Zionist Israel Hides Its Crimes Behind Its Smears of Truth-Tellers

May 11, 2016

Paul Craig Roberts

Several years ago two very distinguished American scholars wrote a book, The Israel Lobby.

The book made a very understated case that the Israel Lobby has far more power over the US government and media than is good for America or Israel, as it silences constructive critics who are Israel’s friends. The two scholars were demonized by the Israel Lobby as advocating the return of the Holocaust.

The Israel Lobby presented itself as just a poor little weak thing unable to stand up to all the Nazis assailing Israel. Meanwhile the US Congress was unanimously passing outrageous resolutions handed to it by the Israel Lobby.

A number of former US Senators and Representatives, including Cynthia McKinney, have publicly stated that they were removed from office by the Israel Lobby for criticizing actions of the Israeli government, such as the Israeli government’s attempt to sink the USS Liberty, in which a majority of the American crew were killed or injured.

Instead of defending the US Navy, the cowardly US government was so scared of Israel that the President of the United States and the Admiral conducting the inquiry, Senator John McCain’s father, rushed to the defense of Israel and covered up the incident.

The coverup has been so successful that few Americans today know that a vessel of the US Navy was decimated by an Israeli air and torpedo boat attack, and Washington did not even file a protest. Really! The US is a “superpower,” and the cowardly government cannot even stand up to Israel?

What do you think will happen to these pussies in Washington when they confront by their carelessness and unjustified arrogance the power of Russia and China?

Little wonder that after 15 years of pointless conflict the US has been defeated by a few thousand lightly armed warriors in Afghanistan, and the “Mission Accomplished” promouncement of the moron George W. Bush now requires intervention by the Russian Superpower to be accomplished.

Only Russia can bring the terrorism in the Middle East that the dolts in Washington created to an end. The low grade morons in Washington sponsor the terrorism in order to bleed the American taxpayer of money to pay the profits of the Military-Security Complex that President Eisenhower, a Five Starr General warned us about going on 7 decades ago.

The Americans are so incompetent that they should just depart the scene and go home and hide under their beds so scared they are of “terrorists,” largely an invention of neoconservative propaganda.

But it only takes a propaganda invention, a false flag event, to scare “powerful America” out of its wits.

I became an “anti-semite” when I observed that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians resembled the Union Army’s treatment, under Sherman and Sheridan, of the American Plains Indians. Wholesale genocide.

An Israeli official wrote to me asking me why I criticized Israel for doing to the Palestinians what the United States government did to the native Americans. In other words, the Western World, and Israel that allegedly suffered the Holocaust, were not required to make any moral progress in one or two centuries. Whatever the Union war criminals did to the American Plains Indians in the 19th century is perfectly OK for Israel to do to Palestinians in the 21st century.

So much for those who believe in moral progress.

“Anti-semite” has lost its sting, because every justified criticism of the Zionist Israeli government is declared to be anti-semitism. The word is so overused and misapplied as to be useless. Indeed, to be declared “anti-semite” by the Israel Lobby is to be declared a person of high moral conscience.

Currently the Israel Lobby is at work destroying anyone associated with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which is an effort to sanction Israel for its genocide against Palestine. The popular musician, Roger Waters, is one of the few brave enough to support this movement.

Waters says that many of his colleagues, who protested the Viet Nam War and South Africa Apartheid are too “scared shitless of Israel” to protest what former US President Jimmy Carter called Israeli Apartheid.

Republicans, conservatives, and the Israel Lobby do not like Jimmy Carter because he speaks honestly, but that is why I respect him.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Palestinians have had their country stolen. Now they, like native Indians in the US in the 19th century, have been confined to ghetto reservations. This is a simple fact. But anyone who states the fact is declared by the Israel Lobby to be an anti-semite who wants to kill all the Jews.

In other words, it is Zionist Israel that is committing genocide, but if a person mentions that fact that person is accused of wanting to do to the Jews what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.

Israel, thanks to the complete cowardice of the government of “the world’s only superpower” and the largely Israeli controlled US media and entertainment industry, has got away with this raw exercise of the power of propaganda and intimidation.

But not with Roger Waters.

Support Roger Waters, one of the acknowledged greatest rock musicians of this era, when he stands up for the Palestinians and opposes the monstrous crimes of Zionist Israel:
http://mondoweiss.net/2016/05/musicians-destroyed-palestinians/

It is amazing to me how courage has disappeared from the entire Western world. Insouciant Americans have lost their liberty to disinformation and fear. Such a fearful and afraid people have no prospect of standing up to the Russian and Chinese people.

The Western World buried in propaganda and lies is now in the trash bin of history. It is no more.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.

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The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Historical speech of Brazilian President Dilma Roussef (with English Subtitles)

May 14, 2016

An IMMENSE “thank you!!” to D. for translating and subtitling this for us and to VV for helping me with this issue.  The Saker

(press ‘cc’ for English captions)

Transcript:

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, journalists.

Good morning, here’s Congressmen, Ministers,

Good morning everyone here.

I will make a statement to the press, so it’s not an interview, it is a statement.

I wanted first to tell you, and say also, to all Brazilians, that the impeachment process was opened by the Senate, and ordered the suspension of my term of office for a maximum period of 180 days.

I was elected president by 54 million Brazilian citizens, and it is in this condition, the condition of a President elected by 54 million, that I address you at this decisive moment for Brazilian democracy and our future as a nation.

What is at stake in the impeachment process is not only my mandate, what is at stake is the respect to the polls, the sovereign will of the Brazilian people and the Constitution.

What is at stake are the achievements of the last thirteen years, the gains of the poorest people, as well as the gains of the middle class. The protection of children, young people access to Universities and to Technical Schools.

The value of the minimum wage, doctors attending to the population. The realization of the dream of home ownership with “Minha Casa, Minha Vida”.

What is at stake is also the great finding of Brazil, the pre-salt.

What is at stake is the future of the country, the opportunity and hope to move forward forever more.

Before the Senate decision, I want once again to clarify the facts and report the risks to the country of a fraudulent impeachment: a real coup.

Since I was elected, the opposition, dissatisfied, called recount, tried to nullify the elections and then went on to openly conspiring for my impeachment.

They plunged the country in a permanent state of political instability, preventing the recovery of the economy, with the sole purpose of taking by force what they did not win at the polls.

My government has been the target of intense and incessant sabotage.

The clear objective has been preventing me to rule and thus forge the environment conducive to the coup.

When an elected president is revoked on charges of a crime he did not commit, the name given to it in the democratic world is not impeachment: it is a coup.

I have not committed a crime of responsibility, there is no reason for impeachment proceedings, I do not have accounts abroad, I never received bribes, I never condoned corruption.

This process is a fragile process, legally inconsistent, an unfair process, initiated against an honest and innocent person.

It is the largest of the brutalities that can be committed to any human being: to punish him for a crime he did not commit.

There is no more devastating injustice than to condemn the innocent.

Injustice is irreparable evil.

This legal farce, that I am facing, is due to the fact that, as president, I never accepted blackmail of any kind.

I may have made mistakes but have not committed crimes. I am being judged unfairly by having done all that the law authorizes me to do.

The acts I practiced were legal acts, correct, necessary acts, acts of government.

Similar acts were performed by the previous Brazilian presidents, before me.

It was not a crime in their time, and also is not a crime now.

They accuse me of having published six supplementation Decrees, six additional credit Decrees and, in so doing, have committed crime against the Budget Law – LOA.

It is false because the Decrees followed authorizations provided by law.

They treat as a crime an everyday management act.

They accuse me of delaying payments of “Plano Safra”, it is false.

I have not determined anything about it. The law does not require my participation in the implementation of this Plan (“Plano Safra”).

My accusers can not even say which unlawful act I have practiced.

What act? Which act?

Moreover, nothing was left to be paid, or any debt remained.

Never in a democracy, the legitimate mandate of an elected president can be stopped because of legitimate acts of budget management.

Brazil can not be the first to do this.

I would also like to address the entire population of my country saying that the coup aims not only to revoke me, to remove a president elected by the vote of millions of Brazilians – direct vote in a fair election.

To dismiss my government, they want actually prevent the execution of the program that was chosen by the majoritarian votes of the 54 million Brazilians.

The coup d’état threatens to ravage not only democracy, but also the achievements that the population reached in recent decades.

All this time, I have been also a zealous guarantor of the democratic rule of law.

My government has not committed any repressive act against social movements, against collective protests, against protesters of any political position.

The risk, the greatest risk to the country at this time is to be directed by a government without any votes.

A government that was not elected by direct vote of the population, a government that will have the legitimacy to propose and implement solutions to the challenges of Brazil.

A government may be tempted to crack down on protesting against him.

A government that is born of a coup.

A fraudulent impeachment.

Born of a kind of indirect election.

A government that is, himself, a big reason for the continuing political crisis in our country.

So, I tell you, all of you, I’m proud to be the first woman elected president of Brazil.

I am proud to be the first woman elected president of Brazil.

In those years, I have exercised my mandate in a dignified and honest way, honoring the votes I received.

On behalf of those votes, and on behalf of all the people of my country, I will fight with all legal instruments available to me to exercise my mandate until the end of my presidencial term, 31st December, 2018.

Destiny always got me many challenges, many great challenges, some appeared to me insuperable, but I managed to overcome them.

I have suffered the unspeakable pain of torture.

The agonizing pain of the disease.

And now I suffer again, the equally unspeakable pain of injustice.

What hurts the most right now is injustice.

What hurts most is to realize that I am the victim of a legal farce and politics.

But I do not subside, I look back and see everything we did.

I look forward and see everything we still need and can do.

The most important is that I can look at myself and see the face of someone who, even marked by time, have the strength to defend ideas and rights.

I fought my whole life for democracy.

I learned to trust the capacity of struggle of our people. I have lived many defeats, and lived big wins.

I confess that I never imagined it would be necessary to fight back against a coup in my country.

Our young democracy, made of struggles, made of sacrifices, even deaths, does not deserve it.

In recent months, our people took to the streets. It took to the streets in defense of more rights, more advances. That’s why I’m sure that people will know to say no to the coup.

Our people are wise, and has historical experience.

Brazilians who are contrary to the coup, regardless of party positions, to all of them I make a call: remain mobilized, united and at peace.

The struggle for democracy has no end date.

It is permanent struggle, which requires us constant dedication.

The fight for democracy, I repeat, has no end date.

The fight against the coup is long, it is a fight that can be won, and we will win.

This victory depends on us all.

Let’s show the world that there are millions of supporters of democracy in our country.

I know, and many here know, especially our people know that history is made through fighting.

And it is always worth fighting for democracy.

Democracy is the right side of history.

We will never give up, I will never give up fighting.

Thank you all very much.

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Senior Hezbollah Leader Mustafa Badreddine Martyred

Local Editor

Hezbollah announced on Friday the martyrdom of senior commander, Hajj Mustafa Badreddine in Syria.

In a statement early on Friday, Hezbollah said that a huge blast hit one of the resistance centers near Damascus airport.

An investigation will take place in order to verify whether the blast was a result of an airstrike or shelling, the statement said, noting that more information will be announced later.

In an earlier statement, Hezbollah praised Badreddine as a great Jihadi leader who took part in most of  the Islamic resistance operations since 1982.

Hezbollah’s First Statement:

In The Name of Allah, The Most Beneficent, The Most Merciful

“Of the believers are men who are true to that which they covenanted with Allah. Some of them have paid their vow by death (in battle), and some of them still are waiting; and they have not altered in the least” (Al-Ahzab, 23)

A few months earlier he said: “I won’t come back from Syria unless as a martyr or a carrier of the banner of victory.”

He is the great Jihadi leader, Hajj Mustafa Badriddine (Sayyed Zulfiqar), who came back today wrapped with the banner of victory which he established through his bitter fight against the Takfiri groups in Syria.

Following a life full of Jihad, captivity, wounds and great qualitative achievements , Sayyed Zulfiqar concluded his life with martyrdom. He joined the convoy of martyrs, one of whom was his beloved and life-long companion, martyred leader Hajj Imad Moughniyeh.

It is the resistance which grows with its leaders when they’re alive and cherish them when they get martyred.

For Allah’s rewards we sacrifice our martyred leader. We ask Almighty to have great mercy on Sayyed Zulfiqar and to grant him permanent bliss.

Second Statement

Preliminary investigation indicates that a huge blast targeted one of our centers  near Damascus international airport, leading to the martyrdom of brother Mustafa Badreddine (Sayyed Zulfiqar) and the injury of others.

The investigation will find out the nature of the blast as well as its reasons, and whether it was a result of an airstrike or rocket attack, something which will be announced soon.

Related Articles

• استشهاد مصطفى بدرالدين
• Great Jihadi Leader Mustafa Badr al-Din Martyred
• Loyalty to Resistance Denounces Central Bank Commitment to US Anti-Hezbollah Law
• Sayyed Nasrallah: US Paying Price of Creating Takfiri Gangs to Fight Us
• Hezbollah Announces Sweeping Victory in Baalbek, Brital
• Sayyed Nasrallah: The Mask Fell from Saudi Arabia
• Sayyed Nasrallah Receives President Rouhani’s Assistant“
• Hezbollah Has Exceptional Capabilities, Won’t Take Any Aggression Easily”

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Terrorism against Syrians

Syria Times

Terrorism against Syrian

The Western Press does not have anything to say about terrorism in Syria. These acts are perpetrated by groups of foreign combatants, supported by a few Syrian collaborators, and armed and funded by Germany, Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria, the United States, France, Israël, Qatar, the United Kingdom and Turkey. Here is a list of the terrorist attacks of which Syrian civilians have been victims since the start of the year.

Voltaire Network | Damascus (Syria) | 5 May 2016

The cessation of hostilities came into force on the 27th February 2016 at midnight (Damascus time).

However, the civilian populations continued to be widely attacked by groups described as the «moderate opposition» who were invited to participate in the «inter-Syrian» negotiations in Geneva, and also by the jihadists of Al-Qaïda and Daesh.

List of the terrorist opérations from the 1st January to the 1st April 2016

31 December 2015 and 1 January 2016

 Several projectiles (mortars, rockets) landed in a number of neighbourhoods in the city of Damascus, injuring 10 persons and causing material damage to buildings and vehicles.
Eight mortar shells landed in the Harasta suburb in Rif Dimashq governorate, killing two civilians, injuring two others and causing material damage.
Several mortar shells landed in a number of neighbourhoods in Aleppo governorate, injuring five persons and causing material damage.
A mortar shell landed in the village of Umm Batinah in the countryside of Qunaytirah governorate, injuring four civilians.
In Homs, a civilian was killed and others injured when terrorist groups detonated two explosive devices.
Four civilians were injured when 13 mortar shells landed in the Muhradah area and the village of Jinan in the countryside of Hama governorate.
Terrorists detonated two explosive devices in two restaurants in central Qamishli governorate, killing 16 persons and injuring 35.
A rocket landed in the Hammam neighbourhood in Ladhiqiyah governorate, injuring a civilian and causing material damage.

2 January 2016

 Several rockets landed in the city of Damascus and Rif Dimashq, as follows:

Location	Number of projectiles	Time	Damage
Abbasiyin	1	1320	Material damage
Assad suburb, Jazirah B4	1	1320	One killed and material damage
Around the Dama Rose Hotel	3	1530	Material damage to vehicles
Ministry of Education	1	1530	Material damage
Behind the Russian Cultural Centre	1	1530	Material damage
Adawi	2	1530	Material damage
Assad suburb, B1	3	1530	Material damage
Assad suburb roundabout	1	1530	Material damage

Resulted in one death and material damage.

4 January 2016

 Several gas cylinder missiles landed in a number of neighbourhoods in the city of Aleppo, injuring 19 civilians and causing material damage.

5 January 2016

 Two mortar shells landed in Dar‘a, killing a child and inflicting shrapnel wounds on her sister, and causing material damage.
A mortar shell landed in Rif Dimashq, causing material damage. A mortar shell was also launched at the Ibn Sina Hospital, injuring one person and causing material damage.
Four mortar shells landed in the city of Jaramana, causing material damage.

6 January 2016

 Several rockets landed in the city of Damascus and Rif Dimashq, as follows:

Location	Number of projectiles	Time	Damage
Roof of the Rif Dimashq Chamber of Commerce building (Baghdad Street)	1	1200	11 dead, 25 injured and material damage
Parliament compound	1	1200	One injury and material damage
Old fairground	1	1300	No injuries or damage
Behind the Real Estate Authority	1	1300	One civilian injured and material damage
Mu‘addamiyah, northern quarter	1	1345	Material damage

Resulted in 11 dead, 31 injured and material damage.

7 and 8 January 2016

 Three mortar shells landed at Salihiyah Gate, on Baghdad Street and on Thawrah Street in Damascus, killing 9 civilians, injuring 39 others and causing material damage.
A mortar shell landed in the northern quarter of Mu‘addamiyah in Rif Dimashq, injuring four civilians and causing material damage.
Two projectiles (gas cylinder missiles) landed at Suryan al-Jadidah in Aleppo, killing a female civilian and injuring five others. A civilian woman was also injured by shrapnel from a shell in Halab al-Jadidah.
Terrorists taking shelter in Eastern Ghutah launched two mortar shells at the Harasta suburb. The terrorist attack killed one person and caused various injuries to six others, including two women. It also caused material damage to property.
Mortar shells landed in a number of residential neighbourhoods in central Damascus.
A civilian woman was injured in Manshiyah in Dar‘a governorate by shrapnel to the head from shells fired by terrorist groups.
Three civilians were injured when a mortar shell landed at Hamdaniyah in the city of Aleppo, and material damage was caused to civilian property.
Two persons died and three others were injured when terrorists from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) organization fired two shells at the Jawrah residential neighbourhood in the city of Dayr al-Zawr.

9 January 2016

 A large number of rockets landed in the towns of Nubul and Zahra’, killing a civilian woman, injuring three civilians and causing extensive material damage to residential buildings.
Armed terrorist groups launched two rockets at the town of Salhab in the Hama countryside, killing one person and injuring another.

12 January 2016

 A mortar shell launched by armed terrorist groups landed in the Manshiyah neighbourhood in Dar‘a, killing one civilian and injuring another.
Two mortar shells landed at Ramusah in Aleppo, injuring three civilians. Several rockets landed on the towns of Nubul and Zahra’, killing a civilian and causing material damage.
94 shells were fired at the area surrounding the Harasta suburb in Rif Dimashq, causing material damage. Six mortar shells also fell in Wafidin camp and the surrounding area, causing material damage.

13 January 2016

 A landmine exploded in the village of Dawudiyah in the city of Hasakah, killing 2 children and injuring 10 others.
Mortar shells landed in the besieged residential town of Nubul in the northern Aleppo countryside, killing one person, causing various injuries to others and causing material damage to homes.
A gas cylinder missile landed at Ashrafiyah in Aleppo, killing a child and injuring two other persons.
A round of sniper fire from armed terrorist groups at A‘zamiyah in Aleppo injured a girl who is now in critical condition.

14 and 15 January 2016

 An ISIL suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt in the village of Tawq al Milh west of the city of Hasakah, killing two persons and injuring others.
An explosive device planted by terrorists under a vehicle in the Armenian quarter in Homs injured a woman and caused material damage to the area.
Two mortar shells fell in the industrial zone of Damascus International Airport, causing material damage.

16 January 2016

 ISIL terrorists perpetrated a horrifying massacre against the people of the village of Baghiliyah in Dayr al-Zawr that claimed the lives of 300 civilians, most of them elderly persons, women and children.
Five rockets were launched at the Bustan al-Zahrah, Mushariqah and Aziziyah neighbourhoods in Aleppo, killing 3 civilians, injuring 17 and causing extensive material damage to a number of homes.
One person was killed and others wounded by rockets launched at the besieged town of Fu‘ah in the Idlib countryside.

17 January 2016

 Five rockets landed in Aleppo, killing two civilians and injuring one.
Gas cylinder missiles landed in several parts of Aleppo, injuring six civilians.

19 January 2016

 Several rockets landed at Ramusah in Aleppo, killing 3 civilians and injuring 11 others, including five children.
A projectile (gas cylinder missile) landed at Salah al-Din in Aleppo, injuring three civilians.
Armed groups launched mortar shells at Masakin al-Ruwwad in Dayr al-Zawr, killing a civilian and injuring another.

20 January 2016

 Armed individuals fired at passing cars in the Barzah neighbourhood of Damascus, killing a civilian and injuring others.
Six rockets landed in the Safirah area of Aleppo, killing four civilians and inflicting shrapnel wounds on five others.
A gas cylinder missile landed in Aleppo at Hamdaniyah, injuring two civilians.
A round of sniper fire from armed terrorist groups injured a civilian at Sulaymaniyah in Aleppo.

24 January 2016

 A motorcycle bomb exploded in Qamishli, killing 3 civilians, injuring 14 others and causing material damage.
Two explosive projectiles (gas cylinders) landed in Masakin al-Sabil in Aleppo, injuring six civilians.

25 and 26 January 2016

 A terrorist suicide bombing in the Zahra’ neighbourhood of Homs killed 24 people and injured 100.
ISIL terrorists shelled a number of areas in Dayr al-Zawr, killing 6 civilians, including a woman, injuring 12, including two children, and causing material damage to property.
Several mortar shells landed in the town of Qarfa in Dar‘a, injuring three civilians.
Gas cylinder missiles landed in Aleppo, injuring nine civilians.
10 mortar shells landed in the village of Tumin in the city of Hama, injuring a number of persons, including children.
Several mortar shells landed in Aleppo at a number of locations, including Salah al-Din, Ramusah, Jam‘iyat al-Zahra’ and the Scientific Research Centre area, injuring a number of civilians.
Several gas canister missiles landed in Aleppo, injuring two peaceable civilians.
Sniper fire from terrorist groups in Aleppo in Ashrafiyah and Hamdaniyah injured two civilians.

27 January 2016

 Several mortar shells landed in Aleppo in the Aziziyah neighbourhood, Ugarit Street, Jamiliyah and Binyamin, killing a civilian woman and injuring 11 other civilians.
A mortar shell landed in Dayr al-Zawr in the Tahtuh neighbourhood, killing a civilian.

28 and 29 January 2016

 A round of fire from terrorist groups in Dar‘a injured a child.
A mortar shell landed in Qunaytirah, killing four civilians and injuring 14 others.
A round of sniper fire at Sayf al-Dawlah in Aleppo killed a civilian.
Five mortar shells landed at a number of locations in Aleppo, injuring nine civilians, including a woman.
Gas cylinder missiles landed at a number of locations in Aleppo, killing two defenceless civilians and injuring four others.
A mortar shell killed three children and injured another with shrapnel to the head in the Muwazzafin neighbourhood in Dayr al-Zawr.

31 January 2016

 Three terrorist bombings in the town of Sayyidah Zaynab in Rif Dimashq killed 60 persons and injured more than 110.
Two mortar shells landed in Damascus, injuring two children.
Mortar shells landed in several parts of Damascus, killing a child and injuring a woman.
Mortar shells landed in Dayr al-Zawr, injuring four civilians, including a girl.

Monday, 1 February 2016

 Mortar shells landed on a school in the town of Buqayn in Rif Dimashq, injuring 14 female students.
Eleven rockets landed in the town of Jubb al-Jarrah in Homs, injuring a child and causing material damage.
Mortar shells landed in several parts of Aleppo, injuring three civilians.
Mortar shells landed in the Thawrah neighbourhood of Dayr al-Zawr, injuring two civilians.

Tuesday, 2 February

 Gas canister missiles landed in several parts of Aleppo, killing a woman civilian and injuring six other civilians.
Gunfire in the A‘zamiyah area in Aleppo injured a civilian.

Wednesday, 3 February

 One civilian was killed and two others injured when four mortar shells landed in the Harasta suburb in Rif Dimashq governorate.
Rocket shells landed on the Police Command building in Dar‘a governorate, killing 17 civilians and injuring 100 others.
A child was injured when a mortar shell landed in the town of Si‘in in Hama governorate.
Mortar shells landed in several parts of Aleppo governorate, killing four civilians and injuring more than 10 others.
Mortar shells landed in the Thawrah neighbourhood of Dayr al-Zawr, injuring a woman.

Thursday and Friday, 4 and 5 February

 Two mortar shells landed in the Sahnaya area of Rif Dimashq, killing three children and injuring four others.
Mortar shells landed in the Harasta suburb in Rif Dimashq, injuring two civilians.
A number of mortar shells and gas canister missiles were launched at several parts of Aleppo, killing a civilian and injuring 20 others, including children.

Saturday, 6 February

 Mortar shells landed in the Sabil neighbourhood and the airport in Dar‘a, injuring three civilians.
Terrorist groups launched gas canister missiles at the Maydan area and the Sulayman al-Halabi neighbourhood in Aleppo, killing a civilian and injuring four others.

Sunday, 7 February

 Sniper fire from terrorist groups in the A‘zamiyah neighbourhood in Aleppo governorate killed a civilian and injured four others.
Gas canister missiles landed in several parts of Aleppo, killing a girl and injuring another child.

Monday, 8 February

 Three mortar shells landed in the village of Jaba in Qunaytirah, injuring seven civilians, including three children.
Three rocket shells landed in the city of Qardahah in Ladhiqiyah, killing two civilians and injuring three others. A shell was also launched at the village of Bishalama, killing a civilian and injuring two others.
Gas canister missiles were launched at parts of Aleppo, injuring seven civilians, including children, and causing material damage.

Wednesday, 10 February

 Eight civilians were killed and 14 others injured when a car bomb exploded in the Masakin Barzah area.
Seven mortar shells landed in the Sabil neighbourhood in Dar‘a, killing a civilian and injuring one other.
Rocket shells were launched at the town of Jubb al-Jarrah in Homs governorate, injuring a civilian and causing material damage.

Thursday and Friday, 11 and 12 February

 A civilian was killed by sniper fire from terrorist groups in Harasta in Rif Dimashq governorate while travelling on the international highway.
Mortar shells landed in the city of Dar‘a, injuring two civilians.
A child died of injuries sustained from the explosion of an unidentified object left behind by terrorist groups in the Qusayr area in Homs governorate.
Gas canister missiles landed in the Maydan neighbourhood in Aleppo governorate, causing material damage. A civilian was injured by sniper fire from terrorist groups in the Sulaymaniyah area. A civilian was killed, and four others injured, when a gas canister missile landed in the Hamdaniyah area.

Saturday, 13 February

 A girl was killed and 12 others injured when mortar shells landed in several parts of the city of Dar‘a.
Armed terrorist groups launched rocket shells at the city of Safirah in the Aleppo countryside, killing two children and injuring three others.

Sunday, 14 February

 A mortar shell fell behind the Fayha’ sports complex in Damascus opposite the Russian Embassy, injuring two civilians.
Mortar shells landed in the Harasta suburb in Rif Dimashq, injuring six civilians, including two children, and causing material damage to the site.

Monday, 15 February

 A mortar shell fell in the Duwayli‘ah area in Damascus governorate, injuring a civilian and setting fire to a vehicle.
Some 23 gas canister missiles fell in several neighbourhoods of Aleppo governorate, killing two civilians and injuring nine, including women and children.

Wednesday, 17 February

 Gas canister missiles landed in the Ashrafiyah and A‘zamiyah areas in Aleppo governorate, killing a civilian and injuring six others.
Explosive rounds landed on the university campus and the Furqan area in Aleppo governorate, injuring seven civilians.

Thursday and Friday, 18 and 19 February

 Gas canister missiles landed in the Mashariqah and Sayf al-Dawlah areas in the city in Aleppo, killing two civilians and injuring six others, including women.
Terrorist groups in Aleppo launched mortar shells and gas canister missiles at several areas, killing 10 civilians and injuring 27 others.

Saturday and Sunday, 20 and 21 February

 Two terrorist car bombs were set off in Sittin Street in the city of Homs, killing 57 people and injured dozens of others.
Three explosions in a residential area in Sayyidah Zaynab in Rif Dimashq — a car bomb followed by two suicide bombings — killed 83 civilians and injured 178 others, most of them seriously.
Rocket shells landed in the village of Jurin in the Ghab district, injuring three civilians and causing material damage.
Gas canister missiles and mortar shells landed next to the municipal stadium and in the Sulayman al-Halabi, Shaykh Maqsud and Jam‘iyat al-Zahra’ areas in the city of Aleppo, killing five civilians and injuring 19 others, including five children.

Monday, 22 February

 Armed terrorist groups detonated a military vehicle with an explosive device on the Sulaymah-Raqqah highway.
Gas canister missiles landed in several parts of Aleppo, killing a civilian and injuring 27 others.

Tuesday, 23 February

 Gas canister missiles and mortar shells landed in Aleppo, killing 10 citizens and injuring 20 others.
Mortar shells were launched at several neighbourhoods in the city of Dayr al Zawr, killing two civilians and injuring 14 others, including women and children.

Thursday and Friday, 25 and 26 February

 Some 13 mortar shells landed in the cities of Harasta and Kiswah in Rif Dimashq, injuring a civilian and a child.
Mortar shells landed in Dar‘a, killing two civilians and injuring six others.
Gas canister missiles landed in the Nubul village and Sayf al-Dawlah areas in Aleppo, injuring four civilians.
A woman civilian was killed when a mortar shell landed in the Harabish neighbourhood of Dayr al-Zawr.
On 26 February, rocket shells landed in the city of Damascus as follows:

Location	Number of projectiles	Time	Damage
Assad suburb	7	0830	Material damage
Wafidin camp	3	1100	Material damage
Ashrafiyat Sahnaya	5	1340	Material damage
The Kuwaiti building	2	1350	Material damage and 1 dead plus gunfire
Abbasiyin	4	1400	Material damage
Abbasiyin	4	1745	Material damage
Kiswa	1	1900	1 injured

Saturday, 27 February

 A suicide terrorist blew himself up with a car bomb 1 kilometre from the eastern entrance to the city of Salamiyah in the Hama countryside, killing two people and injuring four others. A vehicle was also detonated by an explosive device in the city of Salamiyah, killing eight civilians and injuring two others.
A number of mortar shells landed in the Abbasiyin area in the city of Damascus, causing material damage.
One person was killed and two others injured in terrorist attacks in the Shaykh Maqsud and Sulayman al-Halabi residential neighbourhoods in the city of Aleppo.
Three children and two civilians were killed and more than 12 injured when the terrorist organization Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launched rocket and mortar shells at the Jurah, Qusur and Muwazzafin residential neighbourhoods in the city of Dayr al-Zawr.

1 March

 Eight shells were fired from inside Turkish territory at a group of foreign journalists who were in the Kinnisibba area in north-eastern rural Ladhiqiyah to cover the cessation of hostilities. Four journalists from Russia, China, Bulgaria and Canada were injured.
Seven mortar shells and rockets struck the homes of residents of the Sabil and Matar neighbourhoods in Dar‘a city and caused material damage to property.

6 March

 Dozens of rockets and mortar shells rained down on the Shaykh Maqsud neighbourhood of Aleppo, killing 13 people and injuring over 40 others.
A mine planted by terrorist groups in the Safirah neighbourhood of Aleppo exploded, injuring three civilians.
Four civilians were killed and three others were injured by an explosive device that terrorist groups had planted in the Khanasir neighbourhood of Aleppo.
Two children were injured by a mine and a bomb that Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorists had planted in the village of Hamar al-Sharqiyah and Shaddadah city in rural Hasakah.

7 March

 One woman was killed in Dar‘a by a mine that terrorist groups had planted near a Syrian Arab Army checkpoint.
A mine planted by terrorist groups in Nawfaliyah village in Hasakah exploded, killing one woman and injuring three civilians.
An explosive device that terrorist groups had planted in Quwwatli Street in Hasakah injured five civilians, three of whom were women.
A mortar shell fell on the Shaykh Maqsud neighbourhood of Aleppo, killing seven civilians, including three women and three children.
Mortar shells fell on the Qusur neighbourhood of Dayr al-Zawr, killing eight civilians and injuring 12 others.

8 March

 A gas cylinder missile fell on the Shaykh Maqsud neighbourhood of Aleppo, injuring one civilian.
Three civilians were killed and two others injured by a mortar shell that fell on the Qusur neighbourhood of Dayr al-Zawr.

10, 11 and 12 March

 A group of ISIL terrorists infiltrated Ma‘arrat al-Bayda village in Dar‘a and slaughtered two civilians and injured two women.
Six civilians, five of them women, were injured when ISIL fired 21 rockets at the Mafqar al-Sharqi and Suqaylibiyah I areas of Hama.
Shells fell on several areas of Aleppo, injuring three civilians.
A mortar shell fell on Jafrah village in Dayr al-Zawr, injuring one civilian.
A civilian was killed by a mine planted that terrorist groups had planted in Umm Hajirah village in Hasakah.

13 March

 Nine mortar shells fell on various parts of Dar‘a, injuring a number of civilians.
A civilian was injured by shrapnel when a gas cylinder missile struck the Shaykh Maqsud neighbourhood of Aleppo.
Five mortar shells fell on the Qusur neighbourhood of Dayr al-Zawr, killing one girl and injuring two civilians.

14 March

 Ten mortar shells fell on Unq al-Hawa village in Homs, killing two women.
Armed terrorist groups fired mortar shells at Mas‘udiyah village in Homs, killing one civilian.

16 March

 Armed terrorist groups attacked the town of Manin in Rif Dimashq, killing two civilians.
A civilian was killed and two others were injured by shells that armed terrorist groups had fired at the Shaykh Maqsud and Ashrafiyah neighbourhoods of Aleppo.

17 and 18 March

 A gas cylinder missile fell on Aleppo, killing two children and injuring one civilian.
A woman was killed and six others were injured by a mortar shell that fell on the Maydan area of Aleppo.
Rockets fired at the Jam‘iyat al-Zahra’ neighbourhood of Aleppo killed one boy and one girl and injured several others.
Two landmines planted by terrorist groups in Hasakah exploded, killing two civilians and injuring six others, including one girl and one woman.

19 and 20 March

 A landmine planted by terrorist groups in the town of Qarfa in Dar‘a exploded, killing three civilians.
Several rockets struck Aleppo, killing four civilians, two of whom were girls, and injuring 12 others.
A landmine planted by terrorist groups in Jabal Abd al-Aziz in Hasakah exploded, injured one civilian.
Several mortar shells fell on Hasakah, killing one girl and injuring four other civilians, including two children.
Armed terrorist groups infiltrated the Dawud neighbourhood of Hasakah and killed one woman and one boy.
Terrorist groups directed sniper fire at the population of the town of Fu‘ah in Idlib, killing three civilians, including one woman, and injuring one civilian.

21 March

 Mortar shells fell on several areas of Aleppo, injuring one woman and two children.
Four civilians, three of them women, were injured by two mortar shells that armed terrorist groups fired at the Harabish neighbourhood of Dayr al-Zawr.

23 March

 Mortar shells fell on the Harasta suburb of Rif Dimashq, injuring three civilians.
Fifteen civilians, some of whom were children, were killed in armed clashes between ISIL and Nusrah Front terrorists in the town of Jallayn in Dar‘a.
A civilian was injured by a landmine planted by armed terrorist groups in rural Hasakah.
Several mortar shells fell on Dayr al-Zawr, injuring four civilians.

24 and 25 March

 A gas cylinder missile fired from the Amiriyah neighbourhood of Aleppo struck the Salah al-Din neighbourhood, injuring one woman.
A gas cylinder missile fired from the Bani Zayd neighbourhood of Aleppo struck the Shaykh Maqsud neighbourhood, killing one civilian.
A terrorist group in Aleppo fired gas cylinder missiles at several areas, killing two civilians and injuring five others. A civilian woman who had been injured by shell fragments in Hamdaniyah was admitted to Aleppo Hospital.

27 and 28 March

 One woman was injured by a mortar shell that fell on the Jam‘iyat al-Zahra’ neighbourhood of Aleppo.
One civilian was injured by a landmine that had been planted by terrorist groups in Aleppo.
Armed terrorist groups fired a rocket at a passenger bus, injuring two civilians.
A woman was killed and 10 other civilians, seven of them women, were injured when nine mortar shells fell on the Harabish neighbourhood of Dayr al-Zawr.
A civilian was injured by a landmine that had been planted by armed terrorist groups in Khama’il village in Hasakah.

31 March and 1 April

       – A civilian woman was injured when a terrorist sniper fired at a microbus on the Harasta highway in Damascus.
Two mortar shells fell on the Harasta suburb of Rif Dimashq, injuring one civilian.
Several civilians were killed and injured by several shells that fell on the Shaykh Maqsud neighbourhood of Aleppo.
Two civilians were injured by a landmine planted by armed terrorist groups on the Hasakah-Dayr al-Zawr highway.
One child was killed and 21 other civilians, four of them children, were injured by explosive devices in several areas of Homs.
A rocket fired at the Harabish neighbourhood of Dayr al-Zawr killed one woman.
A gas cylinder missile fell on Aleppo, injuring one civilian woman.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article191638.html

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

The Great Leap Backward America’s Illegal Wars on the World

“Counterpunch” – Can we face it in this election season? America is a weapons factory, the White House a war room, and the president the manager of the neoliberal conspiracy to recolonize the planet. It exports war and mass poverty. On the economic front, usurious neoliberalism; on the military front, illegal wars. These are the trenches of America’s battle for world domination in the 21^stcentury.

If not stopped, it will be a short century.

Since 1945, America’s Manifest Destiny, posing as the Free World’s Crusade against the Red Menace, has claimed 20 to 30 million lives worldwide and bombed one-third of the earth’s people. In the 19^th century, America exterminated another kind of “red menace,” writing and shredding treaties, stealing lands, massacring, and herding Native populations into concentration camps (“Indian reservations”), in the name of civilizing the “savages.” By 1890, with the massacre of Lakota at Wounded Knee, the frontier land grab—internal imperialism– was over. There was a world to conquer, and America trained its exceptionally covetous eye on Cuba and the Philippines.

American external imperialism was born.

Then, something utterly dreadful happened in 1917—a successful social revolution in Russia, the second major after the French in 1789, to try to redistribute the wealth of the few to the advantage of the many. The rulers of the world—US, Britain, France and sundry acolytes—put aside their differences and united to stem the awful threat of popular democracy rising and spreading. They invaded Russia, fomented a civil war, funding and arming the counter-revolutionary forces, failed, and tried again in 1939. But Hitler’s war of extermination on the USSR ended in a spectacular victory for Moscow.

For a while, after 1945, the US had to behave as a civilized country, formally. It claimed that the USSR had a barbarian, all-conquering ideology, rooted in terror, disappearances, murder, and torture. By contrast, the US was the shining city on the hill, the beacon of hope for a “the free world.” Its shrine was the United Nations; its holy writ was international law; its first principle was the inviolability of the sovereignty of nations.

All this was rubbish, of course. It was an apartheid society. It nuked Japan not once but twice, deliberately selecting civilian targets. It shielded from justice top Nazi criminals to absorb them as partners in intelligence structures. It conducted virtual “show trials” against dissidents during the hysteria of the McCarthy congressional hearings, seeding the country with a harvest of fear. It waged a genocidal war on Vietnam to prevent independence and unification. It assassinated African independence leaders and bestowed fascist dictators on Latin America. It softly occupied Western Europe, tied it to itself through military “cooperation” in NATO, and it waged psy-op war on its opposition parties. Behind the civilized façade was a ruthless effort to take out the Soviet Union and crush self-determination in the colonial world.

By hook and by crook, the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, and America went berserk with triumphalism. Now, at last, the conquest of the world, interrupted in 1917, could resume. The global frontier reopened and America’s identity would be regenerated through violence, which had delivered the American West to the European invaders in the 19^th century. The benign mask dropped. Behind it came a rider on a pale horse. According to the ideologically exulted, history had ended, ideologies had died, and the messianic mission of the US to become the steward of God’s property on earth could be fulfilled.

The “civilizing mission” was afoot.

A cabal of neo-conservative policy wonks first sketched what I call the Great Leap Backward into lawlessness as a revival of the myth of the frontier in the 1990s. “The Plan for a New American Century” (PNAC) envisaged the 21^st century as a unilateralist drive to entrench American values globally—what the PNAC ideologues call “freedom and democracy”—through preemptive wars and regime change. This frenzied delirium of US military domination turned into official foreign policy with the Bush Doctrine after 9/11, but it was the Clinton administration’s Doctrine of Humanitarian Warfare before 9/11, that shut the door on the prohibition of aggressive wars by the UN Charter, remaking the map of the world into a borderless American hunting reserve by removing the principle of sovereignty and replacing it with “right to protect” (R2P)—or humanitarian pretext for use of force.

Clinton’s doctrine was an act of supreme, even witty, exploitation of liberal principles and commitment to policies of human rights. It was how the liberal left was induced to embrace war and imperialism as the means of defending human rights. The Carnegie Endowment cooked up the doctrine in 1992. Its report, “Changing Our Ways: America’s Role in the New World,” urged “a new principle of international relations: the destruction or displacement of groups of people within states can justify international intervention.” The report recommended that the US use NATO as the enforcer. It must be noted, too, that the principle of “humanitarian war” has no authority in international law. The Charter of the United Nations sought to outlaw war by making it impossible for unilateral interventions in the business of sovereign states by self-appointed guardians of human rights. The reason behind the proscription was not heartlessness but the consciousness that WW II had been the result of serial violations of sovereignty by Germany, Italy, and Japan—by militarist imperialism, in other words.

The bell tolled for the UN and the old order in the 1999 Kosovo War. The bi-partisan effort to dismantle the architecture of the post war’s legal order played out there. With the Kosovo War, the Clinton administration launched the first humanitarian war and set the precedent for waging war without Security Council clearance of many to follow by both Republican and Democrat administrations. The Clintonites who used NATO to bomb Serbia to protect ethnic Albanians in Kosovo from non-existing Serbian genocide may or may not have appreciated the fact that Hitler had used the pretext of R2P—humanitarian intervention—to launch WW II by claiming to protect German minorities in Poland, but they certainly knew that the monopoly on use of force rested with the UN’s Security Council. This monopoly was secured after WW II precisely to prevent unilateral attacks on sovereign states through bogus claims of altruistic interventions, such as Hitler had championed and pursued. Ironically for critics of the Soviet leader, it was Stalin who insisted at the Yalta Conference that if the USSR were to join the United Nations a veto in the Security Council was a must to insure that any war would be a multilateral consensus and a multilateral action.

As the Clintonites understood, the postwar legal authority for peacekeeping and the prevention of war entrusted to the UN Security Council posed a colossal obstacle to the pursuit of American world domination. For the vision of PNAC and the Carnegie Endowment to become reality, the United Nations, the guarantor of sovereignty, had to go. In the run-up to the Kosovo War, the Clintonites fatally and deliberately destabilized the United Nations, substituting the uncooperative UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali with the subservient NATO shill, Kofi Annan. Annan obligingly opined that in the matter of war and peace, UN Security Council resolutions were not the only way to skin a country– especially one chosen by the US for remaking, partitioning, or regime changing, a cynic might add.

So now we live in a dangerous world. Once again, since the 1930s, the world is being stalked by an expansionist power answering to no law but its own unilateral, humanitarian vigilantism. The Kosovo precedent has spun out of control. Libya smolders in the ashes of NATO bombs, dropped to prevent “genocide”; Syria fights for survival under attack by genocidal terrorist groups, armed, trained and funded by genocide preventers grouped in the NATO alliance and the Gulf partners; Afghanistan languishes in a permanent state of war, present ten thousand American troops which bomb hospitals to promote human rights; in Iraq, the humanitarians are back, after twenty-five years of humanitarian failure. And in Ukraine, Nazi patriots are promoting American democratic and humanitarian values by shelling Donbass daily. I hesitate to mention Africa, where humanitarian Special Forces are watering the fields where terrorists sprout like mushrooms after rain—in Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya.

Then there is Yemen, perhaps the most callous, vicious, and careless humanitarian crime of a litany of crimes against humanity in the Middle East. The US government has recently admitted deploying troops to Yemen. The Pentagon claims that the deployment will assist Saudi Arabia (“the Arab coalition”) to fight al-Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula. Can a sentient being meet such a grotesque claim with anything but infernal laughter? Help Saudi Arabia to fight its own creature? Are we stupid yet?

$4 trillion dollars later, spent on the War-on-Terror/Humanitarian-R2P, the pattern of military destabilization of sovereign states proceeds apace, one recalcitrant, independent country at a time in the Middle East and North Africa. For the rest of the world, the surrender of sovereignty is sought by means of economic globalization through trade pacts—TTP, TTIP, etc.—that virtually abolish the constitution of states, including our own. Spearheading the economic effort to control the periphery and the entire world is the so-called “Washington Consensus.”

It hugs the market-fundamentalist idea that global neoliberalism and core finance capital’s economic control of the planet by means of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) is the option to poverty and social chaos.

Neither military nor economic war on the sovereignty of nations has yielded anything close to a stable, prosperous, and peaceful world. It had delivered death, destruction, debt, market crises, tidal waves of refugees and displaced persons, and concentrated masses of wealth in a few but powerful hands. What the poet W.H. Auden called “the international wrong,” which he named “imperialism” in his poem “September 1939,” is the crisis that stares out of the mirror of the past into our faces, and it bodes war, war, and more war, for that is where imperialism drives.

In this scenario, no potential presidential candidate—even establishment-party dissenter—who does not call for both the end of the bi-partisan “Washington Consensus” and the end of bipartisan militarist aggression can reverse the totality of the “international wrong” or stem the domestic descent into social brutalization. If none calls this foreign policy debacle “imperialism,” elections will be a sleepwalker’s exercise. Nothing will change. Except, almost certainly, for the worse.

Luciana Bohne is co-founder of Film Criticism, a journal of cinema studies, and teaches at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!