Saturday, 23 March 2013

The U.S. War Against the World



                             
 
  
The U.S. Global Strangulation of Iran has nothing to do in the short or intermediate terms with any fear Iran will get a nuclear weapon. American intelligence and former heads of Israel's Mossad agree with the international assessment that there is no evidence Iran is now trying to produce nuclear weapons or that they could do so in less than several to ten years if they tried to do so. There is also nearly universal agreement among serious analysts, including U.S. intelligence sources going back many years, that attacking Iran would likely lead to severe cuts in oil supplies from the Persian Gulf that would produce a severe shock to the global economy, especially in this time of financial crisis.

This does not mean Obama or the entire U.S. leadership at the top is going insane or trying to destroy the U.S. Empire. There is a "method to this seeming madness," a very clear grand strategic goal involved in these constant threats and attacks on Iran. The general goal is to save the U.S. Empire and its domination and exploitation of the world to stop the accelerating decline and disintegration of the Empire and the American financial system and economy. The specific goal of all the attacks on Iran is to stop the rise of the Iranian-Shia superpower in the Middle East and its rapidly growing alliance with Islamist Sunni powers growing across North Africa, the Middle East, South Central and Central Asia.

Iran is also the core leader in the growing alliance of Shia and Islamist Sunnis with the vast nations of Russia, India and China against the U.S. Empire's energy and dollar imperialism.

all of this makes Iran and its allies a mortal threat to the U.S. global empire and the present U.S. financial system tied to that empire. this is why the U.S. is taking such desperate risks to try to strangle Iran and to destroy its central position in this anti-American imperialism coalition that is growing rapidly.

Iran and its Shia Allies across the whole Middle East are a very real threat to the U.S. Global Empire's domination and exploitation of this whole vast region. That Iranian superpower Shia bloc's rapidly growing alliance with Islamist Sunnis makes Iran the core of a very grave threat to the U.S. global empire which I believe has already developed far enough to prevent the U.S. from continuing its imperialist suppression of muslim nations with totalitarian, puppet regimes and the use of those to exploit this vast region.

By attacking Iran and all of the Shia and Islamist Sunni nations allying more and more closely with Iran, most obviously Syria right now, the U.S. is in fact turning the vast Muslim World of nearly one and a half billion mostly young and very fertile people and much of the rest of the world against its brutal Empire.

This desperate grand strategy has, therefore, put the existence of the U.S. empire and of the U.S. financial system dependent on it at grave risk. at the very least, the U.S. is "going for broke" – "playing for all the marbles" – in its blatantly brutal, imperialistic strangulation of Iran and now some of its allies such as Syria.

The U.S. destroyed the Sunni block to the rise of Shia Iran as a Super Power in the Middle East when it destroyed Hussein's Iraqi military machine, which the U.S. had earlier secretly supported in Iraq's vast invasion of Iran [which led to the defeat of Iraq and the U.S.] Sunni Iraq was the only major block to the rise of the Shia as a Super Power at the heart of the Middle East. When the U.S. also installed a totalitarian Shia military power in Iraq which from the beginning was quietly allied with their brother Shia in Iran [where many of the new rulers of Iraq had lived for many years to escape Hussein's secret police], the new, rising Shia Super Alliance of Iran and Iraq became a huge military power of 100,000,000 mostly young people who loathe the U.S. and control more oil and gas than the Saudi Arabian and UAE puppets of the U.S. Iran was by then already building its Super Alliance with Syria, Hizbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, an Alliance at the very heart of the Arab World and the Middle East. That alliance grew very rapidly after Hizbollah defeated Israel and drove them out of Lebanon for the second time.

Beginning over a year ago the U.S. puppet Sunni regimes across North Africa started falling to popular revolutions against the puppets and, above all, against the U.S. Empire which replaced the U.K. and French Empires that had oppressed them earlier. The revolutions are still going on in almost every U.S. Sunni puppet nation, but in almost all of them the people are winning their revolutions and moving steadily into a new age of Islamist governments which are in fact very anti-American and becoming more so as the U.S. allys itself more and more openly with the most hated totalitarian regimes, such as the Egyptian Army. the absurd, monarchical and pseudo-democratic tyrannies in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Yemen and a few others.

From the beginning of these new Sunni Islamist movements and governments, the Iranians and their Shia allies have allied themselves more and more with the Sunni Islamists, based largely on their common loathing of the Great Satan – the U.S. – and the terrorist threat it poses to all of them. Turkey has not had an Islamist revolution, but the Sunni Islamists are taking over more and more in Turkey and becoming more and more Islamist, more and more anti-American and more and more quietly allied with the Iranians and the rising Sunni Islamists.

At the same time the U.S. was enraging the people of the Middle East against itself, the U.S. was enraging the Afghans and Pakistanis in the same way only more virulently with its terrorist murders and raids everywhere. The hearts and minds of nearly 200,000,000 Afghans and Pakistanis are now virulently anti-American. Though they are not yet allied with the rising Iranian Super Alliance, they are becoming more friend;y and will almost certainly find more and more common causes against the U.S. as the U.S. and its European [Nato] puppets flee the rising power of the Islamist guerilla armies. The U.S. has lost its terrorist war against Afghanistan and Pakistan and pushed them closer and closer to both iran and china, and even to some degree india and russia, to counter-balance the u.s. in its final desperate war against the world.

All of these vast developments are being hidden from the American and European peoples as much as possible by vast propaganda Media Wars against Iran and its grand global alliance against the U.S. But intelligent leaders around the world see the U.S. is desperate and is losing and even in Latin America the few remaining puppet regimes of the U.S. Empire, notably Mexico and Colombia, are turning more and more against the U .S. even in full public view. This happened just this weekend in Cartagena, Colombia, where Obama and his motley crowd of Key Stone Cop "security guards" were publicly humiliated by the still partially puppet regime of Colombia which needs vast U.S. military help in oppressing the peasants of the North for the vastly rich landowning families of the South. All 30 Latin Leaders there opposed even a future meeting of this sort with the U.S. without the U.S. allowing Cuba to attend and almost all insist as well on an end for support of the U.K. puppet regime's claims to the Falklands off the coast of Argentina. Hugo Chavez, the elected president of Venezuela, was not even there because he is getting more cancer treatment in Cuba [not Miami]. He is more and more an ally of Iran, as is even Brazil on crucial matters like opposition to Dollar Imperialism and Inflation Thievery. Had he and his few very close allies from Latin America, Ecuador and Nicaragua, been there, the anti-American thrust would have been even greater. As it is, the Cartagena police wound up mortally embarrassing the Secret Key Stone Cops, the U.S. Army and Obama by taking U.S. security guards into custody over refusal to pay a prostitution bill for servicing rendered. Obama et al were made a laughing stock in a way that never happened before when these terrorized nations were ruled by oppressed puppet regimes. [Like Congressman Issa, I think these were SOP activities which led to police custody and massive public exposure for the first time. The U.S. Empire is losing its grip even on still dependent puppets.]

The U.S. has gotten very desperate in the Middle East. It is not only risking a cut off of oil by Iran over the U.S. strangulation of Iran, but the U.S. is now more and more openly involved in supporting the Sunni revolt against Syria and the Sunni oppression of Shia revolt against Bahrain by Saudia Arabia, the only major U.S. puppet left in the Middle East and a tyrannical monarchy loathed by the whole vast region and its own population [as far as we can tell in such an extremely closed police state].

It is always possible the U.S. will realize it is risking its entire Empire in this grand strategy, or that Iran will buckle under the strangulation pressures and retreat, or an Iranian ally like Syria will start a war inadvertently with another, more important ally, Sunni Turkey, that might reverse the growing great alliance. Maybe the U.S. will become more wise in its mix of sticks and carrots in dealing with Iran.

But I think these would be temporary set-backs for Iran and its great alliance of nations lining up against the U.S. Empire. I think the world sees the Giant is crippled severely by its losing wars, by the decline of the U.S. economy relative to the rising nations around the world, the so-called BRICKS, though one must add another I to that for Iran [in addition to India] – BRICKS, and The Great Global Financial Crisis the U.S. produced and is making worse and worse with vast help from its puppets in the EU and elsewhere, as even the "liberal" Brookings Institute just reported on the basis of global indices they analyze.

I think the U.S. is desperately fighting its last great imperial war against the world. I think the U.S. will lose this WAR and destroy its Empire and its global financial system. Obama has become the Undertaker of the U.S. Global Empire and, if he and his desperate strategists keep attacking the world, he will be the Undertaker of the U.S. as it now exists. By all indications, they will continue to destroy the U.S. unless some greater power, perhaps a Great Awakening of the American people who would prefer not to be impoverished or torn apart by the Obama Undertaker Strategy.

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Obama: the world’s greatest peace fraud

 

Obama peace fraud

US president fails to demand halt to illegal settlements

“There is no peace process, it’s an annexation process…”
By Stuart Littlewood
Israeli peace activist Miko Peled did not mince his words when he said:
The Israeli-Palestinian issue is, politically, a toxic wasteland that no US president in his right mind would want to clean up. It has become a vicious cycle of deceit and double standards, and it will contaminate any US politician who tries to clean it up.
One after another, American presidents run away from the challenge.
And so it has been with Barack Obama. This week the world’s greatest peace fraud came to the Holy Land and flunked it. Frankly, if that’s the best he can do after four years in the job he has no business calling himself a world leader.

AIPAC – the stinking swamp in the White House backyard

But I don’t necessarily agree with Peled’s remark. Any US president who fails to drain the stinking swamp in his backyard – i.e. the AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) breeding ground – deserves to be consigned to the wastepaper basket of history as a political pansy.
The president who ruthlessly cleans up, however, would be revered big-time.
Take the Chuck Hagel confirmation fiasco. Here in the UK we watched with bewilderment and disbelief. Of course, it’s easy to criticize from this distance, but remember that we too have a Zio-infestation at the heart of government.

At the hearing Hagel appeared flat-footed and unprepared for obvious questions. Even if it was expedient to play the Zionist lackey he needn’t have come across quite so wimpish. The public don’t necessarily understand such chicanery. Even if they did, the spectacle of belly-crawling is disgusting. Who could blame them for wondering what sort of impression Hagel was likely to create in the diplomatic drawing rooms of the world?
A more robust plan would have sent in a stalking-horse, specially trained by George Galloway (and suitably compensated) to swat the Inquisitorial bar-flies for the threat to US interests that they are. This sacrificial candidate’s fate would be crucifixion and rejection, but the process would have electrified the media, American voters and world audiences, and inflicted serious damage on the Zio-lobby’s hirelings. With their fangs drawn and venom spent, Obama could then have put forward his “real” candidate with dignity.
As it was, the lack of steel is now indelibly etched on everyone’s memory in the US and abroad.
Miko Peled is a remarkable Israeli Jew, the son of an Israeli general and himself a former soldier in the Israeli armed forces. He calls the Israeli army “one of the best trained and best equipped and best fed terrorist organizations in the world”. In a fascinating talk (see video above), he explains:
The name of the game: erasing Palestine, getting rid of the people and de-Arabizing the country… When people talk about the possibility of Israel somehow giving up the West Bank for a Palestinian state, if it wasn’t so sad it would be funny. It shows a complete misunderstanding of the objective of Zionism and the Zionist state.
You couldn’t find a more authentic insider source. He confirms what many have known and been saying for years.
And in this excellent “Crosstalk” programme (see video on the right), “Obama’s Israel trip”, Norman Finkelstein and Mouin Rabbani strip away the arrant nonsense politicians use to conceal the truth of what’s happening in the Holy Land. Answering the question “Why is Obama going to the Middle East now and what does he want to achieve?”, here are some of their comments.
Rabbani begins by saying the peace process is not on the agenda. The Israeli government, post-election, is too new to have any serious discussion. In the past the Palestinian leadership has favoured talks simply as a distraction from the awful situation on the ground. But now things are so dire that renewed talks might pose more of a threat that an opportunity to the leadership.
Finkelstein maintains there is no reason why Obama would wish to talk about a peace process that interferes with “the serious work” of annexing the West Bank. In any case the Palestinian people have been “pacified” and the Palestinian Authority can’t do anything without US permission.
There never was a peace process, he says, it has always been an annexation process and right now there are no restraints, no inhibitions on Israel’s pursuit of this.

“Internationalize” the Palestine question

Finkelstein points to the shift in public opinion against Israel in recent years. But two inhibiting factors remain: (1) the US government and its vetoes at the UN, and (2) the Palestinians themselves, who are in no frame of mind to organize mass disobedience and resistance, which in Finkelstein’s view is “the only thing that can possibly force Israel to withdraw”. It is up to the Palestinians, he suggests, to mobilize these forces and to trigger the worldwide support movements. A combination of mass resistance by the Palestinian people in concert with support from the United Nations, the international community and public opinion, is the only likely solution. It would isolate the US and force an Israeli withdrawal.  This prospect becomes more real as Israel’s credibility dwindles.
A combination of mass resistance by the Palestinian people in concert with support from the United Nations, the international community and public opinion, is the only likely solution.
Finkelstein is of the opinion that the sham peace process – “political theatre”, as he calls it – has poisoned and confused the minds of normally intelligent people.
Rabbani feels that the Palestinian leadership should disengage from the meaningless diplomacy sponsored by the US and move towards an “internationalization” of the question and solve it on the basis of international consensus.
The video ought to be compulsory viewing for those who still harp on about restarting ‘peace talks’.
On the ground Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was reported to have signalled a willingness to return to peace talks if Israel agreed to an “unannounced ” (i.e. secret) settlement freeze during the period of negotiations. At the same time, the democratically elected prime minister of Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, who perversely is not invited to meet Obama because he’s the wrong flavour (Hamas), declared: “We believe American policies perpetuate the Israeli occupation and settlements in Palestine under a slogan of peace.”
Another Hamas spokesman, Dr Sami Zuhri, said that Obama’s renewed commitment to Israel’s security while ignoring the Palestinians’ sufferings affirmed his country’s blind support for Israel. This exposed as nonsense any idea that America could play a positive role in the region. He urged an end to security coordination between the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and the Israeli occupation.
Respected Palestinian writer Khalid Amayreh remarked that Obama was expected to cajole the weak and pliant Palestinian leadership of Mahmoud Abbas to give “peace” another chance by returning to futile negotiations with Israel while the latter continued to steal more Palestinian land and build more Jewish colonies for fanatical Jewish settlers.
So what actually happened when Obama arrived?
As soon as he touched down, Obama was gushing. “Why does the United States stand so strongly, so firmly with the State of Israel?” he asked. “The answer is simple. We stand together because we share a common story – patriots determined to be a free people in our land, pioneers who forged a nation.”
Somehow, I doubt if ordinary Americans would wish to be compared to the invading Zionist thugs who drove the Palestinians off their lands, bulldozed their homes and cruelly imprisoned those that have remained in the shredded remnants of their territory for the last 65 years – and did it with billions of dollars squeezed from taxpaying Americans.
According to the Ma’an news agency on 21 March, Obama did finally say something about Israel’s settlements.
One of the challenges has been continued settlement activity in the West Bank area, and I’ve been clear with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leadership that it has been United States policy not just in my administration but all preceding administrations that we do not consider continued settlement activity to be constructive, to be appropriate, to be something that can advance the cause of peace. So I don’t think there’s been any confusion about what our position is.
Settlements are illegal, nothing less, and Obama needs to remind Netanyahu (and himself) of that fact. There remains considerable confusion over the US position, especially since Reuters reported that Obama stopped short of calling for a halt to settlement expansion and offered no new ideas on how to get the two sides negotiating again. “If the expectation is we can only have direct negotiations when everything is settled ahead of time, then there’s no point in the negotiations,” he said.
No point at all, Mr Obama. Most of it was settled long ago by international law and a raft of UN resolutions. Upholding those rulings is, of course, a precondition to any negotiation.
Why insist on more “negotiations without preconditions” unless it’s to buy Israel time to complete its illegal annexation?
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Hezbollah’s Role in Syria

 

An image made available by the Syrian Arab News Agency on 21 March 2013 shows remains and the carpeted floor covered with blood inside of the Iman Mosque in the Mazraa neighbourhood of the Syrian capital Damascus, after a suicide attack on 21 March 2013. (Photo: AFP - HO)
 
 
Published Friday, March 22, 2013
 
For quite some time there has been a great deal of talk and speculation in Lebanon, Syria, and the Arab and Western worlds about Hezbollah’s true role in the Syrian crisis. The anti-Hezbollah propaganda machine has, as usual, been particularly active, issuing a daily stream of news and reports about the party’s supposed involvement in the conflict.

This machine – which has Lebanese, Syrian, and other operators – has announced the deaths of hundreds of Hezbollah fighters in Syria, and the capture of dozens by Syrian rebels. An official security agency in Beirut plays a central role on this front by leaking factual information that is then embellished. This deluge, these people believe, is a useful means of helping generate as much public anger as possible against Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, for its part, has offered no further clarification of what Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah has said about the party’s role in aiding its Lebanese supporters who live in villages inside Syria, though he has reiterated that Hezbollah had not so far taken part in the fighting in Syria.
A deliberate strategy of incitement and exaggeration is being employed against Hezbollah by regional and foreign intelligence agencies, including Israel’s. But the focus was, and remains, on trying to understand Hezbollah’s place in the Syrian crisis as it starts its third year. These agencies know many details of what is really happening on the ground in terms of fighting between regime and opposition forces. They are aware of each side’s capabilities, and keep a constant watch on all activities undertaken in support of the regime, including by Hezbollah.

But for others, it may be necessary to clarify the outlook on which Hezbollah’s attitude to the crisis is based. This could help many understand the ideological, political, and operational underpinnings of its stance.

Hezbollah continues to view things from the perspective of its central role in confronting Israel. It may not often elaborate about the ultimate objective of that struggle, but the party behaves as though it is part of a long-term campaign aimed at getting rid of Israel, a battle for which much preparedness is required. While a majority of the Arab and Islamic peoples would not mind being rid of Israel, only a minority are willing to fight such a battle to the end.

A minority of the unwilling think such talk is insane or delusional and can have no bearing on history. This influential group sees no need for a battle of this kind. It therefore views Hezbollah as a bunch of lunatics who are not only endangering their own people and themselves, but also the interests of the peoples of the region. This minority thus finds itself in alliance, with or without any actual agreement, with Hezbollah’s real foes, namely Israel, the US, and certain Arab and Western capitals

Hezbollah’s commitment to resistance against occupation obliges it to do many things, including to avoid making other enemies. Its position on Syria is consistent with its attitude to the protest movements in the Arab world as a whole.

Nobody from the outset could ever have imagined Hezbollah taking a stand against the regime in Syria. While the party does not disregard the domestic causes of the crisis, it does not condone the battles that are taking place. Its view of the bigger picture prevents it from adopting a neutral posture, as does the fact that it has a clearer and stronger following in Syria than many of the groups involved in the fighting.

Hezbollah warned early on about the foreign connections and agendas of groups leading the protests. It had clear evidence of the ideological persuasions of some of the most influential of these groups. It noticed how, from the start of the protests, demonstrators in Homs and Deraa set fire to pictures of Nasrallah and Hezbollah flags, and how the campaign of sectarian incitement against the party went into full-gear.

This was before the party had made any comment on developments in Syria – indeed, while it was working with various Arab Islamist movements, including Hamas, on trying to broker contacts aimed at avoiding the current catastrophe.

Hezbollah’s view, simply put, is that the war in Syria aims at shifting the country politically and strategically to a position of opposing its existence. That makes it see the current regime led by Bashar al-Assad as a forward line of defense for the resistance movement in Lebanon and Palestine. This alone is grounds for the party to be at the heart of the crisis.

There have been many questions and claims about the role Hezbollah is playing in Syria. Its detractors say it is heavily engaged in the ongoing military operations. The facts of the matter do not need much explanation:

– Hezbollah trains, arms, and provides sufficient logistical support to Lebanese inhabitants of border villages.

– Hezbollah took over the task of protecting the Sayida Zainab shrine south of Damascus after its Iraqi guards left. Party members are deployed there under a plan that restricts their responsibility to the immediate vicinity of the shrine.

– Hezbollah received delegations from a considerable number of Druze, Christian, Shia, and Ismaili groups who felt their minority communities were under serious threat. It did not comply with their training and arming requests, but provided them with the means to prevent their displacement.

– Hezbollah, which has security and military ties to the regime, assists Syrian forces in providing protection to scientific academies and missile factories that were built over the past decade largely with aid from Iran.

– Hezbollah operates a major scheme, perhaps the biggest, to help Syrian refugees in Lebanon and even inside Syria. This is not aimed at repaying the Syrians for taking in refugees from Lebanon in 2006. It is done quietly, out of conviction that refugees and displaced people are entitled to all possible humanitarian aid regardless of political views.

Attitudes to Hezbollah are linked to a whole host of calculations. Yet some are desperate to not just drag the party into the Syrian crisis, but into a similar battle in Lebanon. The party is conscious of this. It appears to be discussing procedures for an operation aimed at putting sectarian strife back into a coma, though its leaders fear much blood will flow before that happens.

Ibrahim al-Amin is editor-in-chief of Al-Akhbar.

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
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From Palestine!

FLC


""Obama; take off your shoes!
Palestine's soil is mixed with our blood!
You are not Welcome!"

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Venezuela Rejects U.S. Interference

Yusuf Fernandez

USA aggression against VenezuelaShortly after the death of the Leader of the Bolivarian Revolution and President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, some US right-wing media outlets launched a campaign of slander describing him as a “divisive” and “authoritarian” ruler. Some even openly showed their hope that Chavez´s political project would soon fall apart.

However, as all the whole world could see, it is the US and Canadian governments, and not Chavez, who are isolated in the continent. Fellow presidents from throughout the Americas went to Caracas to attend the funeral and pay homage to Chavez. There, many of them reaffirmed their support for the ideals of social justice and regional development and independence that the Venezuelan leader supported during his whole life. Many messages of sympathy and solidarity arrived in Caracas from Mexico to Argentina.

Several Latin American leaders said that even in the absence of the Leader of the Boliviarian Revolution, they would keep on working together in order to develop Chavez´s ideals on Latin American independence and integration that have already been successfully implemented. Even the President of Colombia -a former enemy of Venezuela during the ruling of former President Alvaro Uribe-, José Manual Santos, praised the commitment of President Hugo Chavez and the Venezuelan government to the peace process in his country.

In stark contrast to the warm tributes from the whole Latin America, statements by US President Barack Obama were seen as contemptful of Chávez, which is certainly consistent with past attitudes of his government towards Venezuela and Latin America´s growing independence. Obama spoke of “a new Chapter of the history of Venezuela” and, as if Venezuela was a dictatorial country, he added that the US “remains committed to policies that promote the democratic principles, the rule of law, and respect for human rights”. Obama did not offer his condolences for the death of Chavez either.
Actually, Obama should know best. Venezuelans, according to polls, give their own democracy a score of 7 out of 10 while the Latin American average is 5.8. While 81% voted in the last Venezuelan election, only 57.5% voted in the last US presidential election in 2012.

For her part, spokeswoman for the State Department, Victoria Nuland, told the media that her government was waiting for a decision by the Venezuelan authorities about the “transition”, that is, she was telling the Veneuelans that Washington wants them to backtrack and basically eliminate their independence and social achievements. However, in a statement, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry described Nuland´s insolent and disrespectful remarks as “a new, crude US interference in Venezuela's internal affairs.”

At the same time, all these remarks by US top officials sparked profound outrage among Venezuelan people, who accompanied their president with affection and sorrow during the funeral. Obama´s vilification of Chavez offended the majority of Venezuelans, both those who voted to re-elect their president on October 7 and those who did not.

It is not the first time, however, that Obama has found himself isolated. At the 2012 OAS Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, the US and Canada were harshly criticized, especially for their refusal to allow Cuba to attend. It was a stark contrast to the previous summit in 2009, where Latin American leaders – including Chávez – welcomed Obama warmly because they wrongly thought that he could open a new era in the history of the US-Latin American relations.

Maduro accuses

Shortly after Chavez passed away, the Venezuelan government expelled the air force attaché of the US embassy in Caracas and his deputy, claiming that they had made “inappropriate contacts” with Venezuelan military officers in order to try to destabilize the country. The United States retaliated by expelling the second secretary at the Venezuelan embassy in Washington and another diplomat. Finally, the Venezuelan government has ordered an investigation to know whether Chavez´s cancer was induced by the enemies of his Bolivarian revolution, especially the US administration.

For his part, Acting President Nicolas Maduro Maduro has promised to follow Chavez´s path and to confront “the Empire´s attempts to prevent Venezuela and Latin America´s independence from consolidating”. He recently announced that “some people in the Pentagon and the CIA” were conspiring as the election approaches in the South American country. “I am telling the absolute truth,” Maduro said, “because we have the testimonies and direct, first-hand information.”

He accused explicitly a group of former US officials -including Roger Noriega, Otto Reich and John Negroponte - of working to destabilize Venezuela. Shortly after, Maduro added that Venezuela had detected a plot from those same circles to kill his opponent in the election Henrique Capriles Randoski. The implication was that the attack on the right-wing candidate would be a provocation in order to create a chaos in the country. Maduro did not give more details.

Otto Reich was ambassador in Venezuela from 1986 to 1989 and Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs in the administration of George W. Bush. He was deeply involved in the 2002 anti-Chavez coup in Venezuela. He was a close friend to right-wing Venezuelan businessman and lawyer Robert Carmona-Borjas, who fled from the Latin American country shortly after the failure of the coup in which he was also heavily involved.

A second individual denounced by Maduro was Robert Noriega, US permanent representative to the Organization of American States, Noriega also supported the 2002 failed coup. After the Honduran military coup in 2009, Noriega became a lobbyist for the new regime. The third individual, John Negroponte, was Director of National Intelligence and was actively involved in the contra war against the Sandinist Nicaragua in the 1980s. It is worth pointing out that these three individuals have written numerous articles in which they called on the US administration to take a tough line against Venezuela.

All these events show that the Obama Administration continues to develop the same failed Cold War policies towards Latin America that George W. Bush put into practice. Washington keeps militarizing much of the continent and spending enormous amounts of cash in order to set up obedient governments, train armies and militias, deploy troops and build new military bases in countries such as Guatemala, Panama, Belize, Honduras or the Dominican Republic.

Re-imposing the old order

It is worth pointing out that Obama and Nuland´s speeches are in line with the political discourse of Venezuelan corrupt and aggressive right wing, which again shows the links of subordination of the latter to US policies. The Venezuelan oligarchy helped the US push its neoliberal agenda on Venezuela through the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, as it did in the rest of Latin America. In 1989, then President Carlos Andres Perez was putting into practice the “Washington Consensus” of neoliberal policies – privatization and cuts to social services- and, consequently, ended subsidies for oil and the prices of gasoline and public transportation doubled.
Protests broke out in the suburbs surrounding Caracas and spread into the capital itself. Carlos Andrés Perez then revoked the constitutional right to protest and deployed military, who killed an estimated 3,000 people. On the whole, under President Perez, life standards continued to decline for all but the richest.

However, Chávez took Venezuelan people out of poverty. He used the nation´s oil revenues to provide funds for literacy programs and, in this way, more people were able to go to university. The Venezuelan government extended access to dental and health care and promoted a land and housing reform, subsidized supermarkets, and thousands of work cooperatives. In Venezuela, where much of the population had been living below the poverty line, these programs have had a huge impact. Nowadays, Venezuela´s gap between rich and poor is half of what it is in the United States. It has been rated “the fifth-happiest nation in the world” by Gallup.

In unity with his people, he was also able to free the country from the grips of the United States and was the promoter of a Latin American uprising against US domination. Chavez led the way to create to the Bank of the South in order to finance projects throughout Latin America and allow other nations to free themselves from the yoke of the IMF and the World Bank.

From local councils to factories, Venezuela has carried out one of the most successful experiments in direct democracy and worker-control in the world, which makes it a much more democratic country than the US itself, where poor and ordinary people are excluded from politics and decision-making, and the very wealthy rule the country through a managed and formal democracy that ensures that they will benefit most from the economy.

In this sense, while Chavez was a key figure in the creation and development of these programs and initiatives, it is the Venezuelan people that brought them to life and will keep them alive after his death. The slogan, “Chavez somos todos’- We are all Chavez- it is not mere words, but it expresses the consciousness of people, who want this process to go on.” Recently a Venezuelan told a foreign media: “The Americans and the opposition believe that if Chavez as a person disappears the revolution will over and the old order will be re-imposed, but we have to show them that it will not be like that.”
Source: Al-Manar Website
22-03-2013 - 19:52 Last updated 22-03-2013 - 19:52

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Obama to Netanyahu: 'You better understand well the relationship of an attack by Israel on Iran with an attack by Israel on Palestinians!'

FLC

"... Most analysts explain that President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel is a make-up visit designed to repair the damage to his public standing in Israel for skipping Jerusalem on his way to Cairo in 2009. The question is this: Why does the leader of the free world need the sympathy of the Israeli public? Why is the leader of the strongest global power making such an effort to court a country with a population equal to about two percent of the US population?
Who says an American president has to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem? Since the founding of the state in 1948, no more than four presidents have visited us (Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George Bush, Jr.). Having been elected to a second term, Obama obviously has no need to kiss up to Jewish voters. Just this year, he sent his vice president, Joe Biden, to speak at the annual convention of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. And there’s still more than a year and a half to go before mid-term elections for both houses of Congress.
They say that Obama is taking the trouble to come here in order to coordinate policy regarding Iran’s nuclear program with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In fact, when Obama decided to visit Israel, it wasn’t even known whether Bibi (Netanyahu) would manage to put together a government. When the two sit side by side, no one will know which way the wind is blowing on the Iranian issue in the new security cabinet.
 
To top it all, when the US president wants to discuss some issue with the head of a foreign nation, he does not order Air Force One to be fueled and drag himself to the other end of the world. He has bigger worries at home than being liked by the Israeli public. He could have conducted the discussion on Iran with Netanyahu at the White House. Bibi has never turned down an invitation to pose for a photo in the Oval Office. 
So why is Obama bothering to come to Jerusalem, Ramallah and Amman, at a time when the American and international economies need his attention so badly? No, it’s not Middle Eastern oil, which for many generations has been flowing through the arteries of American leaders; the dependence of US industry on the oil wells of the Gulf States is declining with each passing year.
'America in Iraq'
The answer is simple: Obama is coming here to try and salvage what’s left of US standing in the region. An America that abandons the Israeli-Arab conflict to its fate is not worthy of the title “world power." Giving up the leading role in the play entitled “The Peace Process” is a declaration of bankruptcy by US foreign policy. One can assume that Obama knows the status quo between the occupier and occupied cannot go on forever. As an American diplomat once told me, “Your conflict is like a car with a transmission which has only two gears — drive and reverse — and the driver has to choose one. Either forward or back. Park is not an option.” 
The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate does obviously not want the third intifada, signs of which are emerging on the ground, to be named after him. Unlike Netanyahu, who refuses to see any link between the Iranian problem and the Palestinian problem, Washington, Brussels, London, Berlin and Paris understand full well the relationship of an attack by the Jewish state on Iran with an attack by the Jewish state on Arab citizens. The Iranians have for years been inciting the Arab street against Israel. When the Al-Jazeera network airs pictures of Israelis attacking an Islamic state next to reports describing Jewish soldiers storming Palestinian neighborhoods, young Muslims around the world set fire to US flags alongside Israeli flags. Obama has no desire for this failure to bear his name.
'America's ally in Palestine'
Twenty-two years ago, then-president Bush, Sr. identified an opportunity to enlist the international coalition that had been mobilized by the United States to act against the aggressive Muslim regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The Madrid Conference, convened in 1991 with the participation of an Israeli delegation headed by then-prime minister Yitzhak Shamir and then-deputy foreign minister Benjamin Netanyahu, led to the Oslo Accord. 
Ten years later, Bush, Jr. identified the potential hidden in Saudi Arabia’s frantic reaction to the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and encouraged the states of the Arab League to support the peace initiative that was born in Riyadh. 
The echoes of Obama’s visit to the region will resonate in the halls of the Arab League summit convening in Qatar next week. The historic initiative will soar or sink on Obama’s watch and with it, US influence over the punctured ship of the Middle East...."

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Zionist PM Apologizes, Amends Ties with Turkey


Local Editor
 
US President Barack Obama (Up L), Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu (Up R), Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L)In their first phone conversation since 2010, the Zionist PM has apologized to Turkish PM Erdogan for deaths in the Gaza flotilla raid, Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said. The Zionist entity also agreed to compensation for bereaved families.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accepted the apology and agreed with his Zionist counterpart on the need to normalize the relationship that deteriorated after the UN report in 2011 made public the storming of a Turkish aid flotilla.
As back then no apology followed from the Jewish entity, Ankara expelled its ambassador and froze military cooperation with the country.

During Friday’s call, Netanyahu and Erdogan “agreed to restore normalization between Israel and Turkey, including the dispatch of ambassadors and the cancellation of legal steps against IDF soldiers,” Ofir Gendelman, the Zionist PM’s spokesperson said in statement posted on FaceBook.

Turkish ship the Mavi Marmara was on its way from Turkey to the Gaza Strip when it was intercepted by the Zionist Navy in May 2010. The vessel was part of a flotilla that was attempting to break an occupation naval blockade of Gaza. As a result of the incident, nine Turkish activists aboard the vessel were killed.

The news on the telephone call was broken by US President Barack Obama himself.
"The United States deeply values our close partnerships with both Turkey and Israel, and we attach great importance to the restoration of positive relations between them in order to advance regional peace and security," Obama said.

"I am hopeful that today's exchange between the two leaders will enable them to engage in deeper cooperation on this and a range of other challenges and opportunities," the US president added.
The statement was released by the White House just before he ended a visit to the Occupied Territories.
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Mufti Hassoun: We Support a Nation Suffering Global Attacks

Local Editor
 
Grand Mufti of Syria Ahmad Badr-Eddine Hassoun assured on Thursday that the blood of martyr Dr. Mohammad Saeed Ramadan Al-Bouti will be “fire igniting in our Arab and Islamic world against everyone who issued fatwas for killing our sons in the Levant, and will be light on our path.”
Speaking on the Syrian official TV channel, Mufti Hassoun recalled a statement which Sheikh Al-Bouti made one week before his martyrdom, in which he said; “All of you who consider yourself Mujahedeen, you might have erred in your fatwa, so return to your prayers.”

Mufti Ahmad Hassoun"However, he did not accuse you of blasphemy or apostasy, in contrast, you say that whoever supports the regime is an infidel,” he added.

In this context, the Syrian Grand Mufti stressed: “We have not supported a rule or a government, but a nation that has been suffering global attacks for the aim of destroying it… Can’t you see yourselves standing with British, French and American foreign ministers while exchanging hugs… and whoever follows them becomes one of them… and we have not followed any of Allah’s enemies, we rather followed our own people and army which we pledged allegiance to and entrusted. We pledged to show it the right track, and entrusted it not to kill an innocent or harm an individual in this nation.”

In parallel, Mufti Hassoun, highlighted: "Islam will not die and Syria will not bow. I say to those who are sending arms into Syria: You will not undermine the pillar of Islam in Syria. Islam will remain pure and the Syrian people will remain steadfast.”

Addressing Islamic scholars in Al-Azhar, Muslim World Coalition, the Islamic Conference, and Unions of Muslims scholars, Hassoun said: “If you keep silent today on the assassination of our Sheikh, then Allah is my witness, you have participated in the killing of 100 thousand martyrs in Syria.”
Source: Agencies
22-03-2013 - 14:06 Last updated 22-03-2013 - 14:06


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Abducted Lebanese pilgrims transferred after rebels kill each other

Via FLC

"... A previously unknown figure who called himself Abu Ibrahim, whose real name is Ammar al-Dadikhi, emerged as the leader of the captors, the rebel Azaz Northern Storm Brigade.
But a leader of the rebel Al-Islam Brigade said his group had recently moved against Abu Ibrahim and his men, transporting the hostages to a safe place near the Turkish border.
The leader said that by the time the Al-Islam Brigade took military action against Abu Ibrahim’s group, the Northern Storm Brigade’s membership had diminished from nearly 200 members to less than 20 men.
He added that Abu Ibrahim was wounded in the leg during the fighting and taken to Turkey, where he died at the end of last month in the Ghazi Antab Hospital ..."

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Hezbollah: Obama Stances Prove Rightfulness of Resistance Path

Local Editor
 
Hezbollah condemned on Friday the stances announced by US President Brarack Obama during his visit to the Zionist entity, stressing that this position proves the rightfulness of the resistance path.
Hezbollah flag
“Obama’s visit to the occupied Palestinian
territories… assures the continuous and full American commitment to support the Zionist entity and its offensive and criminal policies, especially regarding the right of Palestine, its people and the people of the region,” Hezbollah said in a statement released by it Media Relations office.

“It was clear, according to Obama’s remarks, that the US President doesn’t respect the Islamic and the Arab governments, as he turns away from the simplest and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”

“He (Obama) also goes further in voicing full commitment to the Zionist project in the Palestine, through imposing conditions on Arabs to accept the enemy’s entity as a pure Jewish state in the region”, the statement added.

Hezbollah slammed the US President, saying he “speaks like an employee of the Zionist entity (Israel) and not the highest-ranking official in the administration of the independent state that is the United States.

“And the speech of Obama would not be consummated except if the US leader attacks the resistance through urging the world to brand Hezbollah a terrorist organization”.
The party said it was not surprised by Obama’s speech “which got to be repetition to the orchestra of the hostile and boring stances of the US”.

However, Hezbollah denounced the US stances “which are adopting the Zionist projects, something that makes Washington an accomplice in the crimes committed by the Israeli enemy.”
“All these stances assure again that betting on negotiations and compromises is fruitless, therefore the rightfulness of the resistance choice becomes deep-rooted,” the statement concluded.
Source: Hezbollah Media Relations
22-03-2013 - 16:01 Last updated 22-03-2013 - 16:01
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"The US is helping build an Islamic Emirate in Syria"

FLC

"...There are now an estimated 80,000 Syrian Islamist fighters engaged in battle, as well as approximately 18,000 foreign Islamist militiamen, according to sources. This includes some 2,000 fighters who are members of the Uighur ethnic group, a Muslim minority of Turkic heritage who live mostly in China. The Nusra Front, along with several other Islamist groups, have designs on turning post-revolution Syria into an Islamic caliphate. Fadel al-Salim, a lawyer who is close to the Nusra Front, told The Daily Star: “We are working to re-establish the Islamic caliphate in Syria, and we have informed [Syrian National Council head] Moaz al-Khatib that we will not accept the building of a civil state in Syria. We control the ground and will rule by Islamic law...” The Daily Star
-------------------------------------
"... An interesting article and fairly accurate except that it continues the MSM and neocon line that the revolt in Syria was secular in origin and that there are large parts of the rebel movement that are not under effective Islamist control. In the case of the media, these ideas are based in the "Iraq Syndrome" (appalling ignorance and acceptance of partisan propaganda). And then, there are, of course the neocon chickenhawk journalists who are eager for another US war in the Middle East.
Lurking in the article are a couple of unfortunate truths:
- American government personnel are training Islamist fighters in Jordan and possibly Turkey.
- American government liaison people are mouthing the line that there are good islamists and then there are bad Islamists. We have been doing that kind of thing for a decade. Egypt seems to have taught us nothing. Lang's Postulate - "Islamist governments ALWAYS want just two things. These are attainment and retention of absolute power, and creations of a sharia law state."
The bottom line is that the US is now participating in the creation of a sharia law state in Syria,..." pl

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Friday, 22 March 2013

Iraqi Birth Defects Worse than Hiroshima

by Rania Khalek on March 20, 2013
  
(warning: graphic images) http://raniakhalek.com/2013/03/20/u-s-turns-a-blind-eye-to-iraqi-birth-defects-worse-than-hiroshima/

The United States may be finished dropping bombs on Iraq, but Iraqi bodies will be dealing with the consequences for generations to come in the form of birth defects, mysterious illnesses and skyrocketing cancer rates.

Al Jazeera’s Dahr Jamail reports that contamination from U.S. weapons, particularly Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions, has led to an Iraqi health crisis of epic proportions. “[C]hildren being born with two heads, children born with only one eye, multiple tumours, disfiguring facial and body deformities, and complex nervous system problems,” are just some of the congenital birth defects being linked to military-related pollution.

In certain Iraqi cities, the health consequences are significantly worse than those seen in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Japan at the end of WWII.

(Dr Samira Alani/Al Jazeera])
(Dr Samira Alani/Al Jazeera])
The highest rates are in the city of Fallujah, which underwent two massive US bombing campaigns in 2004. Though the U.S. initially denied it, officials later admitted using white phosphorous. In addition, U.S. and British forces unleashed an estimated 2,000 tons of depleted uranium ammunitions in populated Iraqi cities in 2003.

DU, a chemically toxic heavy metal produced in nuclear waste, is used in weapons due to its ability to pierce through armor. That’s why the US and UK were among a handful of nations (France and Israel) who in December refused to sign an international agreement to limit its use, insisting DU is not harmful, science be damned. Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s refusal to release details about where DU munitions were fired has made it difficult to clean up.

Today, 14.7 percent of Fallujah’s babies are born with a birth defect, 14 times the documented rate in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fallujah’s babies have also experienced heart defects 13 times the European rate and nervous system defects 33 times that of Europe. That comes on top of a 12-fold rise in childhood cancer rates since 2004. Furthermore, the male-to-female birth ratio is now 86 boys for every 100 girls, indicating genetic damage that affects males more than females.

(Dr Samira Alani/Al Jazeera)
(Dr Samira Alani/Al Jazeera)

(On a side note, these pictures are rather sanitized compared to other even more difficult to look at images. See here if you can bear it.)

If Fallujah is the Iraqi Hiroshima, then Basra is its Nagasaki.
According to a study published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, a professional journal based in the southwestern German city of Heidelberg, there was a sevenfold increase in the number of birth defects in Basra between 1994 and 2003.
According to the Heidelberg study, the concentration of lead in the milk teeth of sick children from Basra was almost three times as high as comparable values in areas where there was no fighting.
In addition, never before has such a high rate of neural tube defects (“open back”) been recorded in babies as in Basra, and the rate continues to rise. According to the study, the number of hydrocephalus (“water on the brain”) cases among new-borns is six times as high in Basra as it is in the United States.
This isn’t isolated to Fallujah and Basra. The overall Iraqi cancer rate has also skyrocketed:
Official Iraqi government statistics show that, prior to the outbreak of the First Gulf War in 1991, the rate of cancer cases in Iraq was 40 out of 100,000 people. By 1995, it had increased to 800 out of 100,000 people, and, by 2005, it had doubled to at least 1,600 out of 100,000 people. Current estimates show the increasing trend continuing.
As Grist’s Susie Cagle points out, “That’s potentially a more than 4,000 percent increase in the cancer rate, making it more than 500 percent higher than the cancer rate in the U.S.
Dr. Mozghan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, told Jamail that “These observations collectively suggest an extraordinary public health emergency in Iraq. Such a crisis requires urgent multifaceted international action to prevent further damage to public health.”

(Dr. Samira Alani/Al Jazeera)
Instead, the international community, including the nation most responsible for the health crisis (hint: it starts with a “U” and ends with an “S”), is mostly ignoring the problem.

To make matters worse, Iraq’s healthcare system, which was once the envy of the region, is virtually nonexistent due to the mass exodus of Iraq’s medical doctors since 2003. According to recent estimates, there are currently fewer than 100 psychiatrists and 20,0000 physicians serving a population of 31 million Iraqis.

Dahr Jamail was on Democracy Now this morning discussing the horrific effects of military-related pollution in Iraq:


Yanar Mohammad, President of the Organization for Women’s Freedom in Iraq was also on Democracy Now and addressed the toxic legacy of birth defects in Iraq. (I interviewed Mohammed for a piece I wrote for Muftah about the deterioration of Iraqi women’s rights since the invasion, which you can read here.)
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Assad Pledges to Destroy Oppression, Blasphemy of Sheikh Al-Bouti Killers

Local Editor
 
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad condemned the assassination of Sheikh Mohammad Saeed Al-Bouti, who was martyred on Thursday in a suicide attack inside Al-Iman mosque in Damascus.

Sheikh Mohammad Saeed Al-BoutiAssad pledged that he will “destroy their (Sheikh Al-Bouti’s killers) oppression and blasphemy until we cleanse our country from them.”

In a statement he issued, Assad said: “I console myself and the Syrian people for the martyrdom of Mr. Mohammad Saeed Al-Bouti, one of the high figured of Syria and the Islamic world.”

“They killed you because they thought they could silence the voice of Islam, and the brightness of faith (Al-Iman) in Damascus. They killed you o Sheikh because you raised the voice against their oppressive, Takfiri thought, which aims at destroying the concept of our tolerant religion,” he added.

The Syrian president further stated: “A promise from the Syrian people, and I am one of them, you, your grandson, and all the martyrs’ blood will not be in vein, because we will adhere to your thought on destroying their oppression and Takfir, until we cleanse our country from them.”
Source: Agencies
22-03-2013 - 10:46 Last updated 22-03-2013 - 10:46
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