want to build such a culture of coercion? In a word, power.

Why would anyone want to build such a culture of coercion? In a word, power. “Equality” is not the reason for what is happening with such mobs. It is the pretext for what they are doing. Like all such deceptions, its sole purpose is as a vehicle to transfer power from individuals to an increasingly centralized state. The fuel, as usual, is the emotional blackmail of people of goodwill, the uses of mass mobilization to exploit that goodwill, then, finally, to render all such goodwill meaningless.

Most who protest the RFRA laws are more likely pawns than true believers. Like the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd, they tend to be atomized individuals who are drawn to the psychic thrill of being part of a mobilized mass that feeds on emotions and can feel a sense of righteousness in the stated pretext. (In the RFRA case, it’s the semantic device of “marriage equality,” but it’ll just as easily be something else tomorrow.) “The ecstatic participation in mass elation is the oldest psycho drama in the world,” wrote Meerloo.

Crowds and Power,” by Elias Canetti, is a classic work that explores in detail the draw of the crowd for human beings. With the continued chipping away of the organic family of mother-child-father, human relationships inevitably become diluted and more subservient to a mass state. This detachment cultivates human alienation, which draws more people to answer to the call of the mass state’s mob.

Detachment cultivates human alienation, which draws more people to answer to the call of the mass state’s mob.

Such protesters and their scores of clueless apologists in the media are also utterly detached from the reality of the meaning of laws such as an RFRA. The RFRA only clarifies that the government doesn’t get to coerce us in private thought or to dictate what we are allowed to feel, believe, think, and express. In other words, the First Amendment is not negotiable if we are to have any semblance of freedom in this country.

But the emotional stew in which we are now boiling doesn’t allow logic or reason to prevail. We can never fight back as long as we are in the dark about how our minds can be manipulated. So we absolutely must try to fully understand the methods and tactics of mental coercion and share that knowledge with others as much as possible.

Brainwashing—Mind Rape—Is for Real

Meerloo published “The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide and Brainwashing” in 1956 after years immersed in the study of social psychology and countless interviews with victims of mental coercion, including Nazi officers and American prisoners of war in Korea. This treasure of insights was written for the layman. It is an absolute must-read for anyone who hopes to uphold the dignity of the individual. The book offers the psychic defenses so lacking among those who submit to logicide.

‘The transformation of the free human mind to an automatically responding machine’ is essentially the story of the transformation of the United States.

“The transformation of the free human mind to an automatically responding machine” is essentially the story of the transformation of the United States of America we are watching in real time today. Delusion is an important element, because tyrannies do not stand up to logic. It seems very sudden, but it’s not. We’re only at this tipping point because we let our defenses down. In fact, if the First Amendment collapses, it would simply indicate a return to humanity’s tribal default position, in which a sort of Nietzschean “Will to Power” rules the day.

Mass delusion is an important tool of oppressors because they can’t survive where free exercise of expression and association is practiced. Unfortunately, delusion can be induced anywhere.

“It is simply a question of organizing and manipulating collective feelings in the proper way. If one can isolate the mass, allow no free thinking, no free exchange, no outside correction and can hypnotize the group daily with noises, with press and radio and television, with fear and pseudo-enthusiasms, any delusion can be instilled.”

Free Speech Is the Only Antidote to Mass Delusion

“The Rape of the Mind” could have served as a terrific manual to inoculate many against political correctness and groupthink, had it not collected so much dust since it was published in 1956. More of us could have learned how free speech is essential to preventing mass delusion.

Free expression is always the prime target of tyrants because it promotes logic, the search for truth, and friendship.

Free expression is always the prime target of tyrants because it promotes logic, the search for truth, and friendship. America is exceptional precisely because it rejects the tyrants’ rule.

Yet as our speech becomes more restricted, we end up more separated from one another and more susceptible to mass delusions. As Meerloo wrote: “Where thinking is isolated without free exchange with other minds, delusion may follow.” He added, chillingly, “Is this not what happened in Hitler Germany where free verification and self-correction were forbidden?”

In his book, Meerloo also shows immense compassion for our human frailties. He understood just how difficult it is to push back against the social pressures to conform. When it comes to brainwashing, every one of us has our breaking point. But we absolutely must push back once we understand those tactics: “The totalitarian potentate, in order to break down the minds of men, first needs widespread mental chaos and verbal confusion, because both paralyze his opposition and cause the morale of the enemy to deteriorate – unless his adversaries are aware of the dictator’s real aim.”

Of course, it’s really hard for control freaks to do their work on us if we are speaking freely with one another in friendship, and especially if we all understand what they are up to and can call them on it in one voice. So their first order of business is to separate us. A sense of enforced isolation is a cruel and effective tool for instilling loneliness and then delusion in people.

According to Meerloo, manipulators accomplish this through the knowledge that “far below the surface, human life is built up of inner contradictions.” Our hopes and fears and longing to avoid social rejection are exploited through the dictates of political correctness, which is the tool that separates people today, especially in that one place where ideas and ideals are supposed to be tested most vigorously in adulthood: the university.

A sense of enforced isolation is a cruel and effective tool for instilling loneliness and then delusion in people.

By squashing free thought in the one place where it is supposed to be especially respected, political correctness circumvents Meerloo’s warning that “the only way to strengthen one’s defenses against an organized attack on the mind and will is to understand better what the enemy is trying to do to outwit him.”

Of course, the fear of isolation isn’t always enough to silence some people. So manipulators repeat lies and sloganeer endlessly to condition their subjects to repress unauthorized speech and thought: “The techniques of propaganda and salesmanship have been refined and systematized; there is scarcely any hiding place from the constant visual and verbal assault on the mind. The pressures of daily life impel more and more people to seek an easy escape from responsibility and maturity.”

It’s sobering to realize that the above words predate the Internet by nearly half a century. They describe perfectly how transgenderism has become such a “thing” and why so few are willing to admit that the emperor has no clothes.

Love and Laughter Dissipate Delusion

As more people succumb to PC conditioning and cede their freedom of thought, it becomes more difficult for the rest of us to maintain integrity of mind. Our audience shrinks. As we encounter more and more drone-like personalities in daily life, the world seems to sink into surrealism, like so many in Rod Serling’s old “Twilight Zone” episodes.

‘The totalitarian mind does not observe and verify its impressions of reality; it dictates to reality how it shall behave, it compels reality to conform to its fantasies.’

Meerloo testified to this feeling of disorientation: “Many victims of totalitarianism have told me in interviews that the most upsetting experience they faced in the concentration camps was the feeling of loss of logic, the state of confusion in which they had been brought – the state in which nothing had any validity.”

That’s because in the mass centralized state, “peaceful exchange of thoughts in free conversation will disturb the conditioned reflexes and is therefore taboo.” On a hopeful note, Meerloo writes that “love and laughter break through all rigid conditioning.”

I think the reason there is so little “comedy” that’s funny today is the genre itself has been hijacked by the humorless PC crowd. Why is their humor so unamusing and so dependent upon mean-spiritedness? Consider this possibility: “The totalitarian mind is like the schizophrenic individual; it has a contempt for reality. Think for a moment of Lysenko’s theory and its denial of the influence of heredity. The totalitarian mind does not observe and verify its impressions of reality; it dictates to reality how it shall behave, it compels reality to conform to its fantasies.”

Along these lines, Meerloo offers a prescription: “We must learn to treat the demagogue and aspirant dictator in our midst just as we should treat our external enemies in a cold war – with the weapon of ridicule. The demagogue himself is almost incapable of humor of any sort, and if we treat him with humor, he will begin to collapse. Humor is, after all, related to a sense of perspective. If we can see how things should be, we can see how askew they can get, and we can recognize distortion when we are confronted with it.”

Freedom Requires Self-Awareness

Before human beings can preserve true freedom, they must first be aware of their individual inner contradictions: “Democracy, by its very nature will always have to fight against dictatorship from without and destructiveness from within. Democratic freedom has to battle against both the individual’s inner will to power and his urge to submit to other people . . . Essentially, democracy means the right to develop yourself and not to be developed by others. Yet to develop yourself is impossible without the duty of giving your energy and attention to the development of others.”

Freedom means cultivating the art of friendship, boldly exercising our rights to free association and to communicate our thoughts to others.

So, in the end, freedom truly depends upon breaking down the walls of separation that tyranny builds. It means cultivating the art of friendship, boldly exercising our rights to free association and to communicate our thoughts to others. It means cultivating knowledge instead of cultivating ignorance.

After all, political correctness is primarily a tool for crushing people’s ability to have open conversations in friendship and mutual respect. In this context, it seems very much like a tool to bring all personal relationships under state control. And it shouldn’t surprise us that this is being done today in the name of equality for certain kinds of personal relationships. Tyrannies always pretend to promote the very thing they seek to destroy.

Resistance Is Not Futile

So, where do we go from here? We need to take philosopher George Santayana’s warning to heart, that those who don’t learn from the past are condemned to repeat it. We need to remind leaders who are tempted to cave in to mob hysteria that resistance to tyranny is not as futile as submission to tyranny.

Resistance to tyranny is not as futile as submission to tyranny.

Nearly 60 years ago, Meerloo warned his readers that we absolutely must equip ourselves for this war on the private mind: “In the future, as our psychological understanding grows, leading politicians will have to be better educated in the principles of modern psychology. Just as a soldier must know how to handle his physical weapons, so the politicians must know how to face and handle the mental strategy of human relationships and diplomacy. He will have to become aware of the pitfalls in all human communication and the frailties of his own mind.”

In retrospect, it’s tragic that virtually all well-positioned people of goodwill seem to have been unaware of that warning, or able to effectively act on it. Worse, many end up caving to tyrants because they are unaware of the tactics on the propaganda battlefield.

Our hope, as Meerloo concluded, is in the reality that human rebellion and dissent cannot be forever suppressed: “They await only one breath of freedom in order to awake once more.”

Hiroshima and Nagasaki—the single greatest acts of terrorism in human history?

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: the single greatest acts of terrorism in human history?

new statesman

Surely 70 years is long enough for us to put to rest the tired canard of the atomic bombings on Japan being “the lesser of the two evils”, and recognise the true gravity of this crime against humanity.

The ground crew of the bomber Enola Gay. Photo: Getty
The ground crew of the bomber Enola Gay. Photo: Getty

Seventy years ago today, the Unites States dropped the atomic bomb “Little Boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, a second nuclear weapon, “Fat man”, was dropped over Nagasaki. To date, these are the only nuclear attacks in the history of human warfare.

The devastation caused by this new weapon was terrifying. The shockwave instantaneously obliterated almost everything within the blast radius. Houses, buildings and trees were levelled to the ground, as if they had been constructed of mere paper. The toll on the cities’ hapless inhabitants was even more dreadful, with the bombs claiming as many as 250,000 lives – the overwhelming majority civilian.

Around half the number died on the day of the bombings. The intense heat and pressure of the nuclear reaction wrought unspeakable horror on the soft bodies of the victims in its path – their blood rapidly boiling inside them, before leaving them as dried husks that crumbled to ash.

h02Shadows of people were etched onto walls and pavements, eerily marking the spot they had been standing only moments before incineration. Subsequent pressure waves squeezed the survivors until their internal organs ruptured inside them.

charonboat_dot_com_hiroshima_victim

Those who survived the initial explosion succumbed to their dreadful injuries over the following days, or developed strange new illnesses from radiation exposure in the bomb’s aftermath.

It is difficult to survey the carnage and devastation, even in the cold light of day 70 years later, and not be appalled at this flagrant crime against humanity. The key justifications for the bombings still rest on the fallacy that they were necessary to end the war in the Pacific, representing the lesser of the evils. Apologists for the bombs claim the only alternative would have involved a protracted ground offensive that would have proved too costly for the Allies.

The somewhat racialised argument goes that the Japanese adhered to a “bushido” warrior ethic of sacrifice, considered surrender to be dishonourable, and were committed to the notion of “total war”, in which every man, woman and child would be mobilised for war, armed with rudimentary bamboo spears if need be. In other words, the Japanese, having rejected all opportunities to surrender, had vowed to fight to the bitter end. Consequently the planned invasion of Japan, Operation Downfall, would have resulted in much higher casualty figures. The US anticipated losing up to 1m US soldiers during the invasion, alongside another 10m Japanese deaths.

However, none of this cold calculation detracts from the fact that the bombings were indisputably heinous acts of state terrorism, fitting the standard definition almost perfectly: the use or threat of violence against civilians, to instil fear and achieve a political goal. Indeed, the Secret Target Committee in Los Alamos proposed that the large population centres of Kyoto or Hiroshima should be deliberately targeted for the “greatest psychological effect,” and to ensure the bombs’ “initial use was sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognised”.

Incidentally, this curious phrasing also points to the true targets of the bombs – the Soviet Union. This atomic diplomacy was effectively a display of strength and a warning to Stalin, representing the opening salvos of the Cold War.

The selection of the cities to be bombed was also more akin to a scientific experiment, rather than a purely strategic military calculation. The nominated cities had thus far been left deliberately untouched during the regular nightly bombing raids, in order to accurately assess the full capacity and damage inflicted by the atomic bombs.

The decision to use the bombs was also predicated on racist and dehumanising attitudes towards the Japanese. The Japanese were frequently depicted as “yellow vermin”, “living snarling rats” or “monkeys”. Indeed, the dehumanisation was such that the mutilation of Japanese soldiers became widespread. US servicemen frequently removed ears, teeth and skulls as grisly war trophies. Even President Roosevelt was infamously sent a letter opener carved from a Japanese bone by a US congressman. It was easier to drop inhumane weapons on those who were not really human to begin with.

But perhaps the greatest condemnation of the bombings is that they were unnecessary on the eve of the inevitable Allied victory, as the 1946 United States Strategic Bombing Survey later concluded. The Japanese were militarily exhausted and on the verge of defeat at this stage. In addition to staggering casualty figures, and extensive devastation of infrastructure through the aerial bombardment and firebombing campaigns, the naval blockade codenamed Operation starvation had also completely crippled the wartime economy.

Yes, unconditional surrender was publicly rejected by Japan’s leaders. However, privately, they were also making desperate entreaties to the then neutral Soviet Union, to mediate peace on more favourable terms. The Japanese would also have been keenly aware that the collapse of Nazi Germany had worrying implications for the redeployment of Allied forces.

The “betrayal” by the Soviets, who declared war on Japan on 9 August, just before Nagasaki was bombed, was the final straw. The Soviet army quickly defeated the Japanese in Chinese Manchukuo, crushing any vestige of hope that Japan might survive the conflict intact.

There is little disagreement that the atomic bombings constituted war crimes, even amongst its architects. As the US Secretary of Defence, Robert S. McNamara, famously reflected: “If we’d lost the war, we’d all have been prosecuted as war criminals.”

Surely 70 years is long enough for us to put to rest the tired canard of the lesser of the two evils, and recognise the true gravity of this crime against humanity.

Dr Akil N. Awan is associate professor in Modern History, Political Violence and Terrorism at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Ankara’s Lies On Syria Contradicted By Washington’s Liars

Ankara disinformation on Syria causes diplomatic fiasco with Washington

bgn news

Washington has had to dismiss statements from the Turkish Foreign Ministry three times in the past two weeks pertaining to developments concerning Syria and the coalition efforts against ISIL.
Ankara disinformation on Syria causes diplomatic fiasco with Washington
On Thursday, a day after Pentagon spokeswoman Commander Elissa Smith said that the United States launched air raids against ISIL from the İncirlik airbase in southern Turkey, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu caused controversy when he proclaimed to the press that, “The US has yet to hit Daesh [ISIL] through Turkey,” adding that only “reconnaissance flights” started from the base.

Later in the day, both the US Central Command and the Turkish Military confirmed that the strikes took place. Çavuşoğlu’s aide claimed the prior statement was a “misunderstanding.” He added, “Mr. Minister had wanted to say that there were no Turkish jets [hitting ISIL targets].”

The safe zone that never was

Thursday’s back and forth between Ankara and Washington served only as a mirror for Wednesday.

Another controversy erupted when foreign ministry undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioğlu claimed that both sides had agreed that a safe zone was to be created in Syria. “The control and protection of this region cleared of (ISIL) will be conducted by Syrian opposition forces and the necessary air defence and support for this … will be provided by the United States and Turkey.”

The response from Washington came with Mark Toner from the US State Department emphasizing “We’ve been pretty clear from the podium and elsewhere saying there’s no zone, no safe haven—we’re not talking about that here. What we’re talking about is a sustained effort to drive ISIL out of the region.”

The PYD and YPG

Another point of difference between Turkey and the United States regarding tackling ISIL has been the role of Syrian Kurdish Groups such as The Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed structure, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), with Ankara against the principle of supporting the groups.

The state-run Anatolia News Agency was on the forefront saying that Turkey and the US agreed not to allow the PYD to enter any area cleared off from ISIL. When asked if the US will allow a potential attack from Turkey against the PYD and the YPG, Toner answered back “No, no, our understanding with Turkey is that they will not attack, and we would not agree to that.”

August 13, 2015 | BGNNews.com | Istanbul

Assad’s army is gaining ground in Syria

Assad’s army is gaining ground in Syria

business insider

Soldiers stand guard on a tank at the Jordanian-Syrian border, near Mafraq, Jordan August 16, 2015.  REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed  
Thomson ReutersSoldiers stand guard on a tank at the Jordanian-Syrian border, near Mafraq, Jordan

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government forces recaptured four northwestern villages on Tuesday in a counter-attack on insurgents threatening strongholds of President Bashar al-Assad, a monitor said.

Government planes launched dozens of air strikes overnight into the morning on parts of the Sahl al-Ghab plain seized by rebels in an advance this month, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Clashes between insurgents and state forces backed by allied militias raged on Tuesday, the monitor and officials added.

“The army is advancing in the area,” a Syrian military source told Reuters on Tuesday.

At least four people were killed in one village, said Abu al-Baraa al-Hamawi of the Ajnad al-Sham rebel group, using a nom de guerre as he spoke via an internet-based messaging service.

This month’s insurgent advance into the plain had brought rebels including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front to the eastern edge of mountains that form the historical heartland of Assad’s Alawite people.

Last week, a military source said the army had retreated to new defensive lines in the area.

The Observatory estimates Assad controls a quarter of Syria, including cities where the bulk of the population live.

(Reporting by Tom Perry and John Davison; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2015.

Bringing Barack Obama To Justice For War Crimes Committed and Crimes In Progress

war criminals

Where is the hope for humanity when “the leader of the free world” actually leads a global war of aggression?

What else could you call the war on terror but a war of aggression, when it is clearly a war of the wealthiest nations against the poorest, a class-war of nations?

aleppo-abandoned-ghost-town-3What do you call it when the richest nations use their modern militaries to devastate poor, backward (Third World) nations, pounding them into dust in order to subjugate them?

Palestinian women sit on the rubble of their home in Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip, Friday, Aug. 1, 2014. A three-day Gaza cease-fire that began Friday quickly unraveled, with Israel and Hamas accusing each other of violating the truce. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

When there is no power on earth capable of stopping, or reversing this global process of dehumanization, then what hope do our children and grandchildren really have in this world?

wolves-eatingIn this brave new world, all of them will either be one of the wolves, or one of the sacrificial lambs.  Is it humane or moral to will such a legacy to our own children, or to the children of other fellow human beings?

Is it time to pray for divine intervention, or time “MAN UP” and do the right thing for a change?

SANLIURFA, TURKEY - JANUARY 30 : Syrian kids fled from the civil war, living in Suruc refugee camp are seen in Sanliurfa, Turkey on January 30, 2015. Syrian kids will be able to continue their education with the Foreign Students Education Operation System in Turkey. (Photo by Orhan Cicek/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

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Obama’s Participation In the Ongoing War Crimes In Yemen

On July 30, 2015, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, famous for decrying genocide as the greatest scourge of humanity, feigned concern over the desperate plight of millions in Yemen who currently risk starvation due to the Saudi-led air strikes and siege upon that country. Thus, Power (@AmbassadorPower) sent out the following tweet:

7/30/15, 8:15 AM
.@UNReliefChief described the critical situation in #Yemen: Of a population of 26m, 21m are in need of aid bit.ly/1Mu1wDm

This message by Ambassador Power, written as it is in the passive tense, is quite curious in that it attempts to put distance between Power herself and the Yemeni crisis, though, in fact, the very author of this crisis is none other than Power’s own boss, the U.S. President.

As the LA Times reported today, the

Saudi-led military offensive against Houthi rebels in Yemen has scored major gains this month . . . after the Pentagon more than doubled the number of American advisors to provide enhanced intelligence for airstrikes.

The role of about 45 U.S. advisors, up from 20, at joint military operations centers in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain has been vastly overshadowed by the far larger U.S.-led air war against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. So has Yemen’s toll of civilian casualties and refugees.

The LA Times further relates that:

The Obama administration is providing intelligence, munitions and midair refueling to coalition aircraft, and U.S. warships have helped enforce a blockade in the Gulf of Aden and southern Arabian Sea intended to prevent weapons shipments from Iran to the Houthis. . . .

Human rights groups say the sea cordon also cuts Yemen off from imports of basic commodities, including food and fuel, adding to the nation’s miseries.

Indeed, the Saudi-led war against Yemen for which the U.S. is providing critical support cannot be understated. Thus, as Reuters just reported:

“The humanitarian situation is nothing short of catastrophic. Every family in Yemen has been affected by this conflict,” [International Committee of the Red Cross President] Maurer said in a statement.

Some 4,345 people have been killed and 22,110 injured since March 19, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday, citing figures from Yemeni health care facilities.

Moreover, the airstrikes and blockade the U.S. is assisting with may actually constitute war crimes, in that they appear to be a means of intentionally starving out the Yemeni population. Again, Reuters relates that

Hilal Elver, United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, said 12.9 million people in Yemen lacked basic food supplies and 850,000 children faced acute malnutrition.

Sieges in a number of governorates, including Aden, Al Dhali, Lahj and Taiz, have been preventing staple food items, such as wheat, from reaching the civilian population, while air strikes have reportedly targeted local markets and trucks laden with food items,” Elver said in a statement.

She said the “deliberate starvation of civilians” caught in armed conflict might constitute a war crime.

In short, the U.S. is contributing to the deaths of quite possibly millions of civilians in Yemen, including nearly a million children. And yet, one barely hears a peep from the mainstream media over this. And meanwhile, you have the curious figure of Samantha Power — for me, the symbol of the U.S.’s moral hypocrisy — who claims to be a warrior for human rights, at least when U.S. enemies are allegedly violating them, but who remains silent in the face of the U.S.’s role in gross human rights abuses.

As a human rights lawyer and instructor, I am deeply concerned about how human rights is increasingly being used by the West, and especially by the U.S., as a bludgeon to justify armed intervention against other nations (e.g., Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine) while these interventions generally result in a worse humanitarian situation than existed prior to the intervention, and while the human rights violations of countries like the U.S. are generally ignored if not outright tolerated. Yemen is a quintessential example of such a destructive “human rights” doctrine, and Samantha Power is the quintessential apologist and enabler of it.

Obama’s “Shock and Awe”—Skeletonized Human Beings Line the Beach Near Tripoli, Libya

EXCLUSIVE: The Mediterranean’s grim tide – shocking never before seen pictures of migrants’ bodies washed up on beach in Libya

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  • WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
  • Bodies of hundreds of migrants who drowned trying to reach Europe by sea are washing up on Libyan beaches
  • Volunteers from the Libyan Red Crescent Society collect the remains every day along a 100-mile coastline stretch 
  • Remains, some just piles of bones, handed to authorities who record the deaths and bury them in unmarked graves

The dead bodies of desperate migrants who were bundled onto overcrowded boats destined for Europe, which capsized killing those on board, are washing up on Libya’s beaches.

Their bones, half submerged in the sand, will be buried in unmarked graves, their relatives unaware their loved ones have perished.

 

Volunteers from Libyan Red Crescent Society collect the bodies which were swallowed and spat out by the Mediterranean Sea as they risked their lives on the perilous journey from Libya bound for the island of Lampedusa off the Italian coast.

Meanwhile, more than 1,000 men, women and children who were able to survive treacherous journeys to Europe continued to be rescued off the coasts of Italy and Greece each day.

Remains: Some of the bodies have been reduced to just piles of bones after they were swallowed and spat out by the Mediterranean sea

Bodies: Migrants desperate to reach Europe take on the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean but hundreds of their bodies have washed up on the beaches of Libya

Heartbreaking: Many migrants are forced to board dilapidated boats with their children, knowing that they may not reach their destination

Buried: The migrants’ bones poke out from under the sand after they drowned while desperately trying to flee their war-torn homelands

Shocking new photographs taken in Zuwara, on the west coast of Libya close to the Tunisian border, show the true extent of the migrant crisis.

Bodies, some of which are barely more than a pile of bones, are being picked up on a 100-mile stretch of the war-torn country from Garaboli to Zuwara.

One heartbreaking picture is of a skeleton, which has been washed up on the beach with the still wearing the pair of yellow trousers and black leather belt they set off in.

Taha Sultan, head of health at Libyan Red Crescent Society, an organisation working on the ground to help the country’s vulnerable population, said hundreds of bodies had been washing up over the past year.

Speaking to MailOnline from Benghazi in the east of the country, he said: ‘We have been dealing with this for more than a year along the west coast.

‘It happens every day. These kind of things happen all the time in Libya.’

Desperate: More than 1,000 people are rescued off the coasts of Italy and Greece every day, but many don’t manage to finish their journeys

Unidentified: Bodies of the migrants are collected by volunteers along the Libyan coastline and are buried by authorities in the country

Record highs: The number of migrants who have successfully arrived in Europe by sea so far this year is already approaching 250,000

Explaining the mindset of the people who board the boats, sometimes with their young families, Mr Sultan said: ‘People are desperate to leave because it’s dangerous, or they fear for their lives.

‘We have war – people get killed and there is no help coming. We also have ISIS here now. It’s very dangerous to live here.’

Libya is split between two governments backed by armed factions fighting each other but which control limited territory.

Islamic State and other armed groups have exploited a growing security vacuum on the ground to expand.

Libya Dawn, an alliance of armed groups, drove the internationally recognised government out of the capital, Tripoli, and declared its own government a year ago, leaving the oil-rich country on the verge of anarchy.

Libya: Bodies are washing up on a 100-mile stretch of the west of the war-torn country from Garaboli to Zuwara, near the Tunisian border

Volunteers: Workers from the Libyan Red Crescent Society, an organisation working on the ground, are collecting more bodies every day

Tragedy: Many of the migrants attempting to gain access to Europe are fleeing violence, natural disasters and poverty in their homelands

Mr Sultan said that those who try to leave the country by legal means are unable to get visas, so opt for dangerous trips across the sea on rickety ships.

Migrants who have arrived in Italy say human traffickers based in lawless Libya charge them between £770 and £1,150 for a place on the deck of boats. Those crammed in the hold pay about half as much as those above.

On Saturday, more than 40 migrants died in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast after suffocating below the deck of an overcrowded boat.

The vessel was carrying around 400 people when it was intercepted south of the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Footage of the rescue showed two navy vessels helping men, women and children off the dangerously overcrowded ship.

The boat was ‘starting to sink’ when it was spotted by an Italian navy helicopter, around 21 miles off the Libyan coast.

Rescuers discovered the dead migrants when the boarded the boat.

Collected: The bodies are removed from the beaches and are handed over to the authorities in the country to be buried in unmarked graves

Deaths: On Saturday, 40 migrants died off the Libyan coast after suffocating below the deck of an overcrowded boat, carrying 400 people

Frequent loss: Hundreds of bodies of migrants have washed up on the beaches of the western coast of Libya over the past year

Survivors of such hazardous journeys have told of how traffickers lock migrants who paid less for the journey in the hold underneath.

These people endure extreme heat in the ship’s hold and there is a high risk of death if it capsizes.

And around 200 migrants were presumed killed earlier this month off the coast of Libya when their boat capsized.

According to the International Organization for Migration, the number of migrants and asylum seekers who have arrived in Europe by sea so far this year is approaching 250,000.

The death toll has risen to at least 2,300, but the figure is likely to be higher because some of the dead are never recovered.

Mr Sultan explained that the bodies are handed over to authorities, which photograph them and document the deaths before burying them.

More than 100,000 migrants have crossed the Channel of Sicily from Libya to reach safety in Italy so far this year.

Death toll: At least 2,300 migrants are known to have died this year while trying to reach Europe by sea, but the real figure will be higher

Frequent fatalities: About 200 migrants were presumed killed earlier this month off the Libyan coastline when their boat capsized

Route: An estimated 102,000 migrants have successfully crossed the Channel of Sicily from Libya to reach safety in Italy this year

The Impulse Towards Fascism and the Homogenized Society

Why aren’t we living in H.G. Wells’ scientific dictatorship?

IEET


Rick Searle

By Rick Searle
Utopia or Dystopia

 

One of the more depressing things to come out of the 2008 financial crisis was just how little it managed to effect our expectations about the economy and political forms of the future. Sure, there was Occupy Wall Street, and there’s been at least some interesting intellectual ferment here and there with movements such as Accelerationist Marxism and the like, but none have really gone anywhere. Instead what we’ve got is the same old system only now with even more guarantees and supports for the super rich. Donald Trump may be a blowhard and a buffoon, but even buffoons and blowhards can tell the truth as he did during last Thursday’s debate when he essentially stated that politicians were in the pocket to those with the cash, such as himself, who were underneath it all really running the show.

The last really major crisis of capitalism wasn’t anything like this. In the 1930’s not only had the whole system gone down, but nearly everyone seemed convinced that capitalism, (and some even thought the representative democracy that had emerged in tandem with it) was on the way out.

Then again, the political and economic innovation of the early 20th century isn’t the kind of thing any of us would wish for. Communists, which to many born after 1989 may seem as much like antiquated creatures from another world as American revolutionaries in powdered wigs, was by the 1930’s considered one of the two major ways the society of the future would likely be organized, and its’ competitor over the shape of the future wasn’t some humane and reasoned alternative, but the National Socialism of Hitler’s dark Reich.

things to come

If one wants to get a sense of the degree to which the smart money was betting against the survival of capitalism and democracy in the 1930’s one couldn’t do much better than that most eerily prescient of science-fiction prophets – H.G. Wells. In many ways, because he was speaking through the veneer of fiction Wells could allow himself to voice opinions which would have led even political radicals to blush. Also, because he was a “mere” fiction author his writings became one of the few ways intellectuals and politicians in liberal societies could daydream about a way out of capitalism’s constant crises, democracy’s fissiparousness and corruption, and most importantly for the survival of humanity in light of the nation-state’s increasingly destructive wars.


Well’s 1933 The Shape of Things to Come,

published not long after the Nazis had come to power in Germany, is perhaps his best example of a work that blurs the boundaries between a work of fiction and a piece of political analysis, polemic, and prediction. In the guise of a dream book of a character who has seen the future of the world from the 1930’s to the middle of the beginning of the 22nd century, Wells is able to expound upon the events of the day and their possible implications- over a century into the future.

Writing six years before the event takes place Well’s spookily imagines World War II beginning with the German invasion of Poland. Also identifying the other major aggressor in a world war still to come, Wells realizes Japan had stepped into a quagmire by invading China from which much ill would come.

These predictions of coming violence (Wells forecast the outbreak of the Second World War to be 1940- one year off) are even more chilling when one watches the movie based upon the book, and know that the bombings of cities it depicts is not some cinematographer’s fantasy, but will no doubt have killed some of those who watched the film in theaters in 1936- less than five years later.

Nevertheless, Wells gets a host of very important things, not only about the future but about his present, very wrong. He gets it ass backwards in generally admiring the Soviet Union and seeing its’ problem not being the inhuman treatment by the Communist regime of its citizens, but the fact that they have wed themselves to what Well’s believes is an antiquated, dogmatic theory in Marxism.

Indeed, Wells will build his own version of dictatorship in The Shape of Things to Come (though versions of it can be seen in his earlier work) using the ideas of two of Soviet communism’s founders- Trotsky’s idea of a global revolutionary movement which will establish a worldwide government and Lenin’s idea of an intellectual nucleus that will control all the aspects of society.

Nor, did Wells really grasp the nature of Nazism or the strange contradiction of a global alliance of fascist regimes that ostensibly worship the state. Wells saw Hitler as a throwback to a dying order based on the nation-state. His only modernity being

“…control by a self-appointed, self-disciplined élite was a distinct step towards our Modern State organization.” (192)

Wells therefore misses the savagery born of the competition between world shaping ideologies and their mobilization of entire societies that will constitute the Second World War and its aftermath.

Ironically, Wells mistakenly thinks WWII will be short and its fatalities low because he gets his technological predictions right. He clearly foresees the role of the importance of the tank, the airplane, and the submarine to the future war and because of them even anticipates the Nazi idea of blitzkrieg. At one point he seems to have a glimmer of the death spirit that will seize over humankind during the war when he compares the submarine to a sacrificial altar:

The Germans supplied most of the flesh for this particular altar; willing and disciplined, their youngsters saluted and carried their kit down the ladder into this gently swaying clumsy murder mechanism which was destined to become their coffin. (70)

Nevertheless, he fails to see that the Second World War will unleash the kinds of violence and fanaticism formerly only seen in religious wars.

Two decades after Wells’ novel many would think that because of the introduction of nuclear weapons wars would be reduced to minutes. Instead conflict became stretched out across multiple decades. What this is should teach us is that we have no idea how any particular technology will ultimately affect the character of war – especially in terms of its intensity or duration- thus those hoping that robotic or cyber weapons will return us to short decisive conflicts are likely seeing a recurrent mirage.

Wells perhaps better understood than other would be revolutionaries and prophets of the time just how robust existing societies were despite their obvious flaws. The kind of space for true political innovation had seemingly occurred only during times of acute stress, such as war, that by their nature were short lived. A whole new way of organizing society had seemingly revealed itself during World War I in which the whole industrial apparatus of the nation was mobilized and directed towards a particular end. Yet the old society would reassert itself except in those societies that had experienced either defeat and collapse or Pyrrhic victory (Italy, Japan) in the conflict.

Wells thus has to imagine further crises after economic depression and world war to permanently shatter Western societies that had become fossilized into their current form. The new kind of war had itself erased the boundary between the state and the society during war, and here Wells is perhaps prescient in seeing the link between mass mobilization, the kinds of wars against civilians seen in the Second World War and insurgency/terrorism. Yet he pictures the final hammer blow not in the form of such a distributed conflict but coming in the form of a global pandemic that kills half of the world’s people. After that comes the final death of the state and the reversion to feudalism.

It is from a world ruled by warlords that Wells’ imagined “Air Dictatorship” will emerge. It is essentially the establishment of global rule by a scientific technocracy that begins with the imposition of a monopoly over global trade networks and especially control over the air.

To contemporary ears the sections on the Air Dictatorship can be humorously reminiscent of an advertisement for FedEx or the US Navy. And then the humor passes when one recalls that a world dominated by one global straddling military and multinational corporations isn’t too far from the one Wells pictured even if he was more inspired by the role of the Catholic Church in the Dark Ages, the Hanseatic League or the what the damned Bolsheviks were up to in Russia.

Oddly enough, Wells foresaw no resistance to the establishment of a world-state (he called it The Modern State) from global capitalists, or communists or the remnant of the security services of the states that had collapsed. Instead, falling into a modernist bias that remains quite current, Wells sees the only rival to the “Modern State” in the form of the universal religions which the Air Dictatorship will therefore have to destroy. Wells’ utopians declare war on Catholics (Protestants oddly give no resistance) forcefully close Mecca and declare war on Kosher foods. And all this deconstruction to be followed by “re-education” Wells thinks could be done without the kinds of totalitarian nightmares and abuses which are less than two decades away from when he is writing The Shape of Things.

I am not particular fan of the universal confusion called post-modernism, but it does normally prevent most of us from making zingers like Wells’ such as this:

They are going to realize that there can be only one right way of looking at the world for a normal human being and only one conception of a proper scheme of social reactions, and that all others must be wrong and misleading and involve destructive distortions of conduct. (323)

Like any self-respecting version of apocalypse, Wells imagines that after a period of pain and violence the process will become self sustaining and neither will be required, though most honorably for the time Wells thinks this world will be one of racial equality that will never again suffer the plague of extreme want.

Analogous to the universal religions, after the establishment of the Modern State all of humankind will become party to ultimate mission of the scientific endeavor which the protagonist in the movie version sums up manically in this crazy speech at the end of the film:

For man, no rest, he must go on. First this little planet and its’ winds and ways, and then all of the laws of mind and matter that restrain him. Then the planets above and at last out across immensity to the stars. And when he conquers all the depths of space and all of time still he will not be finished.

All the universe or nothing! Which shall it be?

(As a side note Ken Stanley Robinson seems to think this modernist’s dream that the destiny of humanity is to settle the stars is still alive and kicking. In his newest novel he is out to kill it. Review pending. )

To return to our lack of imagination and direction after 2008: we, unlike Wells, know how his and similar modernist projects failed, and just how horribly they did so. Nevertheless, his diagnosis remains largely sound. It might take a crisis the scale none of us would wish for to engender real reform let alone the taking of radically new directions. Given historical experience such crises are much more likely to give rise to monsters than anything benign.

Anarchists seem to grasp the shape of the time but not its implications. In a globalized world power has slipped out of the grasp of democratic sovereignty and into the hands of networked organizations- from multinational corporations, to security services, to terrorists and criminal groups able to transcend these borders. Yet it is tightly organized “machine like” organizations rather than decentralized/anarchic ones that seem to thrive in this feudal environment, and whereas that very feudalism and its competition makes achieving a unified voice in addressing urgent global problems even more difficult, and where despite our current perceptions, war between the armed groups that represent states the gravest existential threat to humanity, we, unlike Wells, know that no one group of us has all the answers, and that it is not only inhumane but impossible to win human unity out of the barrel of a ray gun


Rick Searle, an Affiliate Scholar of the IEET, is a writer and educator living the very non-technological Amish country of central Pennsylvania along with his two young daughters. He is an adjunct professor of political science and history for Delaware Valley College and works for the PA Distance Learning Project.

Fugitive Pakistani Taliban Trio Hits Back At Anti-Taliban Punjab Politician

[SEE:  Anti-Taliban Minister and 13 Others Killed in Pakistan Suicide Bombing ; Collective front: Mangal Bagh, Jamaatul Ahrar TTP merge]

[Jamaatul Ahrar led by Omar Khalid Khorasani, Mullah Fazlullah, Mangal Bagh (Laskar i-Islami) reformed the Taliban without the Mehsud faction.]

Jamatul Ahrar claims suicide attack on Shuja Khanzada

ary news

Jamatul Ahrar claims suicide attack on Shuja Khanzada

ATTOCK/ISLAMABAD: A splinter group of banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has claimed responsibility of the suicide attack on Punjab Home Minister Shuja Khanzada, which claimed 19 lives including the minister on Sunday, ARY News reported.

Our correspondent quoted sources as saying that Jamatul Ahrar – a splinter group of outlawed TTP – claimed the responsibility of the attack on Shuja Khanzada.

He added the late minister in a press conference had accused Jamatul Ahrar along with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) of acquiring funds from Indian covert agency Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW).

Khanzada said the two outfits receive funds from R&AW for carrying out terrorist activities in Pakistan.

The minister was under constant threat by defunct organizations which he also expressed on occasions.

On the other hand, funeral prayers of Shuja Khanzada and other martyred officials of the today’s attack have been offered in Attock.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharif, CM KPK Pervez Khattak, IG Punjab Mushtaq Sukhera and other higher officials attended the prayers.

At least 19 people including Punjab’s Home Minister Shuja Khanzada were killed in the wake of a suicide attack that took place in Attock on Sunday morning.

According to details, Colonel (r) Shuja Khanzada was listening to the complaints of the people when a suicide blast rocked his political office in Attock.

The blast was so intense that the roof of the building came crashing down, crushing him and several others.

Rescue and security teams reached the scene after the blast. Heavy machinery was called to remove the debris and save the people trapped under the rubble.

His body was finally recovered from the rubble while more corpses are still being retrieved from the debris.

At least 12 people, including the minister and a senior police official, have died in the blast.

Pentagon Plays Catch-Up In Electronic Defensive Measures

US

In an effort shore up its missile defense capabilities, the US military has conducted a massive electronic warfare exercise. The concern? Russian radar jamming technology.

Last spring, the US Army conducted a highly classified exercise deep in the New Mexico desert.  Held at White Sands Missile Range, the electronic warfare drills were designed to find weaknesses in the Pentagon’s missile defense capabilities.

To accomplish this, the military mimicked a series of offensive jamming attacks to test the readiness of the defense system. Evidently, those networks need a lot of improvement, as the results of the exercise produced nearly 70 terabytes of data, roughly twice the size of Wikipedia.

But the prime reason for the drills is concern that Russian and Chinese technology is too advanced for the US military to confront. According to Brig. Gen. Neil Thurgood, the Army’s Program Executive Officer (PEO) for Missiles & Space, America’s principal foes have developed advanced digital jamming far beyond old-school analog technology.

That advanced tech is not only capable of blocking missile defense radars from intercepting incoming signals, but can also fool the defenses with a false radar pulse.

Essentially, Russian and Chinese jammers can trick US missile defense networks into firing at empty sky.

To improve those defenses, the Army is hoping to streamline its computer networks.  Testing the Integrated Air & Missile Defense Battle Command System, the exercise at White Sands experimented with combining multiple radars into one, fluid, detection apparatus.

“Today, we don’t hook all those together. We don’t see one single air picture, one composite track for one target,” Thurgood told Breaking Defense. “[But in the exercise] we had the Patriot weapon platform, the Sentinel [radar], the Avenger weapon platform, all linked to IBCS, all making the composite track, one track from all the sensors, and we practiced engagements…”

By relying on multiple radar platforms, it will prove more difficult to fool any one installation.

Of course, even with new ideas for improvement, it could still take over a year to fully analyze the results of the exercise, and even longer to implement any corrections.

This isn’t the first sign that Western missile defense systems need drastic overhauls. On Wednesday, the head of the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) announced that the organizations missile defense program “will not work” against an enemy attack.

While NORAD’s concerns don’t involve radar jamming, specifically, it is adopting a similar strategy to fix its flaws. By developing a global network capable of quickly transmitting targeting data, the defense organization hopes to improve its response time.

“We have the technology,” Admiral Bill Gortney told Breaking Defense. “The technologies are probably all out there. It’s getting it aligned.”

The Dismemberment of Syria

Syria’s new diplomacy

jerusalem p

Iran and Saudi Arabia have put forward rival peace plans for Syria, but their aims are irreconcilable and no end to the conflict is in sight.

assadSyrian President Bashar Assad waves to supporters in Damascus. (photo credit:REUTERS)

As the civil war over the ruins of Syria grinds on into its sixth year, the fighting seems nowhere near an end.

Indeed, there is no longer a single war taking place in the country. Rather, as Syria physically divides into separate entities, so the conflict, too, further subdivides, spawning new conflicts.

There are today no less than five conflicts taking place within the borders of the country: the contests between the Sunni Arab rebels and the Assad regime/Hezbollah/Iran (the original war which brought about the others); the Kurdish YPG’s fight against Islamic State; intermittent clashes between the Sunni Arab rebels and Islamic State; Islamic State’s own war against the Assad regime; and now the renewed war between Turkey and the PKK, which is being played out partly on Syrian soil.

The presence of these five interlocking conflicts notwithstanding, efforts to make diplomatic progress toward some form of settlement, or at least freezing of the conflict, are under way.

Recent days have seen details emerge of two rival “peace plans” for Syria. One of these is sponsored by the Iranians, the main supporters of the Assad regime, the other is the handiwork of Saudi Arabia, which wants the removal of the regime and supports elements among the Sunni Arab rebellion against it.

Neither plan stands much chance of implementation. But the content of the plans and their very existence demonstrate that the Syrian situation is not static. They also indicate the extent to which the aims of the backers of the combatant sides are currently irreconcilable.

The Iranian proposal, according to a report in the Araby al-Jadid newspaper on Monday, constitutes a plan for the freezing of the conflict in place and the subsequent de facto partition of Syria. According to the newspaper, the plan is being promoted by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif during his current round of meetings with regional officials.

The plan proposes that each side would hold on to its current areas of control, except for the city of Aleppo, which would come under international supervision.

The regime and the rebels would then cooperate with the international coalition in the fight against Islamic State. Negotiations between the sides would continue, with the intention of forming a “national government, writing a new constitution and holding nationally monitored elections.”

The regime, according to the plan, would keep control of “Damascus, the Syrian-Lebanese border, Qalamoun, western Ghouta, Zabadani, Homs and the area to its west all the way to the Syrian coast, and Tartus Port.”

This is in essence the area controlled by the regime today. The apparent willingness of the regime’s backers to “settle” for this area rather than to continue to hold out for the eventual reconquest of the entire country (Syrian President Bashar Assad’s aim throughout the war) reflects the declining military fortunes of the Assad regime.

The regime now controls only just over 20 percent of the area of Syria.

In the north, it is reeling from the hammer blows inflicted by the Jaysh al-Fatah (Army of Conquest) rebel coalition.

This coalition includes some of the strongest Islamist rebel forces in Syria. Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian franchise of al-Qaida, is a component part of it, as is Ahrar al-Sham, the most powerful of the homegrown Salafi groups on the Syrian battlefield.

It is supported by Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The Saudi provision of US Tow antitank missiles, transported across the border from Turkey, is playing a telling role in the fighting, reducing the regime’s advantage in heavy weaponry.

As of now, Jaysh al-Fatah is attempting to destroy the final regime positions on the Al-Ghab plain. Loss of these positions raises the frightening prospect for the regime of the front line moving into the populated parts of Latakia province, the heartland of its support.

Already, the Alawi villages in Latakia are within range of the rebels’ missiles. Entry into Latakia would effectively end Assad’s hopes of preserving intact a safe area of the country for the members of his sect and other supporters of the regime.

Should the pivotal Joureen base in Ghab fall to the rebels, the regime would then face the possibility of its supply lines to the city of Hama further south being cut off.

The regime is therefore fighting desperately to hold its positions on the flat, barren Sahel al-Ghab. Hezbollah fighters are there, fighting alongside Shi’ite “volunteers” from as far afield as Afghanistan.

The motley collection of regime defenders in Ghab reflect the key difficulty which Assad has faced since the commencement of the war. The narrow base of support of his regime has meant that he has faced severe challenges in mustering sufficient manpower to defend the areas under his control.

The solution until now has been to reduce these areas. At a certain point, of course, the shrinking size of the regime’s domain raises the question of its continued viability.

This point may now be approaching.

The Saudis, however, have made clear that the current Iranian proposals are unacceptable. The sticking point, as Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir outlined in a statement this week, is that Riyadh wants Assad’s immediate departure from power rather than a continued role for him in any transitional phase.

“There is no place for Assad in the future of Syria,” Jubeir said, speaking in Moscow after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“Assad is part of the problem, not part of the solution.”

Saudi counterproposals, as reported in the Al-Hayat newspaper this week, envisage the immediate cessation of Iranian and other outside support for the regime and the departure of Hezbollah fighters from Syria, followed by new, UN-supervised presidential and parliamentary elections, after the stepping down of Assad.

The differences are familiar and not yet close to being bridged. The diplomacy, as ever, mirrors the military situation on the ground.

Assad’s fortunes have declined.

This is leading to reduced ambitions and consequently increased flexibility on the part of his backers.

But there are no signs yet that his allies are about to desert him, nor that their reduced demands are anywhere close to being acceptable to the forces behind the rebels. So the fight goes on.

More important, it should be remembered that the war between Assad and the Sunni rebels is now only one of the several conflict systems that have torn Syria apart. So even if Assad’s declining fortunes were to lead to his departing the scene, the war for Syria’s succession, and the suffering of its inhabitants, would almost certainly not be at an end.

Turkish Civil War?

[SEE:  “We Have A Civil War”: Inside Turkey’s Descent Into Political, Social, And Economic Chaos ]

Huge explosion as police safely detonate bomb-laden vehicle in eastern Turkey

todays zaman

Huge explosion as police safely detonate bomb-laden vehicle in eastern Turkey

Turkish police department safely detonated a bomb-laden vehicle parked along the Diyarbakır-Batman highway on Friday. (Photo: DHA)

TODAYSZAMAN.COM / ISTANBUL
Turkish bomb disposal experts were taken aback on Friday when the controlled explosion of a car bomb in the Kurdish-dominated southeast caused a massive blast that scattered debris and caused panic amongst bystanders.

After sealing off the area in the southeastern region of Batman, experts transported the abandoned car to an open space and set off a controlled detonation, the private Dogan news agency reported.

But the blast unleashed a huge ball of fire and smoke, with video footage by Dogan showing bystanders running in panic.

The powerful explosion shattered the windows of nearby buildings and one person was wounded by broken glass, Dogan said.

There was no immediate claim for who set the bomb but the incident comes amid a spate of daily attacks in Turkey carried out by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Police were alerted after a car rental company’s owner called to report a suspicious person who had hired a vehicle.

The suspect said he was renting the car to travel to Hasankeyf, a major historic site on the Tigris River now partially flooded by dam waters.

Police were still searching for the suspect.

Ankara is waging a two-pronged offensive to bomb Islamic State (IS) militants in Syria and PKK rebels in northern Iraq and southeast Turkey following a series of deadly attacks.

So far, the operation has focused largely on the Kurdish rebels, who have responded by tearing up a 2013 ceasefire and waging a bloody campaign against the security forces.

Russia Promises To Veto Future UN Sanctions Against Iran

Iran nuclear deal sanctions
Negotiators for Iran and six world powers face each other in the historic Palais Coburg hotel in Vienna April 24, 2015. Moscow is expected to veto all future sanctions against Iran, placing extra pressure on the White House’s deal with the Middle Eastern country. Reuters/Heinz-Peter Bader

Russia has vowed to veto any future attempts by the United Nations to hit Iran with new sanctions, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Friday. Russia carries a veto as a permanent member of the Security Council and can block any proposal put forward.

The Russian warning adds another layer of intrigue as Congress decides whether it should agree to the Iran nuclear deal that the Obama administration helped broker last month. Congress is likely to reject the deal, but possibly not with enough votes to beat the expected presidential veto.

The fear is that if the deal is goes through and sanctions are eventually lifted, Russia will prevent them from ever being applied again. In short, it will be difficult for the international community to punish Iran under a U.N. mandate in the future.

Obama Now Erdogan’s “Bitch” Over ISIS/KURD Deception

“A Turkish officer entered the allied headquarters in the air war against ISIS and announced that the strike would begin in 10 minutes and he needed all allied jets flying above Iraq to move south of Mosul immediately,” the source said. “We were outraged.”

Senior US military official: Turkey ‘needed a hook’ and tricked us on ISIS

business insider

turkey pkkREUTERS/Umit BektasA woman after having her nails painted with the colors of the flag of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), during a gathering celebrating Newroz, which marks the arrival of spring and the new year, in the border town of Suruc, Sanliurfa province, on March 17.

A senior US official has accused Turkey of pulling a bait-and-switch by using a recent anti-Islamic State agreement with the US as a “hook” to attack the Kurdish PKK in northern Iraq, The Wall Street Journal reports.

“It’s clear that ISIL was a hook,” the senior military official told The Journal, referring to the Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh).

“Turkey wanted to move against the PKK, but it needed a hook.”

On Tuesday, an American military source told Fox News that US military leaders were “outraged” when Turkey began its bombing campaign, giving US special forces stationed in northern Iraq virtually no warning before Turkish jets started striking the mountains.

“A Turkish officer entered the allied headquarters in the air war against ISIS and announced that the strike would begin in 10 minutes and he needed all allied jets flying above Iraq to move south of Mosul immediately,” the source said. “We were outraged.”

The confrontation highlights the tension growing between the US and Turkey, which became a reluctant ally in the fight against ISIS after years of turning a blind eye to the militants’ illicit activity on its southern border during the Syrian civil war.

Ankara officially joined the coalition fight against ISIS on July 24, striking ISIS (and the PKK) on the same day. It also recently began allowing the US to use the Incirlik airbase in Turkey to carry out strikes against ISIS.

But Turkey has conducted 300 strikes against the PKK and three against ISIS since July 24, according to data compiled by IRIN news. All three ISIS strikes occurred on the first day of the campaign.

Nearly 400 Kurdish militants have been killed, IRIN reports, compared with nine ISIS militants.

When asked about Turkey’s commitment to fighting ISIS, a senior defense official said “there are still question marks out there. Our folks are very eager to put it to the test.”

And if Turkey keeps going after the PKK while trying not to provoke ISIS, “it will leave the US without a Syria strategy,” geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer told Business Insider by email.

“Access to Incirlik airbase matters, but the additional bombing it enables will only help contain ISIS, not roll it back,” Bremmer added. “And it will leave Washington without the improved relations with Ankara that the Obama administration is hoping for.”

ISIS map as of July 27 2015Reuters

The ongoing bombing campaign against PKK strongholds in northern Iraq came as a surprise, but it probably shouldn’t have: Turkey has long seen the PKK — a designated terrorist organization that waged a three-decade insurgency inside Turkey — as more of an existential threat than ISIS, which refrained from launching attacks inside Turkey even as its militants lived and operated along the border.

“The PKK is a bigger threat to us, as it is active within the country,” a Turkish official told The Wall Street Journal. “They stage attacks on our security forces on a daily basis, in many cities. ISIS is more active in Syria, and is therefore less urgent now.”

kurds kurdish populationREUTERS

Moreover, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s bombing campaign — capitalizing on the nationalist, anti-Kurd sentiment that has been steadily growing inside Turkey — could help him regain his AKP party’s absolute majority in parliament now that coalition talks have failed and snap elections are likely.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, also a member of the AKP, said on Thursday he would prefer an election to be held “as soon as possible”, Reuters reported.

“The AKP needed the Kurdish angle to sell the war to ultranationalists inside Turkey,” whose main priority is to curb Kurdish territorial gains along its southern border, Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider last month.

But Erdogan’s gamble has come at a price: Nearly 40 Turkish police officers and military officials have been attacked and killed by PKK militants since the war began, and that number is increasing every day.

turkeyREUTERS

Erdogan has also complicated his party’s relationship with Washington further: While the White House was relieved when Turkey announced it would allow the US to launch airstrikes against ISIS from Incirlik airbase in its southeast, the PKK is a politically contentious target.

The militia was working with US-backed Kurdish fighters to repel ISIS from northern Iraq and is also closely linked to the Kurdish YPG militia, which, backed by US airstrikes, has proved to be the most effective force fighting ISIS on the ground in northern Syria.

Now the US is reportedly embracing an all-out partnership with the YPG to make up for the failures of its $500 million Syrian train-and-equip program — a move that is sure to anger Ankara and inflame tensions even further.

“To fully embrace a Kurdish force would complicate an already fragile strategy, two [US] defense officials concluded,” Nancy Youseff of The Daily Beast reports.

“The Turks … would not welcome an emboldened Kurdish force on its southern border. Neither would many of America’s Arab allies, who are also threatened by Kurdish sovereignty movements.”

Do Saudis Think They Can Buy Palestinians With Sea Route Through Gaza Seige?

Report: Israel Agrees to Gaza-Cyprus Sea Passage Under Long-term Cease-fire

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Deal said to have originated in talks between Hamas and former Quartet envoy Tony Blair.

Jack Khoury

Hamas chief Khaled MeshalKhaled Meshal and Ismail Haniyeh – Reuters – December 8, 2012.
Hamas chief Khaled Meshal, left, and Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Reuters

Blair, in Gaza, says better Palestinian living standards vital for peace
Hamas: Quartet links Gaza aid to acceptance of two-state solution
Report: Hamas’ Meshal meets Blair in Doha to discuss Israel ceasefire

Palestinian sources say that Israel has agreed to a maritime passage between the Gaza Strip and Cyprus in exchange for a long-term cease-fire of seven to 10 years, the Al-Hayat pan-Arab newspaper, published in London, reports.

According to the report, which cites Palestinian sources in Gaza, Israel is still strongly opposed to rebuilding the strip’s airport and also rejected a Qatari proposal to build an airport in Israel in exchange for rebuilding the airport in Gaza. In addition, Israel is conditioning the cease-fire on negotiations over the body parts and the Israeli citizens who are being held in the Gaza Strip.

Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Azhar, interviewed by Al Jazeera Wednesday, said that the hostage issue is under a deep freeze since Israel is still opposed to releasing the prisoners involved in the Gilat Shalit prisoner exchange who were returned to prison after the kidnapping of three yeshiva students last summer in Gush Etzion.

According to the newspaper report, the proposals arose in the course of meetings between the chief of Hamas’ political bureau Khaled Meshal and the former Quartet envoy to the Middle East Tony Blair. As reported Wednesday, Blair and Meshal met for the second time in a month and a half in the Qatari capital Doha, and discussed the case-fire with Israel.

It should be noted that Hamas has made no mention of the report, and spokesmen and leaders of the organization have made a point of asserting that there are no indirect negotiations with Israel, that the only plan that can be discussed is the cease-fire proposal agreed on during Operation Protective Edge in Cairo, and the organization has no intention of agreeing to other conditions that have not been accepted by all Palestinian factions.

Hamas accused the Palestinian Authority of issuing reports about direct negotiations between Israel and Hamas and the implementation of a plan to establish a state in Gaza. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has made such assertions on several occasions in interviews in both the Palestinian and Arab media.

At the same time, there have recently been increasing reports to the effect that Abbas plans to retire and resign from his position, and has been threatening resignation at meetings of the Palestinian leadership.

According to Palestinian assessments, this kind of reaction by Hamas and its associates is directing the fire at Abbas personally, and in the past two weeks several Hamas officials have said that Abbas is the main obstacle to Palestinian reconciliation.

Abbas’ advisor Mahmoud Al-Habash on Thursday morning vehemently denied reports about Abbas’ resignation or his intention to retire in the near future, but admitted in a conversation with Ashams Radio, which broadcasts from Nazareth, that the Palestinian arena is in a state of stagnation regarding both the diplomatic process and the reconciliation process.
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Jack Khoury

Haaretz Correspondent
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/.premium-1.671019

Preparing for the Final War—Bringing Our Worst Fears To Life

Preparing for the Worst: Are Russian and NATO Military Exercises Making War in Europe more Likely?

EUROPEAN LEADERSHIP NET

Ian Kearns

By Ian Kearns

Director, ELN

Łukasz Kulesa

By Łukasz Kulesa

Research Director, ELN

Thomas Frear

By Thomas Frear

Research Fellow, ELN

Over the last 18 months, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, the relationship between Russia and the West has deteriorated considerably. One aspect of the confrontation, as previously documented by the ELN, has been a game of Russian-instigated dangerous brinkmanship which has resulted in many serious close military encounters between the forces of Russia and NATO and its partners over the last 15 months.  Another aspect, however has been the increased scope and size of the military exercises conducted by both Russia and by NATO and its partners in the Euro-Atlantic area since the Ukraine crisis began.
To assist the public and wider policy community in understanding the realities of this new and dangerous security environment in Europe, the ELN has prepared a short policy brief and two interactive maps presenting in detail the anatomy of two recent, large scale military exercises.
The two exercises profiled are:
  • A Russian ‘snap exercise’ conducted in March 2015, which brought together 80,000 military personnel.
  • The NATO ‘Allied Shield’ exercise conducted in June 2015, which brought under one framework four distinct exercises taking place along the Eastern flank of the Alliance, totalling 15,000 personnel from 19 Members states and three partner states.

 

Both exercises show that each side is training with the other side’s capabilities and most likely war plans in mind. Whilst spokespeople may maintain that these operations are targeted against hypothetical opponents, the nature and scale of them indicate otherwise: Russia is preparing for a conflict with NATO, and NATO is preparing for a possible confrontation with Russia. 
We do not suggest that the leadership of either side has made a decision to go to war or that a military conflict between the two is inevitable, but that the changed profile of exercises is a fact and it does play a role in sustaining the current climate of tensions in Europe. These tensions are further aggravated and elevated into a sense of unpredictability when the exercises are not pre-notified or publicly announced beforehand, as is apparently the case with a number of Russian exercises.
In our view, the implementation of the following four recommendations could help to defuse or at least minimize the tensions connected with the increased frequency and scale of the military exercises now taking place:
  • It is vitally important to increase NATO – Russia communication with regards to the schedule of exercises;
  • Both sides should utilize OSCE channels as much as possible, along with the existing catalogue of Confidence and Security Building Measures (CSBMs) included i.a. in the Vienna Document  to increase military predictability;
  • The politicians on both sides should examine the benefits and dangers of intensified exercising in the border areas. If Russia or NATO decides at some point that they want to reduce tensions, showing restraint in terms of size or scenarios used in exercises might be a good place to start;
  • Conceptual work on a new treaty introducing reciprocal territorial limitations on deployment of specific categories of weapons, backed by robust inspections, should commence as soon as possible.

 

MAJOR CLEAN-UP—Pak. Intelligence Identifies 1000 Criminals Within Police Force

Three intelligence agencies help Sindh police find 1000 ‘criminal policemen’

pakistan today

Pakistani police officers patrol the streets of Karachi

KARACHI: In an ongoing process, the Sindh police with the help of the country’s three intelligence agencies have identified some 1,000 policemen, including some senior officers, allegedly involved in criminal acts, according to local media authorities.

An official privy to the process initiated months ago said that it was aimed at identifying each and every policeman involved in “undesirable acts while serving in the police department”.

He explained that the conduct of every policeman was being reviewed to ascertain whether he was involved or associated with any criminal activity, reportedly.

Their past and present affiliations were also being taken into account, the official added.

Blast and Aftermath of Tianjin—Death Toll Stands At 44

 

At Least 44 Dead After Explosions Rock Chinese City of Tianjin

Two explosions rocked the northern Chinese city of Tianjin late Wednesday, local time, killing dozens of people, according to authorities.

The first blast happened at 11:30 p.m., followed by a second explosion just 30 seconds later, according to a statement from the Tianjin Fire Department.

At least 44 people were killed, including 12 firefighters, with more than 500 others taken to nearby hospitals, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.

First responders had been at the scene for nearly 30 minutes before the first explosion to fight a fire at the Ruihai Logistics warehouse at the Tianjin Container Port, the fire department said. Ruihai reportedly handles the transport of hazardous goods.

Multiple videos shared on social media show a mushroom cloud erupting into the sky with one of the quakes accompanying the blast.

Photos also shared on social media show shattered windows, cars destroyed by debris and some people covered in debris.

Other photos appear to show injured people, however, it is unclear how many injuries there are from the blast.

A hospital told People’s Daily, China they have already received 300 to 400 patients with injuries.

The first blast registered at a 2.3 magnitude quake and the second was larger at a 2.9 magnitude — the equivalent of 21 tons of TNT — according to the China Earthquake Network Centre.

More than 100 fire trucks are at the scene where the fire is currently contained, the fire department said. Two firefighters are missing and four are injured, however, that number is expected to climb, according to the department.

Numerous high-rise buildings are out of power and some have reported chemical gas leaks as a result of the blast, CCTV America reported.

Tianjin is China’s fifth biggest city, one of four municipalities run directly by China’s central government. More than 15 million people live in Tianjin Municipality. Binhai, where the explosion happened, is home to more than half of the world’s Fortune 500 companies. Tianjin Port, the fourth biggest facility in the world in terms of goods passing through, is the maritime gateway to Beijing.

ABC News’ Emily Shapiro contributed to this report.

Will Hamas Turn On Its Best Friend Iran For A Taste of Saudi Money?

waco trib

If one needs evidence of shifting geopolitics in the Middle East, put aside for a moment Iran’s controversial nuclear deal with the West. Consider instead last month’s unexpected visit by a high-level delegation from Hamas to the secretive kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a longtime ally of the United States. Yes, Hamas — a group many label as a terrorist entity that was once marginalized by the kingdom for being too close to the Muslim Brotherhood movement.

Many observers are obviously perplexed. Is this development a reflection of how nervous the Saudis are in the aftermath of Iran’s nuclear deal, which will allow it a much larger role in international affairs?

Throughout its history, the conservative kingdom has mistrusted Islamist parties, viewing them as political threats. Egypt, Syria, Algeria and Jordan all experienced periods of internal turmoil because of such Islamist parties, mainly the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Yet it was Saudi Arabia that also funded the Muslim Brotherhood, with whom it shared enemies and even points of doctrine.

So why Hamas and not some other Islamist group? Recent agreement between Iran and the Obama administration over the former’s nuclear program has created blistering anxiety in Riyadh, not just concerning economic opportunities for Tehran but expansion of Iran’s sphere of influence and ideology. And the desert kingdom’s vehement opposition to relinquishing any religious leadership in the Muslim world tops its own agenda. How could it not when religion is the only currency that provides the kingdom with legitimacy on the world stage?

Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir insists the recent Hamas visit was for religious, not political, reasons. Yet when pilgrimages visit the holy Ka’ba for religious purposes, they do not engage in extensive meetings with King Salman and his principal deputies. Also interesting: The Hamas delegation included representatives from Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Jordan, Sudan and Yemen. And what do these representatives have in common? They’re all Sunnis, the Muslim sect that rivals the Shiite sect running things in Iran. Such friction is what has hobbled Iraq.

All this suggests Saudi Arabia seeks a strong coalition of Sunni countries to act as a united counter-front to Iran. To demonstrate flexibility, Saudi Arabia even released eight Hamas members jailed for illegal political activities in the kingdom. What has not been confirmed is whether the Muslim Brotherhood has been quietly removed from the kingdom’s terrorism list. I’m certain that negotiations regarding this matter were conducted behind closed doors with two key countries: Egypt and Israel.

This rapprochement with Hamas also explains, to some degree, the reason behind King Salman’s decision to reshuffle his cabinet a few months ago. This and other moves suggest the king is more sympathetic to religious conservatives than his predecessor, the late King Abdullah.

Incidentally, a Gulf Cooperation Council member, Qatar, reportedly brokered the Hamas visit. This demonstrates how complicated and convoluted relations in the Middle East are. In this case, though, one now clearly understands the kingdom’s over-arching objective: to recruit as many Sunni political actors across the Middle East as possible to confront Iran and its Shiite allies.

Where do these developments leave the United States? The answer is one of confusion, ambiguity and uncertainty. But a new regional order based on sectarian identity arising is definitely cause for alarm, given the Middle East’s never-ending volatility.

 

OualaalouDavid Oualaalou was U.S. Army Intelligence, an international security analyst in Washington, D.C. He holds a doctorate in public policy, with a focus on homeland-international security, and is an instructor at McLennan Community College.

 

No matter what Erdogan Says…NO TURKISH STREAM, NO ISIS FIGHT

Turkey has no intention to challenge Islamic State terrorists within Syria or within Turkey itself.  Obama and Ergodan participated in formulating a big lie to misinform the world about their insincere intentions to combat ISIL terrorism in northern Syria, when, in reality the real plan has always been to continue steering ISIL into troubled states, in order to bully them into thinking our way.  In hindsight it is easy to see that they have fed the world pure “bullshit,” in their insincere proclamation to jointly “fight terrorism” in northern Syria, made evident by their unified dissembling from that point, ever since.  Obama can continue to pretend to be fighting ISIS in Syria and “defending Kurds” (without actually threatening Assad) and Erdogan can pretend to be fighting ISIS (while killing selective Kurds).  Both Obama and Ergodan can safely hide behind their big lie as they work together to kill the opposition to ISIS in Syria.

 

US Sends Fighter Jets to Turkey and Lets Ankara Off the Hook in Islamic State Fight

Nusra Front Withdraws From Frontline Against ISIS in Syria

Al Nusra claims attack on U.S.-trained rebels in Syria

Taliban dissidents launch parallel council amid rift

[The controversy continues to build over the successor to Mullah Omar.  The Western press dutifully reports the latest lies concocted for Pakistan and Afghanistan leaders, with today’s offering coming from controversial Afghan lawmaker, Zahir Qadir, claiming that Mullah Omar’s son (Mullah Yaqub) was killed in Pakistan the previous Thursday, even though eyewitnesses confirm that Yaqub was meeting with 200 Taliban leaders in Quetta 4 days later.  The supporters of Mullah Yaqub have declared their own parallel Taliban ruling council, relying upon the heirs of Mullah Dadullah (Afghan Taliban’s most revered commander of the faithful) to help validate their claims.
Reports from the sponsors and co-conspirators of Mullah Mansour cannot address the fact that they have pretended to speak for Omar, while hiding news about his death since at least 2013 (according to Afghan govt).  Now we learn that even the alleged date of his death is false.  According to the brother of Taliban legend, Mullah Dadullah, Mullah Mansour Dadullah, Mullah Omar was killed right after his last tape was released, in 2007.  Mansour claims that spies within the organization helped kill the Taliban supreme leader.  Mansour Dadullah still refuses to follow the order given in Mullah Omar’s name, AFTER HIS DEATH, for his sacking, six months after the killing of his brother, Commander Dadullah, on May 13, 2007.  This happens simultaneously with the exposure of Mansour Dadullah’s interactions with British MI6 agents, Mervyn Patterson and Michael Semple (SEE: Dissecting the Anti-Pakistan Psyop).2007 was a defining year in the struggle against the Taliban.  Not only did the Taliban lose its greatest warrior/leader Dadullah, but it lost Dadullah’s Pakistani legacy in South Waziristan.  Lost it in such a way as to forever poison the relationship between the two Talibans.  In 2007, Baitullah Mehsud, representing the Afghan, Indian and US Govts., took over the organization formed in Wana by Nek Muhammad, under the watchful eyes of Mullah Dadullah and the Pak Army.  The successor to Nek and Dadullah initiated a reign of terror, and in so doing, he severed the Taliban supply link between the Tribal Region and Afghanistan…then he waged war against the Pakistani govt.

Since 2007, the Pentagon has been in full control of the Pakistani Taliban, and in secret control, or semi-control of the Afghan Taliban, through the Mansour faction.  Today, the region has become a sectarian battlefield, of sorts, between fake Taliban and challengers to them.  It seems that whichever side sets-off the biggest blast first, or the most effective blast, will rule the post-Omar Taliban (SEE: The Anatomy of A Psywar).

I suppose they hope to validate their plans to continue the war through the strength of the characters which they have created.]

Taliban dissidents launch parallel council amid rift

india dot com

Islamabad, Aug 3 : Amid a widening rift over succession following Mullah Omar’s death, senior Taliban leaders opposed to Mullah Akhtar Mansour’s nomination as the group’s supremo have launched a parallel council, according to a media report.

The senior Taliban members, opposed to Mullah Mansour’s ascendancy, yesterday launched their parallel ‘Shura’ or council and declared themselves as the ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’, the Express Tribune reported. ”A few people announced Mullah Akhtar Mansour as the new leader at a meeting where neither majority of the Shura members nor Ulema were invited,” the council said in a statement. ”They imposed Mullah Mansour’s leadership on the Islamic Emirate for vested interests,” it said.

The dissidents were quoted as saying that they would convene a meeting of the council members, Islamic scholars and national figures to elect a new chief. Mutasim Agha Jan, the former finance minister and a close confidant of Mullah Omar, has also refused to submit to the leadership of Mullah Mansour, an official close to Mutasim told the daily.

Similarly, Mansoor Dadullah, who leads the Dadullah Front, has also refused to endorse Mullah Mansour’s election.
Earlier, Mullah Omar’s family has also refused to pledge allegiance to Mullah Mansour. Mullah Omar’s younger brother Mullah Abdullah Mannan, in an audio message recorded in the Pashto language, has demanded that a council meeting of pro-Taliban clerics and militant commanders be called to deliberate and resolve the challenge facing the group.

“Our family… Has not declared allegiance to anyone amid these differences,” Manan said in the audio message. ”We want the ulema (religious scholars) to resolve the differences rather than declaring allegiance to any side,” he said. Mullah Omar’s son Yakoub has also challenged Mullah Mansour’s appointment as the Taliban supremo.

Meanwhile, a clash broke out between the Taliban militants for the first time since the confirmation of Mullah Omar’s death. The incident reportedly took place in western Herat province of Afghanistan today following a verbal clash between the militants regarding the appointment of the group’s new supreme leader, Afghanistan’s Khaama Press reported.

At least nine Taliban insurgents including a senior commander were killed during the infighting, the report said. The militants were divided in two groups over allegiance to Mullah Mansour which led to the gun battle, it said.

 

Taliban Kicks Out Prominent Commander

islamic awakening

By NOOR KHAN

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — A key Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan has been dismissed for disobeying the militant group’s rules, a Taliban spokesman said Saturday.

Mansoor Dadullah was “disobeying orders” and conducting activities “against the Taliban’s rules and regulations,” said Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid.

“For this reason Mullah Mansoor Dadullah is no longer in the Taliban and no longer a Taliban commander,” Mujahid said in a statement he attributed to Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

But Dadullah’s spokesman said Sunday that Dadullah refused to accept the dismissal order, which he called a conspiracy.

“Mullah Omar is the Taliban supreme commander. We will always obey his orders. But this message, this order, is not from Mullah Omar,” Muhibullah Mahajir told The Associated Press.

Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, reiterated on Sunday that the order came from Omar and said he would soon provide an audio clip with Omar ordering Dadullah out of the militia.

Dadullah rose in the militia’s ranks as a key commander in southern Afghanistan after his brother, Mullah Dadullah, was killed during a military operation last May in Helmand province. Mullah Dadullah was the highest-ranking Taliban commander killed since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Mahajir said that Mansoor Dadullah had interrogated some “spies” and found that some Taliban commanders were involved in Mullah Dadullah’s death.

“That’s why some of these commanders who were involved in the killing of Mullah Dadullah have made a conspiracy against us,” said Mahajir, a spokesman who has contacted the AP in the past.

Source: AP

The Anatomy of A Psywar

The Anatomy of A Psywar

Intra-Taliban Warfare Hits the Streets of Kabul

afghan bomb [SEE: Huge Truck Bomb Blast Strikes Kabul ]

The latest series of bomb blasts in and near Kabul has exposed large holes in the official reporting on the war, including the mission itself.  Nothing is as it seems in Afghanistan.  If anything, the bombings have exposed the two official lies in the previous statement—that the bombings are by the actual “Taliban”— and that Mullah Mansour is the successor to Mullah Omar.  The bombings are evidence of the authors of the Kabul bombs and proof that Akhtar Mansour is NOT the legitimate, elected successor to Mullah Omar.

Mansour made his public debut in 2010, posing as “Mullah Omar’s second in command,” allegedly conducting “reconciliation” negotiations with the US.  He entered peace talks with American negotiators, under his real name, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour.  The charade continued until the counterfeit Mullah had served his purpose, at which time, another person was brought in to claim that Mansour was an imposter.  At which time, Mullah Omar released the following statement:
“The cunning enemy which has occupied our country, is trying, on the one hand, to expand its military operations on the basis of its double-standard policy and, on the other hand, wants to throw dust into the eyes of the people by spreading the rumors of negotiation.”
Mullah Omar announced, once again, that there would be no peace negotiations with any occupying power…period.  Any talk of peace with the Taliban, while remaining in Afghanistan, have been one-sided productions, offering various former Taliban as “negotiators,” to advance some new shift in the strategy, in order to reinforce the false image of a “peace-seeking” American, while making it possible for the war to drag on.  Prolonging the current war, until it can be transmuted into a completely new war.
Within 24 hrs, Friday, three major suicide-attacks strike in or near Kabul.  Western media sources are already crediting their man Mansour
Mansoor
with these massive, deadly blasts, but there has as yet been no evidence offered to substantiate these claims.  But the evidence that is offered, which is incontrovertible, is that all of these bomb blasts were directed at American or Afghan targets.  This means that America’s Mullah Mansour, is definitely NOT behind them.
The first massive truck-bomb (retro-fitted water tanker) hit a Special Forces base in Pul-i-Alam, Logar Province, on Friday night.

outside a police compound in Puli Alam, capital of Logar province. The Taliban said its targets were military and paramilitary units in Puli Alam

The next bombing that night was a massive Taliban suicide assault by at least one terrorist wearing a suicide-belt against the Logar police compound of the Afghan quick reaction force.
“Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack on the Police Academy but made no mention of the other two attacks on Friday…killed more than 100 security personnel”
“Taliban spokesman” Zabihullah Mujahid has apparently worked for Afghans/CIA since they arrested him in 2011.  He has served as the conduit for the dead Taliban leader and for his CIA replacement, Mullah Mansour.
Last attack, occurring within 24 hrs, CIA/NDS Afghan Intelligence base, SPECIAL FORCES Camp Integrity,  KABUL.   All of the targets were Western, either intelligence or special forces, or both.  That rules-out every CIA puppet, like Mansour.  These attacks were intended to physically hurt the occupation forces and to embarrass Mansour’s pretend Taliban leadership, by demonstrating their inability to control their organization or their turf.  Someone brought these huge bombs into Kabul from somewhere, but as far as we know, the source of the bombs is already solved in the latest version of “evil personified,” Akhtar Mansour.
These are the known facts in the Kabul bombing investigations…,yet none of this will appear on any nightly news.  The news is too busy weaving the new story line, that the bombings were inter-Taliban warfare over peace negotiations.  Nobody will dwell upon the source of the bombs, which had to be state-supported, since all possible suspect governments are also parties to the pretend peace negotiations.  “Negotiating peace” with the Taliban does nothing for peace, while buying time for the Americans to push their terror war across new borders.

A successful psy-op would leave its targets confused and uncertain about the real war.  For those living under such a weaponized media, it would be impossible to know whether news reportage was factual, or even if there was a war at all.  We know that people die in Afghanistan everyday…beyond than we don’t really know anything.  All of our reported conflicts are thousands of miles away, buried deep inside undeveloped countries, too secluded and too treacherous for any but the most foolhardy reporters.  This means that all news comes through military censors, who relay information to the outside world, or through biased Imperial sources dispatched by Britain or America.  If the war being reported is being waged against the local government (AfPak), either directly or through proxies, then the military middle-men, who relay war news to the international community are hostile sources, who will twist the news to suit their current psywar strategy.  This makes ALL NEWS about Afghanistan or Pakistan, or news coming from the region, completely unreliable, even dangerous to the person reading it, in that it is corrosive to the truth.

This is the news environment prevailing over ALL Imperial wars.  We cannot believe ANY reporting we receive in its entirety, making it necessary for us to dissect all news into its component parts, so that we might identify obvious truths which have been buried under half-true or false information.
We have entered a new phase in the war against the Taliban, characterized primarily by major escalations in the propaganda war.  The American intelligence war has abandoned the real Afghan battlefield, in favor of the battlefield of the mind.   Thus begins a new, more intense form of psychological war, waged by CIA psy-warriors, using their inhuman, weaponized psychology, to twist the minds of the Taliban, the Afghans, the Pakistani and American peoples.  Deceptions, greed and betrayal have been combined, to form a new type of offensive weapon, calculated to overcome all resistance to America’s real plans for Afghanistan…the ones involving pipelines, vast fields of hydrocarbons and transport corridors stretching deep into Central Asia, from the Arabian Sea.
The Afghan war has been basically running on cruise-control, since the Iraq invasion, until now.  The sudden revelation on the death of Mullah Omar and the potential death of Jalaluddin Haqqani have exposed the man behind the curtains, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who has been issuing orders under the dead leader’s name since 2013.  Mullah Mansour has been leading the anti Omar Taliban for a long time, working secretly for The Empire, taking credit for terrorist attacks (SEE: Karzai reportedly suspects US hand in recent Afghanistan attacksJan 28, 2014), promoting fake Taliban initiatives and fake “peace talks,” with “former Taliban” agents who were really representing no one.
By issuing orders under the name of the dead leader Omar, Mansour has managed to maneuver himself into the Taliban driver’s seat, were it not for the opposition of Omar’s family and the Taliban faithful.  Mullah Omar’s son is now leading the anti-Mansour opposition.  According to one group of the most faithful Taliban, who calls itself, Afghanistan Islamic Movement Fidai Mahaz, Mansour and his minions murdered the Emir of the Taliban, by getting counterfeit medicine for him from Dubai.
The Fidai Mahaz are the remnants of the original followers of Mullah Dadullah, before he moved to Pakistan to jump-start the Tehreek i-Taliban (SEE:  The Dadullah Front And The Assassination of Arsala Rahmani May 14, 2012 ).  According to them, news about Omar’s death in 2013 was released by the Mansour gang, because the emir of the Fidai Mahaz revealed the results of their research into his death, which led directly to Mansour’s inner circle.  Mansour’s CIA masters hoped to hide the matter of the poisoning beneath the false counter-claim that Omar, like bin Laden, had died under the watchful eyes of the Pak. military.

Fake Taliban negotiations began with a Western initiative, despite Mullah Omar’s clear rejection of negotiations as long as Afghanistan was an occupied country.  Afghan Taliban sabotaged the US initiative by killing the High Peace Council representatives.  Later on, Pakistan helped sabotage the talks when Mullah Baradar and friends were arrested for making side deals with the CIA.  Baradar’s arrest cut-off the American liasons.  After that, the US and collaborators established the fake Taliban office in Doha, in order to carry-on the charade elsewhere.  The real Mullah Omar spoke-up and condemned the fake negotiations.  Shortly after that, he was dead.

 It was then, that Pakistan and China got into the peacemaking mood, by starting their own fake Afghanistan/Taliban negotiations in Pakistan.
The Fidai Mahaz are leading the opposition to Pakistan and the new fake peace talks.
therearenosunglasses@hotmail.com

Huge Truck Bomb Blast Strikes Kabul

afghan bombAfghan security forces and residents stand near the crater from a powerful truck bomb in Kabul on August 7, 2015. A powerful truck bomb killed at least seven people and wounded more than 100 others, officials said, the first major attack in the Afghan ca…

Truck bomb in Kabul kills eight, wounds hundreds

Reuters

A truck bomb exploded near an army compound in the center of the Afghan capital on Friday, killing at least eight people and wounding hundreds, police and health ministry officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion, which shook the center of the capital and ripped through homes and shops. A Taliban spokesman said it was looking into the incident, while government officials said an investigation was under way.

“A truck bomb detonated close to an army compound,” said Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi, adding that at least eight bodies had been found.

The health ministry said around 400 people, many wounded by debris and flying glass shattering in buildings damaged by the blast, had been taken to hospital.

The explosion, in a heavily populated area, left hole in the ground more than 10 meters deep, reduced nearby buildings to rubble and damaged cars at least a hundred meters away, a Reuters witness said.

Police expect the number of dead to rise, as buildings had collapsed and bodies were feared buried in the wreckage.

The blast was unusually powerful in a city that is frequently targeted by the Taliban and other militants seeking to destabilize the Afghan government.

Smaller magnet bombs or suicide attacks have become a weekly occurrence in the heavily fortified capital, but large truck bombs have rarely penetrated the city’s outskirts.

A Western security source said the target was probably a compound used by Afghan intelligence officials and that as many as 15 people had been killed.

An official at the Emergency Hospital in Kabul said the facility had been flooded with almost a hundred patients, including many women and children.

The Afghan war between the foreign-backed government and the Taliban has intensified since the NATO combat mission ended last year and most foreign troops were withdrawn.

Afghan security forces are battling the Taliban with only limited support from coalition forces this year and have sustained heavy losses.

Around 4,000 army and police are lost each month to casualties and desertions, the U.S. general in command said this week.

Dozens of clashes are reported every day and civilians are frequently caught in the crossfire. The truck bomb was the second huge explosion to target security forces in 24 hours.

On Thursday, a truck bomb targeting an Afghan special forces base exploded in eastern Logar province, killing at least three soldiers and wounding dozens.

(Editing by Grant McCool and Nick Macfie)

We Need a President Who Won’t Trick Us Into War

Lessons from Tonkin and Libya: We Need a President Who Won’t Trick Us Into War

in these times

Deception about Libya–and possibly Syria as well–descends from Vietnam-era policies. Both major parties are guilty. Where do the 2016 candidates stand?

BY Stephen R. Weissman

As in post-invasion Iraq, the U.S. could become enmeshed in a fratricidal conflict it has no real plan to resolve.

Fifty-one years ago, an American president deceived the public about the true purpose of a U.S. military mission, ushering in a decade of foreign policy disasters. Unfortunately, this method of abusing democracy has continued, on a bipartisan basis, to the present day, when it is casting a shadow over U.S. policy in Syria.

In August 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers deliberately misled Congress and the American people about the mission of two U.S. destroyers that were allegedly attacked off the coast of communist North Vietnam and their connection to U.S.-directed raids on nearby offshore islands. Their lie paved the way for U.S. bombing of North Vietnam and congressional passage of the administration’s Tonkin Gulf Resolution: a broadly worded measure that would soon facilitate Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam War. A policy that began with an act of deceit about a U.S. military mission had awful and ill-considered consequences for Americans, Vietnamese and other southeast Asians, U.S. relations with the Soviet Union and China, and America’s global reputation. Many historians are convinced that a diplomatic settlement could have avoided most of this damage.

In March 1969, President Richard Nixon initiated 15 months of secret B-52 bombing attacks against North Vietnamese sanctuaries in neutral Cambodia, mainly to let North Vietnam know he would take harsh measures that Johnson had rejected. The number of civilians killed by the carpet-bombing will never be known; and the North Vietnamese responded by moving their forces deeper into Cambodia.

Fast forward to March 2011. Challenged by the popular unrest of the Arab Spring, Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s troops bore down upon armed rebels in Benghazi and other cities. In response, the Obama administration drove through a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing “all necessary means” to “protect civilians and civilian-populated areas under threat of attack.” After organizing extensive British, French and U.S. air operations under NATO, President Barack Obama reassured war-weary Americans and legislators, “But broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.” Rather, the U.S. would use “nonmilitary means” to get Gadhafi to step down, including an arms embargo, financial sanctions, aid to the opposition and diplomacy.

But in reality, NATO air operations, complemented by covert CIA, British and French military aid to the rebels, were critical for the overthrow of Gadhafi and his capture and assassination by rebels in October.

Obama implicitly admitted his deception concerning the U.S. military mission during his October 2012 debate with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney when he said: “We went into Libya and we were able to immediately stop the massacre … [W]e also had to make sure that Moammar Gadhafi didn’t stay there. … [W]hen it came time to make sure that Gadhafi did not stay in power, that he was captured, Governor, your suggestion was that this was mission creep. … We were going to make sure that we finished the job.”

In recent memoirs and confidential interviews, top U.S. and Western officials have been more forthright. Leon Panetta, who was CIA director at the outset of the conflict and became secretary of defense on July 1, 2011, wrote that during an early July visit to Afghanistan, “I said what everyone in Washington knew but we couldn’t officially acknowledge: that our goal in Libya was regime change.” His predecessor, Robert Gates, revealed that he “tried to raise” with the president the issues of “an open-ended conflict, an ill-defined mission, Gadhafi’s fate, and what came after him,” but Obama “had not been interested in getting into any of that.” Key advisers on Libya in the French and British governments and a leading U.S. participant in the decisive administration meetings have all confirmed to me that getting Gadhafi out was a clear goal from the early days of the NATO mission.

Once again a hidden and poorly thought out military policy had malign consequences. The rebel group we sponsored was unable to prevent the country from dissolving into chaotic violence that has claimed the lives of four American citizens and precipitated a migration crisis in the Mediterranean Sea. A continuing exodus of arms, ethnic fighters and Islamic fighters from Libya has strengthened violent extremists in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Mali, Nigeria and other countries. And NATO’s misapplication of the U.N. authorization of force reinforced Russia’s distrust of the West; it led directly to its veto of a subsequent U.N. nonmilitary resolution on Syria.

In retrospect, the Obama administration would have been better off either following its professed two-pronged military/political policy or, better still, supporting the African Union’s creative initiative for a negotiated cease-fire and orderly democratic transition supervised by international peacekeeping forces. Yet, as the aforementioned U.S. participant in the decisions revealed, “There was no discussion of using our force as a set-up for negotiation.”

More recently, in September 2013, Obama asked Congress to support his plan to attack Syria after it violated his “red line” against the use of chemical weapons. Compelled at last to assume its constitutional responsibility for making war, Congress was about to turn Obama down before a diplomatic agreement to dispose of the weapons saved the day. What lay behind Congress’ reluctance was the war-weary public’s doubt that it had received an honest description of the military mission—which was characterized in widely different ways by administration representatives—and therefore of its potential consequences.

Indications are that the problem of deceptive military missions persists today as the U.S. expands its military presence in the Middle East to confront violent jihadis. In June 2014 the administration sent Congress a proposal to “train and equip” Syrian opponents of the Bashar Assad government in neighboring countries. In September, after the Islamic State group expanded from Syria into Iraq, it repackaged this program to target the Islamic State in Syria rather than Assad. Congress approved. Despite this straightforward and focused ground mission, administration officials have recently been saying that they might provide U.S. close air support or otherwise move to “protect” their clients after they “integrate” with existing rebel groups in Syria. Such scenarios could bring America into direct conflict with Syrian government forces.

Even more far-reaching, U.S. and Turkish officials have just revealed that they are about to implement a long-discussed “safe zone” in northern Syria along 68 miles of Turkey’s Western border. While this is once again publicly justified as an anti-Islamic State initiative, it is potentially much more than that. According to the same officials, unidentified “moderate” Syrian rebels would be inserted into an area that is close to Syrian government operations in and around the contested city of Aleppo and would receive continuous air protection. That would create a combustible situation that could produce an accidental or purposeful confrontation between the rebels and their supporters and Assad’s forces. Another provocative possibility, long contemplated by U.S. and Turkish officials, is that the safe zone will harbor a rebel government on Syrian territory.

What appears then to be a stealthy expansion of the anti-Islamic State “train-and-equip” mission could have major consequences for U.S. policy in the Middle East, which the administration has not discussed publicly. An increased U.S. military commitment to anti-Assad rebels on the ground could produce military responses by Syria’s allies—Iran, Hezbollah and Russia. As in Iraq today, it could result in pressures to introduce U.S. combat forces to bolster the rebels. And, as in post-invasion Iraq, the U.S. could become enmeshed in a fratricidal conflict it has no real plan to resolve.

These are the very consequences that the public feared when it demanded that Congress pull the plug on the administration’s plan to bomb Syria in September 2013.

During this presidential election year, voters need to communicate to the candidates that they will hold them accountable for telling the truth about the purposes of American military missions and their potential consequences.

This article was originally published at Stars and Stripes.

Stephen R. Weissman, former staff director of the House Subcommittee on Africa, is the author of two books on U.S. foreign policy, including A Culture of Deference: Congress’s Failure of Leadership in Foreign Policy. Weissman has been a Political Science Professor at Fordham University, the University of Texas at Dallas and the Universite Libre du Congo.

US frets over its sole base in Africa

US frets over its sole base in Africa

mail and guardian

Cormac Erikson

Djibouti is a springboard into a troubled region and home to a squadron of American drones.

Exception: President Omar Guelleh is only the second president Djibouti has known since independence in 1977. And he may alter the Constitution to stand for a fourth term. (AFP)

 

At first glance, United States President Barack Obama in Kenya was a man in search of his roots. His father was born near Lake Victoria, and his extended family welcomed him to Nairobi, hosting a private family dinner on the first night.

But the visit also showed a shift in concern from building democracy in places such as Zimbabwe and Swaziland to shoring up the US’s interest in a region where China leads the way.

Ironically, for all Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s pledge to “look east”, and Zanu-PF’s anger about US “sanctions” or travel bans on the regime, Zimbabwe is one of the few countries that still buys more from the US than it does from China.

By contrast, for every dollar of products Kenyans buy from the US, they spend $10 with Beijing.

Add the ongoing problems of Somalia, human rights in Eritrea, violence in Burundi, piracy, terror strikes by al-Shabab, and long-term rulers trying for yet another term in Uganda and Rwanda, and it’s clear why Washington’s focus has moved to East Africa.

And the poster boy for these woes is Djibouti, where Americans fear their once-staunchest ally, President Omar Guelleh, may have lost the plot.

In Africa, Washington has just one military presence, with a base at Camp Lemonnier a short way from Djibouti airport, and a small number of troops in the northern town of Obock. But, in May, Guelleh ordered them out, saying he planned to hand the site to China, which will send up to 10 000 soldiers, dwarfing the Pentagon’s total force of about 4 000.

In this tiny country – roughly the size of the Kruger National Park – China is building a new airport, expanding the harbour and restoring a railway line into landlocked Ethiopia. Chinese exports to Djibouti are already nine times higher than those from the US. Now, like the troublesome President Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, Guelleh looks set to change the Constitution and allow himself a fourth term. He did the same thing to gain a third in 2010, pledging it would be his last. His People’s Rally for Progress party holds all 65 seats in Parliament.

Restrictive regime

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) rates Guelleh’s regime as among the most restrictive in the world.

In Nairobi, Tom Rhodes, who oversees the CPJ’s work in Africa, told the Mail & Guardian there were few alternatives to state propaganda in Djibouti. “With virtually no independent media and consistent oppression of the opposition, the public have no outlets for critical debate,” he said.

“As a key regional and Western ally, virtually no one opposes President Guelleh’s abysmal record,” Rhodes said, adding that Djibouti was “comparable with other small despotic countries such as Eritrea and Equatorial Guinea”.

Despite Chinese aid and investment, and the US paying $63-million a year for their base, more than half the population struggle with basics such as water, food and healthcare. The United Nations index on human development places Djibouti in a band near the bottom, with Haiti and Afghanistan.

But Djibouti dominates the only entry and exit point between the Indian Ocean and Suez Canal. And, since independence in 1977, the former French Somaliland has had only two presidents: Guelleh and his uncle, who died in 1999.

Although much of the population are ethnic Somalis, Guelleh gives no succour to pirates and terror groups such as al-Qaeda or al-Shabab, which attacked Nairobi’s Westgate mall in 2013 and, this year, murdered 147 teachers and students at the university in Garissa.

US, Africa and defence
After Afghanistan, Djibouti is home to the world’s largest squadron of drones and from here the US can strike across the Horn of Africa and over the narrow Bab al-Mandeb Strait into the Middle East.

Obama came to charm the continent and mend fences with what the White House still hopes are its allies. Although he had some harsh words on human rights, he talked mostly about “shared values and trust”, telling the BBC that China’s policy was merely to “funnel an awful lot of money into Africa in exchange for raw materials”.

Documents obtained this week by the M&G show just how anxious some members of the US Congress have become about Guelleh and his efforts to uncouple himself from Washington.

When it comes to Africa and defence, few US lawmakers have as much clout as Tom Marino of Pennsylvania and California’s Duncan Hunter.

Marino, a former lawyer, is among the most active members of Congress, advising the house on foreign affairs, homeland security and the judiciary.

In June, he wrote to colleagues, calling for a joint sitting of all the congressional committees that deal with Africa, human rights and threats to the US, in the wake of “the erratic behaviour of Djibouti’s dictatorial president”.

In a departure from the diplomatic language that usually defines the work of Congress, he said US counterterrorism in the region could not be “hindered by Chinese interference” and “the potential threat this holds for US and regional security”.

Hunter serves on the armed forces committee previously chaired by his father, who was a presidential candidate in 2008. Supporters say he might have defeated Obama if the Republicans had not gone instead with the geriatric John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin.

Calling for regime change
On June 26, Hunter wrote a letter urging the defence secretary, Ashton Carter, to “insist on an orderly change of Djibouti’s government”. He has made the same call for regime change to the secretary of state, John Kerry, who, on May 6, visited Guelleh for talks. Less than 24 hours after that meeting, Guelleh dropped the bombshell that the US troops were to be evicted from Obock in favour of the Chinese.

Hunter also believes Guelleh is about to renege on his promise to step down before next year’s elections and allow a democratically elected candidate to take his place.

In his letter, Hunter urges the secretary of defence to “pay close attention to Guelleh and his mistreatment of political opposition and journalists, which is well documented”.

He warns that, although the president “has said he will step down when his term expires next year, his previous actions call this into question”. The US, Hunter wrote, “requires reliable allies”.

Djibouti trickier than Harare for Washington
Although Obama had previously said Mugabe was “on the wrong side of history”, this week he made no reference to the 91-year-old who, critics say, has remained in power for the past 35 years by terrorising his opponents and, when that failed, rigging the vote.

But Washington’s policy on Djibouti faces even more problems than it did in Harare. As in Zimbabwe, Djibouti’s neighbours won’t speak out on human rights, the African Union is equally silent, and China will gladly step in if the West cuts off aid.

But Zimbabwe is not on the Horn of Africa, and ships don’t have to sail the Zambezi to enter Suez. The US’s clout in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and, potentially, South Sudan, depends on Camp Lemonnier and the land, air and naval presence in Djibouti.

Guelleh is yet to confirm whether he will alter the Constitution again and stand for a fourth term in 2016, but, whatever he decides, as Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said in his talks this week with Obama: “Choices have consequences.”

The letters from Hunter and Marino, and concern over the violence spawned by Nkurunziza’s quest for another term in Burundi, suggest Guelleh may have misjudged the mood.

Hiroshima—haunting humanity for 70 years

hiroshima memorialThe Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Hiroshima survivors: haunted 70 years on, determined to remember

asahi shimbun

REUTERS

HIROSHIMA–Hiroshi Harada remembers how his leg sank into one of the bodies blocking a narrow Hiroshima street 70 years ago, as he fled the spreading fire ignited by the atomic bomb.

“My leg slid deep into one of them. Then it was very hard to pull my leg out … To escape, I had no choice,” said Harada, the 75-year-old former head of an atomic bomb museum.

Later that day, a woman grabbed Harada, then just 6 years old, by the leg and asked for water. He stepped back in horror to find a chunk of flesh from her hand sticking to his leg.

As the 70th anniversary of the world’s first nuclear attack approaches, many survivors still find it too painful to talk about. But with their ranks dwindling, others are determined to pass on their experiences to younger generations.

“The number of survivors will be shrinking and their voices getting smaller,” Harada said. “But Hiroshima needs to keep on sending a message to the world that things like this should never happen again.”

Hiroshima survivors often refrain from talking about their experiences even with their own children, some from a feeling that the past is too horrific and others from fear of discrimination against themselves and their offspring.

This year’s anniversary comes as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe seeks to ease the constraints of Japan’s postwar, pacifist constitution on the military.

Critics fear that could lead the nation again down a mistaken path to war, while proponents argue the change is needed to deter growing regional threats.

FEELING OF SHAME

A U.S. bomber dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, killing about 140,000 by the end of the year, out of the 350,000 who lived in the city. The city still has some 60,000 survivors but their average age is approaching 80.

The United States dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki three days after Hiroshima. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15.

Shortly after the bombing, 15-year-old Shigeo Ito was hurrying home and was asked by a woman to help rescue a person trapped under a collapsed house. He ignored the plea since fire was approaching the bridge he needed to cross to get home.

“Even long after that, I could not help feeling ashamed of myself every time I saw that bridge,” said the 84-year-old Ito, who now lectures to school children about his experience.

Shuntaro Hida, 98, was an army surgeon at the time of the bombing. When he first went out after the explosion, he saw a woman with what he thought were tattered clothes hanging from her torso. Then he realized he was seeing her sloughed-off skin.

For Hida, however, the real horror of the nuclear attack lay in its often invisible health effects. “The cruelest aspect of a nuclear attack is not the savage destruction of human bodies or visible burns, but its life-destroying after-effects,” said Hida, who treated and advised some 10,000 atomic bomb survivors.

Hiroshima began to see an increased number of leukemia patients five year after the bombing.

Fumiaki Kajiya, 76, lost his sister to the atomic bomb blast. Their parents had moved her to a rural area to keep her safe, but just before the bombing, they brought her back to the city, succumbing to her pleas to stay with the family.

Kajiya’s mother would weep for hours on end in front of the Buddhist alter as Aug. 6 came around every year. Kajiya now performs “picture shows” for children with hand-drawn art to pass on the horror of the atomic bomb.

“If we forget Hiroshima, the world would be a dangerous place,” Kajiya said.

Putin’s Plan For International Anti-ISIS Coalition Includes Syria and Kurds

“Putin's plan” to deal with ISIS
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (C) walks with others before a trilateral meeting in Doha, Qatar August 3, 2015. Source: Reuters

 

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov disclosed details of the Russian plan to combat the ISIS at a meeting in Qatar’s capital on August 3. The plan was first suggested by Russian President Vladimir Putin in June. The proposal aims to combine efforts of the Syrian and Iraqi armies, Kurdish militias and other regional forces against ISIS. However, the major hurdle here is the question of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which the United States and several Gulf States want to have removed from power.

In Doha, Lavrov said Moscow feels that “only air strikes (conducted against ISIS by US-led coalition forces) is insufficient”, and “it is necessary to form a coalition of like-minded people”, including from those who are “on the ground with weapons in hand fighting against this terrorist threat”. “And that includes the Syrian and Iraqi armies and the Kurds,” said Lavrov. According to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement, the coalition against ISIS must be formed on “a coherent international legal basis”, which means only with a UN Security Council mandate.

The minister said the question of Russia’s support for Assad is irrelevant to now, as not too long ago, during meetings held in Geneva on the Syrian crisis, “the international community, including members of the UN Security Council, Turkey, the EU, and the Arab countries, agreed to a transitional political period, and not to a regime change in Syria…”.

No reaction

It is unclear how US Secretary of State John Kerry and Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir reacted to the Russian proposal. According to Yevgeny Satanovsky, president of the Institute of the Middle East, an independent research center, this was something that everyone expected from such a meeting – given the current international environment. The Americans are on a course that refuses to change the USA’s attitude towards the Assad regime, making it extremely difficult to implement the Russian plan. He said Washington “received an order to overthrow Assad” and “one of these ‘customers’ is Saudi Arabia”. According to Satanovsky, given this background, a breakthrough in the Syrian direction is unlikely.

The analyst believes that even a growing threat from ISIS will not impact the USA’s approach to the ruling regime in Syria, since activities of ISIS do not directly threaten US interests.

Help to “moderate” Syrian opposition

Despite appeals from Moscow on August 3, Washington is apparently toughening its position against the Assad regime. The United States now plans to militarily defend the “moderate” Syrian opposition, which the USA has trained, in the event of attacks on them not only by ISIS militants, but also by the Syrian Army.

As the Pentagon announced, “defensive fire support” was provided on Friday. The targets of this “support” were militants linked to the Al Qaeda extremist organization – the Jabhat al-Nusra Front. The Pentagon said this “fire support” from the air would be provided “regardless of who attacks them, (militants of the “moderate” Syrian opposition) or who they attack”.

In Doha, Lavrov called this approach illegal, from the point of view of international law, stressing that it constitutes an obstacle to the formation of a united front to counter ISIS. He also noted that “the most important thing here is that, so far, as events have proven, the vast majority of the so-called ‘moderate’ opposition militants, trained in neighboring countries by American military instructors, have ended up fighting on the side of the extremists”. “I do not think I was able to shake the US position, but we clearly disagree on this issue,” the Russian minister concluded.