All posts filed under: latest

The Guardian as George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth

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by Eric Zuesse On Sunday April 15th, Britain’s Guardian bannered “OPCW inspectors set to investigate site of Douma chemical attack” and pretended that there was no question that a chemical attack in Douma Syria on April 7th had actually occurred, and the article then went further along that same propaganda-line, to accuse Syria’s Government of having perpetrated it. This ‘news’ story opened (and clarificatory comments from me will be added numerically at the end): UN chemical weapons investigators were set on Sunday to begin examining the scene of a chemical attack in the Syrian city of Douma, which had prompted the joint US, French and British strikes against military installations and chemical weapons facilities near the capital, Damascus. The arrival of the delegation from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) came as the Syrian military announced that it had “purified” 1 the region of eastern Ghouta, of which Douma is a part, after a two-month campaign that killed nearly 2,000 civilians2 following years of siege. 1) no source provided, but this — …

The Victims in Gaza and Douma

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by David William Pear, first published by The Greanville Post In their book Manufacturing Consent Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky distinguished between two kinds of victims: the worthy victims and the unworthy victims. The “worthy victims” are the victims (real and alleged) of leaders on the U.S. enemies list, such as Bashar al-Assad. The “unworthy victims” are those of the U.S. and its client states, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. led cabal calling itself the “international community” is outraged when there are worthy victims. For example the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley holds up pictures of dead Syrian babies for the world to see. Worthy victims are granted human rights, and Assad deserves our outrage. Unworthy victims for example are the 50,000 Yemeni children who have died of starvation because of Saudi Arabia’s total blockade of Yemen, including blockading food, water and medicine. Unworthy victims are blamed for being victims and ignored by the international community and the mainstream media. Unworthy victims have no human rights. Yemen is a humanitarian …

From Troy to Damascus: Seeing the Light

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by Hugh O’Neill One of the oldest cities in the world, Damascus was already 2,000 years old at the time of Homer’s Trojan War (1200 BC). In order to understand the present, we have to place it within the context of the past. However, there is a caveat that only the winners write history and so the challenge to historians is to read between (and behind) the lines. Historians must also deploy their judgement of the various human factors in the events recorded, by whom recorded and why; they must also be aware of their own biases which inevitably influence their vision i.e. what they choose to see or ignore. War may be defined as the deployment of mass violence to acquire resources of the many to benefit the few. Homer would have us believe that many thousands of Greek heroes left their homes and families for ten years so that King Menelaus could rescue Helen his queen who had been abducted by Paris, son of King Priam of Troy. We also learn from Homer …

WATCH: Russian ambassador to UK presser on eve of “allied” strikes on Damascus, April 13 2018

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Ruptly broadcast of the presser held by Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom Alexander Yakovenko on Friday, April 13 regarding the alleged Skripal poisoning and the alleged chemical weapon attack on Douma. Worth watching for the video comparison of Tony Blair, lying about WMDs in 2003 to promote war in Iraq, and proclaiming his support for war in Syria in 2108, based on the lies about the certitude of Russian culpability promulgated by the current UK govt. The statement took place the day after the release of the report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which backed the U.K.’s assessment that a military-grade nerve agent was used to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury. The US/UK/French air strikes took place the night of 13-14 April, just hours after thi​s

Corbyn & the anti-semitism question

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by W. Stephen Gilbert It’s more than time to try to unpick the shemozzl of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party 1. Self-harming is ever Labour’s favourite activity, and those MPs determined to keep the row going have lost sight of the danger that what they wish for will hurt them more, that unseating Jeremy Corbyn will cost some of them their own seats and condemn us to Tory rule for the forseeable future. It is essential to get this thing back into perspective and to halt the misinformation over the issue both current and retrospective. It seems to me that there are five propositions on the table, four of which are simply not sustainable. They are: 1) anti-Semitism is rife throughout the Labour Party; 2) the left is innately anti-Semitic; 3) Jeremy Corbyn is complicit in anti-Semitism or at best complaisant in face of its incidence; 4) this controversy has been whipped up now in order to damage Corbyn; 5) charges of anti-Semitism in the party are wholly fabricated. Propositions 1) and 5) are mutually …

Pentagon Is Concerned About Results Of Syria Strike, Prepares To Launch Internal Probe – Sources

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by SouthFront, April 15, 2018 A day after the US-led attack on Syria, the suspicion run deep in the public over the results of the massive missile strike carried out by the US, the UK and France. The Pentagon says that 105 cruise missiles were launched at 3 targets in Syria adding and all of them hit their targets. The Russian Defense Ministry says that 71 missiles were intercepted adding that there were 8 targets of the US-UK-French missiles strike. Since April 14, SouthFront has been receiving indications that the US military leadership is concerned over the results of its military action. Informed sources close to the Pentagon say that the US military is about to launch an internal probe in order to get a true picture of the situation, a real number of missiles, which had hit their targets, the reasons behind a minor damage delivered by the strike and the explanations how the Syrian Air Defense Forces had been able to intercept a part of the missiles using their old-fashioned air defense systems. The Pentagon’s …

Spiez Laboratory, the Skripal Case, and the OPCW

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The OPCW has, to date, made no comment and issued no rebuttal of Lavrov’s assertion concerning the full findings of Spiez Laboratory and the presence of BZ and its precursors in the March 23 blood samples taken from Sergei and Yulia Skripal. If Lavrov’s statement accurately reflects the actual findings of the Spiez Laboratory, and if the Skirpals were indeed given BZ in some form, this would account for both the state in which they were discovered on March 4, one of them unconscious and the other spaced out on a bench in Salisbury, and for the length of time Sergei and Yulia Skripal were comatose.

Decisive Failure Of US Forces

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by South Front, April 14, 2018 Early on April 14, the US, France and the UK carried out a massive missile strike on Syria justifying their actions with the alleged involvement of the Assad government into the April 7 Douma “chemical attack”. The Russian Defense Minsitry stated that 103 cruise and air-to-surface missiles were launched on different targets across Syria adding that 71 of them were intercepted by the Syrian Air Defense Forces (SADF). “According to available information, a total of 103 cruise missiles were fired… The Syrian air defense systems basically comprising Soviet-made weapons successfully repelled the strikes by aircraft and naval ships. A total of 71 missiles were intercepted,” Head of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operations Department Colonel-General Sergei Rudskoi said. Rudskoi said that the SADF had used its S-125, S-200, Buk, Kvadrat and Osa air defense systems to repel the strike. The Syrian General Command said that the US, the UK and France had launched 110 missiles also adding that most of them were intercepted. The numbers provided raise serious questions. Some experts …

The Skripal case & the perils of a rush to judgment

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by James O’Neill amended to remove reference to the Spiez laboratory, which is not mentioned directly in the OPCW summary The perils of coming to premature conclusions before all the facts are available has been starkly demonstrated by the latest developments in the alleged nerve gas attack upon the former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English town of Salisbury on 4 March 2018. Followers of this particular saga will be aware that British Prime Minister Theresa May and her Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson have made a series of statements to the United Kingdom House of Commons and to the media. They alleged, without qualification, that the Skripals were poisoned with a nerve agent of the “Novichok” class, of a type “developed by Russia.” That these statements were made before it was possible for the British chemical and biological research facility at Porton Down to have made an analysis and reached a scientifically valid conclusion did not matter. The object of the exercise was to demonize Russia in general and …

China must walk the talk and support Russia

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by Ghassan Kadi , The Saker, April 12, 2018 This article was written before the most recent missile attack on Syria, carried out by the US, France, and the UK.  Its argument retains relevance. When Chinese Defence Minister, General Wei Fenghe visited Moscow on the 4th of April 2018 and made his historic comment that he was in Moscow to give a message to America that China stands by Russia (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-04/chinas-new-defence-chief-visits-russia-to-send-a-message-to-us/9616216), he put China in a new and unprecedented global position, because China had never made such direct statements about the USA since the early days of Chairman Mao; and that was a long time ago, when China was not an industrial power and an aspiring global power, and long before the rift between the USSR and Mao’s China began. A lot has changed since, and neither Russia nor China are today what they used to be a few decades ago, and as they changed, matured and developed, their relationship vis-à-vis each other and the United States seem to have gone the full circle. Today’s …

More on the Skripal/Douma alleged false flag connection

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In regard to our suggestion the latest move against Damascus was predominantly a UK project, a link was sent to us today to an article by Thierry Meyssan on Voltairenet that’s certainly interesting. Published March 20 it puts forward the idea the Skripal affair was a false flag intended to be the launch pad for a wholesale diplomatic attack on Russia that Meyssan suggests would initiate a “new cold war.” While it’s possible to question this terminology (many would suggest we already have a “new cold war” and are on the verge of it becoming hot), his narrative offers a valid interpretation of recent events, and indeed looks more persuasive today that when it was written. What Meyssan suggests is as follows: Back in March a projected coup was planned between the UK government and the neocons in Washington to create an irresistible drive to a) launch a full blown assault on Damascus and b) get Russia removed from the UN Security Council. The means was to be first the Skripal incident and immediately thereafter …

Voices of the Syrian People

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by Andre Vltchek, first published by New Eastern Outlook The attack against Syria – this proud and independent country – has just taken place. Three countries with zero moral mandate to judge or punish anybody; three countries already responsible for hundreds of millions of human lives lost on all continents for centuries, showered Syria with their missiles. They tried to scare to death Syria, and to break its determination, but they failed. Most of the Syrian people stood proudly by their government. 71 out of 103 of the Western missiles were shot down, and the rest fell on the empty facilities, which have nothing to do with a ‘production or storage of the chemical weapons’. To begin with, Syria has no chemical weapons program and no chemical weapons factories, as well as no warehouses, so nothing could really fall on something that does not exist. This was yet another gross violation of the international law, but again, the West has been violating the international laws for decades and centuries, brutalizing the entire Planet. Therefore, no …

WATCH: Sky News experience technical trouble that silences expert doubting pro-war Syria narrative

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The bizarre UK/US “action on Syria” narrative is falling apart before our eyes. Germany, Italy, Canada and the Netherlands are bailing on any immediate involvement. The impression is strong that the UK’s Theresa May is being pressured into a statement of resolve she is by nature too cowardly to get behind. Even Mad Dog Mattis and Mike Pompeo are sounding notes of caution. Meanwhile the Russians are going all out on claiming the alleged gas attack was a hoax or a false flag, and a gutsy presser this morning from the Russian ambassador to the UK has been followed by more allegations about the UK’s direct involvement in pushing for a fake or false flag chemical attack in Douma. The establishment’s collapsing confidence in it’s ability to sell this newest and most insane war is best exemplified by this brief clip in which Sky News experiences sudden technical trouble while interviewing a British military expert on chemical warfare who unexpectedly veers from the approved script. Former head of British Armed Forces says Assad had no …

How We Were Misled about Syria: George Monbiot of The Guardian

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George Monbiot is an influential journalist, and his words on Syria over the past seven years will have carried weight in shaping public opinion. Some critical readers, however, have been concerned. For while Monbiot has declared himself morally opposed to military intervention, and is demonstrably aware of how the media can manipulate news reports, he has repeatedly published statements – in his weekly Guardian column and on Twitter – that lend significant support to key interventionist arguments

International Lawyers: Strike Against Syria Would Be Illegal

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via Consortiumnews, April 11, 2018 In this statement released Wednesday, a group of international law experts warn that a U.S. military strike on Syria would be illegal if not in self-defense or with U.N. Security Council authorization.  We are practitioners and professors of international law. Under international law, military strikes by the United States of America and its allies against the Syrian Arab Republic, unless conducted in self-defense or with United Nations Security Council approval, are illegal and constitute acts of aggression. The unlawful killing of any human being without legal justification, under every legal system, is murder. And an act of violence committed by one government against another government, without lawful justification, amounts to the crime of aggression: the supreme international crime which carries with it the evil of every other international crime, as noted by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946. The use of military force by a state can be used in self-defense after an armed attack by another state, or, with the approval of the United Nations Security Council. …

It’s All Over Now Baby Red, White and Blue

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some thoughts by Phillip Farruggio Leave your stepping stones behind there, something calls for you Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you The vagabond who’s rapping at your door Is standing in the clothes that you once wore Strike another match, go start anew And it’s all over now, Baby Blue Those are lyrics from the great Bob Dylan song It’s All Over Now Baby Blue ( 1965). How appropriate they are now in Amerika 2018. We have finally become a damaged empire due to a mega variety of reasons. Foremost is the delusion of far too many of us that we a nation victimized by forces of terror outside of our influence. Well, anyone who takes the time to turn away from the narcotics of electronic gadgetry, 24 hour sports, sexual delights, addictive cigarettes, alcohol and other drugs of preference, along with mainstream media’s embedded- with- empire phony news, would see that ( sadly ) our nation is the role model for terrorism. As we float aimlessly into the narrow straights …