WMD in Syria just like Iraq in 2003? – Contradictions in the UN/OPCW Report on Khan Shaykhun

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In early 2003 it was claimed that Iraq was a threat to other countries. Despite ten years of crushing economic sanctions plus intrusive inspections, supposedly Iraq had acquired enough “weapons of mass destruction” to threaten the West. It was ridiculous on its face but few people in power said so. Establishment politicians and media across the U.S. promoted the idea. In the Senate, Joe Biden chaired the committee looking into the allegations but excluded knowledgeable critics such as Scott Ritter. This led to the invasion of Iraq.

Today we have something similarly ridiculous and dangerous. Supposedly the Syrian government decided to use a banned chemical weapon which they gave up in 2013-2014. Despite advancing against the insurgents, the Syrian government supposedly put sarin in a Russian chemical weapon canister and dropped this on the town Khan Shaykhun which has been under the control of Syria’s version of Al Qaeda for years. To top off the stupidity, they left paint markings on the canister which identify it as a chemical weapon. Supposedly the Syrian government did this despite knowing there are many “White Helmet” activists in the town along with with their cameras, videos, computers, internet uplinks and western social media promoters. Supposedly the Syrian government did this despite knowing that neo-conservatives, neo-liberals and zionists are keen to prolong the conflict and drag the US and NATO into it. Supposedly the Syrian government did this despite knowing the one thing that could trigger direct US aggression in the conflict is the use of chemical weapons …. the “red line” laid down by Barack Obama.

If the above sounds unlikely, it is. But even if these accusations should be laughed out of the room, as they should have been in 2002, let’s take the claims about the event at Khan Shaykun in Syria on 4 April 2017 seriously. Certainly the consequences will be serious if the trend is not reversed.

What Happened at Khan Shaykhun?

The report titled “Seventh report of the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism” was provided to select governments and media on Thursday 26 October. Media announced the key finding without criticism or question. They highlighted the sentence that the committee is “confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin in Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017”.

About 36 hours later, the report was leaked via the internet.  But the die was already cast as establishment media had “confirmed” Syrian guilt.

Following are key contradictions and inconsistencies in the report produced by the Joint Investigative Mechanism of the UN and Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

* THE INVESTIGATION IGNORES THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENT OF MOTIVE. 

The three essentials in criminal investigation are Motive, Means and Opportunity. All three must be present. Yet the investigation team ignores the question of motive. The Syrian government has every motive to NOT use proscribed weapons. On the other side, the armed opposition has a strong motive to implicate the Syrian government. They have been calling for US and NATO intervention for years. They are losing ground, recruits and allies. Yet these facts are never considered.

* THE INVESTIGATION RELIES PRIMARILY ON BIASED SOURCES.

On page 1 the Joint Investigative Mechanism claims they have conducted a “rigorous independent examination”. But most experts and witnesses are biased toward the “regime change” policies of western governments.  On page 4 the report says“The Mechanism engaged several internationally recognized forensic and specialist defense institutes… to provide forensic and expert support to the investigation.”

Any “defense institute” connected or contracting with France, UK or USA will have inherent assumptions and bias since these governments have actively promoted overthrow of the Syrian government.

* THE INVESTIGATION IGNORES CREDIBLE BUT CRITICAL ANALYSES.

The Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) team makes no mention of the published analysis and findings of numerous researchers, investigative journalists and scientists. For example:

– MIT Professor Theodore Postol has analyzed the Khan Shaykhun incident. He persuasively challenges the main theory about the crater site and munition.  

– American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has also written about he incident. His information from U.S. military and intelligence officers reveal that the American military knew about the forthcoming attack in advance.  He reports the Syrian jet attack was “not a chemical weapons strike …. That’s a fairy tale.”

– Investigative journalist Gareth Porter has written an expose titled “Have We Been Deceived over Syrian Sarin Attack? Scrutinizing the Evidence in an Incident Trump Used to Justify Bombing Syria”. Porter presents a devastating critique of the sarin-crater theory. He documents how easily false positives for sarin could have been created and how the OPCW has violated their own investigation protocols.

– Researcher Adam Larson has written an expose titled “Syria Sarin Allegation: How the UN-Panel Report Twists and Omits Evidence”. After closely inspecting the photographs and videos, he questions whether the victims are civilians kidnapped from a nearby village five days previously. Larson’s site “A Closer Look at Syria” has a good index of videos and articles on this and other events.

The above “open source” analysis and information was published well before the current report but apparently not considered. A “rigorous, independent examination” needs to evaluate investigations such as these.

* VICTIMS APPEAR BEFORE THE ATTACK.

On pages 28-29 it is reported that “Certain irregularities were observed in elements of information analyzed. For example, several hospitals appeared to start admitting casualties of the attack between 0640 and 0645 hours…. in 57 cases patients were admitted in five hospitals before the incident in Khan Shaykhun….in 10 such cases, patients appear to have been admitted to a hospital 125 km away from Khan Shaykhun at 0700 hours while another 42 patients appear to have been admitted to a hospital 30 km away at 0700 hours.”

It is reported that “The Mechanism did not investigate these discrepancies and cannot determine whether they are linked to any possible staging scenario, or to poor record-keeping in chaotic conditions”. Given the importance of determining whether this incident was caused by the Syrian government or staged by elements of the armed opposition and their supporters, why were these discrepancies not investigated further? Clearly it is not possible that victims were transported 125 kms and delivered to a hospital in 15 minutes. This is potentially powerful evidence of a staged event.

* ‘WHITE HELMETS’ WERE WARNING OF A CHEMICAL WEAPON ATTACK BEFORE THE ATTACK.

On page 20 it says “The Mechanism collected information from witnesses to the effect that a first warning of a possible upcoming chemical attack was received by “Syrian Civil Defense” (also known as the “White Helmets”) and spotters in Kahn Shaykun…. The witness stated that the alert advised residents to be careful as the aircraft was likely carrying toxic chemicals.”

It seems reasonable to ask: Was the advance talk of “toxic chemicals” a signal to get ready for a staged event? How would a plane spotter know there was a one-time chemical bomb aboard? This is another area that needs more investigation.

* WERE SYRIAN PLANES OVER KHAN SHAYKHUN AT THE CRITICAL TIME?

The basic question of whether or not there were Syrian jets over Khan Shaykhun is unanswered. The Syrian military says they did NOT fly over Khan Shaykhun in the early morning.

Page 21 documents that the Syrian pilot and log books record that the Su-22 jet was executing attacks at other nearby towns and not closer than 7 – 9 kms from Khan Shaykhun. Radar track data from the U.S. appears to support this, indicating the Syrian jet path was 5 kms from Khan Shaykun.

On page 7 it says “SAAF aircraft may have been in a position to launch aerial bombs” (underline added).  On page 22 it says, “the witness reported waking up at around 0700 hours on 4 April 2017 to the sound of explosions. The witness stated that there had been no aircraft over Khan Shaykhun at the time and that aircraft had only started launching attacks at around 1100 hours.” (underline added)

There are conflicting testimonies on this issue but curiously no video showing jet fighters at the time of the explosions in Khan Shaykun. It is unconfirmed how the ground explosions occurred.

* THE INVESTIGATION TEAM DID NOT TRY TO VISIT THE SCENE OF THE CRIME.

On page 3 the report says “The Mechanism did not visit the scenes of the incidents…. While the Leadership Panel considered that a visit to these sites would have been of value, such value would diminish over time. Further, the panel was required to weigh the security risks against the possible benefits to the investigation.”

While it is certainly appropriate to consider security, the actual scene of a crime provides unique opportunities for evidence. The OPCW has previously stated the necessity of having access to a crime site then taking and transferring samples to a certified lab with a clear chain of custody.

If the insurgents still controlling Khan Shaykhun have nothing to hide, they should welcome the investigation.

Furthermore, Russian authorities offered to guarantee the safety of the inspection team. Yet the investigation team apparently made no effort to visit the site. Why? In an investigation of this importance, with potentially huge political consequences, visiting and analyzing the scene of the crime should be a requirement if at all possible.

* THE MATERIAL EVIDENCE COME FROM INSURGENTS WITH NO VERIFIABLE CHAIN OF CUSTODY.

On page 23 it says “Samples taken from the crater and its surroundings were found by the Fact Finding Mission to contain sarin.” On the day of the event, insurgents took soil samples and victims to Turkey where they were received and subsequently tested. Without verified origins and “chain of custody”, this data cannot be verified and must be considered skeptically.

As indicated in the report, one theory about the 4 April 2017 event is that it was staged to implicate the Syrian government. If that theory is correct, it is predictable that the plotters would have samples prepared in advance, including sarin samples with markers matched to the Syrian stockpile. The Syrian sarin was destroyed aboard the US vessel “MV Cape Ray”. Given the heavy involvement of the Central Intelligence Agency in the Syrian conflict it is likely they analyzed and retained some portion.

* THE REPORT REPEATS DISCREDITED CLAIMS ABOUT BOMB FRAGMENT AND FILLER CAP.

On page 26 it is reported that “two objects of interest … were the filler cap from a chemical munition and a deformed piece of metal protruding from deep within the crater. According to information obtained by the Mechanism, the filler cap, with two closure plugs, is uniquely consistent with Syrian chemical aerial bombs.”

This information may come from a Human Rights Watch report which has been discredited. The “filler cap” was supposedly a match for an external plug for a Russian chemical weapon bomb but was found to not match and to be based on a 1950’s era museum photo. An insightful and amusing critique of the HRW report is //medium.com/@AdrianKent/hrws-death-by-chemicals-report-walking-through-the-smoke-2d6d46ec0db8“>here.

The authenticity of the fragments in the crater is also challenged by the lack of a tailfin or any other bomb fragments. A chemical weapon bomb is designed to release and not burn up the chemical and therefore the munition casing should be on site.

* STRANGE ACTIONS SUGGESTING A STAGED EVENT 

On page 28 the report notes methods and procedures “that appeared either unusual or inappropriate in the circumstances.”  For example they observe that a Drager X-am 7000 air monitor was shown detecting sarin when that device is not able to detect sarin, and “para-medical interventions that did not seem to make medical sense, such as performing heart compression on a patient facing the ground.”

On page 29 it is reported that one victim had blood test showing negative for sarin and urine test showing positive. This is an impossible combination. Also on page 29 it is noted that some of the rescue operations were inappropriate but might have been “attempts to inflate the gravity of the situation for depiction in the media.”

The report does not mention the video which shows “White Helmet” responders handling victims without any gloves or protection. If the patients truly died from sarin, touching the patients’ skin or clothing could be fatal. Incidents such as these support the theory that this was a contrived and staged event with real victims.

* THE TEAM IS “CONFIDENT” IN THEIR CONCLUSIONS YET BASIC FACTS ARE IN DISPUTE.

On page 22, the report acknowledges that “To date the Mechanism has not found specific information confirming whether or not an SAA Su-22 operating from Al Shayrat airbase launched an aerial attack against Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017.”

How can they be “confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Shaykhun on 4 April 2017” when such basics have not been confirmed?

CONCLUSION

The report of the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) gives the impression of much more certainty than is actually there. Seizing on the false “confidence”, the White House has denounced the “horrifying barbarism of Bashar al Assad” and “lack of respect for international norms” by Syria’s ally Russia. International diplomacy is being steadily eroded. .

Most western “experts” were dead wrong in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Are these same “experts”, institutes, intelligence agencies and biased organizations going to take us down the road to new aggression, this time against Syria?

In contrast with the JIM report, Gareth Porter reached the opposite conclusion: “The evidence now available makes it clear that the scene suggesting a sarin attack at the crater was a crudely staged deception.” That is also more logical. The armed opposition had the motive, means and opportunity.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

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U.S attempts to link Iran with Bin Laden falls at the first hurdle

The Bin Laden documents: do I smell a US propaganda scheme?

http://angryarab.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/the-bin-laden-documents-do-i-smell-us.html

Of the Bin Laden documents, I read yesterday and today 1) the Bin Laden “journal”; 2) and the document pertaining to the relations between Al-Qa`idah and Iran.

Here are my conclusions:

We should treat all these “documents” released very belatedly by the US government as suspect–until their authenticity is proven beyond a doubt.  But the US government sat on them and only released its version of their spin for years and now suddenly they are released.

I am most skeptical especially that I see lies surrounding the release. 1) regarding the Ben Laden “Journal”.  It is not a journal.  I don’t know why the US government is insisting (along with the obedient media) on calling it a “journal”.  It has none of the features of a “journal’ or diary.

In fact, it is more like a transcript of a regular session in which the Arab uprisings–or more accurately–Al-Jazeera coverage of them–are discussed in the presence presumably of Ben Laden.  They don’t seem to be written by the same person and sometimes (see above) there is more than one handwriting on the same page.  And sometimes different pens on the same page.  The language of the journal is not consistent: sometimes it is less religious and seems secular in tone.  This also raises suspicions.

Sometimes Ben Laden is talked about in the first person and other times in the 3rd person.  What makes me more suspicious is the leaks by the US government (and the complaint media), in that they wanted only their spin.  It is true that Aljazeera is approvingly mentioned but there are also references to New York Times (but why would Bin Laden who knows English refer to the New York Times as “New York Time”?  Also, did Bin Laden have a satellite dish in Pakistan? I thought he did not. How is he managing to follow the TV coverage so closely and cite various experts who appear on Aljazeera or on Western media?

Also, there is a reference at least three times in the notebook to a vision Bin Laden have about Prince Nayif in military uniform and how they were fighting the communists.  Why did this not make it into the convenient leak by the US government? And the references to Prince Nayif were rather respectful.  I did not see that one in the Western media references (they were all recipient of what the US government wanted to stress).  But the language of the notebook does not resemble the language of Bin Laden.  Those transcripts were more like note taking of a session in which people discussed a roundup of developments in the Arab uprisings.  On another page, there is a reference to Iran and how they support protesters in Bahrain to pressure “the kingdom”.  And there is a sentence in which it is said: “Aljazeera with God’s praise is the carrier of the banner of the revolutions”.

The second reference to Prince Nayif and the vision appears and its said that he appeared yet again in military uniform and that he did not appear as a hostile party.  On another page, there is a reference to the development of Yemen and its transition from “one age to another” by none other than Abdul-Nasser. How odd is it for an Islamist of any kind to make a favorable reference to Nasser?  2) then there is that 19-page document (unsigned) and it is ostensibly is a document showing ties between Iran and Al-Qa`idah.  This one is the hardest to believe.  The document does not make sense: at several points it talks about Iranian regime being very pragmatic and another point it talks that the enmity between US and Iran is very real and not fake. But this last contention is totally against all the beliefs of Islamists (of the various kind) who are convinced that the US and Iran are allies under the table.  The paper also alleges that Iran offered to send Al-Qa`idah members to train at Hizbullah camps in Lebanon.

This is clearly a fabrication and shows a clumsy effort to implicate Iran in a relations with Al-Qa`idah. But why would Iran need to send Al-Qa`dish fighters who are allegedly in Iran already to Lebanon to train? Why not train them there in Iran?  Also, the document itself then says: that Iranian governments arrested all of them and they had to go into hiding.  This document in particular clearly is fabricated–I venture–and I don’t know who wrote it.  It also struck me as less religious in tone than what we normally read form those quarters.  And as for the porn collection that Bin Laden had: I also don’t believe it.  The US never explained what it was and where it was (remember that Bin Laden did not have internet in his house).   I believe that Bin Laden is a sincere fanatical kook, unlike say other of this type, and for that I discount the story of the porn cache.   Do you remember when US dropped fliers into Afghanistan showing a manufactured “picture” of a clean shaven Bin Laden in a suit and tie allegedly to tell the people that he fled and left his fighters behind?

So now the US government admits it lied: that the “journal” was written by a family member of Bin Laden

As I told you yesterday, the “journal” ostensibly by Bin Laden as all US media said (as told by the US government), is now revealed to have been written not by Bin Laden but by a family member. And it is not a journal, for potato’s sake. It is a transcript of meetings in which the round up of news about Arab uprisings is discussed.  

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

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In big anniversary year for israel, Christian Zionists see signs of the Messiah

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ED-NOTE – The abomination of Christian Zionism would have never seen the light of day if there had been no Reformation. There would have been no Reformation if the most celebrated early Church Fathers had done their homework and not incorporated the Jewish Torah, that book written by the lying pens of scribes, into the Christian scriptures. And the world would have been a much different and better place had the early Christians followed Tertullian’s insight.

We no longer have any of his books but we know of them because all the following Christian ‘thinkers’ spent their lives trying to refute his thesis, namely that the God of Jesus Christ (PBUH) was not, could never have been the same ‘God’ described in the Torah; Jesus Christ could never the son of such ‘God’; Jesus Christ could never have been part of a Trinity that included the Jewish ‘God’.

His conclusions are not extravagant at all. In fact, they coincide with what the Jews themselves have been telling us for the past 5000 years: THE DEITY THEY WORSHIP IS THEIRS AND THEIRS ALONE; THEIR ‘GOD’ IS NOT OUR GOD. And they coincide with what Jesus (PBUH) told us in the most unambiguous way: the’God’ of the Jews was not his/ours. He rejected such deity and even named it for us in black and white: Satan.

And yet, despite all of that, we refuse to hear and understand and that is something that should fill all of us with wonder and horror at the same time.

Tertullian alone heard and understood what the Jews and what Jesus said and ‘his  Scriptures’, what he considered holy, did not include the Jewish Torah. He rejected it, the whole of it, and rightly so, as a true follower of Christ.

The Jews commit all their crimes, the Jews have declared war against the Children of Adam in the name of their satanic scriptures and, yet, it is the Muslims and the Christians who are always first up in arms to defend them and their book. Why?

It is time for Christians and Muslims alike to finally listen to what our enemies have been telling us all along and go for the jugular: the ONLY source of the problem, as Tertullian had identified so early on, is Judaism (FYI: there was still no Talmud nor were there any Khazar during his time).

So when will the Christlamic world wake up and realize that the sinfulness of the Prophets should be enough reason to finally, finally, finally de-legitimize the jewish Torah? And what will it take for the Christlamic world to understand,  at last, that there is no greater nor viler blaspheme against their own religion than Judaism and the Jewish Torah? 

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TIMES OF ISRAEL – Fifty years since the Six-Day War, 100 years since the Balfour Declaration, 150 years since Mark Twain first visited Palestine. This has been a year of big Israel-related anniversaries. To the Jewish state’s most diehard Christian supporters, the barrage of milestones is not mere coincidence but rather a harbinger of prophecies being fulfilled.

Every half century, many Christian Zionists believe, history makes a concerted push toward its endpoint: the return of the Messiah to Jerusalem. According to this pattern, something momentous should happen to Israel before the end of 2017.

“Reading Israel’s modern history, there seems to be something unusual in 50-year cycles,” said David Parsons, the vice president of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem. “It means we should expect something incredible to happen this year to further propel Jerusalem and Israel into its prophetic destiny.”

Christian Zionists, most of whom are part of the world’s 700 million-strong evangelical community, view themselves as the Jews’ partners in God’s plan. Like many Orthodox Jews, they believe that after a world war, the Messiah will take the throne of a Jewish kingdom in Jerusalem and lead the world to peace and prosperity.

As Christians, they of course expect the Messiah to be Jesus, whereas Jews are still looking for their redeemer. But Christian Zionists like to joke, “Let’s bring the Messiah, and then maybe somebody can ask him whether this is his first or second visit.”

When Israel captured eastern Jerusalem and its holy sites from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War, some Christians saw proof that the messianic era was nigh. They began scouring history for signs they may have missed.

Many such signs were identified, from “blood moons” to stock market crashes. What most inspired Christian Zionists were the half-century cycles that seemed to lead up to the Six-Day War. The proponents of this theory — including Jonathan Cahn, who discussed it in “The Harbinger,” his best-selling Christian novel from 2012 — tied it to the biblical “jubilee year,” which involves the reversion of land to its original owners.

So what happened 50 years before 1967?

In 1917, the British defeated the Ottoman Empire and took control of Palestine. On Nov. 2, they issued the Balfour Declaration pledging to support the establishment of a Jewish “national home” in the territory. Zionists eventually drove the British out of Palestine and, in 1948, founded the State of Israel.

A half century earlier, in 1867, two visitors to Ottoman Palestine separately contributed to the narrative that Palestine had gone to pot since the Jews left. British archaeologist Charles Warren conducted the first major excavations of the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem and found what he thought were relics of the biblical city of King David. And the American writer Twain visited the Holy Land and recorded his observations in a hugely popular travel memoir titled “The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims’ Progress.”

Twain capped many pages of unflattering observations with this line: “Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince.”

Looking back even further, Christian Zionists singled out 1517, the year the Ottomans conquered Jerusalem. It is also when Martin Luther is said to have posted his protest manifesto against the Catholic Church, launching the Protestant Reformation.

Although Christian Zionists are apologetic about Luther’s anti-Semitism, they believe that by popularizing individual Bible study as the means of relating to God, he made it possible for Christians to see the falsehood of replacement theology. According to this doctrine, which was long a core tenant of the Catholic Church and remains influential, God took the title of the chosen people from the Jews and gave it to the Christians.

Christian Zionists have had decades to speculate about what historic change would happen in 2017, a half century after the Six-Day War. At a conference for Christian Zionists in Jerusalem on Thursday titled “Balfour to Nikki Haley: A Century of Christian Zionist Diplomacy,” a popular guess among the 100 or so evangelical and Jewish participants was that President Donald Trump would fulfill his campaign promise to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. But with a only two months left in the year, time is running out.

Bob O’Dell, an American speaker at the conference and the co-founder of Root Source, a platform that allows Israeli Jews to teach Bible online to Christians, argued that the big event of 2017 may already be happening in the hearts of his fellow evangelicals. He said he has seen a surge interest in the community’s interest in Israel.

“Everyone has a theory, but my view is that what’s happening at this jubilee is a growing realization that Christians are leading the nations in their support of Israel,” he said. “I think this is going to be the most important change of them all.”

Donna Jollay, the director of Christian relations for Israel 365, a fast-growing Jewish-run media company that targets evangelicals with biblically themed news and content, listed dozens of signs that Christians were shepherding Israel toward the messianic era, along with relevant Bible passages.

She pointed to Trump’s Jewish grandchildren, America’s withdrawal from UNESCO over alleged anti-Israel bias (U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley is a convert to Christianity) and growing Christian investment in the Jewish state. Evangelicals from the United States alone bring about $500 million a year into Israeli tourism and charity, and support its current right-wing government.

“It’s pretty much everything,” she said.

American Jews, especially the majority who are non-Orthodox and politically liberal, have traditionally been wary of evangelical support for Israel. But Josh Reinstein, the founder of the 19-member Christian Allies Caucus, which seeks to promote Christian advocacy on behalf of Israel, said he has also seen a growing willingness among Jews to accept Christian help.

“We’ve seen the results,” he said, citing the anti-BDS laws in the United States and increased cooperation between Israel and African and Asian countries. “We know these are people who stand with Israel based on faith, and they’ll stick around in the long run, regardless of political or economic considerations.”

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!

America’s Trump, w. 37% Favorable Rating, Seeks Overthrow of Iran’s Rouhani, w. 62% Favorable Rating

Eric ZUESSE

 America’s Trump, w. 37% Favorable Rating, Seeks Overthrow of Iran’s Rouhani w. 62% favourable rating 

The investigative journalist Gareth Porter says that US President Donald Trump, whose favorable-rating among Americans is 37%, is determined that regime-change for Iran is needed — overthrowing Iran’s Shia-moderate President Hassan Rouhani, whose favorable-rating in Iran (see p. 10) is 62%.

This would hardly be out-of-character for the current US President. Trump is a far-right, neoconservative, leader, which means that he supports America’s continuing to serve the interests of the fundamentalist-Sunni trillionaire Saud family who own Saudi Arabia, and of the Jewish billionaires who control Israel; and both of those aristocracies hate Shia, and especially hate the leading Shia nation, which is Iran, and intend to take it over. Regime-change for Iran has been the US aristocracy’s policy ever since 1979, and the billionaire liar Donald Trump won the White House by denying that he was a neoconservative — even his fellow-neoconservatives believed his lies about that and came out publicly backing the unashamed neoconservative Hillary Clinton (which helped to convince many of America’s non-fascists to vote for Trump). Only few Americans are neoconservatives, but the few who are, are virtually all either American aristocrats or else lobbyists or other agents for same. Neoconservatism is the American aristocracy’s foreign policy, and long has been. Trump’s public statements against neoconservatives and their polices, were a major part of the appeal he had to voters, and helped to fool many people to think he cared about people other than himself and his narrow tribe.

In 1953, the US Government overthrew the democratically elected progressive secular Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, and replaced him with the (likewise secular, but unelected and tyrant, no progressive at all) Pahlavi Shah, whose torture chambers became famous; and Iranians finally overthrew him twenty-six years later, in 1979, while imprisoning for 444 days the US Embassy personnel in Tehran who had controlled their country through him; and, ever since 1979, the US Government has been trying to re-impose its proxy-rule there, through some stooge whose identity hasn’t yet been decided. That’s what America’s ‘democracy’ (which is approved by 37% of Americans) is trying to do to Iran’s ‘dictatorship’ (which is approved by 62% of Iranians): it’s trying to (re-)impose an American dictatorship there. Obviously, lots of military muscles would be needed in order to achieve that, and Trump’s ‘Defense’ Secretary, James Mattis, was chosen as the point-person to manage that job.

Israel is allied with the royal family of Saudi Arabia, the Sauds, who hate all Shia and consider them an “existential threat.” Because fundamentalist Jews have a far better reputation amongst the American people than do fundamentalist Muslims (of either the Sunni or Shia type), the Sauds wisely decided to use the Israel lobby in Washington to push their own — and the Israeli Government’s — Middle Eastern agenda: a Middle East where only Jews (in Israel) and fundamentalist Sunnis (everywhere else there) control the governments. But the US aristocracy want Iran not only because the Sauds and Israelis do, but because America’s aristocrats hate Russia (ours always wanted to control the world’s largest land-mass and all of its natural resources) and because Russia is allied with Shia and seculars, just as America is allied with the opposite: fundamentalists of three types: Christian, Jewish, and Sunni — but not Shia.

In 2002, the US aristocracy wanted regime-change in Iraq, but now they want regime-change in Iran, and also in Syria (which is ruled by Bashar al-Assad, who is both a Shia and a proponent of separation between church and state).

Trump’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson phrased the matter this way on October 26th: “As we’ve said many times before, the United States wants a whole and unified Syria with no role for Bashar al-Assad in the government. The United States remains committed to providing leadership in every region of the world.” That evidently includes in Syria (regime-change there), and not only in Iran (and, in fact, the US especially wants to rule in Russia) — but Syria today, Iran tomorrow, and then Russia afterwards, not all-at-once, is clearly the plan. After the Sauds caused 9/11, we invaded first Afghanistan, then Iraq, then Libya, then Syria, and Trump clearly has Iran and North Korea in America’s gun-sights right now.

The US, with the world’s highest incarceration-rate (percentage of its people in prison) (except for the tiny island of Seychelles) at 693 per 100,000, calls Iran a ‘dictatorship’ which has 287 per 100,000, and calls Russia a ‘dictatorship’ which has 450 per 100,000, and calls China a ‘dictatorship’ which has 164 per 100,000, and calls Syria a ‘dictatorship’ which has 60 per 100,000. Who is the US regime, to call other nations ‘dictatorships’, and to ‘justify’ in this manner, invading them, or even imposing economic sanctions against them? What kind of hypocrisy is that? It’s a kind that’s filled with psychopathy and bloodlust but that leads America, from the very top, regardless of what the American public, below that aristocracy-of-wealth, actually want.

On October 21st, Gareth Porter headlined at Consortium News, “Trump Bows to Neocons — Netanyahu”, and he wrote:

Netanyahu has continued to demand that Trump either withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) [Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran] or make far-reaching changes that he knows are impossible to achieve. In Netanyahu’s Sept. 19 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Netanyahu declared, “Israel’s policy toward the nuclear deal with Iran is very simple: Change it or cancel it.” And he made no secret of what that meant: If Trump doesn’t “cancel” the deal, he must get rid of its “sunset clause” and demand that Iran end its advanced centrifuges and long-range missile program, among other fundamentally unattainable objectives.

Trump’s statement on Oct. 13 managed to include both of the either/or choices that Netanyahu had given him.

When the Sauds or Israel’s Prime Minister (or especially both, as in “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!”) make a demand upon the American Government, the US leadership adhere to it — not necessarily right away, but the record does show, they adhere to it, sooner or later; and, even after Israel invaded America in 1967, and even after the Sauds invaded America (in an inside job with White House complicity) in 2001, the US leadership continue to do what Israel and the Sauds want.

Afghans didn’t do 9/11. Iraqis didn’t do 9/11. Syrians didn’t do 9/11. Libyans didn’t do 9/11. And, above all (since Al Qaeda doesn’t even allow Shia members), Iran didn’t do 9/11. Russia certainly didn’t do 9/11, either, and was opposed to jihadists even back in 1979 when the US leadership conspired with the Sauds to introduce jihadists into first Afghanistan and then into Russia itself (Chechnya etc.). But, the US aristocracy — the US Government — fined Iran $10.5 billion for having perpetrated 9/11, without a shred of evidence that Iran was even involved in financing or in carrying out, or in any other way, the attacks. And, for Trump, and for the Kushners, and for the Adelsons, and for AIPAC, etc., even that’s not bad enough injustice against Iran, to satisfy them. They want Iranian blood, and they need the ‘news’media to ‘justify’ it, like the ‘news’media ‘justified’ the 2003 invasion of Iraq, for America’s aristocracy.

No wonder why the heads-of-state in Syria, and in Iran, and in Russia, and in China, have higher polled job-approval ratings from their citizenry, than does the head-of-state in America. The American public are being grossly misinformed by ‘our’ ‘news’media, about such things as were, in previous occasions, ‘Saddam’s WMD’, and ‘the tyrant Gaddafi’, and ‘Russia’s dictatorship’, and ‘Syria’s brutal dictator’, and ‘America’s ally Israel’; but, yet, we know enough to be able to figure out that the US Government is profoundly hypocritical and corrupt and violent, and that it doesn’t represent the American people, but instead pretends to, while it actually represents America’s actual enemies, and masters: the billionaires who control America and who control America’s ‘allies’. We’re beginning to figure it out. After the past 27 years of nonstop lies, we’re beginning to understand, that it’s nonstop lies

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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!

Archbishop of Canterbury: UK Failed to Fulfil its ‘Sacred Trust of Civilization’ for Palestinian Freedom

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The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. (Photo: via Social Media)

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, called for the creation of a Palestinian state and reminded the UK of its unfulfilled promise to safeguard “the welfare of the Palestinian people and their path to independence” during its 28 year Mandate.

Writing in an article marking the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, Welby said: “as a country, we are reminded that the British government created the conditions for a profound national and political reconfiguring in the Middle East.”

Welby questioned Britain’s motive in declaring its intentions to create a “Jewish Homeland” in Palestine saying “there is less clarity of intent for the Palestinian people in the assertion that ‘nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine’.”

“There does not appear to be a plan for the consequences of the inevitable changes in demographics in Palestine and the attendant need for homes, land and work,” explained Welby.

The Palestinian communities were not given parity of provision for their own desire for independence, self-determination and statehood.

The head of the world’s 85 million Anglicans took a swipe at the UK; accusing Britain of failing to fulfil its “sacred trust of civilization for both the welfare of the Palestinian people and their path to independence”.

“That aspiration for independent statehood has not been fulfilled yet,” insisted Welby, “and remains a root cause of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians today.”

The Archbishop who visited Palestine earlier in the year to see first-hand Israel’s persecution of Christians called for “Palestinian self-determination to be realized” adding: “there is a need for significant investment of time, attention and diplomacy from the international community and especially Britain.”

Welby warned against the “despair and a collective lack of hope” in Palestine, while committing to “pray and to act for the flourishing of Palestinians and for the exercise of self-determination in the establishing of a viable and secure state.”

“There can be no more fitting way to mark the anniversary of the signing of the Balfour Declaration” concluded Welby, “than to pray for the fulfillment of what remains unfinished in aspirations for statehood, security and peace.”

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Here’s your ‘Putin Did It!’ Survival Guide

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By Adam Garrie,

This article first appeared on GR in November 2016.

As the Duran reported, it was only a matter of time before the ‘Putin Did It’ (see The Duran Lexicon for more) line crept back into the news in light of a re-opened FBI investigation, following the discovery more incriminating Hillary Clinton emails. Sure enough, Howard Dean, the man who ended his own presidential campaign by acting like a crazed hooligan on stage, has said that now the FBI and Putin are on the same side.

This comes days after Putin reassured the world that he really doesn’t want, need or care to meddle in the US election. Of course the usual suspects in the western mainstream media don’t listen to Putin because he’s just too damn reasonable. It seems that western mainstream media are confounded by Putin’s calm, his consistency, his logic and moreover by the fact that he doesn’t seem too perturbed about the issues that western pundits go hysterical over on a daily basis.

In order to make life easier for those who ‘question more’ in the following week,  I’ve come up with a list of the varieties of people who say ‘Putin did it’ and why.

1. THE OLD ANTI-SOVIET COLD WARRIOR WITH IMAGINARY NUKES AT THE READY

This is an increasingly small but vocal group of people who lost their raison d’etre after the illegal break-up of the Soviet Union. Much like the members of the CPSU who rallied against the leadership of Gorbachev in 1991, this variety of person was equally devastated by the loss of Soviet power. The absence of the USSR meant that they could no longer talk about nuking Moscow in order to ‘free the people’ from Communism. In an instant they went from being extreme defenders of liberty, to trigger happy weirdos.

But life has recently got a lot better for them. These people go home at night pretending that the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation is not Gennady Zyuganov but Vladimir Putin. To them the Soviet Union is back and so too is the great crusade against it.

Many of these people couldn’t actually care less about Hillary Clinton’s emails and her crimes against everyone from Bernie Sanders to foreign heads of state. They’re simply happy that a mainstream political figure has allowed them to once again feel relevant. The USSR is back, it must be destroyed by any means necessary and the former Goldwater supporter Hillary Clinton is their kind of gal. Put on your cowboy boots…

2. THE PATHOLOGICAL ANTI-RUSSIAN RACIST

This group has roots which date back far beyond America’s ascension as a world power. Unlike the previous group, these people are no laughing matter. Where the anti-Soviet cold warriors have a certain Dr. Strangelove value to them, one that even in 1960s America wasn’t fully taken seriously, the anti-Russian racists have been spreading vile propaganda in the west for centuries.

To these people, Russians are barbaric by design. They are expendable and their country is fit to be used by western powers as they see fit. This attitude reached a fevered pitch during the so-called ‘Great Game’ between Britain and Russia in the mid to late 19^th century.

The kind of propaganda spouted at that time held that Russians have no culture, no education, no civilisation and most importantly,  that Orthodox Christianity is an inferior faith vis-à-vis varieties of Western Christianity. This was said in spite of Orthodoxy’s direct relationship to the Ancient Church.

This attitude was later elevated to the realm of pseudoscience when Sir Halford John Mackinder proposed that Russia ought to be used as a geographical pivot region that the west must control in order to better dominate the Orient. According to such people, Russia wasn’t even worthy of colonising, it was simply a geographical motorway that ought to be pacified in order to get to the final destination.

These ideas were refined and consequently became highly dangerous under the Nazis. Hitler sought Lebensraum or living space for the German race. In order to accomplish this, Slavic populations, mainly Russians, needed to be eliminated so Hitler could use the land to provide resources for the Germanic races.

Although few of the ‘Putin Did It’ brigade openly associate themselves with Hitler, their attitudes have a similar origin. It is a deep set attitude whereby those of western European lineage and those of a Western Christian persuasion feel they are implicitly superior to Russians, black people, Jewish people, Orthodox Christians, Arabs, all Asian people and native peoples of the Americas and Oceania.  Russia is the safest target for them because of the power and unity of the Russian state. But do not be fooled. These people are old fashioned western racists, they’re just more careful about whom they openly insult these days.

3. THE BORING, WILFULLY IGNORANT LIBERAL

‘Putin isn’t a liberal therefor he MUST be bad’: so goes the mantra of those who talk about Russia in a negative light and blame them for everything from the local health food shop running out of inedible garbage to the fact that their loser kids failed a recent maths exam.

For them, Russia has a DUTY to be a neo-liberal state, because that’s just the way the world should be. There’s a weirdly racist element to this thinking. Because they see Russia as a nation of ‘white people,’ they expect Russia to do as European countries do and embrace the post-identity liberal way where to quote the song Lola by The Kinks ‘Girls will be boys and boys will be girls It’s a mixed up muddled up shook up world’.

They are incensed not by Russia’s alleged lack of democracy but because Russia is too democratic and actively choose to do things the Russian way rather than the liberal European way. Of course this doesn’t fit the narrative, so in their minds, Putin is forcing Russians to have what they want in a totally undemocratic way.

If you’re looking for logic, don’t attempt a conversation with one of these liberals. These people know almost nothing about Russia, they simply cannot believe anyone who looks vaguely white wouldn’t want to be like good European liberals. Therefore it must be due to ‘oppression’.

The insincerity of their pseudo-compassion is easily exposed. Most of these people reckon they are Putin experts and can tell you made up stories concerning everything you need to know about Putin from his childhood to his present attempts to ‘rig the election’.

Less familiar to such people will be the names, Alexander Yakovlev, Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais. These people are often wilfully ignorant that western bandits like George Soros acted in collusion with Russian traitors in the 1990s to stave the Russian people. When they hear that in the liberal 1990s, young men were committing suicide left and right, the elderly were starving and homeless, young girls who would have been teachers, scientists, athletes or musicians were forced into prostitution; they just tend to cover their ears. To them, the precious liberal narrative is more convenient than the truth of what Russia’s neo-liberal experiment did to the lives of ordinary Russians.

So go on, ignore reality, and don’t choke on your gluten free smoothie. Keep calm and remember no matter the problem, ‘Putin did it’.

4. THE ‘CAN’T HAPPEN HERE’ TRUE BELIEVER

Unlike the previous groups, I almost pity these people. These are the people who were brought up to believe ‘the west is the best’. In the west the newspapers tell the truth and in other places they are full of lies. Western politicians are honourable men and women who go into public service to enhance the lives of their countrymen. In the west there is free speech and everywhere else there isn’t. In the west, everyone is honest.

WRONG!

These people are confounded to lean that western powers are as bad or worse than the faraway places they’ve grown up thinking are vastly underdeveloped and backward vis-à-vis the west. These people still believe the myth even though the age of Wikileaks, new media like The Duran and RT, social media and an inter-connected world, has made such beliefs increasingly difficult to maintain.

For them, the clichés about ‘truth justice and the American (or French, or British, or Swedish or Dutch) way’ must be clung onto because it makes them feel safe in the world and absolves them of any guilt for voting for war criminals and con-artists.

5. HILLARY CLINTON

She really does deserve her own category. Seneca once said, “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful”. This quote goes a long way in explaining the modus-operandi of Hillary Clinton. She will say anything to anyone in order to gain some sort of electoral, economic or general political advantage.

I truly believe that Hillary Clinton knows that Putin did NOT do it. But she has found a way to simultaneously exploit stupid liberals, wicked racists, old Cold Warriors and true believers. It was only after Trump and Putin said some vaguely positive things about one another that Hillary Clinton began blaming Putin for all of her own ills and beyond her, those of the wider world.

This demonstrates that the ‘Putin did it’ line is a child of opportunism rather than ideology. Had Trump and the leaders of China said vaguely positive things about each other ‘China did it’ could have easily been her go-to mantra.

However, Hillary Clinton underestimated Donald Trump. To quote George W. Bush, perhaps she even ‘misunderestimated’ Trump. Where many less independent minded leaders would have buckled under pressure and eventually said, ‘yes Putin is bad, sorry Mrs. Hillary you can spank me now’, Trump stuck to his principles and he ought to be lauded for it.

Trump has consistently said that whilst he doesn’t have a relationship with Putin he would like a good one because, cooperation between superpowers is better than conflict, because a common policy on ISIS is better than a hypocritical and confused one and because Putin is a man who inherently commands respect, something which Donald Trump finds rightly admirable.

The moral of the story is, Hillary Clinton can fool a lot of the people a lot of the time but she cannot fool everybody all of the time. Donald Trump’s indefatigability has made this especially so.

So there you have it. Your ‘Putin Did It’ survival guide. I have a feeling that over the next week it will be increasingly useful.

The original source of this article is The Duran

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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!